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Battery swap would be a neat idea but impractical except for fleets of identical cars.
I don't know of any automaker who plans to use the same battery pack design in any of their vehicles, VW is planing to use the same cells in their packs but each pack will be designed for the vehicle it's going in, making it so packs could be swapped out would be impractical.
Personally I think that car sharing programs are a better way to go for people who have to drive long distances, I would be happy with an electric car as my only vehicle, then borrow or rent a VW TDI wagon, a Prius, a pickup truck or a Toyota Yaris or other smaller car, when I needed to go out of town for the day, because for over 90% of the population that trip that is out side of the range of an electric car is a rare trip that is only made a few times a year and at least for me it's a trip where I am also taking other people along or hauling something bulky so the chances that I'd take my small car drop again.
But back to your original topic, there is a lot of computer programmed changes that could be made, Volvo is planing to do this with their Diesel electric hybrid, have an option to select how long the trip you are making is going to be and the car tries to use as much battery power as possible for the type of trip you are making instead of doing what the Volt does and use the battery then switch to gasoline.
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