Electric vehicle maker Nio has partnered with Coca-Cola in China, showcasing the beverage brand’s ads at several of its battery swap stations across the country.
This collaboration with Coca-Cola marks the first time Nio has featured third-party advertising in its battery swap stations.
Both companies have revealed the partnership on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
Coca-Cola described the partnership as “a high-energy collab” and added, “a 3-minute battery swap and you’re fully charged!”
According to Nio, 32 power swap stations have launched in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Chengdu.
Additionally, and as first reported by CnEVPost, the EV maker will also host 24 offline events as part of the campaign, where participants can get free beverages.
The Nio Group‘s sub-brand Onvo had already teamed up with Coca-Cola in late August to celebrate the ‘Qixi’ Holiday in China.
At the time, an Onvo L60 wrapped in Coca-Cola branding drove around the streets of Beijing.
“The mobile confession soda shop is now open for business,” the brand stated on Weibo then.
Nio’s Battery Swap Network
Nio launched its first battery swap station in May 2018 and, as of Thursday, operates 3,555 stations across China (plus 61 in Europe, where expansion has been sharply slowed).
The brand has completed more than 90 million cumulative battery swaps since launch, a milestone reached in late October.
The numbers were reached 99 days after the previous 80-million mark, which itself had taken 101 days to achieve.
In early October, Nio also set a new record for daily battery swaps in China, completing more than 145,000 swaps in a single day.
4th Gen to 5th Gen Battery Swap
The company had originally aimed to install 2,000 new stations this year across China, a goal that was later revised to between 1,800 and 2,000.
In early September, Nio founder and CEO William Li said the EV maker will fall short of its 2025 target as it reallocates resources toward the next-generation system.
According to the CEO, deployment of current fourth-generation stations has slowed because they cannot be upgraded to support new battery sizes across Nio and its two sub-brands, Onvo and Firefly.
Nio‘s fifth-generation battery swap stations will launch in the first quarter of next year.
The new generation is expected to be more flexible, store more batteries and perform each swap in less time.
Competitors
The Shanghai-based company operates the largest battery swap network in China. Competitors — including CATL, which partners with Nio in several energy-related areas — are working to catch up.
The battery giant demonstrated its “Choco Swap” stations in late September, which can automatically replace a depleted battery in 70–80 seconds — about half of Nio‘s time.
The company is targeting 1,000 by the end of this year, another 2,500 in 2026, and more than 2,000 new stations in 2027, covering more than 100 cities.
The target is highly ambitious. The company plans to deploy approximately 5,500 stations in fewer than three years, whereas Nio has installed about 3,500 stations over the past seven years.
