NIO, the China-based manufacturer of electric vehicles which has been beset by production constraints amid disruptions related to the supply chain and the Asian giant’s COVID-induced lockdowns in key production hubs, is surprisingly outperforming Tesla when it comes to the stock price performance, clocking in a year-to-date loss of 33 percent vs. 41 percent for Elon Musk’s company. Following in the footsteps of last year’s similarly titled event, the NIO Power Day 2022 is slated to provide additional impetus to the stock’s long-term trajectory
Background
For the uninitiated, NIO offers a variety of options to recharge its EVs. The NIO Power Home is a connectivity-enabled plug-and-charge solution that allows customers to charge their electric vehicles at their residences. The product is offered in two variants – the 7 kW and the 20 kW options – with the higher capacity variant allowing customers to fully recharge a 100-kWh battery pack in around 5 hours. NIO also offers its customers a rapidly growing network of DC chargers. In fact, the company now offers at least 895 supercharging stations across China. Additionally, the EV manufacturer also offers a mobile charging solution capable of imparting a 100-km range to an electric vehicle via a 10-minute charge. Of course, NIO’s distinctive offering remains its battery swap stations which allow for a completely automated depleted battery replacement in under 3 minutes. NIO has, until now, managed to instal 1,011 battery swap stations. By 2025, the company expects to induct at least 4,000 such stations in its global network, thereby ensuring that 90 percent of its customers have at least one battery swap station within a 3-km radius of their residence. Each battery swap station is capable of performing 312 completely automated battery swaps per day. Each such station costs the company around $772,000. Finally, NIO allows its customers the option to purchase its EVs without a battery pack under the Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) facility. Starting at RMB 980 ($146) per month for a 70-kWh battery pack, the facility allows NIO EV owners six free battery swaps in a given month, all the while slashing a significant chunk off a vehicle’s headline price and preventing the resale value of the vehicle from plummeting due to battery degradation.
NIO Power Day 2022 is Finally Live Now
— 42HOW (@42how_) July 6, 2022 At today’s event, NIO is expected to advance its overarching goal of ensuring that powering up an EV becomes easier than refueling a comparable ICE vehicle. The company’s Power Day 2022 event has now officially kicked off. We will continue to update this post with additional details during the course of the event. NIO has revealed that its one-click power-up has provided 821,350 cumulative services so far. Moreover, the company has installed 127,528 home chargers for its customers. Around 62 percent of NIO’s total customers now have at least one battery swap station within a 3-km radius of their homes, with Shenzhen leading the pack, where 84 percent of the company’s customers enjoy this facility. NIO has officially revealed now that it has installed 1,011 battery swap stations, including 256 stations along Chinese highways. Also, these stations store a total of 8,961 batteries currently, divided between 3,821 long-range ones and 5,140 standard-range ones. In a critical insight, NIO revealed that 80 percent of the power at its supercharging piles is consumed by users of other EV brands. Today, the company has called on its competitors to reciprocate this facility for NIO’s customers. In a major development, NIO has announced that it is testing the use of batteries stored at a battery swap station to provide power to the grid during off-peak times. When deployed at a large scale, this solution is expected to curtail the astronomical costs of these stations. Additionally, NIO has reiterated its overarching goal of ensuring that, by 2025, 90 percent of its users are able to avail a battery swap station within a 3-km radius of their homes. By the end of this year, the company plans to install 1,300 battery swap stations. Moreover, NIO is also working on third-generation battery swap stations that are expected to be introduced either by the end of this year or early next year. NIO has now introduced a 500-kW ultra-fast charger that is capable of providing 650-ampere peak current. The company expects to begin installations in China and the EU later this year. Bear in mind that XPeng’s new-gen 480-kW superchargers can impart a 200-km range in around 5 minutes. NIO’s 500-kW supercharger is expected to outdo XPeng’s when it comes to charging times. The company has also announced that it is working on next-gen high-voltage platform technology. Bear in mind that NIO already supports 800-volt battery packs.
