Battery swapping is a promising technology for the EV industry that offers many benefits, including shorter charging times, increased driving range, and cost-effectiveness for fleets and commercial EVs. This technology allows drivers of electric vehicles to replace their dead batteries with fully charged ones within minutes.
Instead of sitting plugged in for hours at a public charging station, the driver brings the car to the platform, and depleted modules are automatically removed and replaced with new modules in just five minutes.
Ample has officially announced a partnership with Mitsubishi to introduce modular battery swapping in electric trucks for last-mile delivery.
San Francisco-based battery swap startup Ample’s original battery swap technology design would take 10 minutes. Still, in May, Ample revealed that a second-generation swap station replaced an electric vehicle battery in five minutes.
However, the technology is currently being used on a small scale for ride-hailing vehicles in San Francisco and Madrid.
The partnership will see Mitsubishi’s latest light-duty electric truck Fuso ”eCanter” will be equipped with Ample’s modular battery swapping technology with initial deployment in the Japanese market.
Ample’s battery swap technology will soon see Japan’s first converted eCanter trucks. It will be ready to fully charge after just five minutes.
The partnership with Mitsubishi works with Ample’s Japanese energy company Eneos to deploy swapping infrastructure for fleets.
The Fuso eCanter electric truck is expected to provide a range between 62-200 miles to extend that range for other driving profiles.
According to Ample’s blog post, the initial rollout of the battery-swappable model will begin in Japan this winter with the new Fuso eCanter.
Both Ample and Mitsubishi Fuso are committed to sustainability, with Mitsubishi Fuso aiming to achieve an utterly carbon-neutral product portfolio in Japan by 2039.
