Battery swapping policy to level the playing field for operators

What is the News?

Niti Aayog will hold pre-draft stakeholder consultations to invite feedback from industry participants on the government’s upcoming electric vehicle (EV) battery swapping policy.

What is Battery Swapping?

Click Here to read about it

What will be the focus of the Battery Swapping Policy?

The Policy will focus on creating a comprehensive framework including regulatory operational and technical elements to incentivize battery swapping.

Initially, it will focus on battery swap services for three-wheeled auto-rickshaws and two-wheelers such as electric scooters and motorcycles.

EV owners may also get incentives of up to 20% on the subscription or lease cost of the battery.

Moreover, as part of the policy, NITI Aayog will work with the Bureau of Indian Standards and the Department of Science and Technology(DST) to develop technical standards for batteries.

What are the demands of the energy service providers from the Government?

Firstly, the Government needs to balance standardization and innovation to ensure that there is room for technologies and business models to evolve in this sector.

Secondly, the battery swapping space has to be ironed out of anomalies such as higher GST on separate batteries (18% versus 5% for EVs).

Thirdly, the Government should extend FAME-II subsidies to battery swapping operators.

Source: This post is based on the article “Battery swapping policy to level the playing field for operators” published in Livemint on 17th Feb 2022.