Currently reading: Battery swap renaissance promises fast EV fills from petrol stations

Battery swapping is popular in China but has yet to materialise in Europe – until now

Pull into a petrol station with an electric Fiat 500e in Madrid, Spain, and you could soon be filling up almost as quickly as you would in the old combustion-engine version.

This magic is down to a conversion of the EV carried out for the FreetoMove car share business of Stellantis, Fiat's owner. The conversion itself is the work of start-up Ample, which has reinvented the idea of battery swapping to make it more accessible, and it is now being launched in Spain.

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