Can battery swapping stations make micro-mobility more environmentally sustainable?

Abstract

The rapid spread of shared micromobility services e.g. e-scooters raises questions about their ecological impacts. Previous Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) show that the ecological impacts of shared mobility services vary significantly depending on the sharing mode, the charging concept and the corresponding operating mode. Even though e-scooters could mitigate environmental issues of urban transportation due to their low energy consumption, studies show that service trips for charging and relocation and non-swappable batteries have overall negative environmental impacts. To identify key factors for an environmentally friendly e-scooter sharing infrastructure and operating mode, we conducted a comparative LCA in this study. We developed a method considering a holistic product service system (PSS) of e-scooter sharing including the whole life cycle to cover all environmentally relevant aspects of the sharing operation. In different scenarios, we compared electric stand-up scooters and electric moped scooters for different operational modes. These include free-float, station-based and hybrid sharing. Furthermore, charging methods and the underlying infrastructure with battery swapping stations are varied. The results show that greenhouse gas emissions are the lowest for two scenarios: A free-float sharing mode where batteries are swapped using an e-cargo bike and a hybrid sharing mode using self-service battery swapping stations (BSS).