Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Electric vehicle maker Nio has secured a patent for a double-layer battery swap station, approved on October 15 by China’s State Intellectual Property Office, after a seven-year wait.
The patent, initially filed on May 9, 2017, introduces a “stereoscopic battery swap garage and swap method,” offering a new approach to reducing the construction costs associated with battery swap stations, as China’s media outlet IT Home initially reported.
The double-layer design features a stereoscopic garage structure intended to lower the costs of building each battery swap station.
According to the patent abstract, the technology features a drive mechanism, movable parking bays, and a designated battery swap unit that enables vehicles to automatically position themselves in a target bay, where their energy storage modules can be efficiently replaced as needed.
“The method aims to solve the high construction cost associated with battery replacement stations. The detachable battery compartment includes a drive mechanism, with designated parking positions and a replacement unit set in a designated location,” Nio says in the abstract.
Nio‘s fourth-generation battery swap station, which was unveiled in December 2023, allows the storage of more batteries in each station and a faster swapping process.
“The drive mechanism moves the vehicle to the target parking position, allowing the current battery to be replaced with a charged unit. This system enhances the quality of service by reducing the infrastructure costs of charging stations,” the company added in the patent.
At the end of 2023, Nio operated 2,316 battery swap stations in China.
Since the start of this year, the company has added 286 stations as of Tuesday. Despite an anticipated year-end acceleration, Nio remains well short of the 1,000 new stations it pledged in December 2023 at its annual Nio Day event.
Of the 2,602 battery swap stations in China, 868 are located on highways. In addition to the battery swap stations, customers can also access one of the charging stations — Nio has 4,067 equipped with a total of 23,911 charging piles.
Nio is ramping up the upgrade of its third-generation battery swap stations and introducing new fourth-generation stations across China, Onvo’s president Alan Ai said on Monday.
Due to technology limits, Onvo customers will only be able to use the fourth-generation stations with Nio currently upgrading third-generation ones to make them also compatible to Onvo vehicles.
“Onvo charging and swapping stations are being deployed at an accelerated pace, with 83 new OnvoL60 compatible stations added this week,” Onvo’s president Alan Ai wrote on social media platform on Monday.
“These include 18 new 4.0 battery swap stations, 53 upgraded 3.0 stations, 7 supercharging stations, and 5 regular charging stations. Let’s power up together,” the executive added.
Nio reached this week a total of 2,600 battery swap stations in China while cumulative battery swaps provided reached 56.4 million. In Europe, the company has 56 battery swap stations.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
