There has been new progress in the opening up of NIO battery swapping to the outside world.
On November 29th, Geely Holdings and NIO signed a strategic cooperation agreement for battery swapping in Hangzhou.
After reaching a cooperation agreement with Changan Automobile last week, Geely became the second car company to sign a strategic cooperation agreement with NIO on battery swapping business.
It is understood that both parties will engage in comprehensive cooperation in multiple fields, including battery replacement standards, battery replacement technology, battery replacement service network construction and operation, research and development and customization of battery replacement models, battery asset management and operation.
According to the agreement, both parties will work together through the "joint investment, joint construction, sharing, and joint operation" model to create two major battery swapping standard systems for "private cars" and "commercial cars", accelerate the connectivity and collaboration of the vehicle end, station end, battery end, and operation end, expand the scale of the battery swapping network, and provide more convenient, safer, and more complete services for users with different needs. Both parties will also establish an efficient battery asset management system, establish a unified battery swapping operation management system, and cooperate in the research and development of battery swapping passenger cars that are compatible with both parties' battery swapping systems.
Li Shufu, Chairman of Geely Holding Group, Gan Jiayue, CEO of Geely Automobile Group, Li Bin, Founder, Chairman and CEO of NIO, and Feng Wei, CFO of NIO, all appeared at the signing ceremony.
The signing representatives of both parties are Liu Jinliang, CEO of Yiyi Internet Technology Co., Ltd. under Geely Holding Group, and Shen Fei, Senior Vice President of NIO.
Shen Fei is the person in charge of NIO's energy supplement field, while Liu Jinliang is mainly responsible for Geely's travel business. He is also responsible for the battery swapping of operational vehicles serving Geely's travel business.
Geely Automobile Group's subsidiary "Yiyi Interconnect Technology Co., Ltd." has been laying out in the field of battery swapping for many years, mainly positioning itself in the operating market for battery swapping and energy replenishment.
We provide services for Geely's Caocao 60, Fengye 80V, Fengye 60s, Ruilan 9, Ruilan 7, and British TX5 models, mainly targeting the low-end operational vehicle market.
In fact, in the passenger car market, the battery swapping mode was previously considered more suitable for applications in rental, ride hailing, and other fields.
On the one hand, as battery swapping is faster than charging, it can reduce the idle time of operational new energy vehicles; On the other hand, batteries are considered the most important asset of new energy vehicles, and consumers have concerns about battery replacement.
However, NIO defines itself as a high-end automotive brand, and battery swapping services are also considered part of its brand competitiveness, which is one of the reasons why some consumers choose to purchase NIO branded cars.
However, the investment in replacing power stations is huge and difficult to bring returns, which is a huge burden for NIO, which has suffered losses of over 70 billion yuan over the past five years.
NIO's open battery swapping network is an inevitable choice under enormous financial pressure. But when battery swapping is no longer an exclusive service for NIO users, NIO's brand differentiation competitiveness is inevitably challenged.
Since the beginning of this year, from official price reductions, to service declines, and then to the opening of battery swapping for ride hailing services, has NIO become less popular?