Nio surpassed 150,000 battery swaps in a single day for the first time on Wednesday, completing a record 158,290 swaps as millions of Chinese travelers took to the roads during the New Year holiday.
According to Thursday’s social media post, the busiest station on the day was located at the Toubao service area on the G1523 Yongwan highway in Lianjiang County (Fujian province) which completed 166 swaps.
The record marks the third time in five months that Nio has broken its single-day swap record.
The previous peak of 146,649 was set on February 15, which itself surpassed the 145,395 swaps registered on October 1 during China’s National Day holiday.
Infrastructure
As of Thursday evening local time, Nio had completed over 101.6 million cumulative battery swaps in China — according to the company’s website.
The Shanghai-based EV maker operates 3,750 battery swap stations and 28,223 proprietary charging piles in China, with access to over 1.56 million third-party charging points.
The company’s highway swap network includes more than 1,000 stations connecting 9 north-south corridors, 11 east-west corridors, and 16 major city clusters across 550 cities nationwide.
The company reached 100 million cumulative battery swaps on February 6, which it described as large-scale validation of the battery swap model by users and the market.
Fifth Gen Stations
Nio is preparing to roll out its fifth-generation battery swap stations, with pioneer deployments underway in the first quarter and mass production planned from the second quarter, founder and CEO William Li said in December.
From Q2 onward, all new stations deployed will be fifth-generation.
The new stations will offer approximately 20% more capacity than the current fourth-generation system, co-founder and President Lihong Qin said at a media roundtable in Hangzhou in September attended by EV.
The company’s co-founder described the stations as “the ultimate goal of our battery swap strategy.”
