Electric Cars’ Range

* In your Sept. 2 editorial, you echoed the biggest complaint about electric vehicles: the range. It seems to me an easy solution may have been overlooked. Why not design electric vehicles so that the batteries are easily removable and interchangeable?

In the future, when our electric cars are “running on empty,” we would do as we do today: Find a service station. But instead of filling up, an attendant, or automated system could remove your drained battery and, with a reassuring thump, replace it with a freshly charged one. Your sapped battery would be left behind and charged for a future customer in an ever-rotating supply. You don’t purchase the battery, just the power.

This way, the local gas station owner continues to make a profit as gas pumps are phased out and high-tech, clean battery-charging stations phased in. Problem solved.

GARY D. THOMAS

Marina del Rey