India is currently the biggest market for 2 wheelers - over 50,000 2 wheelers are sold every day and it makes up the bulk of India's auto sales. Of the 100 million 2 wheelers on the road today, there are currently 500,000 2W EVs in India.
At the same time, current macroeconomic trends are bringing a push for electric mobility around the world driven by the need to reduce emissions and the possibility of ensuring energy security by reducing imports of fossil fuels. Further, EVs around the world have become economically viable as lithium ion batteries have fallen by over 75% in the last 5 years and are expected to fall further.
In India, given the need to reduce emissions and our fuel import bill, stakeholders in the ecosystem such as policymakers and OEMs our looking to push for an all-electric future. Specifically, with the support, the market for 2W EVs in India is poised for exponential growth and is expected to reach 200 million vehicles by 2030.
Currently, mass adoption of electric mobility has been hindered primarily by problems of range anxiety, long charging times, high upfront costs of batteries and 2W consumer behavior. By addressing these issues through its swapping infrastructure, my favorite problem was to drive the mass adoption of 2W EVs in the Indian market.
Range Anxiety: It is a phenomenon where the user has the fear of “running out” of electric charge during the course of travel. This has largely been driven by the lack of ubiquitous charging facilities especially in a country like India where such facilities are virtually absent.
Long Charging Time: Due to the chemistry of batteries and technological limitations of outlet power, batteries can take anywhere between 2 to 8 hours to charge for a 60 kms commute. As a result, recharging cannot be easily done “on-the-go” like in the case of petrol.
High Cost of the Battery: While battery costs keep dropping, they still contribute significantly to the total cost of the electric vehicle especially in the case of 2 wheelers.
Consumer Behavior: Specifically, in the 2/3 W space in India, the consumer is highly price conscious and a high upfront cost combined with the inconvenience of charging can deter demand for 2/3 W EVs. Moreover, the typical 2/3 W EV user lives in apartments or shared housing with limited parking space that makes it difficult to set up charging points. The mass adoption of electric vehicles is an elephant problem. This can be addressed through the following: 1) Battery swapping model, 2) Battery charging model. My plan is to further the battery swapping model.
The Target Market for Battery swapping
The target market for my solution will have the following characteristics:
- City Dwellers who ride 2 wheelers
- Younger people between 18-35 yrs who commute distances 20-30 kms each way
- Users that are sensitive to initial costs (prefer to defer upfront payments) and running costs of their 2W EVs
- Users that own smartphone and are comfortable with apps and online payments
- Consumers who are environmentally conscious and would switch to Zero Emission Vehicles with the right ecosystem
The Battery Swap Station
I aim to address issues hindering mass adoptions of electric 2 wheelers by building low-cost, scalable IoT infrastructure combined with a battery-as-a-service model. I would set up a low-cost, internet connected smart battery swap stations at convenient locations in urban areas and the charging status of the housed batteries would be accessible over a mobile app. Swapping out a discharged battery for a charged one at these locations can happen in a matter of a few minutes making it extremely convenient to recharge a 2W EV battery. The battery swap station would also be agnostic to battery type and chemistry with programmable charging algorithms. This would give OEMs the freedom to design the battery as per their requirements.
Looks like prototype (developed on SolidWorks)
Proposed details of the battery swapping system:
The swap station would house and charge batteries ready to be swapped out. The battery swap station has the following features:
Ø Each swap station would house and charge 20 batteries
Ø An IoT layer built on the battery swap station would integrate into an app-based ecosystem notifying users on the current state of the batteries
Ø The IoT layer would also enable data collection on the charging and discharging parameters of the batteries.
Ø The swap station would have programmable charging algorithms giving OEMs the freedom to design their own batteries where the charging protocols can be individually programmed
Ø It is also ergonomically designed keeping in mind safety while charging and the profile of the operator (eg. At the petrol station) who will be helping in the swapping process.
Impact of the system:
Before: There is no system for electric vehicle battery swapping. The below comic shares the common issues faced by electric scooter owners in the existing set-up. Some of their common problems include problems of range anxiety, long charging times, high upfront costs of batteries and 2W consumer behavior.
Mr.Avinash Dhumal, a techie is worried
After: After the mass adoption of the battery swapping model, it will become easier for the customer as the battery swapping model addresses their major pain points as customers can swap out batteries when the run out of charge (hypothetically making the range infinite), zero charging time (a maximum of 2 minutes of swapping time) and convenience of booking through an application and payment options.
Mr.Avinash Dhumal seems to be in a much better mood today!
One Day experiment:
I plan to conduct a one-day experiment to validate the following hypothesis: “Battery swapping improves the convenience of electric vehicle users and helps foster the mass adaption of EV’s”, with the following variables
Variable 1:Battery swapping eliminates the charging time and improves the range of EVs
Variable 2:Customers purchase more electric vehicles
Pre-experiment requirement: I would carry out the following research before the experiment:
1) Location with maximum electric 2-wheelers in Bangalore
2) Charging infrastructure in that area
3) Peak demand in the particular area
4) Any potential partners who can provide the batteries
5) Reach out to a few prospective customers to spread the information about the experiment
Experiment: Before building the actual swapping system, I would like to simulate the battery swapping station by deploying 10 batteries at the designated location and swapping these batteries throughout the day, while charging the dis-charged ones. Having connected with a few potential customers, I plan to swap out their battery during the morning, charge it and swap it back in the evening. This way, the battery ownership issue will be addressed while providing a good simulation of operating the battery swapping unit. Having determined the location to carry out the experiment, the following would be the set-up:
1) Rent 10 Lithium Ion batteries for one day from one of the partners
3) Engage with customers and swap out the drained battery and swap in the charged battery
5) Re-charge the drained battery at the area
6) Re-swap this battery with the customer
The cost of this experiment are as follows:
1) Number of batteries swapped per day (Units swapped)
2) Willingness of the customer to pay for the battery swapping (Amount collected in INR)
3) Pin-pointed difficulties in swapping of batteries and charging them (ergonomics and design)
4) Individual time required for charging the Li-ion Batteries (Time for full charge in minutes)
5) Ease of swapping the batteries (actual time taken to swap batteries in minutes)
I can conclude that my experiment was successful if I am able to achieve the following:
1) Swap at least 10 batteries within the day
2) Customers are willing to pay Rs 50 per swap of batteries plus charging costs
3) No major difficulties faced by skilled labour, with them able to swap batteries in 2 minutes
Closing thoughts .....
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