The next Tesla?
Chinese rival Nio has big ambitions
The core pillar of Nio is to give its users unrivalled service. As part of this, the company has invested in 300 patents for battery swap technology.
It works like this: the car reverses into the swap station and is raised by jacks. A trolley slides under the car and elevates to support the 500kg battery. Undoing just 10 bolts allows the battery to drop onto the trolley platform.
The trolley slides out and deposits the battery at a charging point. The trolley then takes and bolts a new battery to the car. The whole process is automated and takes around three minutes. After checks, total time stopped is about 10 minutes.
A swap station covers three regular parking spaces. Each stores four batteries, which can be supercharged in an hour. Nio has equipped China’s 1400-mile G4 expressway with swap stations and has nearly finished installing them on two other routes. It plans to establish 1100 swap sta tions across China.