A couple of years ago, I remember seeing a presentation on what seemed to me to be an outstanding model for dealing with the issue of electric car batteries. It is simply this:
Since the battery is one of the most-expensive components, you do NOT include the price of the battery in the purchased car. Instead, you subscribe to a battery-swap service (monthly-fee?).
Existing gas stations (who participate) would have Battery-swap stations, where you would simply drive in, present your credit card (or subscription card), and have a quick-as-a-bunny machine pull out your low battery and drop in a fresh one, and off you drive.
Obviously, there is a chicken-and-egg issue with setting up battery-swap stations around town (and along Interstate highways!!), but doesn't this make total sense?
If you elect to ALWAYS recharge your battery at home, you can cancel the swap-service after a while, but, given that everyone is already used to pulling into a gas station to get fuel, it's the same idea, and less hassle than plugging in at home.
In fact, the innovative folks at Tesla appear to be moving exactly there. Cool, huh?
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