Battery-Swapping Boom Hinges on Deliveries, Rickshaws

Electric motorcycles, scooters and rickshaws are slowly beginning to replace gas-guzzling vehicles in India, making the world's most populous nation a potential key growth market for charging technologies like battery swapping.

- Bloomberg

Startups, fuel retailers including Indian Oil Corp. and billionaire Mukesh Ambani, the nation's richest person, have for years discussed ambitions of building out major networks of swapping stations—which allow users to quickly exchange expired batteries for charged ones.

Now, growth in sales of battery-powered two-and-three-wheelers, favored by tuk-tuk operators, gig workers, and for quick-commerce delivery fleets, is finally giving the sector some momentum. Project developers are betting commercial drivers will opt for the speed of switching a depleted pack, rather than risk lost earnings while waiting for conventional recharging. Battery-powered three-wheelers accounted for 57% of all new sales of those vehicles last year, data compiled by BloombergNEF shows. Electric sales were 6% of the two-wheeler category in 2024, up from less than 1% in 2020.