Despite Diminished Benefits, Nio to Maintain Incentives at Highway Swap Stations During Upcoming Extended Holidays

During the upcoming National Day holiday, Nio will continue to offer incentives for car owners using its highway swap stations, albeit with reduced benefits. The service fees will be waived, but unlike previous occasions, the electricity fees will not be.

Nio’s battery swap stations consist of two parts: service and electricity fees. The service fee typically ranges from RMB 30 ($4) to RMB 50 per visit, while the electricity fee is usually around RMB 1.5 per 1 kWh used.

The company had previously allowed car owners to use these stations for free during the Chinese New Year and Labor Day holidays. However, the benefits for the upcoming National Day period have been scaled back.

As of today, Nio has added 24 new battery swap stations in China, bringing the total number to 1,877. Of these, 546 are located along highways. The company aims to increase this number to 2,300 by the end of the year, with 1,000 of those being added this year.

In June, Nio announced a new vehicle pricing strategy that lowered the prices of its entire lineup by RMB 30,000 yuan and made the previously free battery swap service a paid option.

In addition to continuing to offer the benefit of battery swap stations along highways during the holidays, Nio is also encouraging owners to upgrade their 70/75-kWh standard-range battery packs to the 100-kWh long-range version before the holidays.

Nio’s vehicles support battery swap, making flexible battery upgrades possible. The company announced on September 5 details of discounts owners can receive for temporarily upgrading their battery packs.

The company also put 13 supercharging stations into operation today, taking the total number to 1,769 and offering 8,530 charging piles.

Nio today put four new destination charging stations into operation, bringing the total to 1,387 and offering 10,024 charging piles. Its charging map in China has access to 890,614 third-party charging piles.

About 80 percent of the power provided by Nio’s charging piles is used by other brands of EVs. Nio’s charging business is no longer continuing to lose money and it’s one of the few businesses the company doesn’t lose money on.