Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter
The EV maker NIO announced on Monday that has reached a total of 10 million battery swaps four years after launching its first Battery Swap Station in China providing users with a cumulative mileage of more than 1.98 billion kilometers.
It took nearly 2 and a half years to reach the first million battery exchanges and only one month from the 9 to the 10 millionths. The milestone took place at the NIO Station in Shanghai Hongqiao VEG Weige Creative Park with the completion of the power exchange of an ES8 on July 4.
“With the continuous acceleration of the layout of power stations, power exchange has become one of the favorite power-up methods for NIO users: it takes 29 months from the first to the 1 millionth power exchange; from the 1 millionth to the 9 millionth, it takes 20 months; from the 9 millionth to the 10 millionth, it only takes 1 month,” NIO stated.
The NIO user with the most battery swaps has been to 169 Stations and swapped the battery 1,364 times while 303 users have only used the Battery Swap Stations without using charging piles.
Nowadays, NIO provides battery swap services more than 30,000 times a day for power exchange stations, which is equivalent to an average of one NIO starting from the Battery Swap station at full power every 2.8 seconds.
“Power exchange can not only be used as a daily power-up method but also provide battery upgrade services, allowing users to upgrade the battery life of the vehicle more conveniently and flexibly. Up to now, NIO has provided battery upgrade services to 17,000+ users, allowing users to continue to enjoy the dividends of battery technology progress,” NIO said.
“The achievement of 10 million power exchanges has made us more convinced that the direction we insisted on at the beginning is correct. In the future, we will continue to layout the power exchange network to make everyone’s travel and power-up experience more enjoyable and convenient,” the EV maker added.
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As of July 4, NIO has 998 Power swap stations across China, 895 Supercharge Stations offering 4,891 charging piles, and over 520,000 third-party charging piles. The company recently reiterated its ambition of having over 1,300 PSS by the end of 2022 which indicates a pace of 50 new stations per month during the next six until the end of the year.
In mid-April, the company opened its 900th Power Swap Station in China announcing that users had changed batteries more than 8,000,000 times saving users over 8 million hours when compared to the common 60kW DC piles on the market.
On January 19, the company launched its first European Power Swap Station, located in Norway – the entrance country for the Chinese EV maker. Last September, with the opening of the NIO House Oslo, NIO started selling its products in Europe and plans to enter another four markets this year: Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden.
In mid-June, during a conference with NIO users, the CEO enhanced the effects of the pandemic during the last months on the production of new battery swap stations, “The layout of the power station has been greatly affected by the epidemic in Shanghai this year. The production plant of the power station was directly unable to produce due to the epidemic. It’s true that it [the pace of new BSS in China] didn’t meet expectations, but it’s not that it doesn’t make sense at the moment,” William Li said.
In addition, William Li reiterated the company’s goal of achieving 1,300 Battery Swap Stations worldwide by the end of the year and confirmed the plan to have a plant to build these facilities in Europe.
As initially reported by EV on April 15, the EV maker started looking for an EU Plant Manager in Hungary last April. The company aims to produce Power Swap Stations (PSS) and Charging Piles in Europe to avoid exporting costs from China. The position is located in Budapest (Hungary) suggesting that the company could build/ buy a factory there in the upcoming months and establish its European PSS production center in the country.
The EV manufacturer will enter 4 new European Markets in 2022: Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and The Netherlands. During the last NIO Day, the company revealed that will be present in 25 Countries by 2025.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter