Tokyo project aims to scale up battery swapping for electric trucks

• Deployment of 5-minute battery swaps could support hundreds of commercial EVs
• Ample says it’s a straightforward retrofit, switching to its own battery packs
• Solution is less demanding on the grid than fast-charging stations

California-based startup Ample is looking to deploy its battery-swapping tech with fleets of electric delivery trucks in Tokyo.

Ample opened its first Japanese battery swapping stations in early 2024 in Kyoto, but this latest deployment looks to scale things up considerably. In a press release published Wednesday, Ample said it would build a network of stations in Tokyo, each supporting over 100 vehicles. It’s not being billed as a pilot program, so the network could have an open-ended lifespan.

Vehicles will be provided by Mitsubishi, and by the Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, a separate corporate entity owned by Daimler Trucks that focuses on commercial vehicles. The latter’s box trucks are a common sight on local delivery routes in the U.S.

Mitsubishi Fuso eCanter EV swapping batteries

More accessible EV charging is part of how Tokyo plans to achieve a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030, the release noted. Battery swapping manages to bypass a hurdle that fast-charging stations also share—demanding higher loads from the grid, in locations where it might not be available. The solution is drawing a lower, constant load, to be charging up spent packs. 

The battery modules being used by Ample use its own NMC battery modules, the company told Green Car Reports, and it’s continuing to design its packs as drop-in replacements that do allow liquid cooling and don’t require significant changes to vehicles. Since the packs are slowly charged as part of the model, they also don’t face the high-rate fast-charging, which otherwise represent the greatest cooling challenge for batteries. 

Since its emergence in 2021, Ample has worked mostly with fleets, claiming that it can save time for drivers who could potentially spend 25% of their work week at charging stations, due largely to the lack of reliable overnight charging.

Ample 2nd generation battery swapping station

Ample’s hardware depends on common battery modules that can retrofitted to different vehicles, something that was initially demonstrated with the Nissan Leaf, followed by the announcement of the first Mitsubishi Fuso eCanter electric truck deployments in 2023. That same year, Ample unveiled a second-generation battery swapping system that cut swap times to five minutes. It hasn’t pivoted entirely away from passenger vehicles either and is currently testing a pilot fleet of 100 Fiat 500e EVs with the system.

Ample is one of the few companies with a serious vision for battery swapping outside of China, where Nio claims to have built thousands of swapping stations for its EVs along major highway corridors. The automaker is partnering with battery supplier CATL to further grow the swapping station network, while lobbying for national standards in China that would make it easier for other brands to join.