Nio, one of the most well-known EV manufacturers in China, is ramping up its presence in parts of Europe.
The company has just opened its first EV battery swap station in Sweden as it prepares to launch in various European markets before the end of the year. This was shared on Nio’s Sweden’s Linkedin page and was also reported by cnevpost.
Nio delivered its first EVs to Sweden last week followed by the opening of its first battery swap station in the country. The site is near the locality of Varberg. The site is found next to a highway that runs between Gothenburg and Malmö in the southwest of Sweden.
At the opening, the audience was seen closer to the ground seeing the battery swap process being undertaken on a Nio ET7 model.
Nio calls the battery swap technology to be very similar to refuelling when it comes to the time taken for the EV to have a low-charge pack swapped with a fully charged battery.
The company’s head of Nio Power division, Kajsa Ivansson-Sogne described the process to the visiting public as:
“With battery swap stations, NIO makes powering up an electric vehicle as fast as refuelling a conventional fuel car”
The whole process has previously been seen to take under 7 minutes at Nio’s other European stations, like those found in Norway.
In the European market, Nio is offering a subscription service to lease a Nio EV over purchasing one. European customers will be able to choose between the ET7, EL7 and ET5 ground-up EVs. This was announced by the company last month with deliveries already having started.
The subscription model hasn’t been well received in the market so Nio will be allowing customers to purchase a Nio EV in Europe from November 21 2022. These purchased vehicles will be delivered to customers by the beginning of 2023.
Battery swapping is one of the main points of difference Nio has back in its home market of China with recent reports confirming over 1,200 battery swap stations now online.
Nio has doubled the number of battery swap stations in under a year and with European expansion, it’s looking to grow it even further.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.