Battery swapping is a technology that could solve one key barrier for EV adoption: consumers’ range anxiety and the long waiting time for battery charging. Wouldn’t you feel more assured on a weekend trip if you knew you could stop at a swap station and replace depleted battery packs with fully charged ones in five minutes? But this isn’t easy to do, as Tesla and Better Place’s past failures. In China, however, battery swapping has been a reality for a couple of years. How did Chinese companies like Nio make it work with 2,300 swapping stations nationwide? What can companies outside China learn from the Chinese experience?
This is just anecdotal, but as someone who both drives and cycles in the UK, I’d say it’s city dependent. I live in Leeds, go to uni in Leeds and work in Huddersfield. I cycle to uni, cycle to the train station and drive to work (when I can’t get a train for whatever reason). Leeds is getting there, albeit slowly but it’s getting alot better for cyclists. I like the electric bicycle scheme so I can cycle to the station and just leave the bike there. although it shouldn’t be more expensive than getting a bus.