Geely unveils E-Energee battery swapping service; to have 5,000 battery swap stations in China by 2025

Geely Holding subsidiary, Geely Technology Group has unveiled its battery swapping service at the 2021 Wuzhen Internet Conference.

Called E-Energee, the battery swapping service enables drivers of electric vehicles to exchange their vehicle’s battery for a fully charged one within 59 seconds, says Geely. This is facilitated by an automatic registration and payment that allows drivers to drive into the station have the batteries swapped without having to exit their vehicles.

Research into the technology behind the battery swapping service had commenced in 2017 at the Geely Technology Group, and the first E-Energee battery swapping station went online in Chongqing, China in September 2020. Since then, the service has grown to cover ten provinces in China, and the company aims to have 5,000 such battery swapping stations online across the country by 2025.

Geely had first demonstrated battery swapping technology with the Maple 80V, a fully electric version of the Jiaji MPV. At the time, the battery swapping technology was said to conduct battery swaps in 90 seconds at a drive-through station, and the process is also fully automated.

As appealing as the technology is, not least because of its speed and convenience, battery swapping will not be employed for Geely vehicles built on the SEA (Sustainable Experience Arhcitecture) as the automaker will stay with integrated battery technology because the aim was to have the lightest architecture possible depending on vehicle size.

“Geely also studied battery swapping but you are very locked down in terms of dimensions and I don’t think swapping will be really big until we get standards,” said Geely SEA architecture chief engineer Kent Bovellan.

That said, battery swapping for electric vehicles will drastically cut the wait times compared to replenishing an EV’s integrated battery from a charging point, and battery swap stations can be set up safely in any location, especially beneficial for areas where high-voltage infrastructure is not readily available.

Meanwhile, Shanghai-based Nio launched its swappable battery pack last November, and this can be purchased outright or be used by Nio EV drivers via a Battery as a Service (BaaS) subscription plan.

Here, Nio has shown that EV ownership can be cheaper with a battery subscription than without, as customers who buy a Nio car with a BaaS would get 70,000 yuan (RM43,535) off the purchase price and in its place, a monthly fee of 980 yuan (RM610) for the battery subscription. Meanwhile, the same plan with a 100-kWh battery will net a saving of 128,000 yuan (RM79,620) for a monthly fee of 1,480 yuan (RM921).

GALLERY: Geely battery swapping station

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