Nio: New Battery Swap Station and 500 kW Charger
This page is translated from the original post "Nio : nouvelle station d’échange de batteries et chargeur 500 kW " in French.
- 29/12/2022 13:00
The Chinese start-up NIO has launched a new ultra-fast charger and a battery swapping station as part of its expansion in Europe.
Charging beyond refueling. That is the motto William Li presented at NIO Day 2022. The CEO and founder of NIO indicated that his company aims to make charging more convenient. To achieve this, NIO introduced two solutions: the 500 kW Power Charger and the Power Swap 3.0, its third-generation battery swapping station.
NIO demonstrates battery swapping in 2 minutes and 24 seconds
These third-generation stations can store 21 battery blocks. Curiously, their “productivity” is lower: 408 swaps per day, which is just over 19 swaps per stored battery pack. This is likely related to the charging capacity of these new stations.
Power Swap 3.0 has improved the speed of replacing battery packs, thanks to the synchronized exchange mode with three teams. NIO claims it is 20% faster than what a Power Swap 2.0 station can provide. NIO stated that the previous-generation swapping station could complete its work in 3 minutes. The new station can do it in 2 minutes and 24 seconds.
Unlike its competitors, Power Swap 3.0 still requires drivers to back into the station. But NIO has resolved this issue with technology. NIO vehicles are equipped with two LiDARs and two NVIDIA Orin X chips. This setup allows for optimizing the vehicle entry and exit automation functions at the station, without a driver onboard.
400 km of range recovered in 20 minutes
The other solution from NIO for customers who cannot swap their battery packs is the Power Charger with a speed of 500 kW. According to Li, an ES7 connected to this charger for 20 minutes could recover 400 km of range. Similar to the Tesla Semi’s 1 MW charger, NIO’s supercharger is equipped with liquid-cooled cables, which are 50% lighter than cables without this cooling technology. Too bad this reduces the lifespan of a battery pack.
It has a maximum charging current of 660V and can charge electric vehicles based on the 800-volt architecture. Currently, no NIO vehicles support the 800V architecture. However, William Li previously confirmed that NIO plans to start producing an 800-volt battery pack in the second half of 2024.
Read also: Tesla opens Superchargers to other non-Tesla cars
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