Local Electric Motorcycle Company Teases Battery Swap System

Established in 2018, Legatus is one of the very few Malaysian startups within the fledging local electric vehicle industry. Focusing on electric motorcycles, the company recently teased one of its upcoming solutions which is a battery swap system.

Published on its Facebook and LinkedIn page, the teaser didn’t provide a full look at the solution though. Nevertheless, Legatus claimed that the system has a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of between 7 to 9 which made us believe that the battery swap system is not far off from actual deployment.

Legatus Battery Swap System / Legatus Metropolitan — *The swappable battery (L) vs the current full-sized battery that the company fitted into it Metropolitan electric motorcycle. [Image: Legatus.]*

Primarily designed to support its Metropolitan electric motorcycle, Legatus said in the teaser post that it expects the integration process for all of the elements within the battery swap system including the swap station and app to be completed in a month or two. The company also noted that the estimated range for each battery is 60km and based on one of the photos that accompanied the post, it seemed that Metropolitan can fit two batteries at the same time.

Speaking about the bike, Metropolitan is actually available for purchase for RM12,888. In its current form, the electric scooter has a maximum range of 120km with a top speed of around 90 to 100 km/h depending on which of the bike’s three riding modes you choose to activate.

Legatus Metropolitan Electric Motorcycle — *The Metropolitan electric motorcycle. [Image: Legatus.]*

Equipped with a 50AH battery, the bike can be charged using the standard 3-pin plug and takes around 3 hours to reach 80% state of charge. The product page for the bike on the Legatus website also said that the battery that is fitted into Metropolitan can last up to 1,800 charge cycles.

In general, small-sized electric motorcycles don’t have enough space to carry large-capacity batteries as well as necessary components to make fast charging safe for them. Instead of spending hours waiting for the battery to be charged, swapping it would take just a few minutes while the issue of range anxiety for electric motorcycles can be reduced further by having a vast network of battery swapping stations.

Battery swap technology has also received attention from many of the well-known motorcycle manufacturers out there including Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Piaggio, and KTM. So, it is really interesting to see that a local company is also looking into it as well.

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