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What If, Instead of Charging the Batteries of Your Electric Car, You Could Swap Them When They Are Drained? This Is the Proposal from CAES, a Subsidiary of CATL, That Is Developing a Battery Swapping System for Electric Cars More Efficient than Spending Hours Waiting for a Charge
Choco-SEB is the name of the chocolate bar-shaped batteries created by CAES, a subsidiary of the Chinese CATL, one of the largest suppliers of batteries for electric cars in the world. The tech giant seeks to solve one of the biggest challenges of electric cars, the autonomy issue, not by recharging low-energy batteries, but by quickly swapping modules at specialized stations.
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Just One Minute to Swap the Batteries of an Electric Car
The company even promises to replace one drained module with a fully charged one in less than a minute, allowing recovery of up to 200 km of range for an electric car in just 60 seconds.
Companies operating in the electric vehicle sector have already understood that range is among the main obstacles to expanding the technology among most consumers, considering that there is a lot of resistance to using fully electric models, especially regarding longer trips.
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The new European Renault Clio travels 1,450 km without stopping to refuel thanks to the Eco-G 120 engine, which combines two tanks, one for gasoline and the other for LPG.
As a result, vehicle manufacturers and even tech companies are entering the race to find a faster and more efficient way to fuel combustion cars at gas stations.
Get to Know the Project Better
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Illustration of Choco-SEB (Electric Block for Swapping) – reproduction – CAES/CATL -
Illustration of Choco-SEB (Electric Block for Swapping) – reproduction – CAES/CATL -
Illustration of Choco-SEB (Electric Block for Swapping) – reproduction – CAES/CATL
The Chinese company CATL is one of those companies. The giant claims that it is already possible to replace a 26.5 kWh battery module in just 60 seconds. That is half the capacity of the batteries of an electric car like the Renault Zoe E-tech, for example.
It’s faster than filling up 25% or a quarter of a tank, and enough to cover about 200 km, according to the battery manufacturer. However, the service cost has not yet been addressed. Each customer can rent up to three battery modules for their electric car. According to the company, the new batteries are flexible, small, minimalist, and have a high energy density.
The solution, named Evogo, consists of battery swapping stations made up of blocks or modules. To simplify, an app connects customers to the stations. The best part is that CAES batteries are compatible with 80% of BEV-type batteries offered in the global market, including models that will be launched in the next ten years.
Almost Instant Battery Swapping May Arrive in the Chinese Market by the End of This Year
The capacity of the swapping stations will be 48 modular cells, each taking up about three parking spaces. The components can be used in passenger cars and even in commercial vehicles.
The company did not provide details about the logistics of the replacement process nor how the customer should proceed after using all the range, as it involves renting the batteries. Chen Weifeng, the manager of CAES, only stated that the company plans to launch the solution initially in ten Chinese cities, but did not specify which they will be.
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