Originally Posted by
WHBM
There was such an experimental road vehicle some years ago, an electric (normal) bus which towed a trailer with the batteries in it, which was swapped every couple of hours for another when the vehicle passed the charging base. Like most other such initiatives, it seems not to have worked out.
Toyota announced earlier this year a lithium ion battery technology with a solid electrolyte. Because of this the battery can be deeply cycled, rapidly charged, and generally abused a lot more, because the electrolyte keeps everything in its place. They were talking about 5 minutes charge times for cars, coming to a forecourt near you sometime in 2023.
If that's really true, this is going to be close to the peak performance theoretically achievable with lithium ion chemistries. It still won't be as good as petrol in energy per kg or volume, but the nicer characteristics will make them far more useable. No need to swap out the battery, just fill it like you would any other fuel tank.