Hurdles seen in mass adoption of EV battery swapping technology

India has promised to unveil a new policy to promote battery swapping in electric vehicles, but industry insiders and academic experts said the practice of substituting freshly-charged batteries with discharged ones faces many hurdles before it might see many takers.

For starters, manufacturers are innovating with different kinds of battery technologies and, in turn, working with varying cell chemistries. Swapping batteries with such differences will cause issues.

“In a tropical country like India, a lot of good work needs to happen in thermal management and battery chemistry if swappable batteries are to be considered as a viable option,” said Sagar Mitra, an IIT Bombay professor who is researching lithium-ion cells that power electric vehicles.