After its first second-generation battery swap station went live two months ago, Chinese electric vehicle company Nio is accelerating the construction of this energy replenishment infrastructure.
The company announced Thursday the launch of its battery swap station at the Luoyang service area on China's G30 Lianyungang-Horgos Highway, its first second-generation battery swap station in a highway service area, marking the start of construction of the facility along the expressway.
(Source: Nio)
This is Nio's 260th battery swap station in China and its 11th in Henan Province, central China, and the first along the G30.
The G30 expressway is one of the main east-west highway networks in China, with a total length of 4,395 km, making it the longest expressway in China.
The Luoyang service area, where the battery swap station is located, is 30 kilometers from the main city of Luoyang and is also part of the Luoyang City Bypass Expressway.
The site is near popular tourist attractions including the White Horse Temple, Shaolin Temple and Longmen Grottoes, and is one of the most popular places for Chinese residents to go for leisure and vacation.
To date, Nio has 11 battery swap stations, 15 supercharging stations, 3 destination charging stations and access to over 12,000 third-party charging piles in Henan.
As of June 17, Nio has 260 battery swap stations, 182 supercharging stations, 367 destination charging stations and access to more than 380,000 third-party charging piles in China.
Nio will continue to deploy battery swap stations on China's main highway routes to meet the demand for highway battery exchange networks for cross-regional travel, the company said.
This comes just eight days after Nio's 250th battery swap station went live, meaning the company is putting this replenishment facility into operation at an average rate of more than one per day.
One of Nio's goals this year was to reach 500 battery swap stations in China, and with its 250th battery swap station coming online on June 9, it has reached 50 percent of its goal for the number of battery swap stations built this year.
CnEVPost previously mentioned that Nio has 172 battery swap stations in 74 cities in China as of Dec. 31, 2020.
That means the company has built 78 new battery swap stations in China this year as of June 9, an average of one every two days.
To bring its battery swap stations to 500, Nio would need to build 250 in 205 days, an average of one every 0.8 days, and Nio's latest construction rate has matched that goal.