NIO’s Big New EV Charging & Swapping Plans – CleanTechnica

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We all know that NIO is one of the more popular “new” EV-only car companies from China. (“New” is maybe not the best term now, since NIO is almost a decade old and there are many much newer companies.) It is well known not just for its cars but for for “bringing back” battery swapping, something that seemed to have died with Better Place’s bankruptcy and Tesla’s extremely limited attempt at trialling it. However, NIO has also made big moves in the EV charging space in China. Let’s look at some of its recent announcements and plans on both EV charging and battery swapping.

NIO put on its big “Power UP 2024” event this week in Wuhan, China. At the event, the company announced two new plans — its “Power Up Counties” plan and its “Power Up Partner” plan.

With regard to Power Up Counties, the plan is as follows:

“NIO is to expand its charging network, installing chargers in all counties in China by June 30, 2025. Moreover, NIO will carry out the plan to expand battery swapping network carried out in three phases: By June 30, 2025, NIO Power Swap Station (PSS) will be built in over 1,200 counties of 14 provincial-level administrative divisions; by December 31, 2025, the PSS network will be available in counties of another 13 provincial-level administrative divisions. By then, NIO PSS will have covered over 2,300 counties of 27 provincial-level administrative divisions. Starting 2026, NIO will expand coverage in the remaining provincial-level administrative divisions. NIO’s charging and swapping network is expected to be enhanced and expanded with the release of ‘Power Up Counties’, offering convenient, efficient and reassuring experiences for NIO, ONVO and other NEV users.”

So, in other words, it’s a plan to put a ton of chargers and battery swap stations in counties across China — more than 2,300 of them.

NIO currently has installed 2,480 power swap stations and 23,009 NIO chargers. However, the plan doesn’t indicate what those numbers should rise to, and it’s not clear where NIO is starting with regard to its current county penetration rate. That makes all of this a little weird, but the plan, in general, is clearly to expand rapidly.

With regard to Power Up Partner, the company is looking to partner with more companies in both the building and profit sharing of charging and swap stations. This is key to its growth plans. These are partners who have already signed up:

East China Construction Investment Co., Ltd. of China Energy Engineering Corporation
Xi’an Chengtou New Energy Co., Ltd.
Guangdong Grid Electric Vehicle Service Co., Ltd.
Ningbo Joycharge Co., Ltd.
Shandong Sanneng Intelligent Industrial Park Co., Ltd.
Guizhou Yuanqiyu New Energy Technology Co., Ltd.

Here’s NIO’s pitch, as well as some tooting of its own horn about how much it has been powering electric cars from other brands (selective bolding from me):

“Believing that cooperation is always a better option, NIO has been open and cooperative in charging and swapping technology and network access. NIO chargers have been accessible to all NEV users since the beginning and have served users of over 200 other car brands, with over 600,000 registered users. NIO has partnered with 20 car brands to open up the charging networks mutually. Now, over 80% of electricity NIO provides via charging is for non-NIO cars.

“So far, NIO has established strategic partnerships in charging and swapping with seven auto companies, i.e., FAW Group, Chang’an Automobile, GAC Group, Geely Holding Group, Chery Automobile, JAC Group, and Lotus. In addition, NIO has been engaged in comprehensive cooperation with energy companies, including SINOPEC, PetroChina, CNOOC, Shell, State Grid Corporation of China, China Southern Power Grid, Anhui Wenergy, and Zhongan Energy, in the pursuit of a standardized, unified power network of broader coverage.”

Truthfully, those are impressive numbers and show how much NIO has gone beyond simply being a car company.

New Factory

To close, NIO also announced a new factory was coming to Wuhan. When built out, the factory will be able to produce 1,000 Power Swap Stations per year.