Design of a Battery Cabinet for Electric Scooters to Facilitate Battery Swapping

A swappable battery system would facilitate the removal of extended waits for charging en route, thereby addressing range anxiety and extending the range besides the possibility of a new ecosystem of the precharged battery exchange. Presently, in those electric vehicles (EVs) without battery swapping capability, the battery is fixed to the chassis and is not designed to be removed from the vehicle frequently. While those vehicles with battery swapping currently have either a locked battery dock or a gravity-based containment of the battery, both of which have certain disadvantages like cumbersome battery insertion and removal and loose contact with connectors. Hence in this work, a new battery cabinet design is proposed that can securely contain the battery and enable quick, toolless battery removal for easy battery swapping. This is achieved with the help of a cantilever retainer strip which just needs to be bent outward to release the battery from the cabinet. The cantilever strip applies a vertically downward clamping force in addition to the self-weight of the battery, thus securely holding the battery, preventing loose contact and sparks, and making the battery cabinet safer and more reliable. The design procedure of the cantilever strip and the cabinet body is discussed in depth. A proof-of-concept cabinet to hold a 10 kg battery has been presented. To reduce noncritical mass, topology optimization has been done. Finally, finite element analysis (FEA) studies have been done to assess the load-bearing capacity of the proposed battery cabinet model and its performance under fatigue due to road-induced vibrations.