NIO will only slow down infrastructure buildout when power-up experience rivals refueling, says president

NIO will only slow down infrastructure buildout when the charging and battery swap experience is comparable to refueling and even better in some scenarios, according to Qin Lihong.

As one of the most aggressive electric vehicle makers building power-up facilities in China, NIO's efforts are expected to continue over the next few years.

NIO will keep its investment in infrastructure as high this year as it was last year, the company's co-founder and president Qin Lihong said at a media event Tuesday, adding that both superchargers and destination charging piles will maintain a relatively high growth rate.

"Our basic idea is that this rate should be maintained for a few more years until the experience on charging and battery swap is at least comparable to the fueling experience of a fuel vehicle and even better in some places and some scenarios, before it slows down," Qin said.

Now is when the industry is just emerging, and NIO wants to make a determined initial investment to improve the user experience so that those who choose electric vehicles early on are not treated unfairly, he said, adding, "That's our basic starting point."

NIO expects to open more than 100 NIO Houses and NIO Spaces in 2022, although there may be a lot of unknowns in the process and the exact number won't be known until the end of the year, Qin said.

The company expects to have more than 1,300 battery swap stations by the end of the year, which means it will add about 600 new stations this year, he said.

At the NIO Day 2021 event on December 18 last year, NIO said it plans to have more than 1,300 battery swap stations, more than 6,000 supercharging piles and more than 10,000 destination charging piles by the end of 2022, in addition to unveiling its new sedan, the ET5.

At the first NIO Power Day event held on July 9 last year, NIO said it would have more than 4,000 battery swap stations worldwide by the end of 2025, with 1,000 of them in overseas markets.

From 2022 to 2025, NIO will add 600 battery swap stations per year in the Chinese market, the company said at the time.

Having a large, high-quality energy replenishment network is an important foundation for NIO's confidence in gaining a foothold in the premium market.

"NIO is standing firm in the premium pure electric vehicle segment amid increasingly fierce competition," Qin said at Tuesday's event.

"Three years ago, everyone, including partners, users, investors, media friends, and peers, were saying you only have a very short window, and when BBA (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi) starts to launch electric vehicle models, you will die very fast," Qin said.

But now their cards are out in this round, Qin said, adding that BMW's insurance registrations for electric cars in China last year were more than 20,000, but the key factor behind that was an RMB 70,000 price cut for its iX3.

In terms of insurance registrations last year, NIO had a 40.8 percent share of the premium EV market priced above RMB 300,000 in China. "BMW is over 20,000 units and doing well. In BBA, Mercedes-Benz is about over 6,000 units and Audi is over 2,000 units," according to Qin.

NIO delivered 91,429 vehicles for the full year in 2021, up 109.1 percent from 43,728 vehicles in 2020. Since inception through the end of last year, NIO has delivered a cumulative total of 167,070 vehicles, according to data it previously released.