In my opinion BP’s offer is not good enough:
– The Fluence EV is quite expensive for its comfort level (and in comparisson with its petrol counterpart). They shoud have used Nissan Leafs (a quickdrop variant)
– The electric mile price is way to expensive
– The service plans are very limited and inflexible

They should provide cheaper EVs and pay-as-you-go plans at the very minimum to become apealing. Time will tell.

(Better Place is not developing the system, they’ve had their system operational for some time. They are currently installing it in Israel and Denmark. But back to my argument…)

Swapping your battery for a charged one will not be cheap. A swap station will need real estate, machinery, staff, and a supply of pre-charged batteries. It’s going to be far cheaper to plug in while parked at home/work/school.

We’re likely to see 200 mile range EVs in the next very few years. We already have Level 3 chargers which can give you an 80% recharge in less than 20 minutes. For the occasional long trip one could drive 200 miles, stop 20 minutes, drive 160, stop 20, drive 160 for a 500 mile day with only two short stops. If you take only a few long trips a year that extra (coffee/check your messages/pee) stop won’t be as irritating as paying a bunch of extra money for a battery swap.

“Better Place’s main package offers 3 years of driving at 25,000 miles per year — including the cost of the car — for $46,000.”

A Nissan Leaf is $32,780 (before subsidies). The 2012 Leaf has a built in charger which can fully charge the batteries in four hours. A 240vac outlet should cost less than $2,000 to install. The Leaf uses 0.35 (or less) kWh per mile. 25,000 miles worth of electricity (at the US average of $0.1275/kWh) would cost $1,116. That’s $35,896 compared to $46,000.

Now, if ranges never exceed 100 miles then battery swapping might make sense. But betting against better batteries is not a risk I would take.