Carmaking Tycoon Calls for More Government Support for NEV Battery Swapping

What’s new: On the eve of China’s “Two Sessions,” the head of the nation’s biggest private carmaker has called for more to be done to support electric-vehicle battery swapping.

Li Shufu, chairman of automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. Ltd., suggested that the government should deepen its collaboration with related parties to accelerate the construction of battery-swapping stations.

Every year, China’s most famous entrepreneurs are invited to provide suggestions for China’s future development in advance of the annual meetings of the country’s top legislative and political advisory bodies, though there is no guarantee those proposals will make it into law.

In a proposal submitted on Tuesday, Li, who is also a delegate to the National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislature, called for extra efforts to promote the interoperability of swappable batteries made by different producers.

Li also called on the government to further promote the use of electric vehicles that include battery-swapping technology and to streamline its approvals procedure for the construction of battery-swapping stations.

The background: Battery swapping is touted as a more efficient way of filling up an electric car as it takes only minutes to replace a depleted battery with a fully charged one. This is seen as a potential solution to address the traditional weakness of electric cars — their limited range on a single battery charge and the inconvenience of waiting for a battery to recharge.

In 2020, the Chinese government listed battery-swapping stations as a part of its massive plan to build “new infrastructure,” which refers to high-tech infrastructure projects related to emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and industrial internet.

In January this year, Geely and Lifan Technology Group Co. Ltd. formed a joint venture which will make electric cars, including some equipped with swappable batteries, according to an exchange filing.

Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)

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