Yamaha and Honda Join Battery Swap

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Yamaha Motor and Honda Motor have agreed with the European firms KTM and Piaggio to begin a “Swappable Batteries Consortium for Motorcycles and Light Electric Vehicles.”

Swappable batteries development is intended to secure a greener future. The technique has been implemented in India and some European countries. In India, battery swapping is already highly successful, with the market expected to reach US$6.1 million by 2030.

The technology is seeing a faster adoption among two- and three-wheelers. With battery swapping, bikes and scooters are able to be charged on the spot without waiting. In the past, such light vehicles often had to be transported to charging facilities via combustion trucks.

The technology is a more convenient alternative to traditional charging stations which can take between two to six hours for a full charge. It takes about ninety seconds to swap a battery.

The batteries are exposed rather than internal allowing for constant monitoring and easier upkeep.

Battery swapping also lowers costs of electric transportation. Typically the most expensive element of a vehicle is the battery. With swapping, the batteries are owned by energy operators rather than the vehicle owner. Lower costs will allow more people to make the switch to clean transportation.

Yamaha and Honda, along with Italian vehicle manufacturer Piaggio and Austria’s KTM, believe in the promise of battery swapping as a strategy to facilitate the widespread use of electric vehicles.

The consortium is focusing on defining international standards in battery swapping among L category vehicles. such as mopeds, motorcycles, tricycles, and quadricycles. They intend to do this by closely working with stakeholders and international regulators.

According to Yamaha Executive Officer Takuya Kinoshita, “The technical specs and standards that currently differ by regional characteristics or the state of the industry in different markets will be unified.”
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