Taxi driver Chanjira Ruangchan is weaving her electric motorcycle through the crowded streets of downtown Bangkok when she spots what looks like a bank of airport lockers.
Ruangchan, 53, pulls over and with a few presses on her phone, a door pops open. Inside is a freshly charged battery. Ruangchan swaps it in for the nearly depleted power cell in her bike and in two minutes speeds off in search of her next fare.
The battery swap station, which sprung in part from a project supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), addresses a major drawback of electric vehicles: the relatively long time it takes to charge a battery from scratch.
“At first, I wasn't sure about replacing my gasoline motorcycle with an electric motorcycle since I heard that charging could take some time,” says Ruangchan. “However, swapping batteries allows me to continue normal service.”
In Southeast Asia, a region where two- and three-wheeled vehicles reign supreme, battery swapping stations are viewed as crucial to speeding the transition to electric transport. That shift, say experts, is vital for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the air pollution that kills hundreds of thousands people annually.
"Electrifying two- and three-wheelers is an important piece of the puzzle if we’re going to truly transform urban transport,” says Rob De Jong, head of UNEP’s Sustainable Mobility Unit.
There were 230 million two- and three-wheeled vehicles on the streets of Southeast Asia as of 2020, found a report released earlier this year by UNEP. Three countries in the region, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, rank in the top five globally in two-and three-wheeler ownership.
Most of these vehicles are powered by gasoline. But in Thailand, where 80 per cent of households have a two- or three-wheeler, a shift is underway. Here, policy changes, tax incentives and investments in higher education have fostered a wave of technological innovation that is giving electric vehicles a toehold in the market.
One of those efforts is a pilot project launched by UNEP and SolutionsPlus, a European Union-funded programme that supports the roll out of electric vehicles around the world.
Engineers installed 213 locker-like battery swapping stations in Bangkok, including several in the bustling Samyan district. That includes the one frequented by Ruangchan, the taxi driver.
She had long wanted to switch to an electric motorcycle, which costs about US$0.67 a day to charge, one-third of the price of fuelling a gasoline-powered bike. But Ruangchan, who travels 120 km a day, didn’t love the idea of waiting for around 50 minutes for her battery to charge.
Enter battery charging stations. Each has several batteries in locked compartments. When drivers arrive, they authenticate their identity through a mobile app, remove their depleted battery and swap in a charged one. They then deposit the old battery into the vacant compartment. Some stations will recharge batteries on the spot; other require batteries to be removed and charged at a central location.
Bangkok has 51,000 motorcycle taxi drivers, according to the World Bank Group. Ruangchan says the speed of battery swapping makes the switch to electric more feasible for many of them.
“The process offers several advantages,” says UNEP’s De Jong. “That includes faster ‘refuelling’ times, yes, but it also reduces strain on power grids by spreading out charging demand and potentially extends battery life through more controlled charging.”
Battery swapping is gaining traction in Asia and Africa, especially for two- and three-wheelers. Countries like China, India and Indonesia actively promote this technology, and companies are expanding battery-swapping infrastructure.
However, further regulatory standardization is needed for widespread compatibility between different electric vehicle models and batteries, says De Jong.
Thailand is positioning itself as Southeast Asia's electric vehicle hub. It aims to have 650,000 electric two-wheelers on the roads by 2030 while becoming a centre of electric vehicle manufacturing. The country is also targeting 12,000 charging points and 1,450 battery swapping stations within the decade, reports the International Council on Clean Transportation, an independent research organization. That is part of a national climate plan to reduce the emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gasses by 30 per cent by 2030.
With a fleet of 44 million vehicles, transport accounted for about one-third of Thailand’s annual carbon dioxide emissions in 2022, according to Agora, a German think thank. The country’s race to electrify its motorcycle fleet rides the wave of global efforts to keep Earth's temperature rise below the critical 1.5°C threshold.
Coupled with investments in public transit, improved city planning, and the rollout of other sustainable transport options, the shift to electric vehicles reduces global greenhouse gas emissions by 3.8 gigatonnes annually, more than the yearly emissions of India, according to estimates.
The switch to electric vehicles is also expected to help address a public health emergency in Thailand: the alarming amount of death and disease cases linked to air pollution. A UNEP analysis found that without immediate action, air pollution could claim almost 25,000 lives annually in Thailand alone by 2030.
UNEP is supporting Thailand’s transition to electric vehicles through a five-year-long project launched in 2020. UNEP’s De Jong says the country’s success in meeting its electrification targets could have global implications.
“Thailand is not only working towards its decarbonization goals but also paving the way for a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable urban transportation future that could serve as a model for other developing nations,” he says.
UNEP's Global Electric Mobility Programme supports over 60 countries in the Global South with US$130 million in grants to transition away from fossil fuels in the transportation sector. It advocates for e-mobility targets and policies globally, collaborating with the International Energy Agency through Global Working Groups, including the Global Working Group on Electric Two and Three-Wheelers. Regionally, UNEP partners with organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, and the Centro de Movilidad Sostenible to host support and investment platforms, fostering e-mobility marketplaces and capacity building to support policy development.
UNEP is at the forefront of supporting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature rise well below 2°C, and aiming for 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels. To do this, UNEP has developed the Sectoral Solution, a roadmap to reducing emissions across sectors in line with the Paris Agreement commitments and in pursuit of climate stability. The six sectors identified are: energy; industry; agriculture and food; forests and land use; transport; and buildings and cities.
