NIO Launches The First Battery Swap Station In Europe

January 19, 2022

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NIO has officially launched the first battery swap station in Norway, where the Chinese manufacturer intends to have a total of 20 such facilities in 2022.

The station opened on January 2019, 2022 close to the E-18 at Kjellstad in Lier, a few kilometers north of Drammen. The site was ready after a few months of preparations, since at least November 2021.

The company recently released also its first over-the-air software update in Norway (the first outside China).

It’s the second-generation Power Swap Station 2.0, introduced in April 2021, which has 14 battery slots – 13 battery packs (vs 5 in the 1.0 version) and an empty slot to pick up a discharged battery (or old/previous generation battery when upgrading).

The battery swap stations will support the market launch of the NIO ES8 model, as well as the following electric cars from NIO (all are compatible with the battery swap system).

In China, NIO already has more than 700 battery swap stations, and the plan is to install 4,000 (including 1,000 outside China) by the end of 2025.

We assume that later this year we will see the first battery swap stations also in other European countries, including Germany – the largest European EV market (potentially, installed at Shell stations).

Thanks to the battery swap stations, NIO is able to offer the cars in the Battery as a Service (BaaS) sales model, which means that customers are purchasing a car without a battery and they pay a monthly subscription to use the battery/battery swap network.

According to the company, 92% of early customers in Norway opted for BaaS instead of the full purchase. As of today, there are more than 200 NIO ES8 registered in Norway.

The Chinese manufacturer doubles down with the charging infrastructure as well, and even at the swap stations, there are NIO-branded fast chargers (150 kW).