Electric Vehicle Batteries

I'm very excited for electric vehicles to become more widely available and affordable. But, like many other people, I would find the limited driving distance a problem. And waiting hours for a recharge would make a short trip take a very long time. I think we should have an open design for a portable battery format. If the battery were easily removable and interchangable between different cars, gas stations could simply provide a battery exchange service similar to the propane tank exchange that we all see at most grocery stores.

I also have a basic idea for the recharge and storage mechanisms for the gas stations. I think I have a good idea for relatively large storage in case it gets popular.

Since I am not too familiar with the current EV power system designs, I am hoping that this could be run in a way that would allow each battery to be dicharged one at a time. Then, when you need to 'refuel', you would be able to only replace those batteries which have been depleted and not have to exchange them all. If this is not the case, I guess you'd either have to replace batteries that have not been completely depleted and the recharge station could pro-rate the battery swap charge based upon the remaining charge in the battery.

Another great addition would be solar and wind electricity generation at the recharge station. This would alos allow for a very distributed power system and hopefully a greater return on investment for the recharge facility.