NIO and Shell unveil first European battery swap station in unholy alliance

NIO announced its unholy partnership with Shell back in 2021 and has subsequently opened a number of battery swap stations in China in collaboration with the petroleum giant. Now, the pair have officially opened the first Shell-NIO battery swap station in Europe, announcing the opening on Twitter.

NIO claims that its swap stations can perform 312 swaps in a day, but infrastructure limits only allow for charging up to 13 batteries at a time at a rate of 20-80 kW. More realistically, 13 batteries with 75 kWh of capacity charging at an average of 50 kW means a total daily capacity of around 208 batteries. In contrast, Tesla's Superchargers, which reportedly charge vehicles to 100% in between an hour and 75 minutes, can theoretically handle around 20 charges per day, depending on battery capacity — since two Superchargers fit into the same space as the NIO swap station, you're looking at 40 charges per day in the same space.

It seems, at first glance, as though NIO's solution is bound to generate fewer queues than Tesla's chargers, but charging and driving habits are more likely to be more restrictive than the swap station's theoretical capacity.

This is not NIO's first battery swap station in Europe, or even the first in the Netherlands, but it is the first European one it is operating in cahoots with Shell. The Chinese marque already operates 16 other swap stations across the continent, as well as a host of charging stations. NIO and Shell plan to have 100 battery swap stations in China by 2025, and we can expect to see more European Shell battery swap stations if the pair sees success in the initial pilot project. 

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