You are only thinking in two dimensions there Flint, consider how high you can stack the batteries and factor that into your math. I'm not saying I am for or against the idea, purely that before you say the liberals don't have any math on their side that you consider that your math is flawed already.

despite (costly) solutions can be found for the space, the entire idea is still crap. +1 for Flint

Imagine how dangerous a stack of batteries is. There are many dangers. Robbery, poison, chemical danger, environmental poison... Not quit treehuggish

I did stack it 4 high Gwynedd

I assume that there has to be a way to plug them in and that there needs to be strong enough shelving.

This did not include spares and a storage area for leaking batteries.

To clarify my standpoint, I'm neither here nor there, I don't know enough about the issue to form an opinion. I'm saying that your assumptions for your math skips a few steps, like where you came at 5k batteries required, etc.

Gwynedd:

1) Also allow space between rows of batteries for passage. Also to move them about. I assumed 4 because lifting to high with that much possible weight would be problematic.

2) Also include space for electrical charging apparatus.

3) 5000 is a number based upon "peak traffic". Some days some stations, even with low prices, have low traffic while others have high traffic. This is due to the nature of shopping, work, and other destinations. One must be able to handle the peak load. Limiting all stations to 1500 would be bad business since then if most in the area have run out of charged batteries you have little choice but to wait until one has been charged. Even limiting one station to say 3000 would leave gaps in the system. Of course if batteries can be charged faster, then this reduces the over-head. However I believe that this would be a dangerous way to run a grid. If say for instance 100-200 local stations got swamped and added say 200-300 batteries apiece on the grid, a fast charging system could quite well over-whelm the entire local grid. Especially if it happens on peak load time.

4) This still precludes a hazmat area (for leaking batteries), an electrical transformer room (to coordinate all the charging stations), and spares in case of receiving lots of damaged or bad batteries.

Twistedpuppet:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulleti … nstration/

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02 … alia/?_r=0

http://changingplaces.mit.edu/blog/entr … technology

This has been a wet dream for some liberals. A way for them to 'make it comfortable for all drivers'.

Furthermore, let Tesla try their new thing. It's an option only and most gas stations in the US do not even have charging stations. So this is really only going to affect a small number of vehicles in a small number of areas(especially since it's only the Tesla company proposing the battery swap option).

Stop focusing on battery dimensions. Your initial math is completely wrong because you are including every gas station. There are literally only 64,000 electric charging stations WORLD WIDE.  By May 2013, there were only 20,138 charging stations in the US alone.

It's nice that you want to look at a bigger picture, but for God's sake,  man, actually do some damn research for once.

http://www.webpronews.com/electric-car- … de-2013-10

http://gizmodo.com/how-many-electric-ca … 1453078235

Not yet. As soon as they are more affordable, they could be. Technology changes every day and I, for one, would like to not be spending so much money on gas only for speculators to drive the prices up because they are stupid.

Who knows, by the time battery swapping becomes more wide spread, the batteries could be even smaller than they are now. They are certainly already smaller than they were 10 years ago.  So, your current logic is flawed because you're not even taking into account the advancement of technology.

Who proposed the silly idea of battery swapping for the equivalent of every gas-powered vehicle that gas stations service currently?

And why are you validating it by responding to it?

Batteries are palletized.  It's not how many you can stack high.  It's how many pallets are going to fit.  And you need to find out how many batteries are on a pallet.

Anyways, their talking about a forced battery charge.  You know, hook up a cable to the car, and force feed a charge into the battery.

There are already charging stations in California.  Why don't you all look at those stations which are already built, to see how they work.

Nobody is talking about wasting government money on electric cars. The companies involved were using their own money and were all private companies. In fact, one of the articles I read through stated that the company that's installing the battery swap option at charging stations in Europe and Australia is not going to do so in the US. They've decided not to. So the whole damn original post is moot since it's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE US.

Again, Dear OP, please do more research than BS loony sites.

He reads blogs by ree-ree hipsters and then makes generalizations about all liberals being like those ree-ree hipsters.

Government is not an investor. What you advocate is cronyism and theft from the working to line the pockets of the politically connected. What you advocate, Key, is fascism. I strongly recommend you learn more of human history. It's filled with it.

A recent study showed that 90 some percent of "environmental" advocacy group funding comes from big business seeking to attack their competitors.

I'm all for alternative fuel. I'm all for cleaner energy. But the fact is that government protects mega business damaging the earth right now. Government is not looking to help humanity develop cleaner energy, government is what enables corporate megabusiness to squash clean energy research.

Did you read about the offices at Solyndra? They were the most lavish I've ever heard of. All of the company heads knew they were a joke; an excuse to get half a billion in government money and pass a lot of it back to political campaigns. The company heads were just enjoying the ride and millions of our taxdollars as salaries and bonuses.

Government "investments" are filled with examples like Solyndra.

I'm all for tax breaks for things which benefit the country and mankind in general. But the notion that government funding is a good thing--and even _necessary_--is laughably naive. Well, it would be laughable. If it wasn't so tragic that so many people are that ignorant that they support fascism and slavery in the name of sustainable development.