5 developments that could make owning an EV more convenient

While electric vehicle (EV) sales are rising fast, research shows that many people want faster charging, improved range and lower costs before they will consider switching their vehicle.

Here are some of the ways the industry is innovating to address such concerns:

Not everyone will have access to an EV charging point at their home. Making EV ownership more convenient for more people is a focus of many recent innovations, including battery swapping.

Battery swapping services, which allow users to quickly swap depleted batteries with charged ones, often on a subscription basis, present a host of potential benefits. First, there is convenience, with companies in the space claiming swaps that take as little as five minutes could rival the time it takes to stop and fill a car with petrol.

Alongside, customers could buy just the vehicle body and lease a battery pack, reducing the upfront cost of buying an EV. Battery swapping also allows batteries to be charged more slowly, which could extend their lifespan. And there are potential benefits to the grid, too – as battery swapping stations can reduce energy demand by charging during off-peak times.

The concept of battery swapping isn’t new, but until recently it has failed to really hit the road. Today, companies such as China-based Nio, which owns thousands of battery-swapping stations globally, are changing that narrative by making the experience as quick and simple as possible for the customer.

According to the new Global EV Outlook from the International Energy Agency (IEA), EV sales are driving up battery demand, and as they do the industry is “accelerating plans to develop more affordable chemistries and novel designs”.

Currently, the most widely used type of EV battery is lithium-ion, which offers a high power-to-weight ratio and high energy efficiency, among other benefits. Experts are working on ways to improve battery technology to increase capacity, speed up charging time and cut costs, as well as address concerns around the supply of key battery materials such as cobalt and lithium.

For example, lithium iron phosphate batteries, which do use lithium but don’t require critical minerals such as cobalt and nickel, are gaining popularity – supplying more than 40% of EV demand globally by capacity in 2023, which is more than double the share recorded in the previous year, the IEA says. Much of this share is in China, while in markets such as Europe and the US, high-nickel chemistries are still the most common.

One alternative to lithium-ion that promises to improve range and reduce charging times is the solid-state battery. Under development by companies including Nissan, solid-state batteries use a solid rather than liquid electrolyte. This design allows for greater energy density in a smaller space, potentially extending range and enabling faster charging times as they move charge more efficiently. Nissan says it could double the EV range with its batteries that are half the size but provide twice the energy.

Sodium-ion batteries, meanwhile, use sodium instead of lithium, cobalt or nickel. This technology doesn’t improve performance but could cut costs as it uses more widely available materials.

While sales of EVs are surging across the globe, publicly available charging in many cities is not progressing fast enough to meet demand. That’s according to Scaling Investment in EV Charging: A Policy Roadmap for Cities, a new World Economic Forum white paper.

Investment in EV charging infrastructure, the paper says, will require collaboration between governments and the private sector. One example is the US-based start-up It’s Electric, which makes kerbside EV chargers that take their power from buildings, rather than connecting to the grid itself. This could help cities overcome challenges in expanding public charging infrastructure, including the high density of buildings and the limited capacity of electricity grids.

By working with property owners to find suitable buildings and city authorities to secure the necessary permits, the company wants to build a network of chargers that could help the US meet a huge predicted rise in demand for Level 2 charging – chargers common in homes and public places.

Other innovative public charging solutions include repurposing old telecom boxes in Scotland and pole-mounted charging, where cities including London and Los Angeles are using existing utility poles and streetlight infrastructure to install EV chargers.

When running out of juice while on the road, it’s natural to want to be able to charge your car as quickly as possible. No surprise, then, that the growth of fast chargers among public charging stock is outpacing that of slow chargers.

China is leading the way, with over 85% of the world’s fast chargers. This includes superfast charging stations in Beijing, which can power 700 electric cars a day. The stations can charge between 6 and 8 cars at a time, and fill fast-charging cars within 10 minutes.

Beijing is planning to build a network of these chargers that will collectively charge more than 8,000 vehicles a day.

The dreaded range anxiety would fade into the distance in a world where your car charges as it drives – and electrified roads could make this a reality.

There are three ways to create such roads: a system of overhead wires, which can be used by heavy vehicles such as buses or trams; conductive charging, where vehicles are charged through a metal strip that touches a rail in the road; and inductive charging, which uses equipment underneath the road to send electricity to a coil in the vehicle that uses this electricity to charge the battery – a bit like wireless charging of smartphones. Experts say this kind of “dynamic charging” would allow drivers to travel longer distances with smaller batteries while avoiding having to wait at charging stations – especially in rural areas and places with high amounts of traffic.

A major focus for electrified roads has been on keeping heavy vehicles charged, but a recent study in Sweden found that combining home charging with electrified roads could reduce the battery size of private EVs by up to 70%. The country is working on several electrified road projects, including the world’s first permanent electrified highway. Meanwhile, the first electrified road in the US is being planned in Detroit, Michigan.

Electrified roads could be operated with power from the grid, batteries, or green energy sources such as solar panels.