Jersey Metropolis, New Jersey, says it has launched the nation’s first everlasting municipal e-mobility battery swapping program together with bicycle pod supplier Oonee.
This system, which makes use of expertise from Berlin-based Swobbee, will end in safer and extra handy charging of e-bikes and e-scooters, venture companions stated.
Lately, the rise of e-mobility, notably amongst supply employees, has contributed to lethal fires ensuing from defective batteries and overloaded electrical circuits. Between 2019 and 2023, fires associated to e-mobility gadgets triggered as many as 25 deaths, 324 accidents and $518.6 million in damages in New York Metropolis, in accordance with a current report by UL Requirements & Engagement. Out of doors kiosks for e-mobility machine charging and battery swapping are seen as one technique of lowering the fireplace danger.
Final yr, New York Metropolis carried out a six-month pilot program that put in 5 battery swapping stations from PopWheels and Swobbeewhich a preapproved group of supply employees may entry. The websites noticed greater than 12,000 battery swaps in that interval and decreased at-home charging by greater than one-third, the New York Metropolis Division of Transportation reported. The town prolonged this system, which remains to be accessible at three websites in accordance with the DOT web site.
The Jersey Metropolis battery swapping program, supplied at two areas, will enable commuters, supply employees and different micromobility customers to entry totally charged batteries which might be UL licensed as protected.
Supply employees will profit from “an area that makes their work just a bit bit simpler and safer whereas eliminating the downtime” whereas batteries are charging, Swobbee U.S. Basic Supervisor Stephan von Wolff stated in an electronic mail. He added that it’s “a step towards making micromobility really sensible for metropolis life, not only for supply employees however for anybody counting on e-bikes to get round.”
The battery swapping venture isn’t the primary time Jersey Metropolis has pioneered new micromobility help companies. Final yr, town launched a bicycle parking community, additionally together with Oonee — the primary free community of its form within the nation. The seven parking stations even have charging capabilities for e-bikes and e-scooters.
Oonee founder and CEO Shabazz Stuart says he hopes his firm will quickly announce extra parking stations with battery swapping expertise in New York and New Jersey. The Jersey Metropolis venture is exclusive, Stuart stated. Different localities are enthusiastic about protected and handy public charging, “however [they] have not put all the weather collectively the way in which that we’re doing in Jersey Metropolis.”
In January, the U.S. Joint Workplace of Vitality and Transportation introduced a almost $3.8 million grant for Oonee and Swobbee to construct parking stations with battery swapping in Jersey Metropolis and Minneapolis. Like different federal grants, the award is on maintain regardless of a number of courtroom orders for the Trump administration to unfreeze federal funding. “We’re ready on readability from the Trump administration on the funding,” stated Stuart. The corporate plans to make use of the funding for 10 extra parking stations in Jersey Metropolis, which might convey the overall quantity to 17.
“This infrastructure is important” for e-mobility customers, Stuart stated, “as important as fuel station[s are] for vehicles.”
