NIO's third-generation battery swap stations are expected to be ready for volume production in April, with deployment ramping up in May, William Li said a month ago. | NIO US | NIO HK | NIO SG
(Image credit: NIO)
NIO (NYSE: NIO) will officially bring its first third-generation battery swap stations online at the end of this month, a timeline that appears to be slightly earlier than it previously announced.
On March 28, NIO's first 10 third-generation battery swap stations will go live, the company said in an article posted today on its mobile app.
The article does not provide more information on the third-generation stations, but said that 10 special guests will be on-site to see the battery swap stations on their wish list delivered.
NIO officially unveiled the third-generation battery swap station at NIO Day 2022 on December 24, 2022, capable of storing up to 21 battery packs, up from 13 in its predecessor generation and five in the first generation of the facility.
The third-generation battery swap station increases the daily service capacity of a single station to 408 times, a 30 percent increase over the second generation.
Notably, NIO also equipped two LiDARs and two Nvidia Orin chips on the third-generation battery swap station, for a total computing power of 508 TOPS.
The company then announced plans to add 400 battery swap stations in 2023, but that plan was raised to 1,000 a month ago.
William Li, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, said on February 21 that NIO will further accelerate the deployment of battery swap stations, aiming to have a cumulative total of more than 2,300 battery swap stations by the end of 2023.
Mass production of NIO's third-generation battery swap stations was well underway, with volume production expected to begin in April and deployment accelerating in May, Li said at the time.
Starting in June, NIO will basically maintain a construction rate of 120-150 battery swap stations per month, he said.
On February 28, the NIO App added a wish list feature that allows vehicle owners to provide suggestions for where they would like battery swap stations to be located to support faster buildout.
To date, NIO has received 132,238 wish lists for battery swap stations, according to the article in the NIO App today.
Of those, 68.3 percent want the planned new battery swap stations this year to be located in urban areas, and 31.27 percent want the facilities to be located along highways.
Beijing was the most mentioned city on these wish lists, followed by Shanghai and Suzhou.
There were 240 potential sites covering more than 50 users and 12 sites covering more than 200 users, NIO said.
After receiving the owners' wish lists, NIO held 221 events in 134 cities, meeting with 6,459 users face-to-face, according to the article in the NIO App.
NIO has not added any battery swap stations in the past half month. As of March 5, the company had 1,321 such facilities in China, according to data monitored by CnEVPost.
NIO reveals aggressive plan to add 1,000 swap stations in 2023
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