Feb 1, 2022
By: Marcia Sekhose
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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today announced a battery swapping policy for electric vehicles (EVs) in India.
Credit: BCCL
The battery swapping policy will help solve issues like space constraints while setting up charging stations.
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This method lets you replace a depleted battery with a fully charged one for your EV. So you have one battery in the vehicle and the other at the charging station.
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Battery swapping takes very little time and you change one within just 3 minutes as opposed to spending at least 2 hours to charge the battery.
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In addition to a battery swapping policy, interoperability standards for EVs will also be formulated.
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In the EV ecosystem, interoperability refers to vehicles, charging stations, charging networks, and the grid sharing information to communicate effectively.
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The Finance Minister also said that the private sector will be encouraged to develop sustainable and innovative business models for ‘Battery or Energy as a Service’.
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The EV industry has welcomed the initiative of the government to implement battery swapping which is expected to help boost the growth of EVs in India.
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This policy would help benefit companies like Hero Moto which has an agreement with Taiwan-based Gogoro to bring its battery swapping platform in India.
Credit: Gogoro
The government will also promote a shift to use public transport in urban areas along with special mobility zones with zero fossil-fuel policy, and EV vehicles.
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