Host of deals to rev up global use of battery swapping tech

Stellantis teams up with San Francisco-based Ample to initiate pilot program in Spain

Battery swapping, a quick solution to electric vehicle owners' mileage anxiety, is expected to see accelerated growth on a larger scale in 2024 thanks to a series of recent deals in China and Europe.

The technology enables EVs to get their spent batteries replaced with new ones in as little as five minutes. However, it is so far mainly available in China, which is the world's largest market for EVs.

This will soon begin to change. Stellantis, which owns brands from Peugeot to Maserati, said it will integrate swappable battery technology as it looks to win over potential customers concerned about range anxiety and long charge times.

It will integrate the technology in Spain starting from 2024, according to its deal with San Francisco-based Ample in early December.

The initial program will first involve a fleet of 100 Fiat 500e models within Stellantis' Free2move car-sharing service, the company said.

Ample, which has 12 charge stations in San Francisco, said it plans to build nine charge stations in addition to the four it already has in Madrid.

Typically, Ample sets up and manages the infrastructure, while fleets that use their services pay for energy use.

The battery startup said its modular batteries are designed to be a drop-in replacement for an EV's original battery, which can fit into any EV and will allow Stellantis to integrate the tech without re-engineering its vehicle platforms.

Ample also partnered with EV maker Fisker in May to deliver its sport utility vehicle Ocean with swappable batteries. It previously also partnered with ride services company Uber in California.

Battery swapping "is too convenient, too economical and too logical for this not to happen at scale in Europe and the United States," said Levi Tillemann, vice-president of policy and international business at Ample, in an interview with Reuters.

"It's a sort of magical thinking to imagine that this is a uniquely Chinese phenomenon," he added.

In China, battery swapping is already part of life for owners of EVs from marques like Nio.

The New York-listed startup owns and operates the world's largest battery swapping network with more than 2,300 stations, of which around 1,000 were built this year.

Guo Shiqiang, a food processing manager in Beijing's Tongzhou district, said he has not charged his ES6 SUV for quite some time.

"I tend to get the battery swapped. It is so fast and there is a station within 10 minutes of driving from my house," said Guo.

Nio has recently partnered with Changan and Geely, respectively, to promote battery swapping and co-develop models compatible with the technology.

Geely's battery swapping unit, E-Energee, already operates in some 30 cities nationwide.

William Li, co-founder and CEO of Nio, said the partnerships spur the growth of the technology and thus contribute to the appeal of the smart EV industry.

Both Changan and Geely are much larger in terms of sales than Nio, so their partnerships are likely to bring the technology to the fore.

Changan, which is the Chinese partner of Ford, expects its new energy vehicle sales to reach 1.2 million in 2025.

Geely, as China's largest private automaker, has a diverse family of brands ranging from Volvo to Polestar.

In recent years, battery swapping has become a policy focus. Chinese government has introduced policies to support the development of the sector, issuing EV battery swapping safety requirements in 2021 as the first national standard.

A report by Orient Securities projects that battery-swapping models are expected to account for around 30 percent of NEVs by 2025.

However, industry executives are divided over the potential of the technology, citing the need to abandon their own battery designs and adopt standardized ones.

"You'll never ever get carmakers to agree to swappable batteries," said Andy Palmer, former CEO of Aston Martin.

John Holland, wireless EV charging company Momentum Dynamics' commercial director for Europe and the Middle East, said convergence on batteries will create a quandary for automakers. "How do you differentiate your product?"

In China, it is not a zero-sum game. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, battery swapping stations and charging facilities complement each other.

The charging network has a huge head start in the country, with billions of dollars having been poured into the facilities. There were 8.26 million charging piles available by the end of November, and more are being built.

In late November, BMW partnered with Mercedes-Benz to build a joint venture to run their charging network in China. The first charging stations are planned to begin operation in 2024, according to the agreement.

By the end of 2026, they are expected to build a network of at least 1,000 high-power charging stations with around 7,000 high-power charging piles.

Battery makers are coming up with improved products that boast longer ranges and shorter charge times, which could make swapping unnecessary in the future.

Greater Bay Technology, a 3-year-old battery producer backed by GAC Group, unveiled the world's first plant dedicated to power batteries capable of extreme fast charging in late October.

The US Department of Energy proposed the idea in 2018 of extreme fast charging, referring to technology that enables batteries to get charged from 0 to 80 percent within 10 minutes to extend the vehicles' mileage by 320 kilometers.

According to Boston Consulting Group, those which feature extreme fast-charging batteries will account for 16 percent of all EVs sold in 2025 and the figure will rise to 68 percent in 2030.