Grainy photos from the past may persuade us, that they were swapping batteries on trucks a century ago. After that, the idea went largely dormant, except for Israeli company Better Place who picked it up in 2007. But they too failed because the market was not there. Now recent events in China pose the question, is the age of battery swapping here?
Did The Age of Battery Swapping Creep Up on Us?
This relatively new technology has been incubating in the Peoples Republic for a while. BBC reports how China’s State Grid began researching electric vehicle battery exchanges in 2006. They wondered whether they could recharge the batteries during low-demand periods.
Ten years later, China still only had half a million electric cars. By 2023, there were six million, with a third of all vehicle registrations that year being electric or hybrid. Over 8 million public charging stations supported this surge, with a third of new ones opening that year. Clearly, the age of electric cars seemed to have arrived in China.
Most of those electric cars were still plug-ins, although there were also 900 battery-swap stations in Chinese cities by 2021. That year, the government launched an official battery-swap scheme in 11 of them. By 2023, the number of swapping stations had increased to over 3,500.
Did that official support mean that an age of battery swapping was starting to roll out in China? Perhaps yes, but also perhaps not. Electric vehicle battery systems vary, with only some of them accommodating battery exchanges. We may well ask, does this make recharging is a better solution in the mind of the customer?
Battery Charging Is Becoming Faster and More Effective
Battery swapping is still faster than charging at this point in time, although recharging rates are accelerating too. Vehicle builder BYD seems to support the latter option, and is rolling out a network of 8,000 flash-charging stations at key points across China.
Meanwhile, battery maker CATL is building “a battery-swapping ecosystem across the whole nation”. Although this will only support compatible vehicle brands. In the final analysis, the customer will answer this question: is the age of battery swapping upon us, or is it in our imagination?
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