Strategy and construction of electric refueling system for electric scooter in Taiwan

There are about 33,000 electric scooters (ES) have been sold into the market, including 26,000 ESs in the domestic and 7,000 ESs in the overseas, up to May 2013 in Taiwan. Although, the selling amount of ES did not meet the target of government expectation, plentiful measures and promotion activities have made Taiwan a most vital electric scooter country in the world. In addition, Taiwan Government had proposed a common charging interface and lithium ion battery swapping business models in 2012. It encouraged the ES makers to set up one standard common specification of charging interface as well as the lithium ion battery. Hopefully, the lithium ion battery swapping business models could improve the charging infrastructure and increase the value of cost/performance ratio of lithium ion battery. Moreover, for the common charging interface, a specification of smart charger has been proposed by three major ES makers. On the other hand, there have two kinds of lithium ion battery swapping business model been established. One swapping business model is operating manually by an alliance consisting of the ES maker, convenience store, and car rental company in Penghu County, Taiwan. The other is a 10Ah capacity of lithium ion battery swapping business, which is operating by vending machine. Additionally, a 20Ah capacity specification of swapping battery module is also under discussing for further improving the performance of electric scooter.