This photo provided by MBI Co. shows a battery swapping station for electric motorcycles.
GWANGJU, March 29 (Korea Bizwire) — A ward office in the southwestern city of Gwangju plans to install battery exchange facilities at telephone booths as a part of efforts to promote the distribution and use of electric motorcycles.
Gwangju’s Nam Ward recently signed a business agreement with KT Linkus, a telephone booth operator, for the installation of battery swapping stations for electric motorcycles.
The two parties plan to install battery swapping stations at three public telephone booths within the first half of this year.
They also intend to gradually increase the number of battery swapping stations within the district to between 10 and 20 by the end of this year.
The battery swapping stations are expected to make a significant contribution to invigorating the distribution of electric motorcycles, which are limited by their short driving distances and long charging time.
The current charging method is based on a ‘plug-in’ charger installed in the charging station.
To charge the battery to 100 percent, the plug-in-based charging method takes about four hours, but the maximum driving distance is limited to 110 kilometers, far below the average daily driving distance of 200 to 300 kilometers for the electric motorcycles used for delivery.
In addition, the difficulty in installing the charging stations does little to encourage people to buy electric motorcycles.
In contrast, the battery exchange-type station takes only 30 seconds for users to replace their batteries. In addition, the installation of such stations is simple since they makes use of existing telephone booths.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
