EV battery swapping stations – how is the development trend

From 2023 to May, the sales volume of New Year’s energy vehicles has reached 2.94 million. Regarding China’s new energy market in 2023, relevant associations predict that the annual sales of new energy vehicles will total 9 million units, a year-on-year increase of 35%.

As for charging piles, an important supporting infrastructure for new energy vehicles, by the end of 2022, the number of charging piles will reach 5.21 million, with a vehicle-to-pile ratio of 2.5. However, the vehicle-to-pile ratio of public charging piles is only 7.3, and the vehicle-to-pile ratio of DC piles is 17.2.

At present, when the infrastructure is not perfect, the problem of charging and supplementing energy for new energy vehicles is still one of the important issues that users care about. At the same time, under the premise of the short recharging time of traditional gasoline vehicles in the past, whether it is AC slow charging, DC fast charging or super charging piles, their charging time is far from meeting user expectations.

Especially for those commercial vehicles that pursue efficiency, time is money. Moreover, large vehicles such as heavy trucks and long-distance buses have large power batteries and require longer charging time. It is obviously inappropriate to use charging to supplement energy.

Just imagine, if a tourist group travels across provinces in a pure electric bus, the battery runs out on the way, and then they wait in the service area for several hours to recharge, everyone will complain. Under this background of supply and demand, the idea of EV battery swapping stations was born.

In fact, as early as 2011, China Power Grid determined the smart charging and swapping operation mode of “mainly swapping batteries, supplemented by plug-in charging, centralized charging, and unified distribution”. However, with the release in 2012, China has established a charging-oriented development direction.

Application scenarios of battery swap mode

As mentioned in the background above, the battery swap mode mainly solves the pain points of energy replenishment efficiency of new energy vehicles. For those passenger car users, most of their car time and routes are relatively fixed, and the vehicles are replenished through the low electricity price at night.

Occasional travel does not have absolute urgency in terms of time. Therefore, for the energy replenishment needs of such users, it is only necessary to ensure that it is convenient for charging to greatly improve satisfaction. Therefore, improving the infrastructure construction of charging piles can well cover this kind of demand.

But it’s different for commercial vehicles. On the one hand, they can’t spend too much time on charging because they can’t wait to split the time to use for higher efficiency. On the other hand, in order to improve efficiency, it is necessary to keep the vehicle in a driving state as much as possible, which is much higher than that of a domestic passenger car in terms of the daily mileage of the vehicle.

Therefore, the demand for battery charging frequency is much higher than that of domestic passenger cars. For such users, EV battery swapping stations can solve their pain points very well.

From the above simple analysis, it can be seen that in the application scenario of battery swap station, operational vehicles such as heavy trucks and online car-hailing vehicles are more suitable for EV battery swapping stations this technology.

Development status of EV battery swapping stations

Heavy truck and construction machinery

According to the data, a total of 190 battery swap models will be promoted in 2021, accounting for 7.8% of the new energy vehicle promotion catalogue, and a total of 342 battery swap models will be promoted in 2022. According to relevant data, the sales volume of new energy heavy trucks in 2022 will total 25,000 units, accounting for 3.8% of the total sales volume of heavy trucks.

In December of the same year, the total sales volume of heavy trucks was 54,000, of which 6,165 were new energy heavy trucks, with a penetration rate of 11.4%, and about 3,349 new energy heavy trucks were replaced, accounting for 54% of new energy EV battery swapping stations heavy trucks.

Driven by the policy, the electrification and new energy of heavy trucks are imperative. In order to catch up with this trend, many companies have started the layout of replacing heavy trucks. At the same time, in order to ensure the operation of their own products and at the same time gain a share in the EV battery swapping stations operation market, OEMs have established battery swap companies one after another.

At the same time, under the promotion of energy saving and emission reduction, off-road vehicles such as construction machinery have also started the road of electrification and new energy. In application scenarios such as container loading and unloading, site transfer, and stacking operations in various ports, products such as loaders, stackers, and furnace dismantlers are also frequently used in quick EV battery swapping stations.

Passenger car

In the field of passenger cars, in addition to the well-known Weilai, car companies such as Geely and FAW are also deploying battery-swapping models.

As the No. 1 company in top 10 ev battery swapping companies in China, NIO plans to build more than 2,300 power swapping stations by the end of 2023. At the same time, CATL, a global power battery production giant, also released the battery replacement service brand EVOGO by its wholly-owned subsidiary on January 18, 2023.

EV battery swapping stations technology

For EV battery swapping stations technology, how to quickly disassemble the power battery safely and effectively, and at the same time install the power battery reliably and stably is the main consideration. With the continuous application and development of this technology, the current focus is mainly on the efficiency, safety, reliability and durability of electrical connections of EV battery swapping stations.

Due to the difference in battery location and structure between passenger cars and commercial vehicles, the removal/installation methods of power batteries are also different. Common battery swapping technologies for passenger cars include: chassis swapping, sub-box swapping, and side swapping, while heavy-duty trucks use single-side point swapping, top-hanging swapping, and double-side swapping.

Pain points of battery swap mode

The different methods of battery swap system technology are precisely due to the different technical forms, so it is difficult to unify the industry standards. At the same time, the specifications, structures, sizes, and technologies of power batteries are also different, and it is difficult for platform equipment to be unified and compatible.

This has caused great difficulty in the promotion of EV battery swapping stations, and the required cost has also greatly increased. However, the Chinese government is also promoting the construction of battery swapping standards, and I believe this situation will change in the near future.

On the other hand, the profit model of battery swapping for commercial vehicles such as heavy trucks and that of passenger cars is also different for battery swapping operators. Nowadays, the battery swap operation of commercial heavy-duty trucks has a relatively single model and route, and parameters such as power battery specifications are relatively uniform.

Its battery swap application scenarios are highly adaptable and easy to form scale effects. Operators already have a considerable profit model through exploration, while the economics of EV battery swapping stations for passenger cars is not so optimistic. In addition, the initial construction cost of the power station is relatively high. If it cannot be scaled up, its profit cycle will be very long.

Conclusion

For EV battery swapping stations, the most commonly heard estimate is the chassis swapping in the field of passenger cars. As for the other two battery replacement methods, little is known about them due to their low market share. But no matter what kind of battery replacement method, the premise is that the car and battery are separated.

In addition, EV battery swapping stations can use V2G technology to act as a virtual power grid due to the role of peak shaving and valley filling, which is beneficial to energy storage. However, for the energy storage industry, in addition to battery swapping stations, there is also a model of photovoltaic + energy storage + smart grid + charging piles. This kind of solar storage network charging may become the main development direction in the future.