Better Place - Battery-switching Stations

Battery-switching Stations

With areas around cities covered with battery switching stations, also called battery-swap stations, drivers would potentially have electric cars with an unlimited driving range for long distance trips. The QuickDrop battery switch system will enable Renault Fluence Z.E.'s battery (the first vehicle to be deployed in the Better Place network) to be swapped in approximately three minutes at dedicated battery exchange stations. While each exchange station will cost $500,000, Better Place CEO Shai Agassi has said that cost would be half the price of a typical gas station.

In order to access the battery switch station, Better Place customers would have to swipe their membership card. The remaining process is fully automated, similar to going through a car wash, so the driver never has to leave the car. In Better Place's demonstration battery switch stations, a robotic arm removes the depleted battery and replaces it with a full one and the driver is back on the road.

During 2010, Better Place operated a demonstration battery switch station in Tokyo allowing three specially equipped cabs to exchange their car's depleted battery pack for a 100 miles (160 km) fully recharged one in 59.1 seconds on average. Better Place is using the same technology to swap batteries that F-16 jet fighter aircraft use to load their bombs.

Better Place battery switch stations are claimed to support multiple battery types of all kinds of electric cars as long as the battery can be removed from under the car. A battery switch station using only 15 batteries has the ability to swap batteries for 2,500 EV's. Better Place claims it has battery station installation teams that can install one battery switch station in just 2 days, one every 25 miles in every route and at the same cost of 7 days of oil in the United States, Better Place claims it could cover all of the United States with battery switch stations and all the required infrastructure.