1nvest wrote:Why don't British Standards apply a common power pack size/fit. Perhaps 1.5m x 1m x 25cm single retractable units. Drive into a garage and drop the existing/flat pack, swapped for a fully charged pack, maybe less than a minute 'fill up' time before recommencing your journey, and no issues with longevity (providers such as BP/Shell take on the responsibility of retiring exhausted units and replacing them with new units).
Smaller cars having 1 unit, larger cars might accommodate 2 units, vans 3 units ...etc. Internally the different choice of battery methods/technologies just have to fit within the same BS fixed sized housing block/unit and standard electric connectors/couplings.
Service stations might recharge units locally, or perhaps have batches of charged units delivered by a lorry, swapped for discharged units being taken away to be charged elsewhere. Payment for filling up might reflect how far the existing battery had been discharged, fully discharged costing twice as much than if just half discharged in reflection of less cost/time to charge it back to fully-charged.
An interesting idea, but so little is British, it's not a realistic proposition.
One Chinese(?) company is pioneering this approach, but given national and inter company rivalries, I can't see any chance of a world standard interchangeable system.