A decade ago, the hugely successful startup Better Place made several billion dollars by betting that car drivers electric vehicles they would rather replace their dead batteries with new charged ones in just a few minutes rather than waiting hours for them to be charged. But when Better Place launched its battery swap stations in 2012, Elon Musk envisioned building a fast, free charging network for Tesla drivers, one of the hottest brands in the electric car industry. Nine months after Mr. Musk’s announcement, Startup Better Place went bankrupt after losing more than $750 million from investors including Morgan Stanley, General Electric and HSBC.

However, the idea returned. Over the past two years, San Francisco-based startup Ample has developed and deployed more than 12 robotic battery change stations across the region and Europe.

One afternoon in May, the warehouse company introduced next-generation stations that can replace a dead battery with a fully charged one in about 5 minutes.

The process was halved compared to the stations currently operating. Company founders Cald Hassunach and John de Souza introduced said company a year after Better Place went bankrupt, but adopting a different model and different battery replacement technology. “We are committed to creating a better Better Place,” said Mr. Hassuna, who is also the CEO. The company, which has raised $260 million in funding since its launch in 2014, is targeting fleets of transport or brokerage companies that can’t wait long enough to charge their electric vehicles. “If you can charge it at home, that’s a good idea. But if you park on the street or have a vehicle that is part of a fleet, this is not possible.” The station, featured by Ample, is painted white and yellow and has the phrase “Electric Vehicles for All” written on it. It even resembles a spacious car wash area. “We want to be a filling station for electric vehicles,” admits Mr. Hassunah.

The station the company has developed is a scaled-down version of the corresponding multi-million dollar stations that Better Place once began rolling out in Israel and Denmark. However, Ample’s infrastructure costs less than $100,000 and can be containerized and up and running in three days, he says. Because the company charges batteries slowly, it doesn’t have to go through the process of building expensive high-voltage infrastructure.

After Better Place went bankrupt, Ample learned another lesson: It’s important to convince automakers to build electric vehicles with replaceable batteries. Before it went bankrupt, Better Place stations could swap batteries for a unique Renault model that the automaker had modified for the purpose.