After installing its first battery exchange station in Norway in the fall of 2021, the Chinese manufacturer Nio has set foot on the old continent to offer an alternative to conventional charging of its electric vehicle. But what is this service, and how does it work?
We told you about it when Nio arrived in Norway to install the first battery exchange station, called “Power Swap Station”, and our colleagues fromClean Automotive were able to test it in real conditions. The opportunity to take stock of what Nio offers to avoid having to recharge during the journey.
The alternative to fast charging
The constraints of the electric car on long journeys are well known: we waste time recharging, however fast it may be. Indeed, even if the champions of fast charging claim to reach 80% battery in less than 20 minutes, it is still much longer than filling a gas tank.
This is why some manufacturers have had the idea of offering a battery exchange service, where the customer would arrive in his vehicle, his battery (empty, or almost) would be removed and replaced by a full one (at 90%), enough to recover several hundred kilometers of autonomy in just a few minutes.
A Tesla idea from 2013
Tesla had also made a strong impression in 2013 by presenting its battery replacement service – which never saw the light of day, despite new patents in 2017 – which proved that it was faster than filling a large tank of ‘essence. But in reality, fast charging has continued to be popular, and this, by almost all brands of electric vehicles.
However, the Chinese industry giant, Nio, proves that the battery exchange service is very popular with its customers, with figures to back it up. These are indeed around 1,000 stations which are available in its proprietary network, which have recorded more than ten million battery swaps (i.e. 10,000 per station).
A “recharge” in less than 6 minutes
With a rotation of less than five minutes, a station operating 24 hours a day could theoretically exchange up to 312 batteries per day. To do this, each station has fourteen slots, thirteen of which are occupied by batteries that are full or being charged. In this way, a new vehicle that arrives will occupy the last available space before being given a 100% filled battery pack.
In practice, once you arrive in front of the station, the maneuvers of a Nio vehicle are done automatically to get inside, and less than three minutes later the battery pack was removed. The process is rather well thought out, with specific tools used to facilitate the operation.
Once the battery pack is removed, it disappears under the car where a hatch has opened, then closes. After a few seconds, the hatch opens again to make room for another charged battery, which will be attached to the vehicle. The total duration is 4 minutes and 23 secondscompared to the tens of minutes needed to recharge, however fast it may be.
In the video of our colleagues, the Norwegian driver of a Nio ES8 announces that he rents the battery for 200 euros per month and that this allows him to have access to six battery changes per month (i.e. the equivalent of 600 kWh of energy). It is also possible to buy the battery for 20,000 euros.
Soon 1,000 km of autonomy thanks to Nio?
According to the latest information leaked by Nio, the 150 kWh version of the Nio ET7 which promises 1,000 km of range on the NEDC cycle (so in reality much less) is still scheduled to arrive in the fourth quarter of 2022 or in the worst case. in the first quarter of 2023 with its semi-solid state battery. And precisely, this Nio ET7 should appear in Germany by the end of the year, and potentially in France, but not before 2023.
The next few months promise to be rich in the field of electric cars with the arrival of BYD, the world number 2 in electric cars, behind Tesla but ahead of Volkswagen, in Europe!
Already present in Norway for a few months, the Chinese car manufacturer NIO will soon invest in the European Union, and more precisely the German market at the end of the year with the ET7, a competing electric sedan from…
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