On November 21st, NIO announced that Changan Automobile and NIO have signed a cooperation agreement on battery swapping business in Chongqing. The two sides will cooperate in promoting the establishment of battery swapping standards, the construction and sharing of battery swapping networks, the research and development of battery swapping models, and the establishment of an efficient battery asset management mechanism.
In the future, Changan Automobile will not only cooperate with NIO in the field of battery swapping, but also continue to strengthen cooperation with NIO in other platform and basic ecological fields, such as energy, charging and swapping, vehicle, ecology, etc., "stated Zhu Huarong, Chairman and Party Secretary of Changan Automobile.
According to the agreement, both parties will jointly promote the establishment of battery replacement standards. On the basis of a unified battery pack standard, Changan Automobile will jointly develop interchangeable electric vehicle models with NIO Automobile. Both parties will jointly promote the establishment of a power exchange system and an efficient battery asset management mechanism.
With the advancement of cooperation, users of some of the brand models under both sides can share the public exchange station jointly built by both sides. Changan Automobile's first interchangeable electric passenger car model that shares a battery pack with NIO is planned to be launched in 2025.
According to Li Bin, the founder and chairman of NIO, after 5 years of development, NIO Power Exchange Network and NIO Energy Cloud have accumulated rich experience in research and development, construction, and operation. NIO Power Exchange business is ready to open up to the industry. From the first day of the charging and swapping business, NIO has decided to open up to the entire industry. It has now reached the moment of opening up to the entire industry, "Li Bin said. In addition to Changan Automobile, there are 4-5 other companies in the talks.
As early as the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, there were reports that NIO would collaborate with Mercedes Benz to exchange batteries, but they were denied by NIO and Mercedes. At that time, Kang Linsong, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of Mercedes Benz Group Co., Ltd., and Li Bin were photographed meeting at the NIO booth.
Although NIO denied the news of its cooperation with Mercedes Benz to exchange power stations at the time, Li Bin publicly disclosed in June this year that "there are already car companies discussing sharing power stations with NIO and using NIO's exchange mode to develop new cars." However, Li Bin also stated that if they share power stations with other car companies, it will take several years to develop and launch new cars.
According to official data, as of November 21, the total layout of NIO's replacement power stations nationwide has reached 2113, including 651 on highways.
In February this year, Li Bin announced on the NIO APP that the new target for the construction of NIO Power Station will be increased from 400 new units to 1000 new units by 2023. By the end of 2023, NIO will have built over 2300 replacement power stations in total. Among them, out of the 1000 new power stations added this year, about 600 will be deployed in urban areas, with a focus on third - and fourth tier cities and county towns that have a certain user base but have not yet been replaced with power stations; About 400 seats will be built in highway service areas or highway entrances to accelerate the layout speed of high-speed power exchange networks in the nine vertical, nine horizontal and nineteen major urban agglomerations.
According to the plan, by 2025, NIO will lay out over 4000 replacement power stations globally, with over 3000 to be built domestically, and the coverage rate of "electricity zone houses" (residential or office spaces within 3 kilometers of the replacement power station) will exceed 90%.
It is worth mentioning that while accelerating the layout and replacement of power plants, the high cost behind NIO's replacement has always been regarded by the outside world as the "culprit" for NIO's increased losses. However, Shen Fei, Senior Vice President of NIO Energy, responded in an interview with the Daily Economic News earlier this year: "Replacing power plants (business) is definitely not a burden. NIO has always emphasized value orientation, considering the long-term and overall situation, and the value created by replacing power plants is extraordinary
Qin Lihong, co-founder and CEO of NIO, previously stated in an interview with reporters that NIO's failure to achieve profitability so far is not due to the replacement of the power plant business.
According to calculations by Dongfang Securities, reaching the breakeven point for power stations is when the utilization rate is approximately 20%, which means that each station needs to serve 88 times a day to barely avoid losses. According to Shen Fei's sharing, the breakeven line for NIO Power Station is approximately 50 to 60 orders per day. At present, the daily average order volume of NIO Power Station is 35 to 36 orders. This also means that in order to achieve profit and loss balance in the NIO power plant business, more car brands need to join in.