Does Battery Swapping Tech Make Sense For Electric Cars?

Swapping batteries might be faster than charging an EV but there are limitations depending on the type of EV

The 2022 Union Budget did not have a lot of uplifting news for the automotive industry but it did announce a few changes to support the growth of electric vehicles in India. Key among them was the discussion of a policy regarding battery swapping services. While it favours smaller EVs like two- and three-wheelers, it does little to benefit the personal four-wheeler EV.

The basic idea of battery swapping is the same as having an electronic device that can be fitted with fresh batteries for continuous use (like a remote) as opposed to having to charge it each time (like a mobile phone). Battery swapping services would allow EV users to swap out the discharged battery with a fully charged one. It’s a lot quicker than charging and can also help prolong battery life, unlike multiple DC fast charging cycles.

• Electric Cars in India

The idea for swappable batteries has been around for a long time. However, this process is not as feasible for larger EVs such as personal four-wheelers which offer a range of over 300km. Here are some of the key reasons why we feel that battery swapping will not work well in the four-wheeler EV space:

The Compatibility Issue

The technology and design of the battery pack is one of the best protected secrets for a brand making EVs. With no standardisation there is very little commonality between the batteries of different manufacturers. A battery swapping system catering to multiple brands would need to have the toolings and fittings for each type of car, which doesn’t work when you consider the variety of systems being used. For instance, a battery swapping station for Teslas would not work for a Hyundai EV and vice versa. On top of that, with multiple EV platforms per brand for cars of different sizes, a swapping station capable of servicing every model would be extremely costly.

In comparison, the charging ports have been somewhat standardised across brands, like the Combined Charging System (CCS). Even if the charging capacity varies, you can at least pull into a station and plug in.

High Investment Costs

While setting up an electric charging infrastructure is a pricey affair, building an automated battery swapping station for four-wheelers is not dissimilar. It uses a mechanised process with robotic appendages taking out the depleted battery and replacing it with a fully charged one. At the same time, it moves the removed battery pack into a charging bay so that it can be placed in another vehicle once charged. There are a lot of moving parts compared to a charging station, all of which add to the final cost required to set up a battery swapping station for electric cars.

If the process was to be done by people, that would also be expensive in terms of specialised training and more time consuming too. Besides, they would still need robotic tools, necessitated by the sheer weight of an electric car’s battery pack.

Advocates of battery swapping technology will argue that a bay of fast chargers would be more expensive compared to a swapping station, but it is hard to compare exact figures due to insufficient information for a fair analysis.

Related:All The Electric Cars Coming To India In 2022

Integrated Battery Designs

Most of the new EV platforms being developed have the battery pack integrated into the structure to improve the vehicle dynamics. In some designs, the battery is also a structural element of the safety structure. While the skateboard layout with the battery along the floor still works, having an easy to remove battery would require a very different structural design. It is doable but it would require a significant change in direction for various OEMs and at a high cost.

Those Who Failed

Like we mentioned earlier, the idea for battery swapping to combat charging times for EVs has been around for a while. One of the first companies to try and offer this service, Better Place, went bankrupt. They had teamed up with Renault to make a Fluence Z.E. with battery-swapping technology, deployed in Israel and Denmark in 2012. Not only did they not sell as many units as expected, the sheer investment cost of its automated battery swapping stations drained the company dry.

Those Still Trying

Not all passenger EV brands have given up on battery swapping tech just yet. A couple of Chinese companies are still investing in this space, the most notable one being Nio. Nio stated that it had installed its 700th battery swap station in China as of December 2021 and installed its first swapping station in Europe at the start of 2022. Their swapping stations claim a three-minute stop for each swap. Of course, they only cater to Nio vehicles starting with the ES8 electric SUV. Currently, a Nio battery swapper has 14 battery slots with plans to introduce a 20-slot swapping station by the end of 2022.

In the USA, a startup called Ample is working on battery-swapping services as well. It takes a different approach by making its own modular battery that can replace the OEM battery which will take care of the compatibility issue in using an automated swapping station. It is also counting on OEMs to design vehicles to be compatible with modular battery swapping technology.

It Makes Sense For EVs As A Whole

A policy that encourages battery swapping as a service may not directly benefit people buying electric four-wheelers, but it can still help in an indirect manner. As most EV users are from the far more affordable two-wheel and three-wheel segments where battery swapping makes more sense, those segments can accelerate the push to electric mobility as a whole along with a widespread charging infrastructure that can support more EVs as well.

Also read: India’s Largest EV Charging Station Set Up In Gurugram

This sentiment was also shared by Martin Schwenk, MD and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India, stating “The battery-swapping announcement is in the right direction and will be helpful to a limited segment. We, however, need a broader holistic view on the strategy around developing electric mobility for the passenger vehicle segment.”