Battery swapping is taking off in China — and it could help rescue the EV revolution in the US

Battery swapping, which sees dead EV batteries replaced with fully charged ones in a process that can take less than five minutes, might provide a solution - and it's an approach being used by one of Tesla's biggest Chinese rivals. "What we find, is that more users will buy or lease cars with the 75 kilowatt hours battery instead of this 100 kilowatt hours battery because the price is lower. When they go on long-distance journeys, like going back to their hometown, they can upgrade to a long-distance battery in one of our swap stations," he added. Nio's battery swap stations - around the size of a small car wash - are unlikely to appear on US roads anytime soon, with Chinese automakers largely shut out from the US market thanks to high tariffs. He pointed out that the most powerful plug-in battery chargers still take 20 minutes to charge an EV up to 80%, with many battery swap stations able to swap in a fully charged battery under five. "Battery swapping is not a light innovation. It's a heavy innovation because battery swap is closely connected with the vehicle design and the sales model," said Dr Shen. The San Francisco-based firm has developed battery swap stations that can swap in a fully charged battery in five minutes, which the company says can be adjusted to work with any EV, regardless of battery type. Ample, which in the future plans to charge users a battery subscription fee to use its swap stations, has battery swap stations operating in Spain, Japan, and California, where it has worked mainly with fleet providers such as Uber.