Nio to expand battery swap to Europe, deliveries in late Q3

Chinese electric car manufacturer Nio has announced it will expand its battery swap stations and start delivering its ES8 to Europe in September, following on from a new milestone in its domestic market in China

The Chinese EV maker, which is often seen as a credible rival to Tesla, differs from the Californian EV maker in that it uniquely offers a proprietary battery swapping service rather than a charging network.

While other players are also looking to battery swapping as a method of addressing consumer hesitation about charging times, they tend to lean towards a modular service that is open to multiple brands, such as Ample or this consortium of motorcycle makers.

Nio has already completed more than two million battery swaps to date in China, having now sold more than 100,000 of its ES8, ES6 and EC6 electric cars.

Now the Chinese electric carmaker is looking towards Europe, starting with launching in Norway.

First off the rank will be Nio’s flagship ES8 SUV, test drives for which will commence in August. First customer deliveries will then start in September Later, followed by the premium sedan Nio ET7 in 2022.

Accompanying the ES8 launch, Nio will also begin opening its first dealer, service and battery swap stations outside China.

Its first centre, a so-called Nio House, will open in Oslo in September, where Nio will offer service, deliveries and a showroom. This will be supplemented with mobile service technicians who can come out and service on-site or pick up the car for service.

In 2022, more smaller showrooms, called Nio Spaces, will open in the Norwegian towns of Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim and Kristiansand.

Nio’s battery swap service means its vehicles can be furnished with a fully-charged battery in a couple of minutes, as an alternative to charging it. To do this, a special battery replacement station is required. Nio plans to establish four of these along Norway’s major roads and cities before the end of 2022.

The flagship SUV Nio ES8 is equipped with a battery pack of 100kWh, and has a driving range of about 580km (according to the NEDC cycle used in Australia and China and which is often much further above actual driving range).

It comes with four-wheel drive, and dual motors that together deliver 440 kWh of power and take the car from 0-100km/hr in 4.9 seconds. The ES8 is one of few electric vehicles on the market with a 7-seater option.

The Nio ET7 sedan that follows in 2022 will offer impressive performance. With a new solid-state battery of 150kWh, a range of up to 1000 kilometres should be possible. In addition, two smaller battery sizes will be offered.

A smaller battery with 70kWh capacity is available offering a driving range of up to 500 kilometres and an intermediate 100kWh battery offers a range of 700 kilometres (also both NEDC).

This also gets a powerful motor delivering 480kW of power, and acceleration from 0-100km/hr in 3.9 seconds.