Is Electric Vehicle Battery swapping Viable for India?

India has an auspicious target of atleast 70% of its public transportation stock to be in EV segment by 2030. The growth of EV infrastructure is only possible if appropriate charging infrastructure is available. But it’s more off life “chicken and egg” story as to what comes first. Ideally, both the Vehicle market and the Charging infrastructure must develop simultaneously.

India is one of the largest automobile market in the world. At this scale, one can’t function only on charging stations as we all know lines we see at CNG pumps! Consider that it’ll take much longer to charge one Vehicle, one will see hundreds of vehicle parked for charging. Whereas dedicated EV charging slots are feasible where demand isn’t unmanageable.

Now, Let us imagine one buying a car, and manufacture forces to purchase not only the vehicle itself but also demanded to pay upfront for 10 years’ worth of fuel. Will one still purchase the car? India is a global market where the concept of “First thing first, value is everything” is strongly embedded in consumer’s mind-sets. However, to solve this charging conundrum battery swapping could be a viable option.

Battery Swapping Infrastructure/ Stations is a place where EV owner’s discharged battery or battery pack can be immediately swapped with a charged one, eliminating delay involved In charging Vehicle’s battery. These stations work as a battery aggregator and has enough clout to participate in market for electrical energy and reserve. BSS maximize its profits by providing services to the system, like voltage support, regulation reserves or energy arbitrage.

The battery swapping model with lease/pay-per-use model may significantly lower the cost of EV and significantly may prove to be a great advantage for public transports such as e-Rickshaw, e-Auto, Busses or fleet operators.

Why Battery Swapping over Conductive or Wireless Charging?

A easy access to Charging infrastructure would remove obstacles regarding limited EV mobility range where swapping stations serves an immediate service between EV owners and Power System, providing benefits to both. Another plus for battery swap is that one done need to leave the car or deal with potentially tangled or dirty cords.

Benefits of BSS can be seen from three perspective, EV owner, Battery Swapping Station and Power System.

1. EV owner perspective: Swapping would allow longer trips, relieving the concern of battery lifetime as BSS operator runs healthy and advanced control strategy for battery charging to avoid sequential damages. The main benefit to EV owners would be no extra cost in upgrading household infrastructure to high power chargers.
2. Battery Swapping Stations: They can minimize there charging cost by proper scheduling of charging process, with the reduction in real estate, as there is no need to access large parking spaces. BSS can look through maximizing there profits by either participating in energy market or provide ancillary services namely, demand response or spinning reserves.
3. Power System: Shifting the load (Charging of batteries) at night/ off-peak hours would result proper demand management. So, from this perspective, BSS can be treated as a large flexible load, where by controlling charging/ discharging of batteries, potential peak demand or overloading, caused by increasing EV penetration, can be flattened.

Roadblocks in Battery Swapping Infrastructure, India

1. Standardization of EV Lithium Ion Battery Packs: Having a standard platform would mean that even the cell manufacturers will opt to manufacture similar cells, thus limiting product development and innovation. One can argue that there might be different power segments for the battery pack, but this would then create a problem with supply and demand and also, possible compatibility issues with vehicles not designed for higher or lower powered battery packs.
2. Commercial viability of Business models: In India, while government is enshewing subsidies, it becomes extremely important to have a very sound business model, to appreciate active industry participation.
3. Battery Pack Ownership

4. Reliability of Leased/Rental Battery Packs: Appearing more specific to India, in which swapping batteries become difficult due to has performances or any potential breach leading towards a serious disaster.

5. Battery Degradation

Major Unique Selling Proposition of Battery Swapping Business in India

Why this USP can work in Indian Demographics?

It is common that individuals with Low income group would never be interested in buying EV, tagged as buying expensive and luxurious products. These individuals would be more interested in fulfilling there basic physiological needs like food, air, water, etc.

Adoption in country would be carried by that twowheeler (2W) fleets and three-wheelers (3Ws) would be the first off the block, followed by intra-city buses, corporate cabs and government fleet. Private cars and commercial vehicles, particularly medium and heavy commercial vehicles (M&HCVs), are likely to take some time for adoption.

So, Battery swapping has it's own critics, but besides the upfront cost of EV, availability of effective and efficient charging infrastructure is one of the biggest factor that determines whether a country's dream of owning a EV would be fulfilled or not where BSS can provide cherished results. Whatever the method we eventually use to charge EV, it will be a welcome break for smelly dirty world of disease-causing liquid fuels.