new safe ultra-fast charging aluminum battery

Originally posted by humy
is there a special technical name for this car-battery recharge solution?

According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_battery#Swapping_and_removing

This is called battery swapping and is done in exchange stations.

And just in case you thought you were the first to think of it:

The concept of exchangeable battery service was first proposed as early as 1896 in order to overcome the limited operating range of electric cars and trucks.

My son's phone has a faulty connector for the charging cable so he has a spare battery and an external charger and does battery swapping.

Originally posted by twhitehead
This is called battery swapping and is done in exchange stations.

thanks for that.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Can you see all car makers agreeing on one size/shape battery just for their own range of cars, let alone everyone else's?

There are obvious benefits to agreeing once battery swapping stations become common place. Whoever uses the most common batteries will soon find they are the preferred cars. It may be that there will be a couple of different battery designs, but I doubt there will be more than 3 or 4 eventually. It will take some years to settle on a standard, but it will happen.

Also worth reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_network

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place#Battery-switching_stations

Originally posted by humy
sure, the lower energy density would mean they will take up more space and the stations would generally need more of them, but couldn't possible be a "great fire risk" if they are not lithium batteries but rather the fire-safe aluminum batteries and i don't see why the stations needing more of them would be an insolvable problem; just put the stations where there is plenty of room to put them somewhere such as in a big warehouse.

It's expensive.. Storage space costs money... lots of spare batteries costs money...

That's why it's a problem.

It's not a question of whether it's possible to do.

It's a question of whether it's more economically viable and/or practicable than in-situ
charging.

And having to have large numbers of BIG batteries that are HEAVY that require being
moved around by people or robots along with the tech/staff to rapidly swap the batteries...

It costs money, it takes up space, it requires the cooperation of many different competing
car manufacturers... It's not necessarily the case that setting up all the above is practically
easier and/or cheaper than charging them in-situ.

You keep thinking that things that are possible are thus practical and/or economic.
Also that things that are experimental are automatically going to turn out to be practical
and or economic and will live up to their promise... When almost everything experimental
lands up not turning out to be practical or economic... most stuff fails.