ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter "ITOCHU") announced today that ITOCHU, ISUZU MOTORS LIMITED (headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa; Shinsuke Minami, President and Representative Director, COO; hereinafter "ISUZU"), FamilyMart Co., Ltd. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Kensuke Hosomi, Representative Director and President; hereinafter "FamilyMart"), and the City of Yokohama (Takeharu Yamanaka, Mayor) will begin a demonstration in Yokohama in November 2025. This demonstration will employ battery-swapping stations able to concurrently swap the batteries on both the right and left sides of a vehicle, the first time this has been done in Japan, and ELF EVs that are compatible with the battery-swapping method to deliver merchandise to approximately 80 FamilyMart stores.

The Japanese government aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. That is, it is working to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. It is also urgently necessary for the logistics industry to decarbonize its operations. A high vehicle utilization rate is required as merchandise is continuously delivered day and night to convenience stores that operate 24/7. Furthermore, a big challenge faced in the electrification of delivery trucks has been the downtime accompanied by the charging of batteries. An effective solution for this issue is the utilization of vehicles with batteries that can be quickly swapped for fully charged batteries.

Three ELF EVs will be introduced after modifying their batteries so that the batteries on both sides can be swapped at the same time to deliver merchandise to about 80 FamilyMart stores in Yokohama on a route with fixed destinations. The vehicles to be used in the demonstration are equipped with the ability to communicate with battery-swapping stations. When a vehicle enters a station, the swapping of the batteries will automatically begin, with the batteries in the truck being replaced with fully charged batteries. This takes almost the same amount of time as fueling a conventional diesel vehicle. This demonstration will verify the increase in the efficiency of operations on the front lines of the logistics industry and the improvement of the continuity of vehicle operations.

ITOCHU has carried out a delivery demonstration using fixed-battery electric trucks and a demonstration of delivery to FamilyMart stores using small electric trucks with swappable batteries and a battery-swapping station in a project entrusted to it by the Ministry of the Environment in cooperation with ISUZU and FamilyMart. Additionally, ITOCHU has continued to work to popularize commercial EVs and to achieve decarbonization by supporting the introduction of mass-produced ELF EVs and the provision of various solutions in cooperation with ISUZU.

Under the "The Brand-new Deal — Profit opportunities are shifting downstream — management policy," ITOCHU is pursuing a policy of enhancing its contributions to the achievement of the SDGs and engagement with them through its business activities while listening to its diverse stakeholders, including the market and society. Through this delivery demonstration, ITOCHU will verify the business potential and decarbonization effects of this system together with ISUZU for the early commercialization of electric trucks with swappable batteries.

(Reference)
■ Video explaining the battery-swapping station
(The video shows a demonstration that has been ongoing at ISUZU's Fujisawa Plant since October 2024.)
https://youtu.be/s7JB_ylqehA? si=CmfxMMKnlbvVYJlY