Nio and Chinese EV brands ramp up battery swap rollout in Europe

Chinese premium EV brand Nio is rolling out the third generation of its battery swap technology in Europe and has signed a deal with other Chinese brands to use the solution.

The latest battery swap locations in Malmo and Arlandastad, Sweden, form part of Nio’s plans to create a Europe wide network and USP for the brand.

There are now 30 Nio battery swap stations across Europe in Denmark, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and Spain. The UK is expected to get battery swap stations when Nio likely launched next year.

Battery swap subscribers can swap out their low battery for a fully charged or 80% charged one in under three minutes.

The latest battery swap station technology can carry out 408 swaps per day and can store up to 21 EV batteries.

Nio has also partnered with Geely and Changan Auto so models from these brands will be able to use the same battery swap stations and network, creating a rival to something like Tesla’s Supercharger network.

This could mean future models from Volvo, Polestar, Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Lotus, London Electric Vehicles could use the battery swap stations across Europe.

The Chinese companies have formed an alliance to create battery swapping standards, technology, network expansion, operation, swappable model development and battery asset management.

This video from last year shows how the Power Swap Station solution works with the previous second generation version of the technology:

Protecting residual values

Nio believes the battery swap technology can help protect an EV’s residual values (RV) to “eliminate any common concerns regarding battery degradation”.

Currently available in China, Nio users can upgrade or downgrade their battery to suit their requirements, allowing vehicle range and battery specification to be tailored throughout vehicle ownership.

NIO's third-generation battery swap locations are equipped with a two-megawatt hour (MWh) energy storage system, designed to feed energy back into the grid if required.

The video below shows the speed of rollout for Nio's Power Swap Stations in China: