NIO demos its new EV battery swap station network that loads a fully charged pack in less than 3 minutes

While Tesla has dismissed EV battery swap stations as an impractical solution for the dreaded range anxiety that electric cars bring, automakers like NIO are expanding their swap station network. It just demonstrated an up and running live station of which it plans to build 900 more by year's end, out of the 2,300 total that its battery swap network will have at the time.

With the new station, it takes less than 3 minutes to change into a fully charged fresh battery and its first real-life presence was demonstrated next to a hotel in the presence of NIO's chairman Li. Besides the 20% faster battery swaps compared to the previous generation, the station also increases the daily service capacity by 30% to 408 swaps.

The station can now store 21 fresh battery packs at once, up from 13 for the second generation, and can offer autonomous operation for NIO vehicles thanks to two LiDAR units and Nvidia Orin processors with 508 TOPS in combined computing performance. About 400 of the new stations will be along major highways and 600 will be in urban centers as NIO intends to build with a pace of up to 150 new units a month starting this June.

NIO's global expansion has seen it build stations in Norway, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands and with the introduction of its new ET5 sedan in Europe there will probably be more countries there joining the battery swap craze. Last month, about 60% of the charge in NIO's electric vehicles came from convenient battery swaps, that is why NIO is trying to build out its swap station infrastructure as fast as possible.

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