The Chinese NEV maker is accelerating its commercial layout of NEV’s dependency on battery charging.
NIO's battery swap station. Image credit: NIO
According to local media channels, NIO and the Hefei government will build 40 battery exchange stations in Hefei by 2021. It is expected that 20 battery exchange stations will be built this year and the rest in 2021. Hefei Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities Investment and Operation Co., Ltd. will be responsible for the construction of the stations.
“NIO has deployed 143 battery replacement stations in 64 cities in China and completed more than 800,000 battery replacements for our users,” said Li Bin, chairman and CEO of NIO.
As one of the earliest domestic car companies to deploy a battery swap model, NIO has made battery swap services an important competitive force for its future plans, and all its models have launched battery swap versions this year.
On August 20, the NIO Automotive Battery Rental Solution (BaaS) was officially released, providing its customers with comprehensive services such as vehicles without battery packs, battery rental, battery recharging, battery exchange, and other services.
At the same time, NIO also established a joint venture with CATL, Guotai Junan and Hubei Science and Technology Investment Group Co., Ltd. to establish a company in Wuhan which will be responsible for the operation of the BaaS business.
This time, NIO’s cooperation with the Hefei government to build a power swap station will help accelerate the commercialization of its power swap model and become its new profit growth point. In the future, it may cooperate with other local governments to build power swap stations.
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