There was quite a lot of fanfare when Tesla first demonstrated its battery swap technology awhile back, but that doesn’t seem to have translated to the approach being more practical than it is, especially when you consider that Tesla seems to have now shut down the battery swap facility near the Harris Ranch Supercharger in Coalinga, California.
Via CleanTechnica: By Terri Steele La Jolla, California — On the eve of America’s National Drive Electric Week (September 12 – 20th), a grassroots initiative known as the M-BEAM Challenge is delivering the world’s first coast-to-coast electric vehicle (EV) trek to demonstrate the versatile, range-extending capabilities of its Modular Battery Exchange and Active Management (M-BEAM) swappable battery […]
The Tesla Motors battery swap lives! Pack swap now operating in limited beta mode for SF to LA route. Can swap battery faster than visiting a gas station. Tesla blog out soon. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2014 Honestly, the Tesla Motors battery-swapping pilot program has got to be one of the more questionable […]
Some good people at Urban Foresight, the International Energy Agency, the Electric Vehicles Initiative, and Clean Energy Ministerial have put together an “EV City Casebook” that I highly recommend checking out (it’s free). The focus of the casebook is a summary of “50 big ideas shaping the future of electric mobility.” We’ll be focusing on some (or many) […]
Tesla’s first battery-swapping stations were supposed to open by the end of 2013. They didn’t and they haven’t opened yet. However, Tesla Motors CEO & Chief Product Architect Elon Musk says that they will open within the “next few months.” Depending on how usage goes at these first battery-swapping stations, Tesla will decide whether or […]
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and CTO JB Straubel recently stopped into Amsterdam for a 1-hour townhall meeting with Tesla Model S owners and enthusiasts. A video of the meeting was recorded (natch) and is embedded above. Questions related to navigation, charging in Belgium, vehicle-to-grid technology and plans, song availability in Europe, solar + Tesla, and much […]
Originally published on CleanTechnica. On my flight back from Ukraine in September, I happened to get into a conversation with one of the other passengers about Apple products — I was working on my iPad Mini and Macbook Air up until the second I had to board (of course). It turned out that he was […]
It is certainly sad. A lot of people were very excited about Better Place and its model. And some people invested a good chunk of money into it. But you do also have to admit that there have been many critics from Day 1. Better Place will apparently live on, but it’s not at all […]
The big electric car news of the week was surely the Tesla Model S battery pack swap demo that I wrote about yesterday. Tesla had been hinting about it for weeks… or years, depending on how you count. But I don’t think anyone anticipated that the battery swap would take just 90 seconds. (Okay, fine, […]
Tesla’s last big announcement following months of good news and press conferences was the announcement that it could perform a 90-second battery swap and would be rolling out battery swapping stations on the East and West Coast this year. This announcement took the form of a battery swapping demo last night (Thursday, June 20) at 8:00pm […]