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There are two ways to take care of your hybrid or electric vehicle's spent battery. You can charge it, a good option if you are close to home and are only using it for short trips or are home for the day and can charge it for a few hours, or even over night. However, if you would like to take your electric car on longer trips that take you farther away from home, there will have to be viable methods of keeping that vehicle charged. A Better Place has come up with the solution which they have demonstrated several times for the industry . The switching stations remove the battery from the car, replace it with a fully charged one and put the driver back on the road in very little time. The driver can either get out during the process or remain inside the car as the entire switch is expected to only take around eighty seconds.
A Better Place, who are the developers of this switching station technology, say that the stations can handle up to ten different battery types from a number of different auto makers, one of the biggest concerns about the new technology. Once removed, the batteries will be recharged using solar panels, which means there will be no toxic emissions. The recharged batteries will then be ready to be installed in the next customer's car ensuring that there is a rotating supply of freshly charged batteries at all times.
The switching station has an automated, hands-off approach to the batteries which increases the efficiency of the change and decreases the expense needed to keep the stations running. Without having to make the change by hand, the stations can be operated with a minimum of staffing. Having the switching stations in key locations across the country will allow for longer and longer car trips made by the electric vehicles which are currently limited to the distances that they can safely travel without needing to be charged again.
The company plans to open around one hundred of the battery switching stations across Israel by the year 2011 with stations in Denmark closely thereafter. Additional switching stations will then follow in Australia, California, Hawaii and Ontario, Canada. As more people turn to electric cars for their main source of transportation, the need for more of these stations, which cost a reported $50,000 each to build, will certainly be needed. More automakers will develop their own electric vehicle type as well as increasing the number of models that they offer. Unless there is an agreed upon standard battery type for the industry, the need for a greater number of switching stations to can handle more cars will increase as well.
