A few months ago, the world over was in awe of the new Tesla roadster and what it represented. This new, high-performance, completely electric car comparable to many of today’s high-end sports cars, demonstrated to the world that electric cars could now be engineered to compete with current gas-powered vehicles.

This sexy, Lotus look-alike boasts a 3.7 second 0-60 acceleration time and nearly 250 miles per charge. While it’s not quite up to the 500 that some cars today can reach, it’s a demonstration of a big step forward in the widespread acceptance of a powerful green technology.

In the past few years other major car companies have announced additions of full-production, all electric models to their lineups, such as the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the sales of electric cars are projected to skyrocket. Mass acceptance of this new technology though, comes with its own set of problems.

A modern car can fill up on gas in about 5 to 10 minutes at one of millions of gas stations across the United States. These cars all have similar gas caps that work with similar gas nozzles from the pumps. It’s relatively easy and convenient to fill up a car no matter where you are.

An electric car, by comparison, takes about 4 to 8 hours for a full battery charge. For the average day-to-day driving, that’s just fine as the car can simply be plugged in at home and charged overnight. For longer trips, though, this could lead to a serious problem.

The average American has neither the patience nor the time to interrupt an interstate road trip for 4 to 8 hours to charge their car every 100 to 250 miles. A California company, known as Better Place, is offering a solution.

Better Place is in the process of building battery-changing stations in a few cities around the world. The charging stations work through a flashy mechanized changing system that a driver goes through much like a mechanized car wash. The changing station removes the battery from the bottom and puts in a new one, taking the old one away for charging — during non-peak energy hours, of course — and eventually to be put into another car.

On the small level that the electric car represents today, this is a practical solution. Better Place is partnered with the Renault-Nissan alliance, and most of their demonstration videos feature either a Renault or a Nissan as the car of choice. This means that the changing system is designed to work with Renaults and Nissans.

The idea is sound: a changing station for long trips to refill your car in less than 10 minutes. With the electric vehicle industry set to explode, though, new challenges are going to be presented. Different auto manufacturers will have different ideas about how their batteries will go in and out, how they get charged, and how they work with the car’s mechanics.

The entire industry will need to find a new standard battery layout, similar to the current gas-cap standard to make the electric vehicle a truly viable option to compete with gasoline and diesel powered cars.

One way or another, a new wave of transportation is on the horizon, and some major infrastructure changes to the United States and the world need to happen if it is to work. This opens new opportunities for original ideas. We live in exciting times, and the promise of this technology, and the changes it brings, will only add to that excitement.