smkettner said:
The swap is easy.... we just need a battery.
Exactly. There's about 8 bolts holding that battery in. About 3 more than hold the wheel on the car. Normal automotive jacks lift the car. A jack specifically designed for the battery is available from Nissan, with alignment pins. Both would be easy to replicate, and not very expensive.
There are two big orange electrical connections at the front of the battery. I could easily see this done without a fancy automated machine in 5 to 10 minutes with simple air powered tools and the human hand. I'll even bet that two men could do it in 3 minutes.
How a battery swapping operation would need multiple millions of dollars only makes sense if they have to stock (and pay for) millions of dollars in batteries. A normal auto service station (getting very rare in California) is fully equipped to do this. Quick oil change shops could, also.
Any shop starting out to do this for Nissan LEAF's could start pretty small. For the price of one Eaton $50,000 quick charger, I'd think a shop could stock 5-ish LEAF batteries. The real question is what would consumers want?