Tesla Motors’ Battery Swapping Station
Under the presiding authorities of Tesla Motors’ (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, the car manufacturing company demonstrated a live battery sway in a highly publicized and glitzy car event around one and a half year ago.
The billionaire and mastermind behind the smart car company, provided a 90 second demo of the much hyped electric car; Tesla Model S, for the automobile Nazis ensuring that the auto gurus doesn’t leave the site without feeling anticipated about the upcoming electric vehicle.
That was eighteen months ago, when Mr. Musk show-pieced the highly impressive underfloor battery swap, replacing the battery pack for the fervent audience. In November, finally after all these months of waiting and rumors floating, Tesla Motors has revealed the location of its first Supercharging station.
The clients however, will be required to make an appointment for the Model S to swap batteries at the Supercharging location.
The quick-swapping Harry Ranch battery station is located behind a Shell gas station. A review came out about the charging station around December last year on the Tesla fan site, which goes by the name Teslarati.
The website published many pictures of the gas station which seems to be in the final stages its development, and the process itself of swapping battery.
One of the ingenious personalities Katie Fehrenbacher from GigaOm, has provided an update about her experience of the charging station, which she visited last week.
She also agreed that once, a site similar to car wash, today Harry Ranch swap station is almost ready to use.
The charging station consists of a single swapping bay at the moment, and another one is supposedly for deliveries only. Despite making battery installation much faster and easier now in Tesla’s Fremont, California factory on the assembly line, it is yet unclear to identify the demand of the battery swap among the consumers and owners of Tesla Model S, according to her.
The electric car was revealed with a clear motive of pacing the battery replacing process. Tesla stands true to his word, and also provides free Supercharger DC quick-charging for all of its Model S owners.
The charging takes 20-30 minutes to reach up to 80% of the battery capacity. The battery swap fee is still to be decided, however is expected to be around $50- $60
The swapping test site however isn't expected to offer similar, fully automated underfloor 90-second replacement demonstrated by Mr. Musk rather, it is expected to be a combination of both; automated and manual steps by staff.
