Ample opens 5 EV battery replacement stations for Uber Bay Area drivers

A San Francisco-based startup called Ample wants to swap out electric vehicle batteries in the United States, throwing a history of space failure.

When electric vehicles gained ground in the early 2010s, Tesla and a start-up called Better Space promised all their customers that they would have the convenient option to change the battery.

“We hope that’s what convinces people in the end that electric cars are the future!” Musk said, gathering the crowd for a brilliant demonstration in 2013, before sending them to enjoy a party. At that demonstration, Musk said that the battery of a Tesla Model S could be replaced in about 90 seconds.

But both companies failed to make the trade commercially viable – Better Place closed in May 2013, despite raising $ 850 million in venture capital, and in June 2015, Musk claimed that customers weren’t even interested in changing their batteries.

Meanwhile, electric vehicle companies have improved their battery and charging station technology so that their cars can travel several miles on a single charge, and owners can spend less time connected to charging stations when they don’t. they were loaded overnight at home or at hotels.

But Ample thinks it’s the right time to try again.

Ample now operates five battery replacement stations in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially for Uber drivers. Participating drivers with accepted electric vehicles can replace a used battery with a fully charged one in less than 10 minutes. At launch, Ample accepts the Nissan Leaf – which is the main electric vehicle used by Uber drivers and some Kia electric vehicles, but does not support Teslas or many other popular EV models. At this time, the stations have a maximum capacity of 90 cars per day.

Finally, Ample hopes to make the exchange an option for all electric vehicles.

Even though EV batteries have improved over the last decade, Ample believes the exchange will be popular with fleet leaders, delivery, service and drivers. They record hundreds of miles a day and do not want to wear out their batteries by charging them quickly with every change, explained Ample founder and CEO Khaled Hassounah.

Hassounah said his company’s approach is technically distinct from previous efforts.

The company has spent about seven years developing robotics that can remove used battery modules from a car’s battery pack and replace them with fully powered modules in less than 10 minutes. Ample can only replace a few modules in a package or all of them, depending on how long the battery has been drained and how far it needs to go before returning home for an overnight recharge. In the past, companies trying to replace batteries only changed the entire package, not individual modules in them.

Drivers can sit in the car or get out and stretch their legs while the shift is complete. The company is striving to get time for a swap of less than 5 minutes this year.

Large battery replacement stations are designed to be installed quickly along a route – they are prefabricated and assembled wherever they are desired, but do not require complex construction or authorization. They only take up about two parking spaces.

Like most emerging electric vehicle companies, Ample is also looking to reduce the environmental impact of power generation for the attack of electric vehicles in and beyond the United States.

“With a kind of continuous battery update, a 10-year-old car can drive up to the newest model released this year,” he said.

Hassounah explained: “Electricity should not be a difficult decision … But it should be cheaper and simpler, because we still do not compete with gas.”

By removing and charging discharged batteries at peak times or by using electricity from renewable energy sources to charge them before replacement, Ample can help fleets achieve environmental goals and spend less on electricity.

The co-founders also said that the exchange should allow used electric vehicles to stay on the road, working perfectly longer, than to turn into electronic waste.

To date, the company has raised $ 68 million in risk finance, led by the risk arm of a fossil fuel company, Shell Ventures, which has been joined by Repsol Energy Ventures and ENEOS Innovation Partners. faces disruption, while governments promote the wider adoption of electric vehicles. Moore Transportation and Mobility Investors Strategic Investors and Hemi Ventures have also invested in Ample.

Longtime electric vehicle researcher and auto writer John Voelcker says any effort to change batteries in North America will face justified skepticism.

“Battery exchange has massive challenges in terms of capital requirements,” he said. “Like the exchange of bicycles, it is not evenly distributed. It may make sense to have stops along a certain route, but the demand may increase around travel, as during Thanksgiving. You’ll have to move heavy batteries from one place to another to make this work. ”

Scott Case, CEO of Recurrent, a Seattle-based start-up that measures the health of an electric vehicle battery, said: “It’s definitely a professional thing that you could upgrade your battery over time without paying for a full one. nine. But there are some risks that are kind of low-tech if you take the batteries out of your vehicle over and over again, such as dealing with dirt and grime on the road that can get into your system. “

Ample says it has designed this, in part by including a battery monitoring system on each replaceable module, which can warn a driver if there is a problem and can only deactivate the affected module until the car can come in instead.

Hassounah and de Souza know they have doubts. But the CEO said: “We are making a major transition, a third of human energy consumption is moving from one form to another. And every time we make this kind of change, we have to go back and rethink things. ” For Ample, that means reviewing a good idea that didn’t work, but probably should have.

The company is not completely alone. A high-tech EV manufacturer, Nio, has managed to launch a battery replacement service for its customers in China. NIO shares have been trading up more than 1,000% in the last twelve months, even after a recent withdrawal amid broader market sales.