Imagine you can swap...

In the articles on Mobility in 2050, I’ve explained how we can reach the ultimate goal of a CO2-neutral mobility by 2050. While Part I (1) gave a global overview on how mobility might look like in 2050, in Part II (2) I’ve provided the maths on this vision. In Part III (3), I’ve made clear that this objective can only be reached in 2050, provided we make a tremendous switch in technology right now and implement battery swap as soon as possible. In this 4th and last article in a row, I will clarify the impact battery swap will have on mobility and to what extend our future is dependent on that technological breakthrough.

Why do we need Battery Swap?

One might indeed wonder whether we really need Battery Swap to make that leapfrog and get CO2-neutral mobility by 2050. This 4th article will provide a clear answer to that question.

Let’s first take a moment and look backwards for a while. More than 100 years ago, Thomas Alva Edison built an Electric Car and drove it from Scotland to London “… while making regular stops to charge his battery” as the accompanying article says. Car makers today are offering Electric Cars that still have “… to make regular stops to charge their battery”. So, we’ve made no progress at all during the last 100 years on electric mobility.

“Is this an issue?”, you might wonder. Yes, it is! As we’re living in a free world, where buyers make their buying decision on a – for them at least – straight forward business case, we just observe that the actual BEV-offering, as offered by the OEMs, does not respond at all to the requirements of the user. Each time, one has to buy a new car, the same objections emerge:

• Range: How far can I drive, once my battery is charged?
• Charging Time: How long will I have to stay in front of a charging pole?
• Price: How much do I have to pay more to drive a clean vehicle?

The fact that answering these 3 questions still is an issue is best illustrated by the actual market share of BEV in Europe. Just take a look at the ACEA report "Vehicles in Use in Europe" from January 2021 (4): https://www.acea.be/statistics/tag/category/report-vehicles-in-use

As you can see in this report, compiled at the year-end of 2020, the total market share of full electric vehicles in Europe is … 0,2%. This is not a mistake, but hard reality.

OEMs, Governments and all other instances have brought forward all kind of excuses to explain this poor performance, but the hard reality is that consumers are not pleased by the actual portfolio of electric vehicles as they’re designed and brought forward nowadays.

The hard reality is that consumers are not pleased by the actual portfolio of electric vehicles as they’re designed and brought forward nowadays

Just to mention a few arguments, for which consumers still continue to buy petrol or diesel cars:

• Manipulating electric wires, in order to get the battery charged, is a hassle.
• There are way too much different and incompatible charging systems available
• Payment systems are not aligned at all
• Charging at a charging pole is still time consuming, even at a “Fast Charger”.
• The more OEMs are increasing the battery capacity, in order to cope with the range issue, the more time-consuming charging becomes.
• Range of a BEV is limited to the capacity of the battery. Hence, OEMs increase the on-board battery capacity. Electric Vehicles with 100+ kWh battery capacity on board are no longer an exception.
• As a consequence, the weight of the BEV is increasing as well. Vehicles with a weight of 2.000 kg and more are no longer an exception anymore. As a consequence, these BEVs consume more energy per km. Moreover, there’s no difference in weight between a fully charged and an empty battery. 
• For some type of users, like Police, Ambulance, Car Sharing, Taxi, …, vehicles, that have to spend hours standing in front of a charging pole aren’t an option, since in that case, the business case becomes void.
• People, living on an apartment, do not have an option to charge at home.
• Streets, filled with charging cables along the houses, might inspire to vandalism.
• And what about manipulating charging cables, when bad weather conditions arise, like wind, rain, snow, …

With all these inconveniences, tightly related to the actual BEV-offering, it’s no surprise that the actual market share is only 0,2 % (4). Given that the objective for 2050 is 100 %, it becomes crystal clear that this will be an unrealistic objective as long as the OEMs don’t adapt their strategy and don’t start designing and building attractive BEVs as well, that will attract buyers and charm them to move towards a BEV. 

What do consumers want?

They are willing to buy vehicles, which don’t create range anxiety, can drive 1000+ km/day, are easy and fast to “refuel” and all of this at an affordable purchase price.

In other words, we need vehicles at which the battery:

• Is no longer included within the acquisition cost
• Can be swapped at any time, once the charging level becomes low.

Hence, once battery swap will become mainstream, a target of 100 % Electric Mobility in 2050 becomes a realistic target.

Once battery swap will become mainstream, a target of

100 % Electric Mobility in 2050 becomes a realistic target

Where are we today?

Let’s first take a closer look at where Emission-free mobility is at this very moment.

EV 1.0 – The 1st generation of Electric Vehicles

Conductive Charging

As said earlier, already at the beginning of the 20th Century, we’ve seen Electric Vehicles, which had to stop at a charging spot, in order to take the needed energy on board to cross the next section, by means of electric cables. This is the so-called Conductive Charging method. 

For more than 100 years, there have been hundreds of initiatives to produce successfully this type of electric car. One of the most successful attempts was the EV1 from GM.

Unfortunately, this car was not really in line with the ambition and strategy of the company and ultimately, GM decided to remove the EV1 from the market. The word “remove” has to be taken literally, since the EV1 could only be borrowed from GM and ownership could never been transferred. As a consequence – since all EV1s belonged to GM – GM had the power to decide to recall all these vehicles and to orient them towards the industrial shredder. Take a look at the movie: “Who killed the electric car?” (5), to know more about.

Apart from GM, no one traditional OEM took any initiative to develop a new EV. Instead, they all concentrated their efforts on de ICE cars.

Up until the day, at the beginning of the 21st century, when a man, called Elon Musk, decided to develop his own EV and his own brand: Tesla. Tesla went through very difficult moments in its short history, but now, in the 20s of this century, Tesla is recognized as a successful brand, able to reshape the market. As such, nowadays all OEMs are producing BEVs and/or have several models on the drawing tables.

Up to now, they’re almost all equipped with Conductive Charging and thus are doped with the inconveniences, as set out earlier.

Inductive Charging

To overcome a number of inconveniences, attempts have been made to develop BEVs, that don’t have to use Conductive Charging, but Inductive Charging. As for inductive charging, there is no electric cable involved, this way of charging can happen on 2 different ways:

1.    Static Inductive Charging

Static Inductive Charging takes place when a BEV, equipped with Inductive Charging facilities at the bottom side of the car, stands in a stationary position above an Inductive Charging coil. This coil might be built-in within the floor, or might be a kind of floor mat, with an electric coil built in.

2.    Dynamic Inductive Charging

Dynamic Inductive Charging takes place when a BEV, equipped with Inductive Charging facilities at the bottom side of the car, is driven on a piece of road, which is equipped with electric coils, that transmit electricity from the road to the car.

Both systems haven’t been successful up to now and there are serious doubts on whether this will ever be the case, given the limited throughput capacity and the high infrastructure cost. 

EV 2.0 – The 2nd generation of Electric Vehicles

Battery Swap

We’ve identified some earlier the inconveniences of Conductive Charging and have seen some of these disappearing when moving towards Inductive Charging, but some are here to stay … unless we finally move towards Battery Swap.

Battery Swap not only overcomes the inconveniences, we’ve listed earlier, but there is much more. Up to now, we’ve mainly looked at the consequences for the end-user or driver. As the driver very often also is the buyer, we’ve outlined why the buyer’s business case isn’t a healthy one on EV 1.0 (as well Conductive as Inductive Charging). We will now explain why Battery Swap is a “win-win-win” solution.

All parties are

winners

in this concept

Indeed, all parties are winners in this concept, as well users and/or owners as well as OEMs – although they will first go through a tremendous transformation of their industry, while moving from ICE towards BEV – and Energy utilities and even the Governments, since Emission-free mobility by 2050 is no longer a far-away-dream, but will become a reality.

But, let’s first align the different alternatives, as seen by the end-user and highlight the advantages and inconveniences, as seen by the driver:

Unfortunately, when it comes to Battery Swap, some people – still today – refer to the bad example of Better Place and think, nothing has changed since then.

For those, who’re not familiar with the Better Place saga, we can very briefly summarize it by saying that a person, named Shai Agasi, convinced Renault to jump into an immature project, which had inconveniences as well on technical as on business side. Finally, after what looked as a bright future, Better Place went bankrupt on 26 of May, 2013. No surprise for those, who were some more familiar with the technology and with the business case, but still today, some people have fear, when it comes to battery swap.

Nevertheless, this is the technology of the future and I’ll tell you why.

The way ahead.

As long as the market penetration of BEV is at 0,2 % (4), there is no real issue on the energy grid side. Even at 9,4 %, as we see in Norway, it is still affordable … at least in Norway, where they have enormous buffer capacity with hydro … which is not possible in every country. By the way, Norway is very special, as outlined in Part III (3) of Mobility in 2050.

As long as the market penetration of BEV is at 0,2 % (4), there is no real issue on the energy grid side

But suppose that we all drive electric and that we all have to charge our vehicle simultaneously and … this only with renewable energy … then we’re faced with a major issue … for as long as we charge by a Conductive or Inductive way. Call it Synchronous Charging as with the EV 1.0. In that case, there’s no other option than to move towards Asynchronous Charging, which happens with EV 2.0. Hence, the sooner we make this transition, the better it is. To illustrate this, we’ve compiled following table:

On the top side of the grid, you can recognize all beneficiaries, involved:

• The Governments: all governments, be it local, regional, national or even European
• The Energy utilities:

o  On the Production side, where we see a fast transition towards 100 % renewable energy

o  On the Transport side, where balancing the high voltage grid on an international level is key

o  On the Distribution side, where balancing the low and medium voltage grids on a local level are key

o  Even on the retail side, the consumer will be affected by this transformation

o  Involving Battery Recharging Stations (BRS) within the grids at different level allows to store renewable energy at moments of excess and retrieve it from the batteries at the BRS, when needed.

o  The BRSs not only play a role at peak shaving, but can even play an active role in frequency balancing, but that’s too technical for this paper.

• The battery producers and owners. Here we make a clear distinction between producers and owners:

o  From an economical perspective, one can say: “the more you produce, the better it is”. Provided you can produce with a good profit margin, that’s an economic reality. Obviously, when it comes to mobility, this is a substitution economy, since it replaces the production of Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) and gearboxes, which are needed for the ICE vehicles.

o  For the battery owners, this offers a new opportunity. Some call a battery “the new gold” (6) and indeed, as we evolve towards 100 % renewable energy, buffer capacity will be key and will have a very high value, be it on a natural way with hydro-capacity or on a more artificial way with batteries. Moreover, as now slow charging is a viable option, the life cycle of a battery can be improved significantly, thus improving the business case as well.

• The OEMs are already in the midst of a transition from ICE towards BEV. But instead of producing EV 1.0, they might as soon as possible move towards the next generation, the EV 2.0, in which case they’re paving the way towards the Autonomous Driving Electric Mobility (ADEM), which we expect to become a reality from 2040 onwards, as outlined in parts II (2) and III (3) of Mobility in 2050.
• When it comes to the car owner/user:

o  In the case of a commercial car owner (car sharing, taxi, leasing, fleet owner, …), it is clear that a vehicle, which has to stay immobilized in front of a charging pole, is wasting money at that moment. Economically speaking, it’s a “dead object” during the period of charging. Obviously, with a little bit of “anticipated planning”, one can reduce the lost time to a maximum, but there will always be some idle time. With Battery Swap, when swapping can be executed in less than 2 minutes, a vehicle can be operational during almost 24 h/day and 7 days/week. In that case, the business case looks quite different.

o  As we earlier pointed out, also for the end-user there are many advantages by moving towards battery swap

§ Range anxiety will be removed forever, since driving 1000+ km/day becomes feasible. Depending on the battery capacity of the swappable battery, one has to swap x times during that day and … that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Piece of cake!

§ Charging time and idle time in front of a charging pole doesn’t exist anymore, since charging of batteries will be done within the BRS at moments, when there is excess of renewable energy.

§ Acquisition cost is no longer an issue anymore, since one only invests in the vehicle body, no longer in the very expensive ICE and gearbox, nor in the EV 2.0 battery, since that one belongs to the Battery Swap company.

• Next on our list is the Oil industry. Here again we make distinction between oil producing and oil distribution companies. In some cases, it’s the same company, in others we speak about different companies.

o  As all governments worldwide have taken or are in the process to take decisions to reduce and/or remove greenhouse gases or GHG (CO2, NOx, CH4, …) and to reduce Black Carbon (PM10, PM2.5, …) and even to reduce noise levels, oil producing companies have to transform themselves from polluting towards clean companies. The speed at which they will do so, will depend on the speed we will migrate from ICE-vehicles towards BEVs. No matter whether it is EV 1.0 or EV 2.0, they have to do so. There’s no alternative! It’s called the TINA-paradigm.

o  The oil distribution companies will have to make a transition either, but this one might go a little smoother. Gasoline or petrol stations can, over time install charging poles for EV 1.0 and/or Battery Recharging Stations (BRS) for EV 2.0. It makes a big difference whether vehicles will be immobilized for hours, while charging their vehicle, or only pass by to swap battery and continue their journey. Obviously, in the 2nd case, their infrastructure will be much more economically viable, compared to the 1st case. Hence, their choice between EV 1.0 or EV 2.0 will be straight forward.

• When it comes to Road Side Assistance (RSA), there’s a major difference as well.

o  In case of an EV 1.0, one can imagine that, if one day you happen to be at the highway and your battery is empty, your battery will be charged by a diesel-powered electricity generator, who’s standing next to your car for hours. Is that the “solution of the future”, we’re looking for?

o  Once Battery Swap becomes mainstream, an Emergency Battery Swap Vehicle (EBSV) will come next to your car and replace within minutes your empty battery with a fully charged one, and off you go!

• Next in our table is everything which is related to Safety, hence the indication SAF.

o  In case of an EV 1.0, the battery is part of the body of the vehicle. Once the battery catch fire, the whole vehicle is lost. There’s no alternative than to allow the vehicle to burn down in a controlled way and avoid to get people injured or killed and to avoid collateral damage as well.

o  The EV 2.0 is designed in such a way that, in case of a fatal accident, the battery will be expulsed from the vehicle at the same moment as the airbags. The battery may or may not burn down, but at least she’s outside the vehicle and does no longer create fatal risk for the passengers.

• Then comes the different vehicle segments. We’ve identified 4 segments:

o  B2C or passenger vehicles

o  B2B-1 or Light Utility Vehicles (≤ 3,5 T), which are more and more in use due to the booming e-commerce business.

o  B2B-2 or Heavy Utility Vehicles (> 3,5 T) like trucks, lorries, … even the so-called Road Trains

o  B2B-3 or Busses and Touring Cars

• Last, but not least, we’ve identified the impact electrification and in particular the migration from ICE towards EV 2.0 will have on all citizens at large, whether they’re driving a vehicle or not.

o  When the evolution on mobility improves the quality of the air we breath, this is beneficial for everybody, from new born babies up to grandparents, living in an elderly home.

o  Likewise, when electric mobility contributes to lowering the electricity price, as is the case with EV 2.0, this is beneficial for everybody as well.

On the vertical axis, we’ve identified a number of characteristics, unique for EV 

1. Storage of Renewable Energy in Swap Batteries
2. Peak-shaving at the Energy Grid
3. Redesign of Energy Production and Transport Facilities
4. Conversion of traditional gas stations towards Battery Recharging Stations (BRS)
5. Electric Mobility for everyone
6. Empty battery along the road? Roadside assistance can swap a battery on the spot!
7. Battery technology improves every single day
8. If my car is old, I only buy a new car-body
9. Government will earn excise duties on battery swaps
10. 24/7 Business Models (Taxi, ..., Car Sharing, ..., LSP, ...) become attractive
11. Limited Fire Risk, thanks to the ejection mechanism of the battery
12. An Important step towards a fully automated ZERO Emission mobility model (ADEM)
13. No specific upgrade needed of the existing Energy Distribution Grids
14. No ugly charging poles in our streets
15. Energy onboarding during bad weather conditions

Let’s zoom in a little more …

Now is the moment to dig a little deeper and reveal all details.

Earlier on, we’ve identified, next to the ICE-vehicles, 4 different electric vehicles, based on the way, energy will be taken on board and then clustered them into 1st and 2nd generation:

• EV 1.0

o  Conductive Charging

o  Inductive Charging – Static way of Charging

o  Inductive Charging – Dynamic Charging

• EV 2.0

o  Battery Swap

We will now attribute Smileys at each of them, related to the different differentiators.

1.    Environmental impact

It looks quite straight-forward that Electric Vehicles have a better score than ICE vehicles. Nevertheless, we only attributed 2 smileys to the EV 1.0, for the very simple reason that, once all BEVs are charging at the same time, the grid cannot cope with it and a gas-powered unit will have to be fired up in order to avoid collapse of the grid and black-outs happening.

On the Noise level, we also attributed 2 smileys to the EV 2.0, because the main source of noise for all electric vehicles is coming from the wheels. An ICE has, on top of that, also the engine noise, which is absent with BEVs.

Charging poles at street level are a factor of visual pollution. Hence the 3 red smileys for the CC vehicles. The IC vehicles don’t suffer from this inconvenience and get green smileys, the same way as the S2E vehicles.

And, last but not least, the battery production. It is very often said that BEVs require a lot of precious materials, like Lithium (Li), Cadmium (Cd), Manganese (Mn) and Cobalt (Co) in order to provide the huge battery capacity, needed to equip all BEVs. Nevertheless, there is a huge difference between EV 1.0 and EV 2.0.

• EV 1.0

o  To cope with the range anxiety issue, OEMs increase the battery capacity year on year. Electric Vehicles with 80, 90 and even 100+ kWh battery capacity on board are no longer exceptional. Even at the bottom side of the BEVs, battery capacities of 40 or 45 kWh are an absolute minimum.

o  On top of that, Energy Utilities have to invest massively in static battery capacity in order to cope with the energy demand at moments of peak demand. Normally, this is never considered by people, looking at electric mobility, since this is an energy utilities issue, but one cannot deny that, within the overall equation, this has to be taken into consideration as well.

• EV 2.0

o  BEVs, equipped with Battery Swap capabilities, do not need to have this huge battery capacity on board, since they can easily swap battery when needed. A standardized 30 kWh battery is sufficient.

o  Obviously, as technology and in particular energy density improves over time, we’ll be able to store more energy within the given standardized battery form factor.

o  As such, since a BEV only has to carry a lightweight battery, this vehicle consumes less kWh/km, thus increasing the efficiency considerably.

o  Batteries, while stored within a BRS in order to recharge, are available for energy utilities to perform peak shaving and frequency balancing. Hence, the huge amount of static batteries is no longer needed within this business model.

Taking into consideration all these elements, we conclude that the EV 1.0 model requires at least double, if not threefold of precious metals compared to the EV 2.0 model.

2.    The automotive industry

Let’s take a closer look at the automotive industry. Without any doubt, the ICE vehicles offer the most profitable business case, with the internal combustion engine and gearbox as most expensive and most profitable components of these vehicles. Nevertheless, governments worldwide are determined to push mobility towards a zero-emission model in order to cope with major ecological imperatives, since mobility is accountable for about 1/3rd of global exhaust of GHGs and Black Carbon. 

We will see new business emerge like battery producers and e-axle manufacturers. Maybe, some OEMs will extend their production capacity to produce batteries and e-axles, although most of them are forging partnerships with specialists, in order to leapfrog and avoid development investments and iterations.

3.    Energy Utilities

Within a holistic view, it’s very important to include all players involved. If not, these might become losers and will jeopardize the whole concept. Hence, it is of utmost importance to analyze their business case as well.

Within a holistic view, it’s very important to include all players involved. If not, these might become losers and will jeopardize the whole concept.

For the energy utilities, the ICE vehicle is “the actual situation” in which they are by no means involved. Hence the yellow smileys. But when it comes to electric mobility, they become key players, whether they like it or not.

And here, clearly, one can see the major difference between EV 1.0 and EV 2.0. For the time being, with market shares of 0,2 % (4), there isn’t a big issue yet, but … this market share will be growing very fast within the coming years. That’s for sure! And then, it’s important to make the right choices. Therefore, it’s of utmost importance to take the right decisions as soon as possible in order to avoid wrong investments and wasted money.

All investments in conductive and inductive charging might be useful for a short period of time, but cannot last for long.

As this table clearly indicates, all investments in conductive and inductive charging might be useful for a short period of time, but cannot last for long. In order to cope with peak shaving, utilities will be forced to make major investments within their grids. They will have to invest in massive static battery pools and in some cases, like within older city centers, they will have to upgrade the local grid. Don’t underestimate the effort, needed to upgrade a 220 V grid towards a 400 V grid. This means opening streets and replacing cables. Apart from the burden, it entails for the neighborhood, it also entails a huge cost. 

Given this, Utilities are invited to team up with Battery Swap companies in order to redirect investments into swappable batteries, rather than in static battery pools and road works to upgrade old-fashion grids.

4.    Car Owners

We make a clear distinction between Car Owners and Car Users, which will be analyzed later on. Here, we’re looking at large fleet owners, like owners of Car Sharing business, Taxi companies and also “always available” vehicle owners.

They all have the same issue: the vehicle must be available for operational use at any time. If not, the business case becomes unhealthy or, in case of public services like police or ambulance, people’s live might be in danger when the required vehicle is unavailable, due to … energy charging at a charging pole.

They all have the same issue:

the vehicle must be available for operational use at any time 

Dynamic Inductive Charging might be part of the solution, but we’re afraid that the infrastructure to charge while driving will be way too costly and thus only available at a very limited part of the road grid, in which case there will be little to no interest to move towards that kind of mobility model.

5.    The Governments

Here comes the tricky part of the equitation. Governments of all kind – local, regional, national, international – have a unique position in that sense that they will guide the industry in which direction to go. But, at the same time, they have to be aware of the consequences it entails.

Let’s first look at the European Green Deal. Governments are determined to make the European Green Deal successful. As a consequence, they have the ICE definitely condemned and pushed towards the exit. All OEMs, whether they like it or not, have to obey and take measures to phase out the ICE. There is no alternative.

Actually, the OEMs are considering different options, but in the longer run, it’s clear that electric mobility will prevail and will be the single most likely option to make the European Green Deal successful. Since, in the case of EV 1.0, utilities have to fire up from time to time gas-powered units, which are producing GHGs, this exhaust has to be compensated somewhere else, while with EV 2.0, this isn’t the case. Hence the 2, resp. 3 smileys.

When it comes to subsidies, it’s clear that EV 1.0 can only be successful when there is a huge subsidy program to accompany the roll-out, since buyers at first see the bunch of inconveniences, are impressed by the accompanying price tag and finally prefer to stay with the cheaper and more convenient ICE vehicles. When the Chinese government decided recently to reduce the volume of subsidies, one could see a dramatic drop in buying behavior of EV 1.0 vehicles. The overall business case of the EV 2.0 model, including the energy utilities, clearly clarifies that it can work without subsidies. At first because people will be charmed by the absence of traditional inconveniences and also because huge investments on utility side can be redirected towards electric mobility.

And, lastly, we also take a look at taxes and excise duties. For Belgium, the total amount is about 20 billion € per annum. This is a huge amount of money and no single government can afford to reduce this figure. Hence, once petrol and diesel cars will disappear, there have to be new ways to recollect that same amount coming from mobility. As it is of utmost importance to maintain a proportional way to collect this money – who drives most km will pay most – the best way is to include this taxes and excises within the energy cost. With petrol and diesel, this is easy to perform. With EV 1.0, there is a huge issue. How to tax drivers, who charge at home with their own energy, coming from their own PV installation? How to tax vehicles, that charge at the enterprise with green energy, coming from the PV installation at the rooftop of the company building?

EV 2.0 allows to avoid this kind of discussion, since battery swap only happens at the BRS.

6.    The Car Drivers

Last, but for sure not least, comes the car driver itself.

As said earlier, the car driver is still obsessed by the traditional 3 inhibitors: range, charging time and cost. On top of that, but of lesser importance, are the ease of use and the “what if I’m on the road and forgot to look up the energy level of the battery in my car?”

It becomes crystal clear that EV 2.0 will be embraced by car drivers of all kind, once they understand the big advantages it brings to them.

As these are the traditional inconveniences of Conductive Charging, it’s of no surprise that here you see all red bad smileys. Inductive charging might cope with some to some extent, but will not solve all issues at once. Dynamic inductive charging might go some further in bringing a solution, but, as already outlined earlier, might fail due to a way too high investment cost on the infrastructure side.

It becomes crystal clear that EV 2.0 will be embraced by car drivers of all kind, once they understand the big advantages it brings to them.

7.    Summary

When bringing all these elements together within one big overview, it immediately becomes clear where are most of the red smileys and where are most of the green smileys.

There’s no doubt at all that EV 2.0 offers by far the most chances to get a 100 % clean and environment friendly mobility by 2050.

So, let’s get started…

Once the conclusions are clear, we only have to get started into the right direction and this ...

the sooner the better!

Once the conclusions are clear, we only have to get started into the right direction and this, the sooner the better! Therefore, it is necessary to take a systemic view on it. In other words, all parties involved have to be identified and invited to participate:

• Governments
• EV Manufacturers
• Energy Utilities
• Citizens, Users, Owners, Drivers, …

They all have to team up and concentrate their effort to make it happen, the sooner the better. Hence, this paper is a “call to action”, rather than an analysis of a market situation.

We need to have on-board so-called First Movers of all kind, people who aren’t afraid of making a mistake and are willing to setup trials

Redirecting the evolution will need courage, since the outcome is unsure, like in any business. Nevertheless, with entrepreneurs with the right business spirit, we can make it.

We need to have on-board so-called First Movers of all kind, people who aren’t afraid of making a mistake and are willing to setup trials. We need:

• Car Manufacturers – OEMs
• Battery and e-Axle Manufacturers
• Renewable Energy Producers
• Energy Grid Owners
• Owners of fuel retail stations è exploitation of BRSs
• Government (Local, Regional, Federal, European)
• Financial Institutions
• Private Impact Investors

Once we have all these people on board, we can write history and prepare a bright and brilliant future.

Is this wishful thinking?

To some, this may look like unrealistic and really wishful thinking, but … when John F. Kennedy on 12 of September 1962 said: “We choose to go to the moon before the end of this decade”, most people considered this also as wishful thinking. Nevertheless, on 21 of July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first “men on the moon”. Mission accomplished.

We choose to go to the moon before the end of this decade

John F. Kennedy, 1962-09-12

Hence, we’re convinced that we must be able to setup a good working battery swap concept by the end of this decade, undoubtedly preparing the successful accomplishment of the EU Green Deal by 2050.

Summary

This is the 4th and last part of the series of reports on how to create zero-emission mobility by 2050. By looking very carefully to all ins and outs and taking a systemic view on the whole equation, it becomes crystal clear that there isn’t but one single option left to achieve this goal: by moving as fast as possible towards battery swap.

Hence our title of this 4th part:

Imaging you can swap …

Jacques De Kegel, ir.

Ninove, 2021-03-02

ACRONYMS

MaaS Mobility as a Service

BaaS Battery as a Service

ADEM Autonomous Driving Electric Mobility

BEV Battery Electric Vehicle

ICE Internal Combustion Engine

EV 1.0 Electric Vehicle – 1st Generation

EV 2.0 Electric Vehicle – 2nd Generation

S2E Swap2drivE, a patented battery swap solution

RSA Road Side Assistance

EBSV Emergency Battery Swap Vehicle

PV Photo-Voltaic (= solar) panels

B2C Passenger Vehicles (B2C = Business to Consumer)

B2B Business to Business

B2B-1 Light Utility Vehicles (≤ 3,5 T)

B2B-2 Heavy Utility Vehicles (> 3,5 T)

B2B-3 Busses and Touring Cars

CC Conductive Charging (= charging at an energy pole with a cable)

IC Inductive Charging (as well Static as Dynamic)

BRS Battery Recharging Station (= Battery Swap Station & Renewable Energy Storage)

NOTES

(1)  Mobility in 2050 – part I – Jacques De Kegel – 2020-12-07 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mobility-2050-jacques-de-kegel/

(2)  Mobility in 2050 – part II – Jacques De Kegel – 2021-01-20 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mobility-2050-part-2-jacques-de-kegel/

(3)  Mobility in 2050 – part III – Jacques De Kegel – 2021-02-05 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mobility-2050-part-iii-jacques-de-kegel/

(4)  Figures, coming from ACEA Report “Vehicles in Use in Europe” – January 2021

https://www.acea.be/uploads/publications/report-vehicles-in-use-europe-january-2021.pdf

(5)  Who killed the electric car? https://youtu.be/bTHsTCBxDM8

(6)  De Nieuwe Goldrush – Trends 2020-09-17 – Wolfgang Riepl https://trends.knack.be/economie/bedrijven/hoe-de-europese-batterijenmarkt-zich-voorbereidt-op-de-doorbraak-van-de-elektrische-wagen/article-longread-1642217.html#

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