Battery Swapping Policy To Be Introduced By Centre

Union Finance Minister announced in her 2022 Budget speech today announced that a ‘Battery Swapping Policy’ will be put in place to encourage installation of battery stations, in a bid to improve India’s electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem.

“For setting up battery stations at scale, a battery swapping policy will be brought out and interoperability standards will be formulated,” Sitharaman said.
The government is looking to foster further efficiency in the EV ecosystem and the battery swapping stations are being proposed considering space constraints in urban areas.

In order to boost the efficiency of India’s growing EV ecosystem, “the private sector will be encouraged to develop sustainable and innovative business models for battery and energy as a service.”

But battery swapping will not work for long-range vehicles with the current battery technology, While conventional EV charging requires the vehicle to be plugged to a charger for a period of time, battery swapping does not require an EV to be stationary for more than a brief period of time.

With no wait time, charging stations can be installed even in congested areas of India’s most populous cities as vehicles will not have to wait one after another to charge their batteries.

Two-wheelers with swappable batteries will cost less to own, as the buyer will only pay for the vehicle and not the battery pack. The charging solution provider will levy a subscription charge in order for a person to make use of the swappable batteries.

Furthermore, Sitharaman also said the government would promote a shift to the use of public transport in urban areas. Also, the Centre plans to create special mobility zones where a ‘zero fossil fuel policy’ will be in place.