NIO is aiming to add 1,000 battery swap stations this year, and to make up for the lack of capacity, it decided to build a new plant in Hefei to produce them, an executive said.
(NIO Power senior vice president Shen Fei talks to the media in Shanghai in March 2023. Image credit: CnEVPost)
NIO (NYSE: NIO) has added a new factory to produce battery swap stations to support its aggressive plan to add 1,000 battery swap stations this year, which it announced three months ago.
A new battery swap station was shipped from the Hefei, Anhui plant on Friday evening, and the station was installed in Xiamen, Fujian this morning, according to NIO Power senior vice president Shen Fei.
Shen revealed the development today on Weibo, which is the first time we've seen content about NIO's new battery swap station factory in Hefei, home to two of NIO's vehicle assembly plants.
NIO decided to add 1,000 battery swap stations this year after the Chinese New Year, and to make up for the lack of capacity, the company decided to build a factory in Hefei to produce these facilities, Shen said.
It took three months from the time that decision was made to the time the first battery swap station was shipped from the plant, according to Shen.
Shen did not provide more details, but the progress appears to have been made with the help of NIO's battery swap station supplier.
Shenzhen-traded Shandong Weida Machinery, which has been supplying battery swap stations to NIO, said on March 29 that its Kunshan, Jiangsu-based subsidiary Swap had developed and delivered the third-generation battery swap stations for NIO.
Swap will continue to develop, produce and supply according to NIO's actual demand and orders in the future, Weida said at the time on an investor interactive platform.
Swap is a joint venture established in 2017 by NIO Power and Weida's industrial robotics subsidiary Demac, dedicated to the design, development, production and manufacturing of automatic battery swap systems, according to information on its official website.
It is unclear how many factories Swap has in China to produce battery swap stations for NIO, which has a factory in Hungary to produce the facility that went into operation in September 2022.
The third generation of NIO's battery swap stations was unveiled at the NIO Day 2022 event on December 24, 2022, capable of storing up to 21 packs, up from 13 for its predecessor generation and five for the first generation of the facility.
NIO announced plans at the time to add 400 battery swap stations by 2023, though that plan was raised to 1,000 on February 21.
William Li, NIO's founder, chairman and CEO, said at the time that the company would further accelerate the deployment of battery swap stations, with a goal of having more than 2,300 battery swap stations in China by the end of 2023.
Speaking at a press conference on the first day of the Shanghai auto show on April 18, Li said that NIO would add about 200 battery swap stations per month starting in June.
As of May 29, NIO had 1,432 battery swap stations in China, 383 of which are located along highways, according to data monitored by CnEVData.
The company also has 2,624 charging stations in China, providing 15,591 charging piles.
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