Battery swapping is now at the core of EV growth drive. The government itself is set to come out with the battery swapping policy that is expected to establish common standards for companies for ease of use. Private companies too are doing their bit to mainstream battery swapping technology.
The Bengaluru-based Sun Mobility, in which the German engineering company Bosch has invested, is one of the pioneers in the country in battery swapping.
In line with its expansion, Sun Mobility today announced the launch of its battery-swapping network for electric vehicles in Mumbai, Maharashtra, in collaboration with Amazon India. The first set of stations will be located at Amazon's sites in Mumbai and Pune, and in all Sun Mobility plans to deploy over 2000 battery swapping points across Maharashtra by 2025.
Earlier this year, Amazon and Sun Mobility worked together to expand the deployment of EVs integrated with battery swapping technology for delivery fleet operations. Amazon, for its part, has made a commitment to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040.
Sun Mobility and Amazon have been working on deploying electric vehicles for last-mile delivery, and setting up Sun Mobility operated swapping points for the same at Amazon sites. Currently, there are 200+ vehicles deployed using Sun Mobility's swap solutions for Amazon's delivery operations across Delhi-NCR and Bangalore, covering 12,500+ daily kilometers, and clocking 1,250+ daily swaps.
Several Swap Points are also being commissioned at different Amazon sites across Mumbai, Pune, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad.
Sun Mobility plans
Aaditya Thackeray, Maharashtra Minister of Environment & Climate Change, said: "today's announcement of Sun Mobility launching their Battery Swapping operations with Amazon in Maharashtra is yet another step towards achieving our goal of clean mobility in the state."
Abhinav Singh, Director – Customer Fulfilment, Supply Chain and Global Specialty Fulfilment, Amazon India said, "In line with our climate pledge, we made a commitment to sustainably build a fleet of 10,000 EVs in our transportation network by 2025. Our collaboration with Sun Mobility is yet another step in the direction of building this fleet and enabling it with industry-leading battery swap technology."
Sun Mobility has strategic partnership with Indian Oil, Amazon, and OEMs like Piaggio, Omega Seiki, Hero Electric and Greaves.
Sun Mobility plans to set up over 2000 Swap Point across Maharashtra by 2025 supporting over 2,00,000 electric two and three-wheelers and expects to clock over 3,00,000 swaps per day. This infrastructure is expected to create 3000+ direct employment opportunities and support over 2,00,000 self-employed/fleet-employed EV users.
The EV operations supported by Sun Mobility Swap PointTM network are expected to reduce vehicular CO2 emissions in the state, by 3,00,000 tons per annum. Out of this expansion, Sun Mobility plans to deploy over 100 swap stations in Mumbai itself and followed by Pune in this financial year (FY22-23). This network will support over 4000 EVs (2W and 3W for goods and passengers) in these two cities using Sun Mobility's battery swapping technology.
