Budget 2022: Not charging stations, EV battery swapping system coming; what it means

tech.hindustantimes.com:

In an attempt to promote cleaner transport, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced Centre’s plans to implement a battery swapping policy for electric vehicles (EV) during her Budget 2022 speech. Alongside battery swapping measures, India will also focus on formulating interoperability standards to both improve the adoption of EV as well as improving the industry’s efficiency. Presenting her fourth Union Budget, Sitharaman also highlighted the govt's plans to come up with special mobility zones for EV. Explaining the reason behind taking the battery-swapping route instead of establishing charging stations, she said “Considering the constraints for space in urban areas for setting up charging stations at scale, a battery-swapping policy will be brought out and interoperability standards will be formulated”.

This announcement showcases the momentum the EV industry has created in recent years. With technology advancements, electric vehicles are finally able to match the performance of its fuel-based counterparts minus the pollution risk. As such they offer a great alternative to decline the existing pollution problem of India. But the efficiency needs to be improved and the Finance Minister asserted the need for the private sector to come together and develop “sustainable and innovative business models for battery or energy as a service”.

India’s move to use battery-swapping instead of charging stations in order to refuel EVs is not a novel concept. It has been used by many countries and businesses in the past, including Elon Musk’s Tesla. The process basically includes changing the battery once it is empty and replacing it with a full battery instead of charging it again and reusing. But this idea is not widespread. At