There are a lot of wrinkles that need to be ironed out before it's practical.That's an interesting concept. I like it but assuming you could get manufacturers to standardize on battery design (big if) there is still the problem of knowing that where you stop to swap out batteries hasn't run out of swap-able batteries (much bigger if).Battery replacement warranty? Have you any idea how expensive that would be? Warranties work on the premise that they cover something that isn't likely to happen during the time it covers. IOW, your car warranty runs out in 2 years. Why do you think that is? It's because the manufacturer knows there's a good chance they won't have to cover much work for that time. So a battery replacement warranty would also only cover a few years, after which you're on your own. Try to sell an EV after running it for 5 years and someone's on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars. You can't sell it.A few years from now the used EV car market will be flood with cars people can't even give away.
Tesla estimates a full battery pack replacement will cost around $20,000
So who in their right mind would by a used EV knowing that soon it's going to need a very expensive battery to keep it on the road? ...
Do you realize how easy it is to include battery replacement warranty? If your scenario is what is dooming the sale of future EV's, it can be be solved with one stroke of a pen.
Batteries continue to become more and more efficient, and their charge life are already commensurate with a full tank of gas. I noticed there is now a row of brand new Tesla chargers near my bank, well, I went to the bank Saturday morning, and four of the eight chargers had Tesla's parked and getting a charge.
The dinosaurs will shriek and wail, but their howls of agony grow more quiet by the day as more and more EV's hit the road. Soon the dinosaurs will all be gone, and they'll be as many EV's on the road as gasoline powered cars.
The only way around that is to make the battery pack modular, with modules easily replaced at any filling station. That allows the batteries to be continually replaced and recharged at the station or at the home. Just like filling a gas tank, you drive into the station, indicate and pay for how many modules you need to have replaced, the automated system pulls our your depleted batteries and replaces them with charged ones. It would take some work and cooperation for all EV's to be fitted with compatible battery compartments, but it could be done. ICE's all have the same opening to fill the tank, for example.
EV's are attractive but are not yet ready to replace ICE's, and bring with them their own set of problems. The glee we see in the usual suspects as they contemplate forcing people to drive cars they otherwise would not choose is, frankly, disgusting.
1. Cost. The batteries for just one EV run to the tens of thousands of dollars. A station would have to have enough batteries on hand for dozens, if not hundreds, of EV per day and the cost would run into the millions of dollars. They would then be targets for theft.
2. Risk of fire. Batteries burn hot, and storing thousands of them in close proximity is a recipe for disaster. Underground gasoline tanks at gas stations now present the same kind of danger, but it is greater with these batteries.
3. Charging capacity. A station would have to have a reliable source of electricity big enough to charge thousands of individual modules simultaneously.
These can be overcome, but need to be carefully considered. I'm thinking these would be in addition to being able to charge at home. At any rate, the national power grid would have to be rethought, and we would have to push local power generation at individual houses to pull it off.