I've seen this repeated plenty of times, but it'd like to point out that supercaps have even worse energy density than lithium ion batteries so it doesn't make any sense to carry one in the car. The Al-Air theory makes more sense. although neither have any evidence so far of happening. Also 1 minute charging of the 85kWh pack requires 5.1MW of power, even 5 minutes still requires 1MW. Even supercaps are going to struggle to provide that power (the "flash charging" electric bus uses a 400kW charge via supercaps).
Mod Note: we have so many threads speculating on this subject, we would like to keep the post-announcement discussion in one place. For all discussion/comment on the actual announcement please go to the following link... Charging Standards and Infrastructure/-Tesla-battery-swap-Post-announcement-discussion Thanks!
@NigelM, as soon as we hear the final verdict on what it is and we can discuss how close we got / how far off we were I'd have no issue with you locking this thread down. =)
Just FTR, moderators try to avoid locking any threads, and this one won't be locked. But everyone has been great at keeping the post-announcement discussion in one place today - Thanks!