Battery swapping is a technology that could solve one key barrier for EV adoption: consumers’ range anxiety and the long waiting time for battery charging. Wouldn’t you feel more assured on a weekend trip if you knew you could stop at a swap station and replace depleted battery packs with fully charged ones in five minutes? But this isn’t easy to do, as Tesla and Better Place’s past failures. In China, however, battery swapping has been a reality for a couple of years. How did Chinese companies like Nio make it work with 2,300 swapping stations nationwide? What can companies outside China learn from the Chinese experience?
My colleague has a NIO car like this, he really likes it and uses the battery swap weekly. To my knowledge they have patented the tech.
If I bought an electric car, I would definitely consider NIO, as this option is great for long trips. In EU they have a couple of swap stations in Germany, but it’s still a long way to go in other countries.