Pulling into a station for electric vehicles (EVs) in Beijing, a driver can leave with their car fully charged in less than five minutes – without a vehicle plug-in connection in sight.
Since 2020, China has been developing its battery-swapping stations – sites where drivers can exchange a low battery with a fully charged one. It's a method that can cut down pitstops from around half an hour for a fast charger, to just a few minutes.
It's a deceptively simple solution – but it also has the potential to upend the nature of EV ownership. With batteries exchanged freely between vehicles, it requires letting go of ownership of the car's battery, often in favour of a rental model. Iris Liu reports from the world's most advanced battery swapping experiment in China. | 
