Piaggio, Honda, KTM and Yamaha set up swappable batteries consortium

Michelle Liew

September 7, 2021

Honda Motor, KTM, Piaggio Group and Yamaha Motor have joint forces to promote swappable batteries for electric vehicles.

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Piaggio Group (PIA.MI), Honda Motor Co., Ltd, KTM F&E GmbH and Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd have officially signed the agreement for the creation of the Swappable Batteries Motorcycle Consortium (SBMC). This is following the signing of the Letter of Intent on March 1.

As major names in the motorcycle industry, the top four have voiced out their commitment to the promotion of the widespread use of light electric vehicles in the transportation sector. This includes mopeds, scooters, motorcycles, tricycles and quadricycles. This is en route to creating a more sustainable life-cycle management of batteries in the context of international climate policies. The founding members of the Consortium believe that the availability of a commonly-developed swappable battery system is key to the development of low-voltage electromobility.

“Urban mobility is going through a delicate moment of transition towards electrification. Thanks to our Consortium, representing four major global players, motorbikes will continue to play a key role in the urban context. Swappable batteries give the right answer to speed up the recharging time of vehicles offering an additional valuable choice for users. Urban mobility is part of the Piaggio DNA and history: our aim is to bring all our technological know-how and attitude for innovation to the Consortium.” – Michele Colaninno, Chief of strategy and product of Piaggio Group

Piaggio Vespa Elettrica

The main aim of the Consortium is to find solutions to the concerns customers may have regarding the future of electromobility. This includes the range, the charging time and infrastructure and the costs. The Consortium sets out four primary goals to aid the process of achieving that, as follows:

1. Develop common technical specifications of the swappable battery systems
2. Confirm common usage of the battery systems
3. Make, and promote, the Consortium’s common specifications a standard within European and International standardization bodies
4. Expand the use of the Consortium’s common specification to global level

The members of the Consortium will be working closely with interested stakeholders and National, European and International standardization bodies in the creation of international technical standards. The availability of charging stations will vary between countries and there is limited information for end-users. Therefore, with this Consortium, PIAGGIO, HONDA, KTM and YAMAHA aim at engaging the decision-makers for the development and deployment of charging infrastructure to promote the increase of light electric vehicles.

“Honda believes that the widespread adoption of electric motorcycles can play an important part in realising a more sustainable society. For that purpose, we need to solve several challenges such as extending the range, shortening the charging time and lowering the vehicle and infrastructure costs to enhance convenience for customers. In the Consortium we have created, the founding members from the motorcycle industry and other stakeholders will work together towards standardizing swappable batteries, their charging systems and surrounding infrastructure to create the environment for their use. Our final goal is to ensure that motorcycles will continue to be chosen as a useful method of transportation in future mobility.” – Yoshishige Nomura, Chief Officer, Motorcycle Operations, Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

The four founding members encourage all interested stakeholders to join the cooperation to enrich the Consortium’s expertise in order to ensure a large diffusion of standard swappable batteries in the future.

Parties who are interested to join the SBMC can contact one of the founding members for further information.

“The signing of this Consortium agreement is a key step in ensuring that PIERER Mobility AG, can continue to move forward, deliver innovation at pace, and advance its clear strategic vision for electric powered two-wheelers. Together with our partners, we will work to deliver a swappable battery system for low-voltage vehicles (48V) up to 11kW capacity, based on international technical standards. We very much look forward to ensuring that powered two-wheeler vehicles maintain their role in the future of both urban and nonurban mobility.” – Stefan Pierer, CEO PIERER Mobility AG

There is no doubt that this will be a game changer in the electric motorcycle industry.

“The Swappable Batteries Motorcycle Consortium in Europe is finally ready to get to work. I hope that this first step forward will be a beacon that draws like-minded parties to our mission and leads to transformative changes for the future. We at Yamaha Motor are confident that through this initiative, we can help unify the differing technical specs and standards and contribute to maximizing the merits of electric power for customers around the world.” – Takuya Kinoshita, Senior Executive Officer, Chief General Manager of Land Mobility Business Operations, Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.

Also read: Take a look at BMW’s latest electric two-wheelers