Honda wants to eliminate charging breaks from the working day

One battery, many different machines

Honda will present Mobile Power Pack e: technology at the Airports Council International North America annual conference in Philadelphia, taking place from September 14-17. More importantly, Honda has started offering the MPP in the US market to businesses that can integrate the battery into their products.

Mobile Power Pack e: is not new technology. Honda has spent years testing swappable batteries primarily in electric two-wheelers and small mobility solutions. Now, the company wants to turn the same battery pack into a more universal energy carrier that can also be used in equipment from other manufacturers.

The MPP e: has a nominal voltage of 50.26 V and a nominal capacity of 26.1 Ah. Its energy capacity is 1.31 kWh, and the battery weighs 10.3 kg.

One pack will not, of course, power a passenger car. But 1.3 kWh is a perfectly usable module for a small electric work machine, while manufacturers can build applications around multiple batteries where more energy is required.

Swapping solves a different problem from fast charging

The biggest issue for an electric work machine is not always range. Downtime can be much more important.

An airport baggage tug or passenger assistance vehicle may operate all day in short cycles. When its built-in battery runs flat, the machine has to be taken to a charger and removed from service for a period.

A swappable battery changes the logic. A charged battery pack goes into the machine, the empty one goes to the charging station, and work continues.

It also makes it possible to keep the machine's own battery smaller. There is no need to carry enough energy for an entire shift if energy can be quickly swapped in during the working day.

This is where Honda's solution differs from the fast-charging race in electric cars. The aim of MPP is not to force huge charging power into a battery in a few minutes, but to make the battery itself a replaceable consumable module.

An airport is almost ideal for battery swapping

On public roads, battery swapping quickly runs into issues of standardisation, filling-station networks and different vehicle designs. At an airport, the situation is much simpler.

The machines operate within a restricted area, regularly return to the same work zones, and their daily use is relatively predictable. A central battery bank can be placed where the machines already travel.

Honda identifies passenger assistance vehicles, baggage and maintenance carts, tugs, and apron worker vehicles as potential applications.

Not all of them require the same power or energy capacity, but a standardised battery would allow different machines to use the same energy infrastructure.

That is MPP's strongest argument. Honda is not trying to sell an airport ten different electric vehicles with ten different chargers. It wants to sell an energy standard around which other manufacturers can build their equipment.

10.3 kg imposes fairly clear limits on use

A swappable battery nevertheless has physical limits. One MPP e: weighs more than ten kilograms.

Manually lifting one battery is still realistic, but in a machine using multiple packs, constantly swapping them by hand quickly becomes inconvenient. The energy requirements of larger vehicles also rise so quickly that stacking ten-kilogram modules stops making sense.

Honda's solution is therefore best suited to equipment with low to medium energy requirements. A baggage cart or compact tug is a much more realistic application than a large pushback tractor moving an aircraft.

The MPP e:'s strength is not high energy density, but modular use.

The battery must withstand more than the life of an electric scooter

In industrial use, a battery is not merely an energy reserve. It is lifted, dropped, repeatedly charged and used in widely varying temperatures.

Honda designed the MPP e: as an air-cooled lithium-ion battery, with a housing that protects the cells from vibration, impacts, dust and water. A handle makes the module portable by hand.

The battery electronics monitor its charge level and condition. This becomes particularly important when dozens or hundreds of packs circulate within one battery bank. The operator needs to know not only which battery is full, but also which battery is beginning to lose capacity due to ageing.

For large fleets, battery fleet-management software may prove just as important as the battery itself.

Standardisation will determine whether the idea becomes an ecosystem

Honda stresses that the MPP e: is not intended solely for Honda's own products. The company offers it in the US for B2B integration into equipment from other manufacturers.

That is strategically far more important than a single airport project.

The economic logic of a swappable battery improves with every new device using the same standard. If one battery fits a two-wheeler, work machine, generator and airport cart, an operator can share charging infrastructure and battery packs across different applications.

If every manufacturer uses a battery with its own dimensions, connector and communication protocol, much of the advantage disappears.

Honda has already addressed this issue with other Japanese manufacturers in the two-wheeler sector. Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha collaborated to establish the Gachaco battery-swapping service, aiming to avoid a situation in which every brand builds a separate battery ecosystem.

The B2B airport market gives the same idea a far more industrial dimension.

For Europe, the idea is more interesting than the specific US product

Honda's current announcement concerns the US market, and the company has not announced a similar airport programme for Europe.

From a European perspective, the technology is nevertheless noteworthy. Airports Council International set its member airports a long-term target in 2021 of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Electrifying small internal-combustion machines operating around terminals is one of the most obvious steps towards that goal.

Battery-electric solutions are by no means new in this environment. Honda is instead trying to solve the question of how to electrify machines without rebuilding their work cycles around charging.

Swappable batteries have not yet gained a particularly convincing foothold in European passenger cars. At an airport, the same idea may make much more sense, as the fleet, charging locations and operating schedule are all controlled by one operator.

Honda's 1.31 kWh battery will not solve aviation's emissions problem or begin powering passenger aircraft with electricity. But it could remove a much more down-to-earth problem: dozens of small work machines that need to move almost continuously, but do not necessarily have to burn petrol or diesel to do so.