Tesla Patent Shows Yet Another Way To Reduce Range Anxiety With Battery Swapping

If any company is pushing the limits of what transportation of the future might look like, it's Tesla. The company makes some of the longest driving and most popular EVs on the market today. Tesla is looking at how it can extend the driving range of its EVs even further than the vehicles can go today. It's not doing this by installing more Superchargers alone, it's looking at a system that would allow the swapping of battery packs.

The patent outlines a system that would allow technicians to swap out a Tesla battery pack in less than 15 minutes. This would mean that a Tesla owner with a battery that is almost dead could roll into the battery changing station and roll out again in about the time it takes to fill the tank of a normal car.

This appears to be a similar system to the one that Tesla showed off back in 2014 that promised to change a battery pack in under 90 seconds. Tesla got away from that original plan when it rolled out its supercharger network. It seems that this new patent, which was filed in May, is taking a second look at a battery swapping system for extending range.

The patent shows a system that could be setup as a service station or integrated into some sort of mobile truck type setup. The Tesla Model S or Model X would drive onto a platform using integrated ramps or a lift and then human workers would help the system swap the battery pack. That would indicate that it's not a completely automated system for changing batteries.

It's also interesting that the patent calls out the Model S and Model X without mentioning the Model 3 at all. It seems that if the patent becomes real tech the in the future, Model 3 owners will be left out. Another interesting tidbit is that the same platform would support commercial vehicles like that electric semi big rig that Tesla plans to reveal on October 26.

SOURCE: TechCrunch