About one in four passenger cars sold in China last year was electric. But the rate is much lower for commercial trucks, which are the bigger culprits for pollution and emission. One obstacle for trucks to switch to new energy is recharging time. So China is building more battery swap stations. Chen Mengfei reports from one in the northeastern city of Dalian.
CHEN MENGFEI Dalian "Even the fastest EV charging stations today can not match the speed of simply filling the petrol tanks. But this can."
When the lightweight truck parks at the swapping station, a mechanical tray approaches it from behind, unlocking the embedded battery beneath the vehicle.
The tray slides out the battery and places it onto the charging shelves, then installs a new battery, reversing its previous actions.
CHEN MENGFEI Dalian "The process takes about five minutes, and costs about 90 yuan for the car to run another 200 kilometers. The same mileage using petrol would cost about 400 kuai. Even including the price of renting these batteries, it's still on 1/3 of the price of using petrol."
SUN FENG General Manager, Dalian City Construction Investment Power Industry Integration Co. "This center axis sliding battery swap system we built is the first of its kind in China. And it has acquired more than 70 technology patents."
CHEN MENGFEI Dalian "Of course battery-swap technology, and their advantages are not new. Tesla had hyped it then abandoned it. One Chinese carmaker is building them at a loss. So what's this company's game plan?"
SUN FENG General Manager, Dalian City Construction Investment, Power Industry Integration Co. "In simple terms, the niche market we've chosen is for urban short-distance vehicles that need to be on the road constantly every day. Business vehicles, referred to as 'B-end vehicles.' It's not just a desire to swap batteries. It's a necessity for them to do so."
The company says each station has the capacity to do 200 swaps a day, and at 47 swaps the operation will break even.
This is the first battery swap station for lightweight trucks in northeastern China and if this business model proves successful, it could be applied to many more cities.
ZHANG TIANFU Deputy General Manager, Dalian City Construction Investment Group Co. "By 2025, the Dalian City Construction Investment Group will actively promote the completion of 100 commercial power swap stations, promote more than 20,000 swappable commercial EVs, to be used in the city's logistics, taxi, and other public service sectors. We aim to expand beyond Dalian to the whole Northeast region as well as the rest of the nation, to comprehensively build the Dalian model of zero-carbon development."
Industry professionals say swapping and charging will be complementary to each other in the EV ecosystem.
In 2020, swapping first appeared in the government's work report, and its development is expected to be vital in facilitating the transition of country's public transportation to environmentally friendly options.
Chen Mengfei, CGTN, Dalian city, Liaoning Province.
