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POLICY
Roundtable for EV battery swapping roadmap
I
ndia Energy Storage Alliance on May 21 initiated a discussion on EV Battery Swapping Roadmap for India with industry and businesses operating in e-mobility, battery manufacturing and e-charging space. The virtual roundtable, which began in May, will be held in four sessions over the course of three months. It is intended to create a policy advocacy paper on swapping which will be later submitted to the Department of Heavy Industries, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Ministry of Power, Department of Science and Technology and NITI Aayog. The theme for discussion for Roundtable 1 was viability and ecosystem and business models. It was attended by over 45 organizations from industries ranging from automobile manufacturing, e n e r g y, t r a n s p o r t a t i o n a n d distribution to consultancy, utilities, and government bodies.
The takeaway from Roundtable 1:
While discussing the way forward to proliferate electric car chargers, both fast and slow and centralized or decentralized, a few industry players vouched for battery swapping business model. The battery of an EV makes up for nearly 30-50 percent of the total cost of the EV and therefore separating the battery would reduce the upfront cost of
the vehicle, making it competitive with or below ICE counterparts. Attendees deliberated that the battery swapping business model not only provides a price advantage but also reduces charging wait time and increases run-time. Keeping in view the abovementioned encouraging aspects of battery swapping, the industry players deliberated on finding a viable customer segment and evolving business case. As for customer segments, the majority industry players believe in starting with the 2Ws and 3Ws. The idea behind this is considering the fleets to be smaller in size, covering less distance per day, and having minimal operational complexity to swap batteries; swapping makes an economical choice, more so in shared mobility. As a majority of EV sales in India come from 2W section, there is industry consensus on beginning the electrification of mobility through 2Ws and 3Ws. Bounce, Sun Mobility, Ola Electric, Hop Bike are already implementing this and a policy discussion can be initiated to encourage the industry’s growth. As for e-4Ws, industry players believe the customer segment can utilize battery swapping services and it would require collaboration with OEMs and formulation of indigenous technical standards. Over time, this looks like a plausible segment but would warrant further interventions
| May-June 2020
for service providers to divulge their resources into it fully. In terms of e-buses and commercial vehicles, it was discussed that the fixed packs are more suitable for a commercial vehicle since batteries are sophisticated, massive, and require liquid cooling. Further, among the competing technologies, fast charging and flash charging are much more market acceptable for commercial vehicles, and lastly for long-distance intercity buses, there are other technologies like hydrogen fuel cells. There is an alternative to hybrid swapping model, but it is a costly affair. Therefore, it was discussed that battery swapping for buses and commercial vehicles at the moment seems to be not much of a commercially viable segment. The option of hybrid swapping was too expensive for now and hence this segment would require a few more years of technology advancement to make the battery swapping commercially possible with automated swapping technology. On the business model, it was agreed that IESA may hold discussions with the financial institutions, both NBFCs and PSEs, to understand their apprehensions and design indices, which can quantify the salvage value/resale value of such vehicles. Such an activity would help in building confidence as well as a resale roadmap for the sector.
