Battery swapping revs up urban micro-mobility, says SUN Mobility's Amit Rao

“It is very heartening to see people using the words (battery) swapping and (battery) charging in the same sentence,” said Amit Rao, Head and VP Strategy Planning and Marketing at SUN Mobility, at the Inner Circle Bengaluru event organised by Autocar Professional and AutoDesk.  

He was making the case for battery swapping. One of the advantages of battery swapping, according to Rao, is that the batteries are interoperable across all vehicle segments. “We get more out of the same asset. We draw lesser resources from the ecosystem to cater to the same amount of vehicle population. 

Our estimate says that with just 60% of the resources that you would otherwise use for fixed battery vehicles you are able to do swapping for the same amount. We are responsible for our batteries so we make sure that it runs more, there are more cycles.” While battery swapping may not make sense in a rural area, in urban clusters where e-three- and e-two- wheeler density is high, swapping makes good cost economics.