Electric Vehicle(EV) battery manufacturer, Ample on Thursday announced that the company has raised $160 million in a new series funding round.
The San Francisco company has raised $230 million so far in the Series C funding round. The company aims to use the money to expand testing and deployment to New York City, then Madrid, and Singapore, the startup’s founder Khaled Hassounah told Reuters.
“We’ve been saying for the past few months that this technology is ready for prime time, so now we intend to prove it” by expanding the fledgling service to more cities and drivers, he told Reuters.
Long charging times have dampened consumers and in turn, have reduced the demand for electric vehicles. Hassounah and the company’s co-founder John de Souza say their process can replace a depleted battery with a fully charged one in less than 10 minutes, using an automated process that “works with any electric vehicle” at a cost “as cheap as gasoline.”
Ample is a part of a group of companies that are trying to implement the battery swap idea which enables drivers to swap the battery, in case they run out of charge while driving. Other companies like Chinese EV makers Nio and Xpeng are also part of this initiative.
Ample is backed by investors like Shell and Repsol as well as energy providers such as Japan’s Eneos and Thailand’s PTT.
