Awesome! Sometimes one wonders what would cause Elon Musk to go sit in a conference room and answer a bunch of questions like that, televised. (not looking gift horse in mouth)
So with less than 24hrs to go until the battery swapping demo, here are my take-aways from that 11-minute interview:
1) paraphrasing his comments on the speed, it is going to be quick... really quick. Could be under 2 minutes.
2) There is a financial aspect to it. I take that to mean, it won't be free like Superchargers are, you have to pay money when you use it. Despite this it will be "compelling."
3) All the Superchargers around the USA will also feature a battery swapping station - I think this is what he said. It isn't in the current plan to press ahead and do that... but at least some of Superchargers will have battery swappers early on.
4) Tesla will pay to install all the battery swapping stations... $100million for 200 stations is $500,000 per... in line with many projections on this forum.
The reporter pressed him to reveal why Tesla had waited so long to unveil the battery swapping system. I don't think he gave a clear answer... but honestly my own opinion is that it took them a while to get around to it, they were simply working on everything else - and, the battery swapping system needs to be robust, and needed to be tested for a while before they could confidently unveil it. Don't forget it has to change the battery when there is heavy rain around and the car is covered in mud!!! Honestly I am vey excited to see this demonstrated... seems like they have overcome several mechanical design hurdles to make it happen so quickly and reliably.
Also I expect this is why they are rebuilding the Supercharger/Obelisk thingy at the company - because it will be a combined Supercharger/Superswapper (or whatever it will be called).
