On Thursday, electric car maker Tesla Motors (TSLA) showed off a battery swapping system that allows owners to exchange depleted batteries for freshly-charged ones in a little more than 90 seconds.
The ability to quickly replace batteries would greatly extend the distance the company’s cars can travel before owners must plug them in to recharge the batteries, which takes hours. Tesla’s battery swapping system is fully automated, requiring vehicle owners to pull their cars up to swapping station where a machine removes the depleted battery and installs a fully-charged one, Forbes notes.
During the demonstration, hosted by company CEO Elon Musk, Tesla ran a video of a man filling up a conventional car at a gas station. In the time it took the conventional car’s gas tank to fill, two Tesla cars had their batteries changed.
Tesla plans to roll out swapping stations by the end of this year. California will get the first swapping stations, with stations spaced between Boston and Washington D.C. to come later.
The swapping service will cost about the same as 15 gallons of gasoline. Vehicle owners who use the service can have their original batteries sent back to them for a fee, keep swapped batteries (and get bill for the price difference of a new battery), or retrieve their original battery on a return trip.
Tesla recently issued a voluntary recall for some recently-made Model S vehicles over a potential problem with seat mounting brackets.
Shares of Tesla were flat in Friday morning trading.