Introduction: We all understand that this is a long and silent battle against traditional ideas, overcoming old selves, and achieving new achievements. NIO is still growing, but we have already seen the efforts it has put in.
On July 9th, the first NIO Power Day was held in Shanghai, arousing discussions among electric vehicle fans as it was the industry’s first such event. It also prompted a former NIO employee to “speak out.”
Today, as new energy becomes more widely known, the new energy electric vehicle industry is beginning to come to fruition. To promote the dominance of “electric power” throughout the new energy sector, more and more electric vehicle company founders are focusing on developing their own products.
Today, we should also understand that if environmental protection has become a current social trend, then new energy vehicles are a natural consequence of the era.
Ten years ago, if someone talked about new energy electric vehicle or unmanned automatic driving, people would be surprised and skeptical, asking, “How can electric cars compare with gasoline cars?”
However, with the progress of science and technology and industrial development, people have noticed that the environment is deteriorating step by step, and the exhaust gases from cars and industrial waste gases are polluting the sky. Even the government is promoting environmental protection and advocating the gradual replacement of non-renewable energy with renewable energy. The entire car industry has undergone a silent revolution, with more and more new energy vehicle industries rising.
According to Wilson’s monitoring data, sales of new energy vehicles are increasing year by year, and the State Council has also started issuing plans for new energy construction. The change of the times is silent but profound. We know that the era of new energy vehicles is beginning to heat up.
Among many new energy electric vehicle companies, let us temporarily focus on NIO, which has recently held the “NIO POWER DAY” in Shanghai.
Let us witness the development history and core technology of NIO POWER together. The NIO founding team has released the latest layout plan for battery-swapping stations, and has also let the entire new energy electric vehicle industry see the determination and influence of NIO in the industry. We need such an enterprise to lead the entire new energy industry and let people around the world see the development trend of new energy and the ideals of NIO people.
Looking back at the three-year development history of NIO POWER, NIO has built 301 battery swapping stations, 204 supercharging stations, 1606 supercharging pillars, 382 destination charging stations, and 2137 destination charging pillars nationwide. NIO has provided users with more than 2.9 million battery-swapping services.The battery swapping station has been upgraded from the first-generation 320KVA to the current second-generation 1250KVA, and the number of batteries has also increased from 5 to 10. At the same time, using the second-generation battery swapping station, users do not need to get off the car and wait. The whole process is done in-car by self-service intelligent system, truly realizing the one-click battery swapping for users.
Starting from the user experience, NIO deeply considers the relationship between the car and electricity, and the relationship between the people and the car. It is clear that the key point of product research and development is “charging”. This means a big infrastructure construction is needed to make all users get the most satisfying charging experience with maximum electricity in the shortest time.
During the launch, Shen Fei said: “Whether it is charging or swapping, the value creation lies in the electricity charged into user’s car. It emphasizes that we should focus not on whether charging and swapping are mutually exclusive, but on how to make these electricity play their value from the perspective of users. We shouldn’t just blindly upgrade and strengthen, but optimize user experience and make use of electricity’s travel value, which is what every NIO person needs to think about.”
NIO POWER was designed and built on this idea. From the current results and future expectations, NIO POWER is undoubtedly a bold and successful attempt.
What touched me most was that when asked about when the input cost of NIO POWER can be recovered, Qin Lihong said: “NIO POWER is more like a child in the stage of learning and growing for NIO. It should not be defined by losses. Just like parents won’t hesitate to pay for their children’s education, they won’t calculate the return when paying, and won’t think about whether the child can earn back the investment in education when they grow up. They only want to make them better and more in line with NIO’s values.”
In order to ensure the efficient operation of NIO POWER, the NIO team also designed and developed NIO Energy Cloud based on artificial intelligence Internet of Things (AIoT) technology, which includes four modules: Power Prime (high-performance IoT platform), Shield (real-time monitoring of battery status, intelligent scheduling of battery flow), Powergo (a one-stop charging and swapping operation platform), and Athena (an intelligent algorithm platform). They all work together to support the operation of NIO POWER.
In order to provide better charging service experience for continuously growing users, NIO will accelerate the construction of NIO POWER charging and swapping network, including continuous construction of swapping stations to allow all NIO users outside the first and second-tier cities to charge and swap anytime and experience the power of NIO POWER.
Not only NIO’s founding team, but also millions of NIO users and all of us who have a vision of changing the lifestyle with new energy are looking forward to NIO POWER becoming better.
“We make the sky blue again and give the earth a future.” We are all on the road, we are all growing.Besides looking into the future, NIO POWER DAY gave us more insights into NIO’s thoughts on the current bottlenecks in the development of the electric vehicle industry and on maximizing the value of new energy from the user’s perspective. “From the user’s perspective, we haven’t done enough.”
Indeed, while achieving results, it is also necessary to reflect on the deficiencies of our products. Currently, what NIO is doing is not just a strategic decision for the company, but also matters to the world’s perception of new energy electric vehicles and the prospects of the entire industry.
Compared with traditional cars, how can electric vehicles provide greater power with electricity? Compared with other companies in the same field, how can we vigorously promote electrification and infrastructure construction? For a company, how to take the lead in driving industry development? And so on.
We all understand that this is a long-lasting, quiet battle, which requires efforts to fight against traditional concepts, to overcome the old self, and to achieve new results. NIO is still growing, but we have already seen the efforts it has made.
NIO is “electrifying” and moving forward courageously. Let’s wait and see what it has in store for us!
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.