Key Takeaways
- Nio has opened its northernmost battery swap station in China in Heihe, Heilongjiang province, where temperatures can fall to -48°C (-54.4°F).
- Nio's battery swap network in China has grown to 4,262 stations, including 102 in China's northeast.
Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO) has opened its northernmost battery swap station in China in Heihe, Heilongjiang province, extending its network into a region where temperatures can fall to -48°C (-54.4°F).
The company announced on Sunday that its Heihe Free Trade Zone battery swap station had officially begun operations, adding energy replenishment infrastructure in northeastern China, where winters are long.
Nio founder, chairman and CEO William Li said on Weibo that the fifth-generation station can serve users of all 3 brands: Nio, Onvo and Firefly.
Heihe experiences freezing conditions for about 200 days a year, according to Nio. Severe cold can cause frost and ice to form on charging equipment, reduce battery activity and lower charging efficiency, the company said.
To address low temperatures, the station uses an insulated enclosure to create a separate temperature-controlled chamber, with a round-the-clock thermal management system keeping batteries inside at 15°C to 30°C.
The battery swap equipment also features automatic preheating. Nio said these measures allow the station to operate reliably in extreme cold, enabling users to complete a battery swap in 3 minutes without leaving their vehicles.
The Heihe station extends Nio's network expansion in northeastern China. The company said its battery swap network reached all prefecture-level cities in both Jilin and Liaoning provinces in October.
As of November 15, Nio had 102 battery swap stations and 388 charging stations with 1,378 charging piles in northeastern China, bringing its combined station count in the region to 490.
Nationwide, Nio's battery swap network has grown to 4,262 stations, including 1,083 along highways.
The company also had 5,593 charging stations with 32,669 charging piles, bringing its combined charging and battery swap station count to 9,855, according to data released on November 15.
Li said Nio's battery swap network now extends east to Jiamusi in Heilongjiang, west to Khorgos in Xinjiang, south to Sanya in Hainan and north to Heihe in Heilongjiang.
Fifth-generation swap stations are central to Nio's efforts to share energy replenishment infrastructure across its 3 brands. The first batch opened in 7 cities on August 7, giving Firefly access to the battery swap network for the first time.
These stations use a battery swap platform that accommodates different wheelbases, allowing vehicles from all 3 brands to share facilities and expanding the network's potential user base.
Nio announced on November 3 that it had completed more than 130 million battery swaps, adding the latest 10 million in 88 days, with daily swaps averaging more than 110,000 during that period.
The company views its expanding charging and battery swap network as part of its product competitiveness, saying convenient energy replenishment has become an important driver of vehicle sales growth.
Nio opens its first fully solar-powered battery swap station in China - CnEVPostThe battery swap station in Xinjiang uses solar power and energy storage to operate off-grid.
