Tesla launches battery-swapping service for two-minute recharging

All eyes have been on California-based electric car maker Tesla Motors in recent months, with the company having turned a profit last quarter and earning numerous awards for its Model S luxury sedan. And as promised, Tesla on Thursday night demonstrated an automated system capable of recharging the Model S in less than two minutes — equivalent to the time it takes to fuel up a gasoline-powered car.

And by “recharging,” we mean replacing.

As in, dropping a Model S’ depleted battery pack — which can weigh half a ton — out from the undercarriage of the vehicle and replacing it with a fully charged one. Think of it as pulling up to a filling station and instead of sticking a hose into the filler cap and refilling your empty tank, simply replacing the empty gas tank with one that’s full of gas. Only in this case, the gas station is a Tesla Station (a.k.a. a Tesla Supercharger station) and the “gas tank” weighs more than 1,000 pounds.

Tesla previewed the fully automated process at its Hawthorne, Calif., design studio. There are no pumps to pay and the driver never even has to exit the vehicle. Simply pull into the Tesla Station, locate the battery swap spot, follow the on-board prompts, and the battery-swapping machinery takes over from there.

Sitting in a pit in the ground beneath the car is a fully charged battery, which the system prepares for installation as it locates its vehicle’s existing battery pack bolts. The bolts are then unscrewed with the help of “high-precision nut runners,” allowing the existing pack to be lowered into the pit, then the new pack moves into position and is inserted into the car’s body. The bolts are tightened again, and away the car goes.