Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter
On Monday, NIO‘s battery swap technology was featured in the British newspaper Metro enhancing the advantages of the Battery as a Service (BaaS) technology and also the Power Swap Stations that are arriving in Europe, after the debutant in Norway.
In the article, the newspaper mentioned that users can swap a “drained battery for a freshly charged one in as little as three minutes” and also NIO’s Battery as a Service system to avoid the purchase of the most expensive EV component.
“Pit stops aren’t just for Formula One, you know. In Norway, at a facility owned by Chinese electric car manufacturer NIO, it’s not wet weather tires or a new nose box being ratcheted on by automated robots, it’s the substitution of a drained battery for a freshly charged one in as little as three minutes. Such swap shops are widespread in China but the recently opened Power Swap Station, to the south of Oslo, is Europe’s first and only such specialist operation. So is battery swapping the future of EVs?”
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“NIO’s subscription service certainly has its benefits. Because batteries remain the most expensive EV component, removing that cost from the purchase of a vehicle and replacing it with a monthly fee to swap out the battery could save EV customers a few bob. The subscription [of the ] battery swap model also means that your car is always using the latest battery technology. Accessibility is an issue too.
For some EV customers, the ability to swap batteries at service stations to juice their get-around is highly appealing if they don’t have a driveway or on-street parking in reach of their home-charging points.
On the other side of the wheel, installing battery-swapping infrastructure would be more expensive than maintaining charge points already in place across the UK. Currently, there are around 42,000 charge points in more than 15,000 locations in the country – that’s more charge points than there are petrol stations”, the newspaper reported.
The free newspaper is distributed during the week on public transport like buses, underground stations, and trains but also handed out to pedestrians across England, Wales, and Scotland counting a circulation of 1,074,594 units, according to the latest numbers.
The EV maker announced on Monday the opening of three new Power Swap Stations (PSS) in China being now only 5 stations away from the 1,000th. 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.
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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.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter