Imagine if all automakers shared a removable battery!

Once battery technology gets better, and smaller, like an owner replacable case, that sits in a relatively accessible location. You would never own the battery. It would be leased from a supplier that uses the exact same case design as numerous other suppliers. When you purchase a vehicle, it comes with an initial lease that is valid for a certain period of time; after that you would pay the supplier to lease the battery.

Rather than having a bunch of high power charge stations, with lineups to charge, and lengthy delays in resuming your travel, you would pull in to what could be a self-serve or manned location. A fully charged battery would be pulled from a bank of batteries that would replace the cases necessary in your vehicle, while the one(s) you brought would be placed in the charging rack.

In far less time than it would take to fill a gas tank, you would be back on your way. If the battery account was tied to the vehicle, your monthly or annual payment would have already been verified by scanning your vehicle identification number, after you pulled in for the exchange. You would never pay to replace a battery, because you are leasing it. One of the most expensive and critical components of your vehicle has now been given eternal life, meaning the vehicle could sustain a much longer life cycle than may currently be the case.

Now the service station might be able to offer the service of still providing the energy source of vehicle movement, while they employ a number of local persons. Providing the batteries would become a different version of the multi-billion dollar business that defines it now, as it would force compliance of design, as well as development of new technologies, since they are tied directly to a regulated market, in the same way that fuels are now.

Right now, the value of the BEV is directly related to remaining life or warranty of the battery elctric vehicle. Currently, the battery may be worth more than the vehicle is, even when the vehicle is almost new. Let's think in terms of percentage. How much would you pay for a BEV that had 4 years of its 8 year warranty left, versus if it had only 2, or perhaps none at all? If it could become worthless to an insurance company with the loss of the battery, even when it's almost new, what could you justify, and what if you were wrong? A lot of people have at one time or another, made a mistake with a vehicle.

Many people have an electric motor that might be attached to a grinder, or generator of some sort, that may have been inherited, or acquired well after it was considered to be young. The motor component seems to last far longer than the item is deemed useful or valuable. If a vehicle became useful for a much longer period of time, how would that affect our current recycling initiaves? It would seem that automakers would have to focus much more on the longevity of their chassis, than they seem to now.