As Nio continues to launch new electric vehicles, it’s also making it easier for its customers to fit charging into their busy lifestyles.
At the company’s recent Nio Day event in Hefei, China, Nio unveiled a new charging infrastructure alongside the new EC7 and redesigned ES8 SUVs.
Nio, often referred to as China’s Tesla, introduced a new 500kW, 650-amp fast charger that can charge a 100kWh battery pack from 10 to 80% in just 12 minutes when the battery pack is an 800-volt system has . For 400-volt batteries, the same charge takes 20 minutes, Nio said.
Based on Nio’s proprietary liquid cooling technology to enable the use of a lighter and easier-to-use cable, Nio’s new charger will be released for public use from March 2023. Nio currently has a total of 2,239 charging stations in China that are open to other brands of vehicles.
Nio battery
Nio also unveiled its third-generation battery swap station, rated for over 400 swaps per day, during the Nio Day event. The latest version allows a vehicle to exit a freeway autonomously, drive to the station and have the battery swapped out (which takes seconds), and then drive to the freeway entrance to continue driving.
For the autonomous control of approaching vehicles, the station is equipped with two lidar sensors and two Nvidia OrinX chips as well as the ability to communicate and guide the vehicle.
Nio currently has 1,286 battery swap stations in China and some in places like Norway, and plans to launch the new third-generation station from March 2023 as well. And its customers have the choice of buying a battery outright or subscribing at the time of purchase.
The company marked the start of exports to a handful of European countries in October and on December 12 celebrated the assembly of its 300,000th vehicle, an ET5 hatchback. Nio also said it plans to have a presence in more than 25 countries by 2025, although it hasn’t said if the US will be one of them. With the unveiling of the new EC7, the Nio lineup now consists of seven vehicles.
