Tesla to demo battery-swapping later this week!

Michael Graham Richard (@Michael_GR)
Transportation / Cars
June 18, 2013

Musk confirms it on Twitter

From the early days of the Model S electric car, we knew that Tesla had been looking at battery-swapping. This was confirmed by rumors and comments over the years, but nothing too concrete. Then with the recent unveiling of the Tesla Supercharger network (and the upgrade to make it even faster) and the brankruptcy of battery-swapping startup Better Place, it was starting to look like battery-swapping was DOA, or at least not going to happen for a while.

Well, that's underestimating Elon Musk. Where others are struggling, he dives head first and usually comes out victorious. Tesla will after all do battery-swapping, with the first demo of the technology planned for later this week:

Live pack swap demo on Thurs night at 8pm California time at our design studio in Hawthorne. Seeing is believing.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2013

Video of battery pack swap will be posted to the Tesla website around 9:30pm, so those attending will see this first.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2013

For you Better Place fans out there, there's also this interesting bit of trivia:

@zatulsky Shai actually got the idea from a visit to Tesla. The idea is obvious (many things allow battery swap), but the technology is not.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2013

And one more from Musk about his commitment to Tesla:

Forgot to say one thing at Tesla annual shareholders meeting: just as my money was the first in, it will be the last out.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2013