China FAW will join the Nio-led battery swap alliance, becoming the seventh automaker to do so, according to local media.
(Image credit: CnEVPost)
China FAW will join the Nio-led battery swap alliance, becoming the seventh to do so after GAC Group, Changan Automobile, Geely Holding, Chery, JAC, and Lotus, local media Cailian reported today.
Including Nio itself, the battery swap alliance has seven members, with more brands set to join in the future, the electric vehicle (EV) maker's founder, chairman, and CEO William Li previously said, the report noted.
Li, who sees the battery swap business as a cloud service, has begun to think about the future of the battery swap model in terms of the market as a whole, not just the premium segment, the report said.
Nio plans to add 1,000 new battery swap stations this year, and the company currently has 2,416 stations in China.
Li had mentioned that Nio hopes to have more than 10,000 battery swap stations in the future if the battery swap alliance has more members, the report noted.
10,000 battery swap stations could support service for 10 million vehicles, Li said, according to Cailian. By then, the business logic of battery swap will be completely different from what it is today.
Nio views its battery swap service as similar to a cloud service, and Li mentioned several times that the service has reached a point where it can be opened up to partners.
On November 21, 2023, Nio and Changan signed a battery swap business partnership agreement to collaborate on the construction and sharing of a battery swap network and the development of battery swap-enabled models, making Changan the first external member of the Nio-led battery swap alliance.
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