- In the United States, concerns about affordability and charging times have stalled the EV revolution.
- Experts believe that battery replacement, which charges EVs in just five minutes, could be the solution.
- The technology is gaining popularity in China, but experts warn it faces challenges in the United States.
America’s EV revolution has stalled, and the time it takes to charge an electric car is at the center of the problem.
Currently, charging an EV can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 50 hours depending on the method, and concerns about range and charging are deterring many drivers from making the transition to electric vehicles.
Battery swapping could offer a solution by replacing a dead EV battery with a fully charged one in a process that takes less than five minutes, and it’s one of Tesla’s biggest Chinese rivals. This is the approach used by.
Tesla rival pioneers battery swapping
Founded in 2014 by entrepreneur William Li, also known as China’s Elon Musk, Nio has built a network of more than 2,000 battery swapping stations across China.
The company allows customers to buy cars without paying the full price for the battery, and charges a monthly subscription fee that only replaces the battery when it runs out of charge.
Nio’s battery swapping system has other benefits beyond lowering the initial cost of electric vehicles, Fei Shen, the company’s senior vice president, told Business Insider.
“In areas of China where battery swapping stations are quite prevalent, users can upgrade their batteries from 75 kilowatt hours to 100 kilowatt hours for just 50 yuan ($7) per day,” he said.
“What we found is that because of the lower price, more people are buying or leasing cars with 75-kilowatt-hour batteries instead of this 100-kilowatt-hour battery. When you go on a long-distance trip, you can upgrade to a long-range battery at one of our swap stations,” he added.
Nio’s battery swapping strategy has gained momentum in recent months in China’s highly competitive EV market, with the company signing deals with fellow electric car makers Geely Automobile, JAC and Chery Automobile to co-develop battery swapping technology. There is.
But it’s still much more expensive than regular charging, and Shen told BI that only about 20% of Nio’s “swap stations” are breaking even, and the company is still making a profit. He said he has not done so.
Nevertheless, Nio plans to significantly expand its operations, including outside of China. The company has 30 battery swapping stations in Europe and plans to launch new affordable EVs to boost sales on the continent.
US challenges
Nio’s battery-swapping stations, which are about the size of a small car wash, are unlikely to be installed on U.S. roads anytime soon because high tariffs have largely shut Chinese automakers out of the U.S. market.
This is a blow to U.S. consumers, who are starting to turn away from EVs amid a lack of affordable options and concerns about charging and range.
Experts told BI that battery replacement could theoretically solve many of these concerns.
“From a purely technical standpoint, this is a panacea. It solves all the big problems that people have with EVs,” said Dylan Koo, an analyst at ABI Research.
He noted that even the most powerful plug-in battery charger takes 20 minutes to charge an EV to 80%, and that many battery swap stations can replace a fully charged battery in less than 5 years.
George Washington University engineering professor John Helveston agreed, saying a national network of battery swapping stations would effectively eliminate range anxiety and make charging an EV as easy as pumping gas. told BI.
But he said the U.S. faces a tougher battery replacement outlook than in China, where the huge number of EVs sold means automakers won’t have to rely on striking deals with rivals. He said this means they can build their own exchange networks.
“China has such a high scale in terms of EV sales that automakers that make certain cars can actually design their cars to be interchangeable and not necessarily have batteries that can be used with other automakers. “There’s no need to put it on a competitor,” he said.
Helveston said China’s efficient urban transportation network means there is less need for EVs to have large batteries to extend their range than in the scattered U.S., making it much easier to replace batteries. He added that it has become.
“No one in China has to drive 300 miles in a car. That’s a crazy idea in some ways. And it means you can buy much smaller batteries, which are much easier to replace.” He said.
share and succeed
Koo told BI that establishing a battery exchange network in the U.S. would require close cooperation between U.S. automakers, who would need to agree to use batteries of similar size and design. Stated.
“Many of the Western automakers are a little more protective and defensive. They want to have more ownership, but the battery is really the key defining element of an EV, so this large-scale “We’re not necessarily happy with sharing the network,” he said.
Even Nio, which pioneered the technology and persuaded many rivals to jump on board, admits it’s a big step forward for many automakers.
“Battery replacement is not a light innovation. It is a heavy innovation because battery replacement is closely related to vehicle design and sales model,” Dr. Shen said.
“Even in China, where we are working with other automakers, the decision to work with Nio on battery replacement is not easy to make,” he added.
Possible solutions
One US company that claims it can solve this problem is California startup Ample.
The San Francisco-based company has developed a battery swapping station that can swap out a fully charged battery in five minutes, and the company says it can be adjusted to work with any EV, regardless of battery type. There is.
“If you go to a car manufacturer and say the way they’re going to work with us is to rebuild every car, that’s a tall order,” said John de Sousa, co-founder of Ample.
Ample, which plans to charge users a battery subscription fee to use its swap stations in the future, operates battery swap stations in Spain, Japan and California, primarily in collaboration with fleet providers such as Uber. ing.
The company’s approach to battery replacement is starting to gain support from major automakers, with Stellantis signing a deal with Ample to power its Fiat 500e vehicles in Spain as part of a car-sharing service.
If the partnership is successful, it could expand to the U.S. in the future, with the Fiat 500e expected to go on sale in the U.S. this year, and De Souza said the two companies would like to extend the partnership to other markets, including the U.S. He confirmed that he is considering expanding.
Ample believes this technology can save consumers time and effort spent on charging pumps, while also reducing the initial cost of an EV.
De Souza believes that EVs will be essential if they are to replace gasoline-powered cars in the United States.
“The only way to achieve a mass transition from gas to electricity is to make charging as convenient and cheap as gasoline,” he said.