attractiveness of the market and the venture.
Currently, both public and private investors do not only look into the financials when deciding about putting their money. Moreover, they look for impact and so-called clean technology. In the last part of this discussion, we will hence elaborate on the sustainability of ZWAP-IT.
Digital office: The change and revolution that a technology like swapping brings must be extended to the whole ecosystem involved. This also includes our team and our way of working. In order to limit waste in any form, ZWAP-IT embraces the idea of flexibility and freedom given by its service also in the workplace.
In fact, the office will be the place, where important meetings and contracts will be signed. It will always be fully utilised in order to maximise the use of the asset but our employees will work mostly remotely. This, again, will be considerably cutting the waste that comes from moving. Remote working will be applied wherever possible, including in laboratories, where we believe that the robotisation of equipment can be used effectively remotely.
As described before, each operation will be transparent for customers and then documented. This had caused considerable paper consumption in previous ventures but each of our documents will exist only digitally if legally feasibly and then promptly be saved in our servers. Cloud technology will be used whenever possible.
The same documents related to customers and their data on batteries that may be required will be available in our application. Finally, each operation will be encrypted in order to ensure the authenticity.
Batteries management: The efficiency proposed by our service is directly related to the improvement of the battery life cycle. Thanks to the life cycle management, batteries could extend their life by 50% and minimise the dangers related to the state of the battery and subsequent charging. This is because each battery is charged only at optimal currents and in controlled environments (compare Arora et al., 2021).
The sustainability of our business model is further enhanced by the added value that the batteries in our stock have once the service relationships are over. In fact, the documented information and tests on the batteries give a higher value to the cars ensuring a better market price for the sale of used EV.
Battery efficiency is further safeguarded by our service entrance tests. They identify unsuitable batteries that are then disassembled and used in minor applica-tions, or recycled. If the battery has totally unusable parts, these are subjected to the classic recycling process. For lithium ion batteries, this allows the recovery of 95% of the basic components.
Overall, the sustainability aspects of the ZWAP-IT business model render the whole venture not only financially attractive but also valuable for employees and society.
Conclusion
7.1 Main Results
At the beginning of the thesis, the following two research questions were raised:
i How does a battery-swap approach to e-mobility compare to (fast-)charging in terms of efficiency and cost?
ii What is a feasible business model including a road to implementation for such a battery-swap venture?
After the review of the existing literature and an extensive research and process of business modelling. The questions can be answered in a favourable way.
First, battery swapping is a suitable approach to reduce the cost of recharging batteries for EV. It is superior regarding slow charging in terms of time and competitive regarding fast-charging technologies.
Especially for heavy commercial vehicles, it provides an attractive alternative to reduce spare times and enhance efficiency. When the batteries are built in a modular way - as is typical for newer EV cargo trucks - the selective replacement offers new way of performance increase.
Particularly noteworthy is improvement through a controlled battery charge management. The innovative approach to use battery pooling allows a complete life-cycle management. This, in turn, leads to a better utilisation of the battery capacity and reduced cost.
From a pure technological perspective, battery swapping is hence an approach that will remain on the technological roadmap. However, to become successful in a market application, also the right implementation is needed.
The second question regarding a feasible business model to implement the battery swap could also be properly addressed. Using the BMC method and an
elaboration on the business-related numbers, it was shown that a venture is possible and profitable.
Because the technological foundation is convincing in terms of efficiency and cost, the battery swap service is mainly depending on the right selection of the starting point. The examples discussed include the two widest-spread EV in the Italian passenger EV market and a public bus lane in Turin.
With the general feasibility of the business model laid down, the remaining part will include the actual transfer of the concept presented in this thesis to the creation of start-up venture. This shall mainly include the specification of the business plan according to the market and banking requirements, not academic standards.
While the core objectives of this thesis have been addressed, room remains for an extension or adaption of this work. To prepare this, limitations and an outlook are discussed in the folliwing.