On July 9th, the first NIO Power Day was held in Shanghai. Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO, shared the development history and core technology of NIO Power in the past three years and announced NIO Power 2025’s plan for battery swapping station layout.
Global layout of 4,000 battery swapping stations by 2025
As of July 9th, NIO has established 301 battery swapping stations, 204 supercharging stations with 1,606 piles, 381 destination charging stations with 2,135 piles, and connected to over 380,000 third-party charging piles nationwide. The total number of battery swapping stations, supercharging stations, and destination charging stations reached 885, providing users with over 2.9 million battery swaps and 600,000+ one-click household appliance services.
Battery rechargeable, swappable, and upgradable is what sets NIO’s electric cars apart from other brands, and the three-minute battery swapping service provided by the stations has truly brought NIO a large number of users.
Qin Lihong stated that NIO will accelerate the construction of battery swapping stations, rapidly promote the construction of second-generation battery swapping stations, and plan to achieve the goal of 700 battery swapping stations by the end of 2021, and 600 new stations per year from 2022 to 2025. It is expected that by 2025, there will be 4,000 battery swapping stations worldwide, including 1,000 in markets outside China.
90% of users will live in “Electricity Zone Houses”
“Electricity Zone Houses” originates from user ideas, defined as residences within 3 kilometers of battery swapping stations. Currently, 29% of NIO users live in “Electricity Zone Houses.”
Shen Fei, Vice President of NIO Power, announced that by 2025, 90% of NIO users’ homes will become “Electricity Zone Houses.”
NIO Power is not just about battery swapping
NIO Power is a home appliance solution based on mobile internet. With a wide-ranging layout of battery swapping facilities, and relying on NIO’s cloud technology, it provides users with a more convenient and exclusive recharging experience that exceeds expectations, making it more convenient than refilling with gasoline.
Besides battery swapping, NIO Power also provides NIO-exclusive charging stations installation, interconnectivity with public fast charging stations, mobile charging van service, supercharging stations, and home charging service performed by charging specialists. These services are available through the NIO cloud dispatch platform and constitute the “one-click charging” experience for customers.
NIO Power offers an “intelligent power supplement system that is rechargeable, interchangeable, and upgradable” to solve users’ pain points. Compared to most electric vehicle companies, NIO Power covers all types of home appliances on the market.
Battery swapping reduces charging time, approaching refueling time; home charging stations allow users to charge at home; third-party public charging stations enable users to find charging stations easily; mobile charging vans provide emergency charging support for long-distance trips; charging specialists can help users save time and trouble.
Openness to the Public
At the Shanghai Auto Show, NIO Power launched the Charger supercharging station, filling the last gap in NIO’s entire charging system. At the same time, the one-click charging service has been available to non-NIO customers since April of last year. This means that NIO Power is embarking on a path to empower the industry.
The introduction of supercharging stations not only provides another way to supplement energy for NIO users, but also unleashes more imagination for NIO’s energy system openness. With supercharging stations, the charging partner program and the subsequent cooperation between NIO and XPeng to interconnect their supercharging systems became possible.
As of March this year, the charging partner program has been implemented in 25 supercharging stations with 188 supercharging stations, and the construction of these supercharging stations does not require funding from NIO.
Moreover, the one-click charging service’s openness to the public can directly benefit NIO Power. Not only is the price of each service 100 yuan more expensive than NIO car owners’ orders, but the scalability that follows the service’s opening shows the possibility of profitability for NIO Power.
According to the latest data released by NIO Power, the one-click charging service has completed more than 300,000 orders, providing services for more than 20 other brands of vehicles. In addition to NIO’s own users, Tesla owners use the service the most.
Battery Upgrades
# 2019, NIO launched the 84 kWh battery which upgraded the energy density and driving range while maintaining the battery pack size and dimensions.
Moreover, NIO Power also introduced the flexible daily rental plan for the 84 kWh battery pack. For only RMB 66 per day, customers can rent a large capacity battery pack to increase driving range for long-distance travel.
However, the reality may not be as optimistic. Due to cost control, the 84 kWh backup battery in the battery swapping station could not be delivered in time, which resulted in many car owners who purchased the 84 kWh battery unable to enjoy the convenience of battery swapping.
In Q4 2020, NIO launched the 100 kWh battery pack.
During NIO’s earnings call a few days ago, Li Bin stated that the company will invest another RMB 100 million to expand the battery swapping system.
Battery as a Service (BaaS) solution for electric vehicles
If NIO Power is only seen as an energy supplement solution, its potential would be underestimated.
In August of last year, NIO officially launched its BaaS solution for electric vehicles, which is another new attempt by NIO in the transformation of the intelligent electric car business model.
Unlike the previous battery installment plan, in the new BaaS plan, the ownership of the battery no longer belongs to the customer, but instead belongs to the battery asset management company jointly established by NIO, CATL, and State Grid Corporation of China.
Consumers only need to bear the battery usage cost.
With this plan, on the one hand, the cost of purchasing the entire electric vehicle is reduced, and on the other hand, the problem of battery asset depreciation is solved. At the same time, the problem of battery ownership in the recycling process is also solved.
After the battery ownership is transferred to the battery asset management company, all of these issues are easily resolved. In addition to charging lease fees, the battery asset management company can also develop many battery cascade utilization schemes.
NIO wants to go wherever gasoline vehicles can go
On December 22, NIO successfully opened the first nationwide Sichuan-Tibet express charging route. With 14 NIO 20 kW fast-charging stations along the way, covering a total distance of over 2,900 kilometers from Chengdu to Everest Base Station, which is at an altitude of 5,200 meters. This enables electric vehicles to easily reach the Everest Base Station.
On June 1st of this year, the first Sichuan-Tibet-Qiang Autonomous Region loop line has been opened. “Starting from Chengdu in the east, connecting to National Road 318 in the West, and setting up 12 destination charging stations along the way.”
This year, NIO also plans to open up the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, Dukou Highway, Lugu Lake and other areas.
At the Shanghai Auto Show this year, NIO released the Power North Plan, announcing that within three years, it will deploy 100 battery swapping stations, 120 mobile charging cars, 500 supercharging stations, more than 2,000 supercharging piles, and more than 10,000 destination charging piles in eight provinces and autonomous regions including Heilongjiang, Geelyn, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang. The Power North Plan will greatly improve the charging experience of electric vehicle users in the northern regions.
Concluding Remarks
The original intention of NIO Power is to provide car owners with a full-scenario charging service, enabling car owners to enjoy the most comfortable energy supplement system. NIO’s comprehensive energy supplement system also has great significance for the entire new energy vehicle industry. In terms of the major problem of electric vehicle charging, NIO can be said to sincerely stand on the perspective of car owners to solve the problem.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.