According to the company, battery swapping may be the key to the time-consuming recharge problem of EVs.
On December 15, 2020, NIO reached an agreement with the State Grid EV Service for cooperation in a charging and swapping stations construction project. According to NIO, the time of changing an EV battery is much less than charging an EV with a charging pile. The company currently changes a battery in only five minutes, while the charging pile takes much longer. Taking the Tesla Model S 75D as an example, it takes 80 minutes to fully charge an EV battery on a supercharging pile.
Recently, China's first subsidized EVs are facing the problem of battery replacement. According to the IT Times, taking the BAIC EV 160 as an example, to replace the battery for this model, the price will be as high as CNY 120,000. However, the price of BAIC EV 160 after subsidies is about CNY 87,000 in 2015. Batteries are even more expensive than cars, which is a significant reason hindering the development of China's EV industry. With the continuous iteration of battery technology, battery replacement has become a low-cost solution for battery life. Compared with Tesla, which has been committed to building charging stations, battery swapping may be another development direction.