and an electric rickshaw
Honda’s battery sharing service will enable rickshaw drivers to stop by at the nearest battery swapping stations being set up in the city and swap a MPP e: with a low remaining charge for a fully-charged MPP e:. The use of this service will significantly reduce driver concern about running out of batteries as well as the risk of losing business opportunities with customers while waiting for rickshaw batteries to be charged.
Governments all across the world are encouraging automakers to replace internal combustion engines with electrically driven power trains, citing the triple threat of CO2 emissions, air pollution, and unpredictable oil prices. India is no exception, with a booming economy and the world’s worst air. The Indian government is pursuing “a number of initiatives to promote the development and usage of electric vehicles,” including tax breaks for producers and subsidies for buyers of electric vehicles, such as electric three-wheelers and e-rickshaws.
On India’s congested roadways, there are approximately 8 million three-wheelers, the bulk of which are powered by engines that use environmentally unfriendly compressed natural gas or lead-acid batteries. Honda Motor Co., expecting to take advantage of federal and local government subsidies, is launching a new mobile battery sharing service to capitalize on the shift to electric vehicles. Honda Power Pack Energy India Private Ltd. was incorporated on December 2 in Bengaluru (Bangalore), southern India, with plans to begin operations in the first half of next year. The new company will also collaborate with e-rickshaw OEMs and provide technical help for integrating its Indian-made batteries into these vehicles.
Professor Anita Ho-Baillie, Deputy Director of the University of Sydney’s Nano Institute in Sydney, Australia, notes that transportation is still responsible for 24% of the world’s direct CO2 emissions through fuel burning. “As a result, we must take advantage of every opportunity to electrify automobiles.” “Electric motors are quieter and have fewer moving parts than combustion engines,” she says, “while electric motors are quieter and have fewer moving parts than combustion engines.”
Honda released its first transportable battery pack in 2017 and began testing it in motorcycles and scooters in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan in 2019. In India, testing began in February with 30 e-rickshaws covering 200,000 kilometers. “We learned a lot about the challenges that come with turning it into a business,” says Yoshihiro Nakajima, the project’s general manager.
The three major drawbacks were, predictably, the long time it took to charge the batteries, the small driving range they provided, and the hefty cost. The lithium-ion Mobile Power Pack (MPP) battery, in conjunction with the Mobile Power Pack Exchanger, is Honda’s solution to the first two issues. The Exchanger is made up of 12 charged MPP batteries housed in segregated charging chambers, allowing a drained battery to be replaced with a fully charged replacement in seconds. In a single installation, a maximum of seven exchangers can be connected.
A Honda e-rickshaw is powered by four mobile power pack batteries. Each pack is 29.8 x 17.7 x 15.6 cm in size, weighs little more than 10 kg, and has handles. According to Nakajima, two of the four batteries can be replaced in one minute or less. Nakajima has even given video proof to support his allegation. With a subscriber ID card, the e-rickshaw driver taps the exchanger, and the Exchanger specifies which two charged batteries should be removed. The drained batteries are then inserted into the Exchanger for recharging and hooked into a neighboring car. The method is carried over again for the remaining two MPPs.
According to Ho-Baillie, the strategy benefits both users and providers. “It saves time and makes the job of the drivers considerably easier because they don’t have to wait for the batteries to charge.” Suppliers, on the other hand, have more freedom in terms of where they establish their charging infrastructures thanks to portable battery packs.”
MPP e, Honda’s most recent battery, is rated at 50.3 volts, has a capacity of 1.3 kilowatt-hours, and takes 5 hours to charge. The battery is designed to dissipate heat and prevent discharge damage in high temperatures, which is ideal for Asian tropical regions. Under normal operating conditions, it is also resistant to water, vibration, and shock. Sensors in a built-in control unit monitor internal conditions and log usage patterns for the Exchanger to evaluate.
“The cylindrical cells utilized in the battery pack are the same as those frequently used in electrical items like personal computers,” Nakajima explains. “Because their efficiency improves year after year, we can reap the benefits of cell development while keeping the battery pack’s outward shape same, preserving backward compatibility.”
An e-rickshaw can only travel 60 kilometers before the batteries need to be replaced, necessitating multiple trips to charging stations throughout the day. Honda will equip drivers with a smart phone app that displays a map displaying the locations of all charging stations in the vicinity, as well as the number of charged batteries accessible at each station, to decrease the toll taken by what could otherwise be a tiring chore. Nakajima claims that by initially confining the service to Bengaluru and subsequently Mumbai, they will be able to assure that there will be enough stations for the service to run well from the outset. He says that they discovered that having three stations within a 5-kilometer radius met operational requirements during the earlier testing period.
A freestanding charging station with a 24-battery capacity is exhibited adjacent to a three-wheeled motorized rickshaw that will be powered. E-rickshaw parked next to the prototype of the Mobile Power Pack Exchanger.
To address the problem of excessive cost, Honda points out that the MPP’s specs are compliant with the United Nations’ safety standard UN R136. And, in order to encourage its widespread usage and lower costs through economies of scale, Honda has assisted in the formation of two consortia: one for the Japanese market, with members Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki, and the other for the European market, with members KTM, Piaggio, and Yamaha.
The company is also looking at ways to increase the usage of its battery pack, such as in small construction machines, in households as backup power for electric appliances, and in the civil engineering and construction industries by building battery-sharing systems.
