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Tech Review[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613279/why-two-wheels-are-better-than-four-in-indias-electric-vehicle-push/ [technologyreview.com] discusses small 2 and 3 wheel electric vehicles in India, now starting to be available with battery leasing and simple battery swapping.

For electric scooters and rickshaws the Li battery pack is a bit bigger than a lunch pail, easily lifted by one person as shown by the Sun Mobility founder in this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQfpL6jEcbg [youtube.com] Longer range for the larger vehicles (still much smaller than 1st world cars) can be had with two or three of the standard sized packs. This company page http://www.sunmobility.co.in/wheeler.html [sunmobility.co.in] notes that the packs are 1.5 kWh each, and weigh 12 Kg.

In their market, these small vehicles are everywhere and they are a major source of pollution, converting to electric could eventually make a huge difference. They claim that battery swapping is a key feature for the Indian market for a couple of reasons: battery leasing/renting will keep the vehicle first-cost down, and central swap stations solve the problem of charging in the city, where most people don't have access to outlets for charging near their residence. The charge point structures have solar cell awnings, so a bit of the recharging power is solar...

Now, if Sun Mobility opens up their battery spec to other manufacturers, there is a (small) chance that this pack might become something of an interchangeable standard. Well, we can hope, anyway.

[1] If you hit a paywall, try stopping the page load after you see the image. The paywall seems to load last, after the interesting bits on the page.

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