Nio said on Thursday 15% of its drivers in the United Arab Emirates have used its first battery swap station since launching the site in February, while teasing the opening of more stations in the country.
The station is located at the Yas Marina Formula 1 Circuit near Abu Dhabi and currently remains the company’s only battery swap site in the region.
A battery swap costs AED 119 ($32,4) for a 100 kWh battery and AED 99 ($27) for the standard range 75 kWh battery.
According to Shanghai-headquartered EV maker, each fourth-generation station allows vehicles to replace depleted battery packs with fully charged ones in about three minutes.
The company did not specify the absolute number of customers using the station or the time period over which the 15% figure was calculated, but said “more stations are on the way.”
“The UAE’s first Power Swap Station has seen adoption by 15% of local Nio users. And with more stations on the way, this number is only growing,” the brand wrote on X.
A delivery centre is also planned for the Yas Marina site.
Nio began deploying its fourth-generation battery swap station in China in June 2024, marking the first one that supports battery swaps across multiple vehicle models and brands.
The Gen-4 system is equipped with six ultrawide-FOV LiDARs and four Nvidia Orin X chips with a combined computing power of 1,016 TOPS.
Nio says battery swaps in the latest iteration take 144 seconds — 22% faster than the prior version — and each station can perform up to 480 swaps per day with an expanded 23-battery capacity.
In China, Nio closed 2024 with nearly 3,000 stations. It originally aimed to add a further 1,800 to 2,000 in 2025, but progress has been lagging.
As of the end of June, only 384 new stations had been built in 2025 — just 21.3% of the low-end target and less than one-fifth of the high end.
Last month, the company opened a temporary pop-up store in Yas Mall, Abu Dhabi’s largest shopping centre and the UAE’s second-biggest.
Customization options and detailed pricing are currently unavailable on Nio’s UAE website, where potential customers can only register their interest by submitting a form.
In February, during Ramadan, Nio rolled out its first discounts in the UAE, offering savings of up to AED 12,500 ($3,400) on all three models.
Customers currently cannot configure vehicles or view detailed pricing on the UAE website; instead, they can register their interest by submitting a form.
Earlier this year, Nio’s UAE site listed the ET5 starting at AED 199,900 ($54,400) with a 75 kWh standard-range battery and an estimated two-month waiting period.
Prices for available inventory begin at AED 208,300 ($56,700). The EL8 starts at AED 359,900 ($98,000) with a 100 kWh long-range battery, with in-stock units priced from AED 382,300 ($104,100).
Buyers financing through Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) can defer their first payment for up to six months.
Nio has not disclosed any delivery or registration figures in the region to date. In recent years, the Middle East has attracted several international EV brands including Nio, XPeng, Zeekr, VinFast and Lucid Motors.
The automaker entered the UAE market in late 2024 and formed a joint venture with Abu Dhabi-based CYVN Holdings to expand across the Middle East and North Africa under the name Nio MENA.
