India’s top oil firm IOC on Friday launched a battery swapping facility for electric vehicles (EVs) at its petrol pumps, offering to replace discharged batteries with fully charged ones in just a couple of minutes.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will begin with a pilot of battery swapping at one of its outlets in Chandigarh and gradually scale it up to 20 stations, company chairman Sanjiv Singh said at the launch.
Battery-swapping technology offers the best alternative to slow charging and helps the drivers make optimum use of the operational hours, he said adding the battery swapping model is initially targeted at the commercial vehicles such as electric autos, rickshaws and electric two-wheelers and EVs that are either factory fitted or retrofitted.
