NIO swaps more than 900,000 EV batteries in 17 days

NIO has announced that in just 17 days it carried out an incredible 906,056 battery swaps and provided 646,903 top-ups at its 13,629 charging stations in China, setting a new record for the EV luxury brand.

According to data collected by NIO over the Chinese New Year (January 13-29), more than 75 per cent of all visitors to the charging hubs were drivers of other brands.

Incentivising people to try battery swaps instead of traditional charging, NIO said 282,000 swaps were carried out for free, while the new daily record was 62,356 swaps in a single day.

Over the Lunar New Year, NIO claimed its owners alone drove in excess of 270 million kilometres, spending 8.5 million hours behind the wheel.

The company estimates its owners saved more than 18,000 tonnes of CO2, compared to covering the same distance in combustion-powered cars.

From the data collected, NIO claims almost 40 million kilometres, amounting to 452,000 hours behind the wheel, were covered using the car brand’s semi-autonomous cruise control.

During their drive over the 17-day period, owners used NOMI – NIO’s on-board personal assistant – more than four billion times, with the most popular request from owners being to navigate them home (400,000).

NIO says that thanks to their huge popularity in China, electric cars now rack up a collective 100 million kilometres every day.

NIO announced in late 2021 that it would launch in Australia by 2025 as part of plans to expand its operations to 25 countries and regions across the globe.

It’s not known if it will introduce battery swaps as part of its offering Down Under, which is expected to be led by the Tesla Model 3-rivalling NIO ET5 mid-size sedan we drove in China recently.

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