[maxglute]

> NIO might do it

The main obstacle is battery swap is capex heavy, hence PRC might do it, but most other places, less likely. It's pretty easy to extrapolate PRC auto parking / self driving cars sneaking out during low congestion to hit their battery swap queue. But that is a fairly significant logistics / infra issue when most countries would be lucky to get sufficient fast charging piles in place. Battery volume is probably not an issue since batteries will be rentals for minimum XYZ capacity. And algo might eventually bid for price, i.e. discount rental for partial charge if it means your car go for a swap by itself a couple days earlier.

[vegardstenvik]

NIO has a battery swap station in my city in Trondheim, Norway. It has not been that popular. You might say that installing a fast charger is complex and costly, but a battery swapping station is also very costly and complex. The difference is that you can put out more fast charging stations at various locations. This means that you often have to choose between driving 20 minutes to a battery swapping station to do a 5 minute swap, or drive 5 minutes to do a 20 minute fast charge. The added complexity of a swapping station just is not worth it.