- Kyle Chua
LTA Launches Battery Swapping System Trials for Electric Motorcycles
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) on Friday, 2 September, announced it'll be conducting trials of a battery swapping system that would allow electric motorcycle riders to swap out their depleted batteries for fully charged ones in designated stations.
The two trials are scheduled to start in the next few weeks and are each expected to run for 12 months, as Channel News Asia (CNA) reports. Both will focus on deliveries, with one trial being run by Taiwan-based electric scooter company Gogoro and the other by Singapore electric motorcycle specialist MO Batteries.
Gogoro will reportedly be working with food delivery and logistics companies via a partnership with investment holding company Jardine Cycle & Carriage (JC&C). Meanwhile, MO Batteries will conduct its pilots using its electric motorcycles and experiment with a combination of centralised charging and battery swap and storage with partners SingPost and Prosegur.
The LTA said Gogoro's trial will involve 20 electric motorcycles and 100 swappable batteries across two Gogoro GoStations, while MO Batteries will have six electric motorcycles with 30 swappable batteries, 14 chargers and two battery swapping stations.
The trials are part of Singapore's push toward the adoption of more environmentally-friendly vehicles, including electric cars and motorcycles. Transport authorities last May announced they would revisit the certificate of entitlement (COE) criterion to make more mass-market electric vehicles (EVs) more affordable. The Government also plans to make Housing and Development Board (HDB) towns EV-ready by 2025 by fitting carparks with chargers.
"We have set out our vision to achieve 100 per cent cleaner-energy vehicles by 2040," said Transport Minister S Iswaran. "This is a tall order because it entails a major transition away from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles towards EVs and other cleaner-energy vehicles."
The locations of the trial stations have yet to be announced.
The LTA also launched new training and certification courses that promote the adoption of EVs. These include courses on the safety and maintenance of EVs, which are part of the Workforce Skills Qualification framework developed by SkillsFuture Singapore. Technicians who undergo training under the WSG Career Conversion Programme for Sustainability Professionals (EV Specialists) can apply for salary support for up to six months.
The LTA announced it'll be conducting trials of a battery swapping system that would allow electric motorcycle riders to swap out their depleted batteries for fully charged ones in designated stations.
The trials will focus on deliveries, with one being Gogoro and the other by MO Batteries.
They'll start within the next few weeks and will run for 12 months.
The transport authority said the trials are part of Singapore's push toward the adoption of more environmentally-friendly vehicles, including electric cars and motorcycles.