Nio outlines massive battery swap expansion plans at first “Power Day”

Chinese electric car manufacturer Nio held its first “Power Day” in Shanghai last Friday, at which it unveiled its Nio Power 2025 plan to deploy nearly 4,000 Nio battery swap stations worldwide by 2025.

Nio makes electric and autonomous cars – including the company’s first autonomous vehicle, unveiled earlier this year and set to launch in the first quarter of 2022 – and has also made a name for itself with its “Battery as a Service” (BaaS) subscription models.

Nio’s BaaS plans mean that Nio car owners are able to keep up with new battery technology – without being burdened with ownership of older batteries – but also allows them to swap out depleted batteries for fully charged ones, avoiding any recharge delays.

According to Nio’s most recent figures, announced at its Nio Power Day in Shanghai, the company has so far built across China 301 Bio Power Swap stations, another 204 Power Charger stations, and a further 382 destination charging stations.

Altogether, Nio has subsequently completed over 2.9 million battery swaps and 600,000 uses of One-Click-for-Power services – the company’s on-call valet charging service, which will send a Nio service specialist to collect your car to have it charged.

But Nio is looking further, and bigger, and in its newly unveiled Nio Power 2025 battery swap deployment plan, the company is not only planning to expand its battery swap service to Europe – which it announced back in May and which is expected to launch in September – but  expects to have over 4,000 Nio battery swap stations worldwide, including 1,000 outside of China.

By the end of 2021, Nio is also now targeting having over 700 battery swap stations installed, instead of its former target of 500. Meanwhile, between 2022 and 2025, Nio has committed to installing 600 new battery swap stations in China – presumably per year, though the English language press release was slightly confusing in this regard.

On top of all that, and maybe of greatest importance, Nio has also announced that it’s charging and swapping system, as well as its BaaS option, will be available to all EV makers.