Battery swapping policy stalls as cos oppose standardisation

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

battery swapping policy — that sought to make charging electric vehicles (EV) as quick as refuelling conventional vehicles — have stalled following opposition from the industry over interoperability standards mooted in the draft scheme, said people in the know. Now, a highly 'watered down' version of the scheme is at a final consideration stage with the Prime Minister's Office, said a source aware of the government's plans. This, after multiple delays in finalising the policy due to lobbying from the EV industry to remove certain clauses around interoperability in the scheme. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had first mentioned a battery swapping scheme in her budget speech in February 2022 and a draft policy was soon released by the Niti Aayog in April that year.

The draft policy mooted standardised battery dimensions and specifications to be used in vehicles with battery swapping, primarily two- and three-wheelers. This was done to enable EV users to simply swap their depleted batteries with fully charged ones at any swapping station within minutes — regardless of the make of their vehicle or battery. The draft policy also outlined safety requirements, a unique identification number for each battery, recycling and refurbishing of batteries, and a possible subsidy mechanism. However, companies lobbied against the key interoperability proposal of the scheme as they would have had to overhaul existing infrastructure and production-ready prototypes to meet the new standardised specifications. Industry stakeholders that ET spoke with claimed that it was not technically possible to make such standardised batteries as each unit