A reliable battery standard known as the Swappable Battery Motorcycle Consortium (SBMC) has expanded from just four to 21 members.
According to Electrek, the trick to making lightweight electric motorcycles and electric scooters practicable for city residents and renters without a private charging station at home is swappable batteries, which SMBC intends to provide.
In retrospect, the Japanese Big Four, including Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki, revealed in 2019 that they were forming a swappable battery consortium, which was when the notion first emerged. Meanwhile, a second collaboration made up of Honda, Yamaha, KTM, and Piaggio were announced in 2021.
In essence, everyone agreed to utilize the battery that Honda produced for its PCX Electric scooter when SBMC unveiled its first presentation of a co-designed battery standard.
The 21 companies that joined SMBC include AVL, Ciklo, FIVE, Forsee Power, Hioki, Honda, Hyba, JAMA, Kawasaki, KTM, KYMCO, Niu, Piaggio, Polaris, Roki, Samsung, Sinbon, Sumitomo Electric, Suzuki, Swobbee, Vitesco, VeNetWork, and Yamaha.
It is worth noting that a single standardized energy pack for non-motorcycle tasks may be advantageous for some of these businesses, some of whom are makers of two-wheeled electric vehicles. Additionally, some intriguing new signatories are featured among the transportation firms.
NIU‘s CEO Yan Li asserted, “We are dedicated to enhancing access to electric urban mobility by creating common standards for swappable batteries. We believe this technology is key to the adoption of sustainable 2-wheel city solutions by reducing charging times, extending vehicle range, and decreasing cost for end users.”
Meanwhile, it would be strange to see KYMCO give up its time, money, and effort in developing its own internal solution after making significant investments in its IONEX swappable battery technology.
Notably, the unofficial standard for these kinds of swappable batteries is presently held by Gogoro, a Taiwanese electric scooter and swappable battery manufacturer that has rapidly spread throughout Asia and even into a western nation. In fact, more than a million swappable batteries have already been manufactured by the company. With the use of Gogoro batteries, riders change over 300,000 batteries every day.
In order to prevent Gogoro from further growing its lead and becoming the sole battery standard for swappable batteries, SBMC appears to prioritize aiming for the rest of the industry to coalesce around the best alternative that already exists.
Here is a reference to the SBMC’s technical scope for fitting light vehicles.
| Suitable for different vehicle categories and usages – L1e-B, L2e, L3e-Al/A2, L5e, Loe, L7eDrivetrain power – Up to 11kW nominal (-20kWp)Voltage range – Low voltage vehicles (48VUsage range – Commuting, sport, light off-road use: Worldwide usagePortable battery – Weight below 12 kg. battery energy up to 2 kW/hBattery safety – Battery within voltage Class A limits: Not considered ‘dangerous goods’ whilemaintaining cost efficiencyMultiple batteries -Vehicle usage with single or multiple battery connections possible, max 2 inserial and max 8 in parallel configuration |
Source: EVreporter
