Vitesco joins Swappable Batteries Motorcycle Consortium

Vitesco Technologies, formerly Continental Powertrain, a manufacturer of modern drive technologies and electrification solutions based in Regensburg, Germany, has joined the Swappable Batteries Motorcycle Consortium (SBMC). 

The consortium was established in 2021 by four global players in two-wheeler manufacturing – Honda, KTM, Piaggio, and Yamaha – and grew to 21 members.

The consortium aims to:

1. Develop common technical specifications of the swappable battery systems.
2. Confirm common usage of the battery systems.
3. Make and promote the consortium’s common specifications towards standardisation within European and International standardization bodies for interoperability, compatibility, and harmonization of the systems.
4. Expand the use of the consortium’s common specification to aglobal level. 

The Swappable Batteries Motorcycle Consortium calls upon the leverage of standardisation to accelerate the electrification of the L-Category vehicle segment at a global level and promote more sustainable battery lifecycle management. This will make electric vehicle (EV) batteries more economical, help preserve resources and – more importantly – make them more convenient for customers.

“As in the passenger car sector, Vitesco Technologies aims to become a leading provider of electrification solutions in the market of two-wheelers,” says Torsten Bellon, head of non-automotive product line at Vitesco Technologies. “By joining the Swappable Batteries Motorcycle Consortium, we want to help create the conditions for light motorcycles and scooters to continue to play a central role in future mobility. We focus on a wide range of different e-vehicles such as mopeds, scooters, motorcycles, three-wheelers, and four-wheelers. The main goal of our SBMC activities is to set standards for future battery management systems and to consistently industrialize them.”