Chinese EV maker Nio aims to woo more buyers with 1,000 new battery-swap stations as it prepares for launch of budget cars
- Company doubles down on model that allows drivers to change – rather than charge – their electric-vehicle’s battery pack
- The new stations can handle 30 per cent more swaps per day than the previous design, using technology that navigates the car into the proper position
Nio already operates about 1,300 swap stations in China, which allow Nio owners to quickly exchange a spent battery pack for a fully charged one. The stations serve owners who opt for Nio’s battery-as-a-service (BaaS) option, which slashes the initial price of buying the car but charges a monthly fee for the battery and service.
The new stations can swap 408 battery packs a day, 30 per cent more than the existing stations, because they feature technology that automatically navigates the car into the proper position, the company said. The swap takes about three minutes.
The aggressive buildout of new stations aims to ease EV drivers’ so-called range anxiety, the fear of the battery running out between charging stations, said Shen Fei, vice-president of Nio Power, the power-solution unit of Shanghai-based Nio.
“We hope to largely expand our service and network and bring better user experience to car owners,” Shen said. “Nio, as a pioneer of the battery-swap model, welcomes other carmakers to share the technology and network.”
Nio would not reveal building costs for the third-generation stations, which cover about 40 square metres each. The stations’ navigation features are powered by two lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors and two Nvidia Drive Orin X chips.
“The battery-swap model has not been widely used either in China or other major automotive markets, as the technology requires massive investment and concerted effort by carmakers and battery producers to promote its use,” said Davis Zhang, a senior executive at Suzhou Hazardtex, a supplier of specialised vehicle batteries. “Technically, it does effectively help ease drivers’ range anxiety, and is a good battery strategy for electric cars.”
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Chinese smart-battery swap stations can change EV batteries automatically
Nio’s BaaS model, launched in early 2020, slashes the price of the car by up to 20 per cent. So buyers could get Nio’s ES6 sport-utility vehicle (SUV), which starts at 358,000 yuan (US$52,040), for just 287,000 yuan if they opt for the battery service, which costs 980 yuan per month.
In October, 2021, Nio said that the total number of its power swap stations in the world would exceed 4,000 by the end of 2025, including about 1,000 outside China.
Since late last year, premium EV makers, which sell cars priced above 200,000 yuan, have been grappling with dwindling market demand as drivers became increasingly worried about shrinking wages and low job prospects across the country.
Chinese EV maker Nio said to be planning new factory for its cheaper models
Nio’s sales rebounded last month when it delivered 12,157 vehicles to mainland customers, up 30 per cent from January and 98 per cent higher than the same period in 2022.
