The discussion around Widespread electric vehicle adoption is inherently linked to charging: Are there more chargers? Will they charge my car fast enough? Are you completely plugged into the static grid?
Billions of dollars have gone into developing fast-charging batteries and batteries that can charge a vehicle in 20 minutes. Few, at least in America, are talking about swapping batteries for cars and trucks.
Enough among the few who lead that charge.
Raised from the ashes of its successful predecessor, Amp has brought battery swapping to San Francisco and will soon introduce the technology to Japan and Madrid with fleet partners like Uber and Ineos. Unlike its predecessor, Amp doesn’t try to deploy battery replacement stations until it knows its customers need to use them.
A year since we last caught up with Ample founder and president John de Souza, the San Francisco-based startup has quietly grown, building new exchange stations and signing on more flight partners around the world.
Meanwhile, the car battery switching technology has reached a level in China. Beijing in 2010 It is throwing its weight behind a handful of companies advancing the technology as part of a broader plan to ensure 25 percent of all cars sold are electric by 2025. It plans to build 24,000 exchange stations across China by 2025. Today there are 1,400.
We caught up with de Souza to discuss the implications of China’s investment in battery swaps. We asked his advice on why fast charging is harder than we think and how hardware startups can scale as they lean.
(Editor’s note: The following interview, part of an ongoing series with founders who are building transportation companies, has been edited for length and clarity.)
You said that Amp is targeting it as its next launch city, and you’re calling from Madrid.
Yes, we are deployed in Madrid as we speak. We are partnering with Repsol to rapidly deploy a wider network. Uber to work with ride-sharing fleet managers; and automobiles (which we haven’t officially announced yet) to provide vehicles with the Ample solution.
From a customer perspective, our partnership focuses on ride sharing, car sharing and last mile delivery.
Battery swapping can be difficult to pull off as it requires some calibration of the battery. The amp features a modular battery swap, meaning you won’t be replacing the entire battery pack. Can you explain why this is important?
There are two aspects to amp module battery swapping. First, modular batteries allow flexibility to fit our packs to vehicles of different sizes and shapes. This means we can change the number of modules to allow for different capacities. It also makes our robotic sites more cost-effective because you run simpler modules than traditional packages.
Secondly, Ample’s patent for modules to adapt to the vehicles electrical behavior means we can work with OEMs without any modifications to the vehicle. We can use the same modules in different vehicles, which makes it easier to introduce new chemistries to cars.
They say Ample batteries are vehicle agnostic, but you still need to work with automakers somehow to make sure they don’t put their own batteries in the vehicle, right?
We work with auto makers to ensure we can buy cars without batteries. As we work closely with them, we get them a replacement battery. They can get their batteries from Samsung, LG or CATL, but we can provide a drop-in replacement battery. So one day you can choose which battery you want to use, just like a customer chooses the tires or seats they want in their car. Our batteries can be exchanged if you keep them. If they put their own, they are not.
