I like Tesla a lot, but I also like honest marketing. 23 gallons (83 litres) tanked during demo gives much longer range than a full battery. Accumulated time spend at stations won't be shorter with Tesla's technology.
I think the swap is a great feature and there is no need to use questionable marketing tricks to sell it.
On the other hand, electric cars mostly get charged over night. The need for a battery swap or a stop for super charging should be much less frequent than the need to refill gas. It is hard to make a direct comparison.
It proves that there's not much difference to filling the tank with fuel. Without this method, you have to hang around forever while your battery charges. 90 seconds is the same as current vehicle usage. 90 minutes is not.
This is really splitting hairs. They made a fun demo, and their whole position is to surpass the total experience of the gasoline car. I think they've shown that they're at least equal, which is an incredible accomplishment.
I have Audi A6 (older than in video, so my might be less efficient). I see that you can travel 300 miles with Tesla under perfect conditions (http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options). TDI Audi likes this under perfect condition can travel a little bit more than twice as much. In city mode Tesla might show better results than Audi (I would like to see real world results). So it looks like it is the same.
Again it might be more complicated. E.g. we might need to use Audi with better engine (bigger fuel consumption) to match Tesla. I have used TDI in my example and we might get completely different results with TFSI (since it is USA I guess we have TFSI Audi).
A better comparison would be the 2014 Audi R8 4.2 Coupe (Tiptronic), which does 0-60 mph in 4.4 seconds [1], although that's still slower than the Model S which does 0-60 in 4.2 seconds [2]. Of course, the R8 costs significantly more than the Model S in spite of the inferior performance.
If they would've filmed the audi getting a fuel fillup adding the same range the battery swap would, it probably would still be a close race, getting out, swiping cards (entering PIN around here (Europe)) and getting back in.
Tesla claims 426 [1] km on a fully charged battery.
Audi claims to do that distance on 45 liters (so half a tank) (9.3 km to a Litre [2] average fuel consumption for a 3 liter petrol car)
While I agree that it's on the face of it slightly dishonest to fill the audi to twice the range of the tesla I can think of 2 counter points;
The audi doesn't always have a full tank when you leave in the morning, unlike the tesla.
If Tesla ever make a drop in battery that has the audis range it's still a much faster stop.
Speed and range aside is also a much more pleasant experience to stay in the car.
Well, this wouldn't be fair either. Audi allows you to fill 90 litters, it's the advantage of the old technology. Fair comparison shouldn't artificially cripple the competition.
For me, battery swap in 90 seconds is a powerful enough and honest marketing message, no need for a comparison.
Nobody is excited that it's faster than a gas powered car, but rather that its now feasible to have "instant" refuel for an electric car. The comparison was just to make it more interesting to watch.
Your point is what occurred to me during the video, though. It's fantastic technology, but the comparison is a bit flawed. However, they did get two batteries, which is still not 83 liters but it's pretty damn fast, and faster than "too long to wait", at any rate.
I think the swap is a great feature and there is no need to use questionable marketing tricks to sell it.