Isuzu Motors has launched a new pilot programme to test battery swapping in electric commercial vehicles in the city of Yokohama. The company sees battery swapping tech as a way to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission vehicles in the country’s municipal and logistics sectors by reducing downtime and helping to improve fleet operating efficiency.

The pilot battery swapping programme involves a fleet of Isuzu refuse trucks operated by the city of Yokohama, including Elf EV light-/medium-duty trucks, and will run until March 2028. The aim is to reduce the time required to exchange depleted batteries for fully charged ones to just minutes, to help increase vehicle availability across EV fleets.

At the end of last year, Isuzu launched a similar battery swapping trial in collaboration with domestic convenience store operator FamilyMart, to test an automated battery swapping system installed at a dedicated station in Yokohama. This involved testing a system that automatically replaced batteries from both sides of Elf EV trucks simultaneously, with the aim of completing the task in the same time it takes to fill a tank of diesel.