Automaker Nio has just introduced the third generation of its battery swap stations in China, and it’s turning out to be even more impressive than the previous one.
Last year, in Norway, our national Maxime Fontanier was able to attend, during a test of the Nio ES8, the Chinese Tesla Model X, a battery exchange in a Nio Power Swap Station, the first of its kind in Europe! Located near Drammen, about forty kilometers from Oslo, it allows 312 pack exchanges to be carried out per day, ie less than 5 minutes per operation. Stopwatch in hand, Maxime precisely noted a time of 4 minutes and 23 seconds to regain a capacity of 100 kWh!
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An already impressive figure, but it was a generation 2.0 station. And now Nio is launching its third version which should reduce the delay to 3 minutes, with 408 possible exchanges per day. The Chinese manufacturer plans to install 1,000 across the Middle Kingdom by the end of this year. 400 of them will be positioned along toll motorways, the rest in urban areas, and they will be added to a network that already has 1,300.
These stations are obviously reserved for the brand’s models, but in order to access them, you must also choose to buy the car by renting the battery separately, which seems logical, and the battery exchange is included in the subscription.
This new generation of stations will also be able to accommodate the entry-level brands that Nio is about to launch. Currently known under the code name of Alps and Firefly, they are intended for the middle class and their models will be assembled in a former factory that the manufacturer has bought from the SUV manufacturer Leopard.
