Tesla developing battery swapping for five-minute recharging

After a string of high-profile announcements over the past few months, Tesla Motors has one more trick to reveal Thursday — a way to recharge its electric cars in a handful of minutes by swapping the depleted batteries for new ones.

Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk had hinted in the past that the company was working on a way to cut the recharging time of the Tesla Model S sedan to less time than it takes to refill a gas tank. Using the company's high-power home charger, the Model S needs about seven hours for a full refill, and while Tesla's own public Superchargers can cut that down to an hour, a Model S would need a couple of days to recharge from an everyday 110-volt plug.