Fiat 500e EV Could Get a New Battery as Quickly as a Gas Fill-Up
Spain's car-sharing scene is about to get a jolt. Stellantis, the global automaker behind brands like Jeep, Dodge, and Fiat, has teamed up with San Francisco startup Ample to deploy 100 Fiat 500e EVs equipped with swappable batteries. The cars will be part of Free2move, Stellantis' car-sharing and mobility service in Madrid.
Instead of plugging in and waiting around to recharge, these Fiats can drive into a station and receive a freshly charged battery in just five minutes - about the same time it takes to fill up a gas tank. It's a modern take on a concept that's been attempted before, with one major twist: Ample's system uses modular battery packs rather than one-size-fits-all units.
What sets Ample apart is the flexibility of its battery system. Each swappable module is roughly the size of a carry-on suitcase, and multiple modules can be combined to suit different needs. That means a Fiat 500e doesn't have to carry more battery than necessary - just one module for quick trips, or a full set of four for longer drives.
Unlike systems that require bespoke vehicle designs or bulky underbody access points, Ample's batteries are designed to slot into existing EV platforms. This approach makes it easier to retrofit a wide variety of electric vehicles with the swappable tech. It also helps future-proof the system, meaning that as EV technology evolves, Ample can upgrade the modules themselves, not the cars.
Battery swapping might not make sense for individual EV owners who charge overnight at home. But in the world of car-sharing and ride-hailing, downtime is the enemy.
"For car-sharing fleets, every minute spent off the road is lost revenue," said Khaled Hassounah, CEO of Ample. "We're deeply committed to making Free2move's transition to electric seamless - not just in theory, but in daily operations. Our five-minute battery swaps eliminate charging downtime entirely, helping Free2move keep vehicles available, customers moving, and operations running at full speed."
That kind of efficiency is critical for Free2move, which began testing 40 Ample-equipped 500e models in Madrid last year. With the fleet performing well and earning full regulatory approval, Stellantis plans to grow it to 100 vehicles by mid-2025.
Ample's first battery swap stations appeared in California in 2021 and could complete a full changeover in about 10 minutes. However, the company has already rolled out a second-generation station that cuts that time in half and enhances the user experience.
Now, drivers can remain inside the vehicle during the swap - a small but meaningful upgrade for comfort and convenience, especially in colder or hotter climates. The stations themselves are designed to be modular and quickly deployable, meaning they can be installed in urban environments without massive infrastructure changes. That's a major advantage for cities with limited space or power grid constraints.
Battery swapping isn't likely to replace fast charging across the board. Most private EV owners won't need it, and the cost of deploying swap stations at scale is still high. But in dense cities, where fleets need to keep moving and space is at a premium, modular swap stations could fill an important niche.
If the Madrid program proves successful, it could serve as a model for other cities and automakers looking to make electric fleets faster, more reliable, and more flexible. For now, it's an ambitious experiment, but if it works, five-minute EV "refueling" could become a lot more common.
Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Miami Herald
5 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Fiat 500e EV Could Get a New Battery as Quickly as a Gas Fill-Up
Spain's car-sharing scene is about to get a jolt. Stellantis, the global automaker behind brands like Jeep, Dodge, and Fiat, has teamed up with San Francisco startup Ample to deploy 100 Fiat 500e EVs equipped with swappable batteries. The cars will be part of Free2move, Stellantis' car-sharing and mobility service in Madrid. Instead of plugging in and waiting around to recharge, these Fiats can drive into a station and receive a freshly charged battery in just five minutes - about the same time it takes to fill up a gas tank. It's a modern take on a concept that's been attempted before, with one major twist: Ample's system uses modular battery packs rather than one-size-fits-all units. What sets Ample apart is the flexibility of its battery system. Each swappable module is roughly the size of a carry-on suitcase, and multiple modules can be combined to suit different needs. That means a Fiat 500e doesn't have to carry more battery than necessary - just one module for quick trips, or a full set of four for longer drives. Unlike systems that require bespoke vehicle designs or bulky underbody access points, Ample's batteries are designed to slot into existing EV platforms. This approach makes it easier to retrofit a wide variety of electric vehicles with the swappable tech. It also helps future-proof the system, meaning that as EV technology evolves, Ample can upgrade the modules themselves, not the cars. Battery swapping might not make sense for individual EV owners who charge overnight at home. But in the world of car-sharing and ride-hailing, downtime is the enemy. "For car-sharing fleets, every minute spent off the road is lost revenue," said Khaled Hassounah, CEO of Ample. "We're deeply committed to making Free2move's transition to electric seamless - not just in theory, but in daily operations. Our five-minute battery swaps eliminate charging downtime entirely, helping Free2move keep vehicles available, customers moving, and operations running at full speed." That kind of efficiency is critical for Free2move, which began testing 40 Ample-equipped 500e models in Madrid last year. With the fleet performing well and earning full regulatory approval, Stellantis plans to grow it to 100 vehicles by mid-2025. Ample's first battery swap stations appeared in California in 2021 and could complete a full changeover in about 10 minutes. However, the company has already rolled out a second-generation station that cuts that time in half and enhances the user experience. Now, drivers can remain inside the vehicle during the swap - a small but meaningful upgrade for comfort and convenience, especially in colder or hotter climates. The stations themselves are designed to be modular and quickly deployable, meaning they can be installed in urban environments without massive infrastructure changes. That's a major advantage for cities with limited space or power grid constraints. Battery swapping isn't likely to replace fast charging across the board. Most private EV owners won't need it, and the cost of deploying swap stations at scale is still high. But in dense cities, where fleets need to keep moving and space is at a premium, modular swap stations could fill an important niche. If the Madrid program proves successful, it could serve as a model for other cities and automakers looking to make electric fleets faster, more reliable, and more flexible. For now, it's an ambitious experiment, but if it works, five-minute EV "refueling" could become a lot more common. Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Miami Herald
7 hours ago
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Motor Trend
10 hours ago
- Motor Trend
Is It Time for EV Charging Stations to Simply Offer Quick-Time Battery Swaps?
John and Jane Public aren't warming to electric cars at the rate many in the automotive industry thought they would, and that's mostly because EVs still can't match the cost and convenience of gasoline-powered alternatives. The steady march of progress is chipping away at EVs' cost, boosting the distance they can drive on a single charge, and hastening their charging speeds (1-megawatt or better is almost here). But maybe there's a holistically better idea. The article advocates for battery swapping in EVs, citing Chinese company Nio's success with its extensive swap stations. Benefits include quick swaps, cost savings, and greener energy use. The author suggests adopting this system in the West to boost EV adoption and to be able to compete globally. This summary was generated by AI using content from this MotorTrend article Read Next Perhaps it's time we dust off General Electric's plan from 1910, when it equipped its GeVeCo electric trucks with separately leased Hartford Electric batteries designed specially to be swapped quickly when depleted. Together, these electric trucks covered 6 million miles between 1910 and 1924. Electric forklifts have used battery swapping since the mid 1940s, and Israeli startup Project Better Place (later just 'Better Place') endeavored to revive that idea for electric cars beginning in 2007. Better Place was neither a battery company nor a car company, and the challenges of engaging those stakeholders, combined with an immature electric-car market, ultimately doomed the enterprise. And while Israel and Denmark might have been reasonable launch markets, our nation's size seemed logistically daunting, even if enough car companies could come to agree on a battery size, shape, or performance envelope to achieve critical mass. But experiencing Nio's Power Swap experience in Shanghai felt like gazing into a brighter EV future. CATL Goes All In Chinese automaker Nio (founded in November 2014) made battery swapping its unique selling proposition, building a network of more than 3,200 swapping stations in much the same way Tesla built its own Supercharger networks. In the seven years Nio has sold cars, it's revised the battery and station designs a few times. Its newest model, the Firefly EV, uses yet another new swappable battery, designed in conjunction with battery giant CATL and a consortium of companies. One of these, Changan, just delivered 1,000 Oshan 520 taxis in Chongqing, using similar batteries that can be swapped at any of 50 CATL swapping stations promised by the end of 2025. (Swapping is particularly valuable for taxis, ride-share services, delivery and similar commercial vehicles.) Chocolate-Bar Batteries CATL got into the battery swapping concept a while back with small 25-kWh packs that resembled two blocks of baking chocolate that could be used individually or ganged two or three to a vehicle, heightening the baking chocolate allusion. CATL's QIJI swap solution for trucks still follows this model, and the name Choco-Swap, or Choco-SEB (Swapping Electric Block) has stuck. CATL's light-vehicle strategy, however, has morphed to now covering the breadth of vehicle sizes and range needs with two battery form factors, each offering a choice of LFP or NMC chemistry. Swap Station Design Both Nio and CATL swapping stations require approximately the footprint size of three normal parking spaces, with the car driving up a ramp high enough for battery packs to shuttle underneath to begin the process. The two adjacent parking spaces typically house 24–30 batteries that remain bi-directionally connected, charging at moderate rates (up to 100 kW) to a level just past 90 percent. Nio's stations assemble like Legos, allowing a new station to be set up and operational in 4–5 hours overnight. Nio owns and operates most of its stations but is now allowing investment groups or provinces to buy, operate, and share revenues generated as power companies pay to tap this stored energy. Having sold 700,000-plus cars, 80 percent of which are still in service, Nio claims its inventory of swap-available batteries amounts to 6 or 7 percent of the on-road fleet. And to prep for big-travel weekends like Chinese New Year, heavy incentives go out to entice large-capacity battery owner/lessees who don't plan to leave town to swap down, making bigger batteries available for travelers. Anatomy of a Swap Using your car's native navigation system, a trip is plotted including convenient swap stations. As you approach one, a specific time slot is allotted, and a particular battery gets assigned to your car. Your car's battery temperature is shared, and the station adjusts the coolant in the replacement battery to match, thereby preventing expansion or thermal shock. When it's your turn, the station talks you through the process (explaining what the automatic system is doing). You sense the station lift the car slightly, you hear 10 bolts simultaneously undoing, the swap occurs, the bolts tighten, you drop back down and you're on your way. (Note: CATL says Choco-Swap batteries are air cooled, sidestepping the temperature-alignment issue.) What are the advantages? Quicker My Nio Power Swap experience replaced a depleted battery with one charged to 91 percent in less than three minutes, which included the time needed to maneuver into and out of the station. CATL's Choco-Swap requires the driver to pull in, as when entering a car wash. It then swaps packs in 100 seconds (presumably more if adding extra batteries). My ET9 showed 352 miles of range following the swap. Even 1-megawatt charging can't add that many miles that quickly—especially when multiple charging-station users lower the peak rate. Cheaper Drivers can buy most Nio cars with or without batteries included. Opting for the battery-lease deal knocks $17,900 off the luxury ET9's $110,320 price, adding a monthly battery lease of $179. Owned or leased batteries can be swapped, with drivers paying the net difference in energy at a price higher than home charging but lower than high-speed DC fast charging. Then there's the savings of leasing a small battery and simply upgrading and paying for a longer-range one only when traveling. Car companies could slash both time to market and program budgets by offloading or sharing the R&D, safety testing, warranty, and other liability costs that batteries entail. And these standard form-factor batteries can potentially be upgraded over time as new chemistries or solid-state cells become available. Infrastructure pricewise, a battery swapping station is also way cheaper to install than a bank of 1MW chargers able to serve the same number of customers. Power companies faced with adding grid capacity, sub-stations, and transmission lines to support multimegawatt charging banks could save a lot by investing in swapping stations, each of which draws way less power, can absorb excess solar or wind energy, and will help even out loads during periods of peak usage. Greener Batteries that are regularly charged at level-2 rates to 90ish percent should last longer than those that are frequently fast-charged. Each battery has a digital twin in the cloud, and when monitoring detects bad cells or modules, they can be replaced while out of the car, extending the pack's useful life. When usable capacity drops below 80 percent of new, a pack can be reassigned to non-EV use. When drivers use a lighter commuting-sized battery most of the time, they use less energy to operate and generate less wear on the tires and brakes. What exactly changed my mind on swapping? My Shanghai adventure proved China's auto industry is miles ahead of ours. It seems to me that to be at all competitive in the global market, we need to quickly overcome buyers' reluctance to electrify and up our collective EV game. It also seems like high time 'the west' teams up to fight off this Chinese threat, and an automaker/energy-industry collaboration on a battery-swapping ecosystem that ends buyers' battery-life worries while delivering gas-station refueling convenience—all at gas-vehicle operating cost parity—looks like the quickest way to get there.
