Tesla Model S Battery Swap Demo – Just 90 seconds (Video) (updated)

Just a few hours ago, Elon Musk introduced to the world how Tesla stations will perform battery swapping, a totally new approach to Supercharging, if you can call it that way. The process, somewhat similar to Better Place’s, takes only about 90 seconds (a minute and a half!) and is faster than filling a tank with fuel.

Tesla’s new battery swap technology will likely go into the already existing and new Supercharging stations all over the U.S. and will revolutionize the way we see electric cars. If there will be enough Superchargers everywhere, there will be no range anxiety for anyone and we won’t be forced to drive 400hp supercars like grannies.

Elon has teased the press with this information a few days ago – we deliberately didn’t say anything about it until now – we wanted to see for ourselves.

Well, except for the lady wondering with a loud voice out there (“oh my goood, there’s a new one” type of frenzy), the video is great and Elon’s new achievement is even greater. And I think he’ll succeed – his business approach is just the reverse of the now bankrupt Better Place – first build the car, then the charging/swapping stations – not the other way around. And I think this is the sane way to go.

Update: we put the new, official video in.  So basically for the service of charging faster than 20 minutes you’ll pay a fixed fee, and the question that remains is (as Elon puts it) “the only decision you need to make when you come to a Tesla station is: do you prefer faster or free?” Free, of course, is the option of Supercharging, which has now evolved from 90 kW to 120 kW, as opposed to what competition has best: 7 kW.

As you may have seen, at the end of the clip, Elon says he tries to convince naysayers that electric cars will rule the future of automobiles. Elon, haters gonna hate, no matter what – you’ll have them hating electrics for the rest of their lives. They’ll hate them even when they’re old and their kids will all have Teslas or Nissans or whatever. Period.