Professor Zhixi Wan
4 February 2026
In the global evolution of energy replenishment for new-energy vehicles, battery-swapping technology has undergone a dramatic rejuvenation. As early as 2007, the Israeli company Better Place already outlined a blueprint for automated battery swapping, attempting to eliminate range anxiety by physically replacing the battery. In 2013, the American EV manufacturer Tesla staged a high-profile demonstration of its 90-second battery-swapping technology, which was faster than refuelling a gasoline-powered vehicle.
However, this technology was later shelved by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. The company’s logic at the time was simple: for the vast majority of private car owners with a fixed parking space, low-cost charging piles are sufficient to satisfy their needs.
Lessons from the spiral path of history
Against this backdrop, the debate between the “charging camp” and the “battery-swapping camp” lasted for several years, even as history continued to spiral upwards. In recent years, Chinese enterprises led by CATL have shifted the focus of the battery-swapping model from all-scenario coverage to the high-frequency commercial-vehicle segment. This trend is particularly evident among heavy duty trucks. In the Mainland, battery-swapping models accounted for 30% of electric heavy truck sales in the first half of 2025 (see Note 1).
This historical turning point carries profound implications for Hong Kong, where land is gold and the pace of life is hectic, and it may well be the golden key to breaking the deadlock in the electrification of commercial vehicles.
A win-win for efficient recharging and grid peak shaving
To understand why battery swapping is more suitable for commercial vehicles, it is necessary to revisit the underlying technical principles. Battery swapping decouples the twin processes of “replenishing the vehicle” and “charging the battery” in both time and space. Using a robotic arm, a swapping station can complete battery replacement within three to five minutes, which almost matches the refuelling speed of traditional fuel vehicles.
The impact on the power grid is even more crucial. The advantages of charging technology lie in the flexibility and prevalence of its infrastructure, whereas battery-swapping technology excels in maximizing refuelling efficiency and making highly efficient use of land resources. At the technical level, as 800-volt high-voltage fast-charging platforms become more widespread, charging speeds are improving while the grid’s instantaneous power burden is also increasing exponentially. This often entails costly grid-capacity expansion and upgrades, exacerbating pressure during peak demand periods.
As for battery-swapping technology, a swapping station is, in essence, a large distributed energy storage unit. Taking advantage of off-peak nighttime electricity rates, it can be used to charge backup batteries and then swap them for vehicles during daytime peak hours. This not only avoids instantaneous shocks to the power grid, but can even participate in grid peak shaving. Despite facing the challenge of standardization, battery swapping is emerging as a potential urban energy node.
Structural challenges to the electrification of commercial vehicles
The first challenge is the gap between policy objectives and reality. Given the SAR Government’s pledge to strive for carbon neutrality by 2050, commercial vehicles (taxis, buses, minibuses, and trucks), as major sources of carbon emissions (see Note 2), must therefore be actively electrified. Yet data shows that, despite the rapid surge in the number of electric private cars, the electrification rate of commercial vehicles remains extremely low.
The second challenge is the weak economic case for fuel costs, a crucial point which often escapes notice. The miraculous progress of private car electrification uptake in Hong Kong is largely due to the very high tax on petrol, making it possible to save a substantial amount in fuel costs by switching to electric vehicles. In contrast, commercial vehicles mainly use diesel and are eligible for tax exemption or low tax rates (see Note 3). This means that the operating costs saved by switching to electricity are far less for commercial vehicles than for private cars, so the economic incentive for a proactive switch is bound to be lower.
The last challenge is the supply-chain barrier posed by the right-hand-drive market. Hong Kong is a right-hand-drive market, and its road environment is distinctive, characterized by hilly terrain and narrow roads. When developing commercial electric vehicles, global original equipment manufacturers tend to prioritize the mainstream left-hand-drive market. Designing right-hand-drive models especially for Hong Kong is costly and time-consuming, which further limits the range of models available locally.
New opportunities for taxi charging
Taxis in Hong Kong operate 24 hours a day, with drivers working in shifts to maximize operational efficiency. The average daily mileage covered by an urban taxi is, by conservative estimates, between 400 and 500 km, over 10 times that covered by a private car. This creates a practical deadlock: if the charging mode is adopted, taking into account charging and queuing time, drivers would need to spend one to two hours daily on recharging, resulting in a potential opportunity cost of approximately $300 to $500 in lost revenue per day. This is exactly the core reason why, despite the provision of government subsidies through the New Energy Transport Fund, local taxi drivers remain indifferent to electric vehicles.
Battery swapping can reduce the time required for each energy replenishment to three to five minutes, similar to that for liquefied petroleum gas. In addition, given the highly homogeneous and standardized taxi models in Hong Kong, this provides an ideal foundation for the scale effects needed to promote a single standard battery pack, and has prompted even energy giants such as CATL to begin exploring this approach.
Battery swapping as the key breakthrough path for buses
If time is the pain point for taxis, then weight is the pain point for franchised buses. Few buses elsewhere in the world can compare with the double-decker buses in Hong Kong in terms of the operational burden of passenger transport. Each carrying over 130 passengers when fully loaded, and adding the load of air-conditioning, public buses also face the challenge of frequently climbing steep roads, such as Chai Wan Road and Pok Fu Lam Road.
Under a charging-based model, to guarantee a range of 300 km for a full day, it is necessary to install a battery exceeding 450 kW that weighs as much as three to four tonnes in the bus. Subject to the strict local regulatory limits on gross vehicle weight, for each additional tonne of battery weight, the passenger load has to be cut by around 15 passengers (see Note 4). This will not only reduce the fare revenue of bus companies but will also lead to insufficient capacity during peak hours.
The battery swapping option, on the other hand, offers a smart vehicle-battery separation strategy. Using a “small battery + high-frequency swapping” model, for example, a bus carries only a battery sufficient for half a day of operation, which can be speedily replaced during the return-to-depot period at midday. This can greatly lower the overall vehicle weight and restore passenger capacity, thereby addressing operators’ key concerns over profitability.
Creating a showcase for green traffic
The predicament of commercial vehicle electrification in Hong Kong is essentially a contradiction between the demand for extremely high energy density and the severely limited supply of land or time resources. The success of the charging model for private cars cannot be simply transplanted. A quantitative comparison of energy consumption clearly demonstrates that bridging this gap requires a technology with an energy replenishment efficiency far exceeding that of charging.
Battery-swapping stations that “trade space for time” provide a way out for a high-density city like Hong Kong. Its future green transport blueprint should be a diversified ecosystem where “charging and battery swapping complement each other”. By offering the battery-swapping model with appropriate land allocation and regulatory support, not only can Hong Kong resolve its own environmental challenges, but it can also leverage its role as a super-connector to demonstrate to the world a green transport solution for ultra-density megacities.
Note 1: 《中國汽車報》8月14日期，“在細分技術路線上，2023至2025年上半年間，電動重卡中充電車型與換電車型的佔比始終穩定在 7:3 左右，表明兩種技術路線均已在電動重卡領域找到了適配的應用場景並實現良好推廣。”中汽政研新能源汽車研究部總監吳喜慶表示。
Note 2: Hong Kong Roadmap on Popularisation of Electric Vehicles
Note 3: Tax Incentives Scheme for Environment-friendly Commercial Vehicles, Environmental Protection Department, Hong Kong SAR Government
Note 4: Gross vehicle weight limit for buses; Road Traffic (Construction and Maintenance of Vehicles) Regulations (Cap. 374A) Schedule
Photo source: Tesla
