Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer Nio Inc has announced that it has begun testing new battery swapping stations in China that are faster and more efficient than previous models. This is part of the company’s ongoing effort to establish battery swapping as a viable alternative to rival EV makers’ rapid-charging technology.
According to Nio’s senior vice president for power management, Shen Fei, the new Power Swap Station 3.0 has the capacity to store up to 21 battery packs and can complete a swap in under five minutes, reducing the cost per swap.
While Tesla’s Supercharger can charge EVs to a range of 200 miles in just 15 minutes, battery swapping allows drivers to replace depleted battery packs quickly with fully charged ones. However, analysts and industry executives have said this would only be feasible if batteries become more standardized.
Nio is one of the few EV makers betting on battery swapping as the main power option for electric cars. Tesla, on the other hand, has dismissed this technology as “riddled with problems and not suitable for wide-scale use.”
The Chinese EV manufacturer has ambitious plans to expand its battery-swapping stations, targeting 2,300 globally by the end of 2023. Already, the company has 1,323 such stations in operation as of March 23. To meet its target, Nio plans to have 900 of its latest power swap stations up and running this year.
Fei added that nearly 60 percent of the power replenished for Nio cars in February was via battery swapping, with another 23 percent coming from home chargers. Meanwhile, fewer than 10 percent of Nio users used public chargers. Additionally, the majority of the power charged from Nio’s 14,000 chargers across the country was used by non-Nio vehicles, including Tesla and BYD.
Nio has faced headwinds in China due to intense rival price competition. Despite deciding not to engage in price wars, Nio’s had slower deliveries in the year’s first two months. The company delivered 12,150 (+42.9 percent MoM) vehicles in February 2023 and 8,500 (-46.2 percent MoM) in January, resulting in a slower YTD increase of +30.9 compared to Tesla’s +42.8 and BYD’s +80.8 percent YoY.