Hui Zhang, controlling director of Nio in Europe, advised journalists at an celebration held in Norway very last week the firm wasin talks with automakers without having naming them.
When questioned to explain whether sharing meant licensing or an additional type of enterprise settlement, the company declined to offered addition information.
Nio has so considerably built 868 swap stations in China and statements its customers have swapped batteries 7.6 million instances.
The company has touted battery swapping as a one of a kind selling position for the brand’s quality SUVs and forthcoming sedan selection and offering the battery swap platform would be the equal of Tesla’s the latest choice to make it possible for other models to use its Supercharger community.
Battery swapping is substantially more rapidly than charging but the price to install the network is a great deal larger. A study published final 12 months by The Swedish Transportation Administration wanting at battery swapping quoted Nio-sourced figures indicating just about every swap station expenditures $772,000 (699,000 euros) to build in China, such as batteries and website leasing, in comparison to $309,112 for a lender of charge factors.
Nio claimed it is on the lookout to decrease create costs for the swap stations, which at present have the capacity to shop 13 batteries.
Licensing its system to an additional automaker could increase the utilization charge of the swap stations, making them far more price tag effective.
One doable buyer is Geely-owned Lotus Know-how, the Chinese “life-style” division of the British sporting activities car maker, in which Nio has an investment decision by way of its venture money arm.
Geely has its have plans to established up 5,000 battery swapping stations for electric powered motor vehicles globally by 2025. It has not claimed no matter whether it would generate its personal system.
The Chinese authorities has been supporting the rollout of swap stations in the state. In a indication of this, Beijing has provided Nio exemptions from a coverage that dropped EV invest in incentives for high quality-priced autos.
China’s Ministry of Field and Facts Technologies (MIIT) last yr published the world automobile industry’s initially criteria for battery swapping technological innovation aimed at encouraging broader adoption of the observe.
Nearly all consumers of the ES8 SUV that Nio launched in Norway have opted to lease the battery separately, which provides access to swapping stations, Nio reported.
Two cost-free swaps are provided a month in the battery lease fee. Shoppers can choose to swap involving shelling out extra for the 100-kilowatt-hour battery or the much less expensive 75 kWh battery, which arrives later this year.
Nio will extend into Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany later this calendar year.
Nio’s launch product in Germany will be the ET7 sedan, an electric powered rival to the BMW 7 Series, which also comes with battery swapping technological innovation.