Nio announced on Wednesday that it is partnering with Parkopedia to offer European drivers access to a new ‘On-Street Parking’ feature.
The partnership with the EasyPark subsidiary comes with Nio’s latest software update in Europe — named Banyan 2.4.1 — which will be rolling out this week.
The ‘On-Street Parking’ service will provide detailed information about parking zones, including hourly rates, restrictions and accepted payment methods.
It also shows availability on each zone, by highlighting lower or higher chances of finding a spot.
The feature will be integrated directly into the Navigation app — which will now be available through the new Nio App Store.
Nio becomes the latest automaker to partner with Parkopedia, following Seat, which launched earlier this year an in-car payment system for parking in Cupra vehicles.
Kia and Parkopedia also partnered late last year, starting with the fully electric Kia EV3 model. Skoda models also adopted in 2023 a ‘Pay to Fuel’ feature, besides the ‘Pay to Park’ service.
Volkswagen’s collaboration with the service provider in America dates back to 2021, while in China, Honda was the first automaker to integrate Parkopedia’s parking payment service.
Banyan 2.4.1 Update
Nio’s latest software version introduces an App Store in the system that enables drivers to easily browse, download, and manage all their vehicle apps in one location — including both Nio‘s native apps and third-party.
Banyan’s 2.4.1 update will also bring improvements to the assisted driving system, such as improving the lane-keeping feature and the predictive speed control, according to Nio.
Nio‘s AI “co-pilot” Nomi was also improved to better respond to voice commands.
The Shanghai-based company expanded to Europe in 2021, via Norway. A year later, it entered four new markets including Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.
In April, Nio sold 52 vehicles across five European markets, down from 86 units in March, according to official national data and the EU-EVs platform.
Germany’s Deutsche Bahn (DB) and the Rhein-Main Transport Association announced this week the first fully autonomous rides in two small towns using Nio ES8 vehicles equipped with technology from Intel-owned Mobileye.
In China, the company announced earlier this week it is rolling out a new safety feature allowing its vehicles to autonomously pull over on highways in case of emergencies.
The feature is the world’s first “Emergency Autonomous Pull-Over” and is part of the latest software update to Nio’s driver assistance system under its in-house “Nio World Model” (NWM).
