Assessment of total cost of ownership for electric two-wheelers with point charging and battery swapping in the Indian scenario

To combat the dependency on fossil fuels and their increasing prices, along with concerns over climate change, electric vehicles (EVs) are being considered the future of transportation. However, the adoption of EVs is still at an early stage due to challenges like charging time, ownership cost, range, and many others. Battery swapping (BS) allows swapping a drained battery with a fully charged one in minutes, while point charging (PC) takes hours. Several studies have examined the total cost of ownership (TCO) of EV with PC, however the TCO of EV with BS has not been much investigated. This study aims to evaluate the TCO of electric two-wheeler with two charging options, PC and BS, for prevalent use cases: private & commercial. The results are compared with the base case of the internal combustion engine for the two-wheeler (I2W). The study predicts that vehicle purchase cost with BS would achieve cost parity with I2W if the Indian government offers a subsidy for ‘EV with BS’ equal to 50% of that being offered to ‘EV with PC’. An EV with PC is most feasible in a private case, whereas an EV with BS is most economical for a commercial case. This study is expected to help policymakers to verify the effectiveness of the current policy.