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Power Swap overview
Power Swap is a fully automatic modular battery swap system for electric vehicles. With Power Swap you can “refuel” your electric vehicle in 3 minutes – providing uninterrupted e-mobility. Power Swap leverages the electric vehicle market potential beyond early adopters and facilitates sales growth while enabling a faster transition to a climate-neutral transport infrastructure.
- Swap of batteries in 3 minutes
- No cord needed
- Swap service in Drive-Thru
- Fully autonomous solution for autonomous vehicles
Background
In search of a long-term, sustainable energy solution for passenger and goods transport, the electric car is the modern alternative. However, electric vehicles have significant obstacles to overcome; they are marked by high purchase prices, unreasonably long charging times, range ‘anxiety’ and lack of an adequate “refueling” infrastructure. The electric mobility market has a long way to go before a full-scale deployment can be adopted.
Our mission is to revolutionize the way we use electric vehicles by eliminating the remaining obstacles related to long charging times. With Power Swap, time-consuming charging and range anxiety is eliminated, leveraging the EV market potential beyond early adopters, facilitating the sales growth and enabling a faster transition to a climate neutral transport infrastructure.
New state of the art
Power Swap is state of the art for the young EV market. The system will replace a discharged battery with a fully charged one in 3 minutes – providing uninterrupted e-mobility. Our unique solution is based on a compact, mechanical unit instead of building-like swap stations. Our solution swaps EV batteries horizontally, from the side of the EV, instead of from underneath, reducing the complexity of the system. The Power Swap unit requires only 12 m2 and can easily be installed on existing petrol stations, parking lots or other public spaces. The positive effect is a drastically reduced infrastructure cost, compared to installing a broad network of charging poles, and thereby provide an attractive “fueling” economy for the motorists, as well as for the equipment owners.
Power Swap is a game changer that will boost the EV market expansion.
Benefits
- Fast swapping
The battery is swapped in less than three minutes, faster than fueling a petrol car. The vehicle is not blocked from usage during charging as charging takes places in the battery storage unit, saving both time and resources.
- Less expensive cars
Electric vehicles can be sold without batteries, which are, which instead can be provided through a leasing agreement, reducing the investment cost drastically which makes them even less expensive than petrol or diesel cars.
- Drive-Thru service
Battery swapping is made in true Drive-Thru fashion. The swap is initiated with the app and the entire process can be monitored from within the car. No need to step out if the weather is bad or leave your child or pet unattended.
- Reduced grid stress
Less stress is put on the grid and the batteries as more time can be used for charging in the storage. Battery charging can be prioritized at off-peak hours to minimize peak loads and the storage unit can store renewables.
- Efficient infrastructure
An infrastructure based on Power Swap’s battery swap units can be established faster and at 1/10th of the cost compared to a huge number of public charging poles.
- Sustainable
Power Swap’s system can harness renewable energy sources such as solar-, wind- and hydropower. This will enable a sustainable zero-emission profit source for retailers who can take advantage of the potential in electricity sales.
Infrastructure
The general demand for electric energy is increasing and the challenges to provide the grid with enough power is becoming increasingly difficult. Even in developed first world countries, such as Sweden, the electric grids are reaching their limits. The current infrastructure will not be able to support such a transition. In order to meet the needs for electric power and to create a sustainable infrastructure for the EV revolution, a new green alternative is needed – one that is not based on installing hundreds of thousands of high-power charging poles.
By removing the discharged batteries from the vehicle, they can be charged harmoniously in the BSS, reducing peak loads on the grid while playing the role of renewable energy storage. This has the potential to ease the grid stress significantly. Further, as the entire battery pool will be controlled, connected and easily accessed, it can be used for grid balancing services and peak shaving according to need.
Renewable energy
Power Swap’s system will create a sustainable zero-emission profit source for energy and fuel retailers who can take advantage of the potential lying in electricity sales from renewable energy sources (such as solar-, wind- and hydropower) to EV drivers. This is in line with their search for new sustainable business models. Further, while stored in the storage unit, the swappable battery packs will not only be charged, but can also be used as external energy storage and for grid balancing services.
How it works
Swapping batteries with Power Swap is done in complete Drive-Thru. The swap is initiated with a click in the Power Swap app. The machine takes care of the rest.
Enter
Locate a Powerswap unit and enter the swap lane next to the machine
Open app
Open the AutoEnergy One app and authenticate with your personal code or fingerprint
Initiate swap
Start the swap procedure with a click of the finger within the app
Exit
Once the swap is complete a green light appears and the driver can exit the station
Comparison to cord charging
| Powerswap | Cord charging | |
|---|---|---|
| Charging time | < 3 min | 30 - 720 min |
| Grid stress | Limited | Full stress |
| Price | ~ 20-30 % less expensive | Full price |
| Battery degredation | Limited as more time can be used for charging | Full degredation |
| Weight efficiency | Battery weight depending on need | Vehicle carries heavy battery at all times |
Batteries
Power Swap batteries are prismatic by design, which is the most universal and cost-efficient design that enables robotic processing with low complexity. The system can handle different sizes of batteries, currently from 18 kWh to 35 kWh. Power Swap’s battery design is open source for any suppliers, which will open up for competition. The specifications provided are dimensions, the electrical contact design, the battery management system(BMS) and the performances needed from any manufacturer.
OEMs will get more flexibility when designing new car models. By installing a small central battery in production and giving the new car owners the choice to pick up one or two more batteries, depending on their needs, battery degradation will be reduced. This will also reduce consumption (kWh/km) as well as the price for the car.
Implementation
Most OEMs build cars with larger fixed batteries. Power Swap uses the available open space underneath or on top of the bottom plate to locate a compartment for one or two batteries. The method to get the required under the bottom plate is to raise the body of the vehicle in relation to the wheels. A method already in use by many OEMs when developing new cross country models which requires limited redesign of the vehicle platform.
Power Swap is intended for large scale implementation in serial production. As already a limited number of swap units can serve big numbers of cars (100 units – 40 000 cars) with regular swap service, OEMs are attracted by adding battery swap functions.
The added cost for implementing Power Swap in large scale manufacturing is zero, as the saving when selling an EV with smaller battery is many times bigger. The actual manufacturing cost for having a sheet metal encapsulted space under the platform is in the range 150-300 EUR per car. An insignificant cost in comparison.
Market segments
The Power Swap system is suited for installation at any public location, such as parking lots and gas stations. It can also serve multiple vehicles with different sizes of batteries. The long term goal is to establish Power Swap as a standard for battery swapping in EV production. However, there are multiple use cases including, but not limited to:
There is a big upcoming challenge for fleet operators going electric and trying their best to reduce carbon footprints without constraints. For these companies time is money and no time can be spared for charging. Power Swap’s battery swap technology enables continuous operations without needing to wait for charging batteries. Furthermore, EV investments can be reduced as fewer vehicles are required to cover the business’ needs and due to the fact that the EVs can be bought without batteries.
Airport infrastructe is in need for support to electrify their fleet operations for daily airport missions. Attention is focused on the battery swapping related requirements. The aim is to design an infrastructure that can satisfy the battery request while minimizing the investment and operational fleet cost.
There is an enormous value in cost and time efficiency by swapping instead of charging the battery for bus and trucks all-round the world. With our battery swapping technology, the bus and the truck companies can buy fewer buses while still maintaining 100% uptime.
FAQ
Media constantly reports about new sales records and relative sales increases for electric vehicles, which gives the impression that an electrification is just around the corner. However, the actual numbers does not substantiate this. Electric vehicles have many obstacles to overcome before a full scale adoption can be acquired. As long as these obstacles remain there will always be people who choose fossil vehicles. In Sweden, only 4.8% (Q3 2023) of all cars are pure battery electric cars! A new radical solution, that is not based on charging poles, is required to achieve our climate goals.
This is not true. One might expect that advancements in charging technology will reduce charging times to zero but this contradicts the laws of physics. Charging will always require time. In addition – as charging times decrease (higher power output), stress on the grids increase. This is an accelerating problem and the grids are already reaching their limits. This is at a time when electric cars constitute only a small fraction of the total car park (4,8 % Q3 2023 in Sweden).
The cost for battery swap functionality is around €0,15 per 10 km.
You start by slowly approaching the swap unit, and opening your Power Swap app. Stop when you see the red light. The cloud based system will connect to the app, where you will be able to initiate and monitor the entire procedure. The machine’s optical search system thereafter identifies the battery hatch, extracts the discharged battery and places it in the battery storage, where it is charged. Simultaneously, the system transports a new, fully charged battery to the swap unit, which then feeds it into the car. When the hatch has closed, and once the payment is complete in the app, a green light will signal that you are ready to drive away. A summary of the swap is presented in the app, and a receipt is sent.
Don’t worry about that! The Power Swap system allows for a lot of flexibility. It ensures access to the latest battery technology, while removing batteries that are deemed too old or unusable. Further, the driver leases the battery and pays only for the kWh difference at each swap.
Yes, but never like this … Power Swap outperforms all available solutions, delivering a new state-of-the-art to the market. Our unique solution is based on a compact, mechanical unit that requires only 12 m2, instead of building-like swap stations which require up to 200 m2. Also, it swaps the EV batteries from the side of the EV instead of from underneath, reducing the complexity and eliminating the need for cleaning the feeder. A Power Swap unit costs below €200.000 and can be installed at existing petrol stations or in other public areas. Previous attempts have orbited around stations that cost around €1.4M each, and require human supervision on site.
With Power Swap electric cars can be sold without batteries and instead leased.This will reduce the purchase cost with up to 30%.
The driver can then choose to pick up one or two batteries depending on his or her need.
Yes – Power Swap provides an automatic charging solution for autonomous cars.
