Nio aims to add 1,000 battery swap stations and 20,000 charging piles in 2024 in China.
Nio (NYSE: NIO) unveiled its fourth-generation battery swap station, new higher-power supercharger, and installation targets for 2024 at its Nio Day 2023 event today.
4th-gen swap station
The electric vehicle (EV) maker’s upgraded battery swap station will have 23 battery bays and the capacity of a single day’s service will be increased to 480 with a 22 percent reduction in time per service, it said.
This fourth-generation station will feature four Nvidia Orin X chips with six ultra-wide angle LiDARs and an overall computing power of 1,016 Tops.
The configuration allows these sites to more easily handle complex environments, opening up the possibility of more experiences where they are interconnected with vehicles, Nio said.
The next-generation sites will be compatible with multi-size battery packs and support multi-brand shared battery swap services.
Nio will equip the fourth-generation stations with a 60-square-meter photovoltaic system on top, saving nearly 18,000 kWh of electricity per year per station, according to the company.
Installation of the new generation of stations will begin in April 2024, the company said.
The battery swap stations that Nio is currently installing are the third generation, which was unveiled at the Nio Day 2022 event on December 24, 2022, and installation began in April 2023.
The third-generation battery swap station is capable of storing up to 21 battery packs, up from 13 in its predecessor and five in the first generation of the facility.
The third-generation battery swap station increased the capacity of a single station to 408 services per day, a 30 percent increase over the second-generation. Nio vehicles can change batteries at the third-generation station in as little as 2 minutes and 30 seconds, 20 percent faster than the previous generation.
Nio’s third-generation battery swap station is equipped with two LiDARs and two NVIDIA Orin chips for a total computing power of 508 Tops.
Nio also unveiled the fourth generation of its supercharger pile at today’s event, with a further increase in peak power over its predecessor.
This new supercharger has a peak power of up to 640 kW, a maximum output current of 765 A and a maximum output voltage of 1,000 V.
The supercharger pile has a liquid-cooled charging gun cable and weighs just 2.4 kg, the lightest in the industry, Nio said.
The charging pile enables intelligent distribution of charging power and maximizes charging efficiency, the company said.
Nio will begin installing this new generation of superchargers in April 2024.
The company is currently installing superchargers with a peak power of 500 kW, unveiled on Nio Day 2022 and first installed in March 2023.
The 500-kW charging pile is capable of delivering a maximum charging current of 660 A and can charge from 10 percent to 80 percent in as little as 12 minutes if the vehicle is built on the 800 V platform, or 20 minutes for 400 V models.
Nio plans to continue adding 1,000 battery swap stations in China in 2024, bringing the total to more than 3,310.
The company unveiled plans to add 400 battery swap stations in 2023 at Nio Day 2022, but raised that target to 1,000 in February.
Yesterday, Nio achieved its target of adding 1,000 battery swap stations this year, taking the total to 2,305.
The company aims to add 20,000 new charging piles by 2024, taking the total to more than 41,000.
Nio last month announced partnerships with Changan Automobile and Geely Holding to build a battery swap network and battery swap-enabled models.
Nio’s battery swap network will include both a dedicated network and a shared network, which the company will begin building next year and will be available for both the Nio and Alps brands, William Li, Nio’s founder, chairman, and CEO, said in a December 5 earnings call.
Nio reaches target of adding 1,000 swap stations in China in 2023
