EV Battery Swapping Stations in India – Electric Vehicle Battery Swap Companies, Biz Models…

Last updated: Feb 2020 by Narasimhan Santhanam

This post is a part of EV Next’s EV Perspectives.

EV Next, a division of EAI, is a leading market intelligence & strategic consulting firm for the Indian e-mobility sector.

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Introduction

Battery Swapping Stations acts as a battery aggregator and has enough clout to participate in markets for electrical energy and reserve. The BSS can maximize its profits by providing services to the system, such as voltage support, regulation reserves, or energy arbitrage. Key major players in Indian market are mentioned below

Swapping stations in India – Updates

• October 2019 – Sun Mobility and Bescom together starts a two and three wheeler battery swapping station at Bangalore. The users can swap their drained batteries for charged ones and will be paying only for the cost of electricity.
• September 2019 – Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has launched a public battery swapping station for buses with a capacity of 12 batteries at a time. The buses are tendered from Ashok Leyland under gross cost model, which means Ashok Leyland will own, operate and maintain the buses, while AMC will pay the company a per kilometer rate
• July 2019 – Smart E in partnership with Sun Mobility, Delhi metro, Exicom, Panasonic and Amararaja set up a two wheeler and three wheeler battery station at NCR, Delhi.
• Lithium has 6 EV Swapping Points (LSPs) in North and North-West Delhi for electric three wheelers.
• June 2019 – Ola has set up its own battery swapping stations for three wheeler fleets at Gurgaon. In Ola’s case, with battery-swapping stations, the driver doesn’t own the batteries at all and Ola has total control of their management from start to end.

Sun Mobility reveals inter-operable battery swapping station for 2- and 3-wheelers-2018

Sun Mobility, which is advocating speedy battery swapping technology for the nascent Indian electric mobility industry, today showcased what it claims to be the world’s first interoperable battery swapping station for two- and three-wheelers in Bangalore.

Lithion Power to invest $1 billion to create a battery swap ecosystem – 2018

Lithion Power, a Delhi-based company that offers battery as a service for electric vehicles, plans to invest around $1billion along with its partners to create an ecosystem for e-vehicle drivers to swap batteries on daily lease or rental.

Fortum joins Clean Motion develop battery swap system for the light electric vehicle in India – 2018

Clean energy provider Fortum has signed an agreement with Clean motion, on offering sustainable mobility solutions through jointly developing a battery swap system tailored for the light electric vehicle in India.

Acme launches battery swapping & charging station – 2017

ACME Group launched India’s first battery swapping and charging station for electric vehicles. The EcoCharge Battery Swapping & Charging Station comes with the lowest operating cost, fast charging, swapping time less than that required for filling fuel, longer life, utilizing the Build, Own & Operate model, and ICAT/ARAI approved lithium batteries with an option for the battery to grid (B-to-G)

ACME has provided the battery charging & swapping stations to Ola for their pilot project at Nagpur city in which 200 vehicles including bus, auto and car – all running on electricity was launched in the first stage on May 26, 2017. It was flagged off by Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport, Shipping and Roadways.

ACME battery charger tower for swappable batteries 

Technical Challenges for Battery Swapping Stations

• Battery Degradation:- Battery performance degrades over time, and as a result the range attainable with each charge. In a battery swap scenario, considering that all cars will be using the same battery pack format and power, we will find batteries with different energy storage capacities in the swapping station, mainly due to degradation. 
• Logically, most people will opt for newer battery packs when swapping, as they give greater range and reduce the number of trips required to the swapping station. Lower capacity packs means that range with EVs will not be the same as with new packs, so users will not be happy when their new battery pack is swapped with a lower performance pack, as they will get less mileage from their vehicle. 
• Infrastructure:- The infrastructure required for the battery packs is more complex and expensive than charging.

Marketing/Administrative Challenges

• Interchangeability:- For a technology to succeed and become a dominant trend, one feature is absolutely essential: Cross Platform / Brand Compatibility.
• OEMs should join hands with Battery manufacturers and swapping service providers to come up with commonality in batteries for different types of vehicles so that it will lead to easy operation of EVs.

Source 

Know more on the EV charging ecosystem in India from: Components of EVSE | Bharath DC001 | Bharat AC001 | EVSE Growth Trends | Battery Swapping Growth Trends | EVSE Cost components | EVSE installation costs | Battery swapping in India | Indian EVSE Stakeholders | Charger Standards | Current Indian EVSE status | EVSE Challenges |  EVSE during 2020-2030 |

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