NIO, known as the 'infrastructure maniac', has brought another big plan. On August 20th, NIO Chairman Li Bin announced NIO's "Electricity Connect to Counties" plan aimed at further expanding the layout of the energy supplement field. Correspondingly, NIO has also released the "Power Partner" plan.
NIO is building ahead of its time in the charging and swapping business. In Li Bin's opinion, the number of charging and swapping stations that the industry has previously focused on is mostly located in urban areas or highways, but NIO needs clearer planning goals to truly dispel users' range anxiety. The background of the emergence of 'County to County Pass' is closely related to the Ledao brand. Many users value the Ledao brand because they value the battery swapping business. NIO will definitely increase some losses caused by early layout, but from the perspective of the entire company, the sales increase it brings is very direct
The NIO 'County to County Connection' plan is divided into two parts. In terms of charging station construction, NIO will complete the construction of NIO charging stations in every county of all provincial administrative regions (except Hong Kong and Taiwan) by June 30, 2025; The construction of battery swapping stations will be divided into three steps: by June 30, 2025, NIO battery swapping stations will cover 1200 county-level administrative regions in 14 provincial-level administrative regions; By December 31, 2025, complete the coverage of 2300 county-level administrative regions in 27 provincial-level administrative regions; By 2026, battery swapping stations will cover over 2800 county-level administrative regions.
As of August 20, 2024, NIO has deployed 2480 battery swapping stations and 23009 charging stations nationwide. Despite leading the industry in terms of construction quantity, NIO's investment alone is clearly far from enough to further complete its layout in the field of energy replenishment and once again strengthen NIO's "moat". To achieve the goal of "connecting every county with electricity", NIO has also launched the "Electricity Partner" program.
According to Qin Lihong, President of NIO, there are three models for NIO's "power partners": one is charging station franchise, which is suitable for partners with venues and power resources, and both parties share service fee income; The second is fixed income from charging and swapping, suitable for partners with low capital costs and pursuing long-term stable income, to obtain fixed service fee income; The third is the backup and sharing model for charging and swapping power stations, which is suitable for partners who pursue potential higher returns and obtain fixed backup income+service fee income sharing.
Prior to this, NIO had already introduced the "partner" model and jointly built 333 charging and swapping stations with energy giants such as Sinopec, PetroChina, CNOOC, and Shell. In terms of battery swapping, NIO has launched strategic cooperation with seven car companies including FAW, Changan, GAC, Geely, Chery, Jiangqi, Lotus, etc.
Industry analysts believe that the introduction of the "partner" model can reduce NIO's investment costs while also expanding its scale, thereby further boosting sales.
As a business sector that once seriously dragged down its financial performance, NIO has been making continuous efforts in the construction of its power grid network in the past year. On May 31st, NIO announced that NIO Energy Investment (Hubei) Co., Ltd. has received a strategic investment of RMB 1.5 billion from Wuhan Guangchuang Emerging Technology Phase I Venture Capital Fund Partnership Enterprise (Limited Partnership).
The introduction of industrial capital is interpreted by the industry as NIO splitting its energy supplement business and further seeking greater action in the capital market. Some investors are interested in NIO Power's spin off financing, and we also have some initial contacts, "Li Bin revealed during the 2023 Q3 earnings conference call; In the view of a senior executive at NIO, the ever expanding field of energy supplementation is like a grown-up "child" who can earn money when they grow up.
Li Bin did not make a clear statement on whether he will accept more external capital in the future and ultimately develop independently. But for capital, it is necessary to further observe its future development scale and actual profit level, which is also the direction of NIO's efforts in the charging and swapping business.