Why nio battery swap does not require profit

At the press conference, Qin Lihong also revealed that they will soon release new power-up facilities such as liquid-cooled super fast charging piles with a peak power of 500kW and a peak current of 650A, and the third-generation power exchange station. And open 800V high voltage battery pack and supporting power exchange system to the whole industry. However, Qin Lihong said frankly that he didn’t want to get involved in this topic.

Not profitable not because of nio battery swap

Since the first day of NIO’s introduction of power replacement, the industry has questioned its large-scale deployment of energy-replenishing facilities, and the focus has been on whether it can be profitable. Especially in the case of the recent increase in battery costs, the profitability of the energy supplement business seems to be even more distant. In the interview, it can be found that this is precisely the issue that nio does not care about the most.Battery swapping stations are very insensitive to battery price due to the small volume.

In fact, according to the background display of nio battery swap stations, as of July 6, there were only 8,961 batteries in the nio swap station. With such a small number of batteries, naturally there is no need to worry about the price.

In Qin Lihong’s believes that the power exchange business cannot be viewed separately, and high-end brands need better services. Qin Lihong said that energy supplementation is the advantage of nio to distinguish it from other brands. Just like China’s high-speed rail operation is also loss-making, but high-speed rail is of great significance to China’s economic development.

Although the cost of such a large-scale energy replenishment layout is not low, Qin Lihong is very firm on NIO’s 2025 energy replenishment system construction goals. Qin Lihong said that nio is an open system, and he hopes that partners will join together.

Make it easier to recharge than to refuel

NIO implements the corporate vision of “powering up is more convenient than refueling”. This is reflected in both quantity and quality. In terms of quantity, continue to increase the laying of energy-supplying networks. Up to now, NIO has built a total of 1,019 nio battery swap stations and 256 expressway swap stations in China, opening up the high-speed battery swap network in the four major urban agglomerations; a total of 31 Change Plan destination and circuit lines have been built, and battery swaps have been completed accumulatively Served more than 10 million times.

By 2025, nio’s high-speed grid swap will be expanded to the nineteen major urban agglomerations, and more than 4,000 nio battery swapping stations will be built around the world, including 1,000 nio battery swapping stations in other countries.

As of July 5, nio has installed 127,528 home charging piles for users, with a coverage rate of 62.1% in the “electricity area”, and has provided a total of 821,350 one-click power-up services. By 2025, the coverage of “electricity district houses” should reach more than 90%. From a quality point of view, nio wants to make it easier for users to charing. Therefore, they systematically analyzed the user’s power-on situation and divided them into four commonly used power-on methods: home charging pile charging, power exchange, one-key power-on and drop-in charging. Define it as “convenient power-up”.

According to the data given by NIO, as of July 6, 2022, 52.3% of the total power added by NIO users came from battery swaps, 24.2% from home charging piles, and 0.9% from one-key power-on, 11.4% comes from charging along the way.

From nio’s point of view, the home charging pile is the best charging method at present, because the perceptible charging time of the whole process is within 1 minute. Therefore, eligible families are encouraged to install home charging piles. In terms of nio battery swap experience, nio is also constantly improving. This year, they will strive to achieve 12 minutes or less.

“If NIO has thousands of nio battery swap stations, with hundreds of thousands or even millions of them, we can still swap batteries in less than 10 minutes. Can fuel vehicles really be used? “

Charging and swapping are two experiences

Although the nio battery swap speed is fast, there is another opponent that is fast charging battery. As long as it is implemented along with the swap station. The swap station is basically 630kW or 1250kW. However, Shen Fei believes that charging and nio battery swap are two different experiences.

Shen Fei shared two concepts. First, he found that only a very small number of people who were charging around were hyper-rational – they left when they charged 80%. Most people are willing to wait an extra 10 minutes or 20 minutes. It’s hard to come here. It’s even after a long queue to queue up here.

The second concept is that the power grid capacity of an ultra-fast charging company must be greater than or equal to the current grid capacity of nio battery swapping stations. Shen Fei know how difficult it is to obtain the capacity of each power station for these 1,000 stations. In the future, ultra-fast charging will also face these challenges.

There are also some operational challenges. For example, one person can use the full power to charge the supercharger, but if two people charge at the same time, the charging speed will be greatly reduced. “I have experienced that the 250A was charged well, but a person came next to it and immediately turned into 60kW. This is very uncertain.”

Of course, if all the cars capable of ultra-fast charging come out, NIO will be able to quickly install ultra-fast charging piles next to every nio battery swapping station or most of the swapping stations to provide services. If ultra-fast charging can really form a general competitiveness, we must have the most advantage.

Multi-brand opening will not degrade user experience

NIO is opening up nio battery swapping stations to many brands in the industry, hoping that more users will come to their own swap stations, but will this harm NIO’s existing user experience?

First of all, it depends on the number of vehicles that use nio’s power station. If there are few models of their own, it will not affect the original users. If there is enough capacity, there is originally one nio battery swapping station within a three-kilometer radius, but it may be ten or twenty in the future.

NIO’s consistent idea is to improve the user experience. When other brands really join, NIO will put the experience of old users first, such as adding another swap station station. In this station, everyone is equal. In Shen Fei’s view, opening up does not have so many risks, but certain benefits are greater.

Qin Lihong added that for NIO’s new brand, it has not yet been determined whether NIO’s existing nio battery swapping stations will be open to them or not. But the new brand definitely has its own swap station. According to NIO’s idea, nio battery swapping stations are part of the vehicle package. “It may be the other way around, but NIO’s car owners can use its swap station and its car energy storage.”

Qin Lihong also believes that opening up is not as scary as imagined. Take Audi and Volkswagen as an example. Volkswagen did not overwhelm Audi’s service by selling too much. Instead, Audi’s service can do better, which is a dynamic planning process.

Although it is open to nio battery swap services, nio is cautious about technical requirements. For example, when choosing a nio battery swap structure, when choosing a bolt or a snap-on type. Qin Lihong said that the buckle type is suitable for battery packs with relatively small battery packs under 300kg. The bolt type can handle battery packs over 500 kg. Bolt-on ones are no doubt more expensive and far more complicated. nio does not choose the snap-on type because it is difficult for a vehicle with a snap-on structure to pass the five-star crash safety standard.

It can be seen that in terms of technology, it also has its own persistence. It is undeniable that for new downward brands, the audience will be wider, and the construction of NIO’s energy supplement network will face greater challenges.