Honda Turns EV Bike Charging Into A Swap Meet With New Changeable Battery Packs

Honda is taking a new approach to charging its electric motorcycles by introducing a charging station that allows riders to swap out whole batteries.

 
The first ‘Honda Power Pack Exchanger e:’ has just launched in Tokyo and was part of a joint venture with Gachaco, a battery-sharing service formed by Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Kawasaki. This initiative brings Honda closer to its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

These charging units consist of large locker-type structures that house multiple charging packs and keep them charged up for riders to pick one up. In addition, it has an energy supply to keep it running in the event of a power outage or natural disaster.
 
Riders looking to juice up their bikes must enter their details into the unit before it can loan any out. It will then use an LED light to display which battery can be used.

What might be its most helpful attribute is that it reduces the time needed to wait around for your vehicle to charge, as all it would take is a simple exchange before you ride down the road again.

Before this, Honda had also released a similar setup in India to bring swappable batteries to three-wheeled taxis.
 
Honda is, however, not the first to introduce such a system, as Taiwan has introduced its Gogoro network of charging packs that have now spread across the island. It has also expanded to places such as Israel. However, Honda has thus far only mentioned that it will be “widely used both in Japan and overseas.”
 
 
 
[via Electrek and The Driven, images via Honda]