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Posted by the man who can, on 12-05-2008,

1. Filling stations....

It can only be a matter of time before something like this starts to happen. I was talking to someone recently who had been in Mainland China and talked about one city where they have already decided to go all-electric. (Can't remember who it was, or where the city was either. I must have Alzheimer's due to all the pollution in Taipei.)

Anyway, the fuel companies (and prices) in Taiwan are controlled by the government so it's probably not impossible for them to start some initiative. I don't know if the filling stations are franchises or centrally owned, but either way it's probably possible to adapt them fairly easily.

But I doubt the robot-arm thing would work. For starters, the filling stations are way over-staffed anyway. Having someone handle the fill-up for you is part of the culture, so maybe a 'robot assisted' service is better?

You pull up at the pump, and the attendant simply pulls the arm down to the battery in the same way they would put the nozzle in the tank. Then they press the button, and the machine whips out the battery and slots in the new one. Then retract it to where it came from, and it performs another switch to exchange the empty battery for a new full one.

You could probably put a meter on the battery to measure the amount of electricity drawn from it, so people only pay for what they use - regardless of the battery capacity.

I would go for multiple small batteries, if it doesn't affect efficiency. That way you can change out one or two even if the others are still full - the equivalent of topping up your tank before a long journey.

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