The NITI Aayog talks about the advantages of EV battery swapping as opposed to charging. It saves time, space and money
Battery swapping is picking up, but the policy is still awaited by the industry. More so, after the finance Minister in the Budget 2022-2023 announced that there will be a Battery Swapping Policy. In April last year, NITI Aayog published the Draft Swapping Policy in which standardising battery packs were discussed.
Battery swapping is a mechanism wherein a used discharged battery is swapped for another charged battery. Experts point out that swapping the batteries may be a solution to deal with the range anxiety that is usually associated with owning an electric vehicle. The battery gets discharged and hence opting for EV for a long range is not the preferred option. Battery swapping stations offer to solve this problem.
India has also witnessed a number of battery safety issues like batteries catching fires. The Bureau of Indian Standards, too, was roped in to lay the roadmap for setting the safety measures of batteries.
Arun Sreyas, CEO and Co-Founder, RACEnergy, says, “A key advantage of battery swapping technology is that the cost of the battery, which amounts to 40-50 per cent of the vehicle cost, is removed, and the vehicle owner need only pay for the energy consumed. In addition, the end user does not have to worry about the maintenance of the battery either.”
The concept of battery swapping was conceived as the urban areas are short of space for setting up networks of charging station. The NITI Aayog website talks about the advantages of battery swapping as opposed to charging. It saves time, space and money.
Sreyas adds, “The swapping experience mimics the experience of refuelling an ICE vehicle. Just as it takes about two minutes to fill fuel in a vehicle, it takes only the same amount of time for the consumer to replace the discharged batteries with fully charged ones. These factors create comfort and appeal for the end user, facilitating faster EV adoption”
Battery manufacturers would like to draw attention to other issues as well. To accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, Pulkit Khurana, Co-Founder, Battery Smart, says, “For the battery swapping ecosystem to keep growing, it's vital to ensure that our infrastructure continues to develop. This development should include a focus on manufacturing in India as well as lowering reliance on lithium-ion imports.”
With the growing consciousness of climate change and attempts to mitigate rising, e- mobility is one of the ways to deal with it. EVs can help India meet its goal of decarbonisation, which has a deadline of 2070.