Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Shanghai-based electric vehicle maker 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.
Aiming to boost charging and battery swapping access for its sub-brand, Onvo, in more cities nationwide, the company opened 18 new fourth-gen battery swap stations this week while upgrading 53 third-gen stations.
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.
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.
The brand unveiled its debut model, the Onvo L60, in May and deliveries started on September 28. Led by Alan Ai, the brand aims to quickly ramp up production and deliver 5,000 units in October, 10,000 in December and 20,000 in March.
Earlier today, Nio shared it reached 2,600 battery swap stations in China while cumulative battery swaps provided reached 56.4 million.
In a video shared Sunday, Alan Ai revealed he will soon pick up his own L60 adding he has been driving an internal car lately.
“I’ll be able to pick up my L60 soon. I ordered a Black Knight edition quite early on. Recently, I’ve been driving a test car lent to me by the product team—Polar Silver with a purple interior,” he stated.
“The range is incredibly strong; I’ve only had to charge it once in three weeks. For my daily commute, I use Onvo’s smart driving features. The parking space is quite narrow, and since I carry a laptop bag and a coffee every morning, the automatic parking for both entry and exit is really convenient,” he added.
Onvo plans to launch two new vehicles in 2025 including a 6-7 seat SUV by the end of the first quarter with deliveries starting “around May” 2025.
Last May, a few weeks after the Onvo brand’s unveiling, Alan Ai announced that the company was developing six- and seven-seat models designed for larger families.
Nio’s sub-brand Onvo registered 930 units of its L60 model between October 14 and 20, up from 900 units registered in the second week of October.
In the first three weeks of the month, Onvo registered 2,230 units.
However, it is known that China’s Golden Week holiday took place in early October impacting vehicle sales across several automakers, with a recovery seen in the latter half of the month.
The long-range variant of the L60, equipped with an 85 kWh battery, is scheduled for delivery in December.
The L60’s standard-range model, featuring a 60 kWh battery, is priced at 206,900 yuan ($29,050), while the long-range 85 kWh variant starts at 235,900 yuan ($33,120).
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
