“The average Chinese person and the average American are the same damn person,” one auto industry insider working in China told me recently. He was right, too.
It was pretty easy to acknowledge this when I went to China, for the second time this year, in November. The country feels a lot like America, just optimized to be even more seamless and convenient. For example, we love fast food, and they do too; they even like some of the same brands. KFC, McDonald's and Burger King are just as beloved in China as they are here.
But while we’re stuck in a drive-thru line in our big-gas-hogging crossovers, Chinese people can order fast food meals seamlessly delivered to their seats on a high-speed train zooming along the countryside at speeds upward of 200 mph. It’s the same concept, but ruthlessly streamlined.
Can we apply that attitude to electric vehicles? In the U.S., there are a great many EV skeptics who can’t cope with the loss of convenience that they get with a gas car. Especially in the Midwest, where I live, they’re very adamant that waiting at a DC fast charger is just too long. “Yeah, when I can get 500 miles in five minutes, call me,” they tell me. DC fast charging speeds are getting better every day, but it’s not clear if the 500 miles in five minutes thoughtless desire will ever be feasible, (or wise.)
So, how the hell can the car business surmount that extreme desire for convenience, and win over those skeptics?
If we look at what Nio and Onvo are doing in China, it’s simple enough: battery swapping. You pull up to an automated station and a machine pops out your EV’s depleted battery and puts in a fully charged one. Nio has made headlines with this technology for years, but in 2024, it’s clear this is no experiment or one-off novelty. Nio has done more than 57 million battery swaps since it introduced its swapping service in 2018.
Now, Nio’s opened its battery swap technology up to other manufacturers, while others in China have started to formulate competing services. Could the EV industry be in the midst of a shift to battery swapping?
My time in China tells me that it’s a definite maybe.
Nio’s Battery Swapping: The Hows And Whys
Nio and Onvo vehicles can be purchased outright, batteries included. But the two brands offer their vehicles as a battery-as-a-service (BAAS) model. Effectively, buyers can get a significant discount on the vehicle’s purchase price if they opt to lease the battery instead.
They’ll still own the car, but the battery itself will remain the property of Nio. It’s a pretty hefty discount; the Onvo L60 is normally about $29,000, but when enrolled in the BAAS service, it drops to about $21,000. For the Onvo L60, its smallest 60 kWh battery can be leased for about $85 per month.
A battery lease isn’t a new idea; VinFast (in)famously tried this before it launched in the U.S., but Nio’s lease makes far more logical sense because the batteries are swappable. If a Nio owner eventually wants to buy out the battery itself and end the lease program, they can do that as well.
The concept of an electric vehicle that can swap its battery isn’t unique either. Low-speed EVs like the Silence S04 microcar have their own roll-out battery that can be taken inside a home or Silence store to be recharged. Electric motorcycles are doing this too. Hell, back when Tesla was getting off the ground, it showed off some proof-of-concept test models of the Model S swapping its battery, but it later dropped the idea to focus on fast charging.
But Nio’s stuck with it, making it a cornerstone of its unique selling point, brand value, and business model. Every single one of Nio’s models supports battery swapping, including its new brand Onvo and forthcoming brand Firefly.
Thus, Nio’s ground-up EV platform has been designed to accommodate a battery shape that is interchangeable between all of its models, except Onvo, which we’ll get into later. This means that each of Nio’s seven cars can take the the 75, 100, or 150 kWh batteries it has on offer, with no alterations to the vehicle’s structure or change in ride or handling quality. Each car's power and equipment figures are the same—the only variation is simply the battery.
The process itself is easy. While in a Nio or Onvo vehicle, (or via a Nio app on your phone), the driver can make an appointment for a swap. Or they can just show up to a swapping station. Then, when ready the driver will park into a painted box in front of the station. When the car senses that it is in the correct place, a dialogue box will appear on the car’s infotainment screen.
Like magic, the car will maneuver itself backward from the space, doing as many small turns it needs to in order to place itself backward into the swap station. When the car is in position, it does a self-check, places itself in neutral, and starts the swap process.
The car’s main battery does shut off during this process. However, the center infotainment screen continues to work, allowing the passengers to continue to enjoy music or HVAC. (The blower motor will continue to cycle, but the car’s AC or heating element won’t actually be on.)
Then, the car raises upward, while the machinery undoes all the fasteners that keep the battery attached to the car. The battery is removed and shuttled to the back end of the swap cabinet, while and the car is lowered back onto its wheels.
The cabinet finds a new battery, and the car is raised once more. The new one is installed, charged to 93%. Nio says that “fully charged” to them is 93%, in order to maintain ideal battery health and manage degradation.
When swapped, the driver is billed for the energy used (state of charge of the battery you’ve swapped, subtracted from the state of charge in the new battery unit), as well as a small service charge.
The whole process (including the maneuvering into the station itself), took anywhere from three to six minutes in total, much of that allocated to the car maneuvering itself into the correct place. Before I knew what had happened, the car was ready to rock back on the road.
It’s a Logistics Issue
It all sounds simple enough. But what happens on the back end is incredibly complex.
When the battery is removed and shuffled away into the Nio station, a complicated proprietary algorithm decides if the battery will be slow or fast-charged for the next Nio driver. This algorithm also makes sure that the swap stations have the right number of batteries for local demand, including making sure they can handle increased demand during holidays, like say, Lunar New Year—a huge travel event in China.
Nio spokesperson Emma Hai compared the undertaking to Amazon's coordination of shipping and drivers in the U.S.
There are also other little nuances to the Nio swap station, too. For example, the largest 150 kWh battery is only available for rental per day, and cannot be purchased outright.
Also, not every Nio station can accommodate Nio’s new brand of cars, Onvo. The battery for the Onvo L60 is different; it’s only available in either 60 or 85 kWh forms and uses BYD’s blade battery technology, so Onvo and Nio representatives told me that the L60’s battery is thinner than the ones in Nio cars. Onvo’s crossovers are using batteries from BYD, instead of the LFP or NMC stuff found in its higher-end sedans or crossovers. Also, Onvo’s batteries are physically thinner than the ones in Nio’s cars, adding another reason as to why they’re not interchangeable.
In fact, Nio itself has entered into partnerships with four other Chinese EV brands—Changan, JAC, Geely, and Chery to create a standard as well as potentially hook into Nio’s network. Even outside of Nio’s swap network other Chinese brands have implemented their own competing services, especially in the commercial vehicle realm. For example, the Beijing EU5 is a common taxi cab, and it has its own battery swap ecosystem. Same with Geely’s Maple CaoCao 60. Chinese EV battery giant CATL also has announced that it is funding its own EV swap ecosystem, with GM (via SGMW) models to be some of the first models to use the technology.
It is possible that more automakers could get in on this. Of course, not necessarily everyone is convinced of the viability of swapping. Accommodating a swappable battery locks EV manufacturers into some very specific engineering choices that some brands may not want to work with. For example, it’s not clear if a structural, cell-to-body pack design is possible with battery swapping, since removing the battery would severely compromise the car’s body integrity. Also, every vehicle that uses the Nio swap stations would effectively be locked into designing a vehicle that can accommodate the swap equipment.
But once again, it’s simply a choice that manufacturers can choose to work with or around. In China, the Onvo L60’s efficiency rating slightly beats the Tesla Model Y’s, but the L60’s battery is swap-capable. Evidently, the ability of swappable batteries may not necessarily be a deterrent to vehicle efficiency.
But Is It Working?
I'll admit that I was a little more dazzled by the technical details and the process of swapping a lot more than I expected. To me, every issue with EVs I’ve heard from readers and skeptics, or held personally, is gone in one fell swoop. Or maybe, one fell swap is more accurate.
Is the car too expensive? Easy; take a discount and lease the battery until the car itself is paid off. Does charging take too long? Well, a battery swap only takes a few minutes, which would make driving an EV just as convenient and easy as driving a gas-powered car. It even addresses concerns I have with battery longevity and wear since every battery in Nio’s rental service will be certified to be in good health.
I could absolutely see myself driving an older EV, but leasing a battery until I couldn’t. Swapping takes so many of the issues that people have with EVs, and takes it out of their hands, allowing the company to figure out how to manage all that stuff, while we just get clean, convenient motoring.
The value is appealing, Nio has said about 70% of its buyers have opted for its battery as a service. Nio itself has performed more than 57 million swaps, averaging about one every 30 seconds in China. Still, as impressive as this is, Nio’s profitability isn’t great, but the brand does see the swapping stations (and its charging network) as a source of revenue.
It’s not clear if battery swapping will ever catch on outside China. I mean, we’re still struggling to establish a strong charging infrastructure. We don’t even have a codified charging standard or port; how could we expect everyone to sign on to the same battery shape and allow for swapping?
“I haven’t charged in months, honestly. I just swap every time,” said Hai, Nio’s international spokesperson. I believe her, too.
Contact the author: kevin.williams@insideevs.com
