First milestone for Nio’s battery swapping know-how in Europe has been reached. The corporate introduced that simply final night time one in every of its prospects carried out a battery swap in Norway and it was the cumulative 10,000th swap in the entire of Europe. The corporate is clearly celebrating with a obligatory picture shoot and a few presents and a certificates for the fortunate Nio proprietor.
Nio already put in 11 battery swap stations in Europe, one other six are being commissioned and can open quickly. Nio house owners have extra entry to over 388 thousand charging factors throughout Europe, in accordance with Nio’s app.
The corporate has a protracted technique to go although, if it needs to catch as much as its personal leads to China. Solely six months in the past the battery swap rely stood at 10 million, again then the corporate had 999 swap stations operational. That quantity has gone up considerably and at this second there are 1,313 swap stations unfold throughout China.
Nio has bold plans for its battery swap enterprise, initially the corporate wished so as to add one other 400 areas to its present community this yr. That quantity has been just lately revised and now the plan is so as to add 1,000 stations by the top of 2025 for a complete of two,300 stations.
The European operations are considerably smaller, the primary station opened solely a yr in the past in Norway however to hurry issues up, Nio opened up the battery swap station manufacturing web site in Hungary.
Nio battery swap station
Nio is increasing its enterprise in Europe, the corporate has formally launched its three electrical vehicles final October with deliveries of each the Nio EL7 and Nio ET7 already underway. Nio ET5 deliveries are scheduled to start subsequent month.
Battery swapping service remains to be new in Europe and it’ll take a while for it to develop, for now solely Nio is providing this service whereas in China the corporate faces pretty sizable competitors from CATL and SAIC.
Majority of electrical automobile producers dismissed the battery swap mannequin as too difficult and cited potential security and reliability points as not definitely worth the problem. Nio is proving that they might have been unsuitable and its prospects are making the most of a 5 minute swap for a totally charged battery, relatively than ready 40 minutes for a plug-in charger to do its job.
Nio is going through stiff competitors in China
There isn’t any level asking the query if battery swapping works – the reply is within the numbers. One other vital half that we are inclined to overlook is the benefit of entry to the battery which turns into a problem when the battery fails.
The price of battery substitute can run into nicely over $10,000 and solely a part of it’s the battery itself. Generally the service must take half of the automobile aside earlier than they’ll take away the battery and issues are much more difficult with structural batteries. Was Nio proper to go for the battery swapping possibility? For now, it seems so.
