The "Battery Exchange Alliance" centered on NIO has been officially established and is accelerating its expansion! After Changan Automobile and NIO signed a cooperation agreement on battery swapping business in Chongqing on November 21, Geely Holdings and NIO signed a strategic cooperation agreement on battery swapping in Hangzhou on November 29. With the joint efforts of central and private car giants with NIO to jointly layout battery swapping, the "battery swapping alliance" has initially formed.
After more than five years of persistence and investment, NIO Battery Exchange has finally established its own "circle of friends" from "fighting alone". As Li Bin, the founder of NIO, said in an internal speech the day before signing with Changan Automobile, "NIO battery swapping has now reached the moment of opening up to the entire industry.". At this moment, it is also a historic moment for NIO battery swapping to move from private domain exclusive to public services, from blood transfusion to hematopoiesis.
The policy is calling for "change"
Industry standards enter the eve of unification
On June 9th this year, at the opening ceremony of the 2023 World Power Battery Conference, relevant leaders of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stated that they would further improve technical standards, research and develop a standard system for battery swapping technology, and promote the standardization of battery size, battery swapping interface, communication protocol, and other standards. Just 10 days later, favorable policies were issued, and the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on continuing and optimizing the policy of reducing and exempting the purchase tax on new energy vehicles. The new policy stipulated that the sales revenue of the vehicle body and the power battery should be calculated separately and invoices should be issued. The price of the vehicle body excluding the battery should be used as the tax calculation price for vehicle purchase tax, enjoying tax exemption policies and fully supporting the battery swapping mode.
At this point, the industry's remaining doubts about NIO battery swapping have completely dissipated. The successive addition of Changan Automobile, the national team for car manufacturing, and Geely Holding, a private car giant, once again confirms that the battery swapping model has not only become an industry consensus, but also an effective way for the country to strengthen the new energy vehicle market.
In fact, NIO battery swapping has already gained official and industry recognition. NIO is not only a promoter of mainstream infrastructure for battery swapping networks, but also a participant in the compilation of the National Energy Administration's "Safety Requirements for Electric Vehicle Battery Swapping". As early as 2020, the National Energy Administration released the battery swapping industry standards developed by NIO. NIO led the preparation of three standards, 10435, 10436, and 33025, and deeply participated in the preparation of two standards, 10434 and 33004. NIO has currently obtained over 1600 patents related to battery swapping and has participated in the development of over 20 battery swapping standards.
It is undeniable that NIO's battery swapping standards are likely to have a profound impact on the development of industry battery swapping standards. At the same time, NIO battery swapping network follows the path of "infrastructure first, internal closed-loop, open sharing, and forming network effects". With the opening of NIO battery swapping's joint construction model with multiple car companies, it will undoubtedly greatly promote the process of unifying battery swapping standards.
Long termism blooms and bears fruit
Strong assists from "Moments"
As a car company that has put battery swapping technology into commercial use on a large scale, NIO's initial investment in battery swapping has deterred many peers, and NIO has even been named "Infrastructure Madman" because of this. The investment in battery swapping is a heavy asset. Relevant institutions have estimated that the cost of building a second-generation battery swapping station for NIO is about 2 million yuan, and the cost of building a third-generation battery swapping station is about 3.6 million yuan. With the current scale of NIO battery swapping stations, excluding the cost of operating investment, the cost of construction alone would be close to 10 billion yuan. Therefore, only a few car companies currently adopt a battery swapping model layout, and car companies like NIO that focus on battery swapping are even rarer.
According to the latest data, as of November 28th, NIO has built 2184 battery swapping stations worldwide, with a total of over 32.88 million users swapping electricity. NIO has become the world's largest intelligent electric vehicle battery swapping network operator, and its high-intensity "brain" Power Cloud system can ensure the smooth operation of large-scale and high-frequency battery swapping services.
The cooperation between Changan Automobile, Geely Holdings, and NIO will achieve comprehensive industry cooperation and win-win results. Through cooperation and promotion of battery swapping technology, both parties can accelerate the construction and popularization of battery swapping infrastructure, and provide users with more convenient energy replenishment services; Secondly, the promotion of cooperation between both parties also helps to reduce the cost of using electric vehicles and improve their range, further enhancing user willingness to purchase and satisfaction with usage.
Looking at NIO battery swapping's "circle of friends", it is not difficult to find that before partnering with Changan Automobile and Geely Holdings, the cross industry cooperation of NIO battery swapping mode had already been in full swing. Our partners include traditional energy giants such as "Four Barrels of Oil", and both sides have jointly built 133 exchange stations; There are also commercial real estate brands such as Red Star Macalline, IKEA, Intime, Surprise Home, and Zhongti; NIO has also reached cooperation with 26 highway groups and service area management companies, and has laid out over 600 battery swapping stations in highway service areas and entrances and exits. It has built a high-speed battery swapping network in the "7 vertical, 4 horizontal, and 10 major urban clusters".
From blood transfusion to hematopoiesis
NIO battery swapping leads to a "high-speed rail route"
From private domain exclusive to public services, NIO battery swapping has achieved a breakthrough from a single to C to both ends of B and C. In the future, NIO battery swapping stations can not only serve passenger vehicles of various brands such as NIO, Changan, and Geely, but also serve operational vehicles, making battery swapping stations the "gas station of the intelligent electric era". This makes NIO's profit from battery swapping predictable, and may even begin to feed back NIO, forming a "growth flywheel".
Any product can only be truly promoted on a large scale by generating economies of scale and reducing operating costs. In the book Prediction Machines, it is mentioned that the emergence of the steam engine did not immediately ignite the industrial revolution, but rather opened up the era of replacing manual labor with machines after the unit cost decreased and it was widely applied. As for the battery swapping network, it is equivalent to the cloud service infrastructure of the energy internet, requiring a certain level of investment and return time. Once it is scaled up, it also forms a very high industry entry threshold.
CITIC Securities predicts that the domestic new energy vehicle energy replenishment market will continue to maintain a pattern of charging as the main source and battery swapping as the secondary source in the next five years; However, from the perspective of equipment investment demand, it is expected that the battery swapping mode has more than 10 times the growth potential in 5 years, which is significantly faster than charging. According to the White Paper on Innovation and Synergy in the Battery Exchange Industry - Development of China's Battery Exchange Industry, it is expected that the number of battery exchange stations in China will reach 69500 by 2026.
Just like China's high-speed rail construction, which has been dedicated for many years, looking back on the journey of NIO battery swapping, from infrastructure first to achieving internal closed-loop operation, then to opening up and sharing with the industry, and finally forming a network effect, NIO battery swapping has reproduced China's "high-speed railway line" in the field of intelligent electric vehicles. NIO's promise to "make refueling more convenient than refueling" will eventually become a reality!