Recently, according to the information from Tianyancha, Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., as the operating entity of Tesla China, has added “sales of electric vehicle swap equipment” to its business scope. Regarding this news, on February 28th, a Tesla spokesperson told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that “Tesla will not offer battery swap service.”
However, this change means that Tesla may still enter the battery swap mode by offering a swap service package as an option or by selling electric vehicle swap equipment to third parties.
(Source: Tianyancha)
As early as 2013, Elon Musk had mentioned that Tesla had tried the battery swap mode on the Model S and operated the prototype equipment for a period of time. However, due to its high operating costs, the cost of battery swap was much higher than fast charging, and the actual usage rate was unsatisfactory. Eventually, Tesla decided that the battery swap mode had low operating efficiency and was not suitable for large-scale promotion, so Tesla gave up on this strategy.
🔗Sources: Tianyancha, Beijing Business Daily
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.