Shen Fei, Vice President of power management of NIO Automobile recently announced its 2020 plan for NIO Power. The plan includes the listing of 100kWh automotive power packs in the fourth quarter; the promotion of fast charging piles and 2.0 NIO exclusive piles; as well as increasing the number of power stations
Three years after its establishment, NIO Power’s services have covered charging cars, power stations, overfill piles, and exclusive piles. Since the initial costs of operating an energy business are high and the waiting period for profitability is long, the company has begun to open its services to the industry.
Shen Fei stated that NIO Power has launched the “Power-up Partner” program, inviting outside parties with site ownership/capacity access/electric vehicle resources/investment funds to participate in the construction.
NIO has also increased the one-click power-up business service from NIO users to more than 20 other brands of electric cars. The platform has access to more than 300,000 charging piles from operators such as TGOO(https://www.teld.cn/), Xpeng, and YKCCN (ykccn.com).
Shen Fei said that as of March 2020, Over 70% of NIO owners installed private charging piles; while 60% of non-NIO brand car owners have accessed the “one-click power-on” services on the app. The penetration rate of the battery swapping service of NIO car owners is 48.7%. At present, 123 power swapping stations have been installed in 51 cities across the country. The total number of battery swapping has exceeded 300,000.
As the battery life of electric vehicles continues to improve, the standard mileage of most will have reached 500km; bringing the ratio of the vehicle to the pile to its current 3:1. Difficulties in charging as well as incompatibility of the pile interface will become a more serious problem in the near future.
Shen Fei predicted that there will be more companies exploring power swaps this year; and as such, NIO Power’s strategy is based on power swaps, supplemented by supercharger. NIO will also gradually replace its current 2nd generation of power stations as well as expand its network of power swapping stations this year. The second-generation stations will be faster as the vehicles will not require lifting.
The key to promoting power exchange is how NIO scientifically factors the impact of battery attenuation on battery value. After the fourth quarter, the company will also offer different battery pack configurations of 70, 84, and 100kWh, a factor that places higher requirements on the battery dispatching capacity and operation of the replacement station.
