A Nio electric car uses one of the company’s battery swapping stations in Taicang, China’s Jiangsu province, on November 13, 2023.
Visual China Group |
BEIJING – Chinese electric car company Nio announced on Tuesday that it plans to install battery charging stations in each of China’s 2,844 counties by the end of June 2025.
The company also announced plans to expand its battery-swapping stations to over 2,300 counties in China by the end of 2025. Nio aims to reach the remaining counties with battery-swapping stations starting in 2026, but did not give an end date.
Nio’s efforts to expand its battery charging and swapping stations come at a time when consumers remain concerned about how far an electric car can go on a single charge. County is among the lowest-tier jurisdictions in China, typically in less developed areas.
The company said more than 200 other car brands can access its charging stations and that more than 80% of the power provided by Nio chargers goes to cars of other brands.
In addition, Chinese electric car manufacturers are trying to shorten the waiting time for drivers at charging stations.
Owned by Geely Zeekr Earlier this month, Tesla announced that its cars equipped with the new batteries can charge from 10% to 80% in just 10.5 minutes at the company’s ultra-fast charging station, faster than what Tesla claims for its Model 3.
It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly Nio’s fastest battery chargers could recharge a battery.
With the battery swap, Nio says it can use an automated system to provide drivers of compatible cars with a charged battery in about three minutes.
The company has established strategic partnerships with automakers such as Chang’an and Geely for its battery swapping business.
Nio said it had installed more than 23,000 charging stations and at least 2,480 battery swapping stations as of August 20. To date, more than 51 million batteries have been swapped.
More than half of the electricity Nio drivers used in July was used to swap batteries. More than a fifth of the electricity used came from chargers installed at home, with only 4.5% coming from Nio’s public chargers.
A growing energy business
Nio’s latest announcements for the so-called Nio Power business come after the company said earlier this year that a fund linked to the city of Wuhan had led an investment round of up to 1.5 billion yuan ($210 million) in the unit. The bulk of Nio’s revenue comes from vehicle sales, but the segment, which includes energy services, grew 5.2% to 1.53 billion yuan in the first quarter.
Nio has not yet announced when it will release its second-quarter results. The company did so in late August last year.
The Chinese government is supporting the construction of a nationwide battery charging network as part of its broader efforts to boost the domestic electric car industry. The country’s latest “five-year plan,” which came into effect in 2021, calls for fast-charging stations nationwide, including in at least 60% of highway rest areas.
China has said there will be 8.6 million battery charging stations in 2023, up 65% from last year. That’s a ratio of one new station for every 2.4 new cars sold this year. The number of new public charging stations increased 42.7% to 929,000 in 2023, according to the data.
In the United States, there were a total of 168,388 public electric vehicle charging stations in 2023, an increase of 23.5% over the previous year.
