Shanghai (ZXZC)- The battery swapping service can alleviate the difficulties brought by the construction of charging piles, Xu Heyi, chairman of BAIC Group said in an interview on the sidelines of the two sessions in 2018.

As to the shortage of charging infrastructure, the chairman previously put forward the idea of battery swapping service. In the past several years, BAIC has made striking progress and breakthrough in this technology.

Xu Heyi pointed out that the core of the swapping service lies in the “swapping” and sharing. At the business mode level, the battery swapping means the separation of battery from the vehicle. For example, if consumers buy a new energy vehicle without batteries, they can rent batteries. When batteries run out of electricity, they can change another fully charged battery. All consumers need to pay is just for the electricity. For current products, it only takes 2.5 minutes to swap batteries.

The chairman revealed that BAIC Group has gradually promoted the popularization of new energy vehicles with swapping mode in Beijing, Guangzhou, Lanzhou and Xiamen. “We have made Optimus Prime Plan, under which we will invest RMB 10 billion to build over 3,000 swapping stations in 100 cities nationwide by 2020. The battery electric vehicles with swapping mode can be up to 500,000 units”, the chairman added.