On November 21st, NIO Automobile announced a cooperation agreement with Changan Automobile on battery replacement business. The two sides will cooperate in four areas: establishing battery replacement standards, establishing a battery replacement system, establishing a battery asset management mechanism, and conducting pre research on battery replacement products. With the advancement of cooperation, users of some of the brand models under both sides can share the public exchange station jointly built by both sides.
From the first day of operation, NIO's charging and swapping business has been ready to open up to the entire industry. NIO's founder, Li Bin, previously stated that after announcing the first partner for battery swapping, there are still four or five other companies in talks.
As the earliest new energy vehicle brand in China to launch the battery swapping mode, NIO is also the largest brand in the construction of battery swapping stations. Currently, NIO's battery swapping mode has achieved a separate car and electricity purchase mode, allowing consumers to only purchase the entire vehicle, and the battery is leased.
Compared to Geely, SAIC, and Ningde Times, which also have layouts in the field of power exchange, NIO has a significant advantage in terms of the number of power exchange stations.
Official data shows that as of November 20th, the 2100th NIO replacement power station was officially launched in the Hukou service area of G22 Qinglan Expressway, and the cumulative number of replacement power stations in China has reached 2103. The NIO charging stations have exceeded 20000, covering 306 cities nationwide. The charging stations are open to all new energy users and have accumulated over 110 brand models, providing nearly 30 million charging services. NIO users have accumulated over 32 million battery changes, with an average of 60000 daily battery changes.
It is worth noting that since its inception, the electricity exchange model has been regarded as a heavy asset and investment replenishment model. Therefore, when NIO was established, the profitability of NIO has been under pressure since the main replenishment model was electricity exchange.
According to the previously released financial report for the second quarter of this year, as of June 30, NIO Automobile has accumulated a net loss of nearly 10.8 billion yuan and cash reserves of 31.5 billion yuan, a decrease of 6.3 billion yuan compared to the first quarter. The gross profit margin of vehicles in the second quarter of this year also decreased to 6.2%, from 16.7% in the same period last year to 5.1% in the first quarter of this year; The overall gross profit margin in the second quarter was 1%, compared to 13% in the same period last year and only 1.3% in the first quarter of this year. After car companies have generally released their third quarter financial reports of this year, NIO's third quarter report has not yet been released.
At NIO Power Day 2023, NIO co founder and CEO Qin Lihong candidly stated, "Many people say that NIO has been losing money when it comes to battery swapping. In the past, it has been losing more. We also hope to work together to reduce losses and make profits as soon as possible
Therefore, there have been rumors of NIO's open cooperation for electricity exchange. In August of this year, there was an online rumor that NIO and Mercedes Benz had reached a battery exchange cooperation, but at that time, NIO did not respond to the authenticity of this news. In late July, Shen Fei, Senior Vice President of NIO Energy, also revealed in a media interview that he was in talks with some peers to collaborate on sharing the power plant.
However, Li Bin once said in response to employees' doubts about the sustainability of the electricity exchange business, that electricity exchange is a huge first mover advantage for NIO, and it has now reached the moment of opening up to the entire industry. After announcing the first partner, there are still four or five more to discuss.
The power exchange network is equivalent to the cloud service infrastructure of the energy internet. Today, companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, Amazon, and Microsoft have a large portion of their market value coming from 'cloud services'. Without the cloud, their market value would be discounted. And these companies have lost money for many years in the process of establishing' cloud services' before finally achieving their current success, "Li Bin said in an internal speech by all staff.
This cooperation with Chang'an Automobile not only effectively releases NIO's technology in the field of power exchange, but also improves the efficiency of the power exchange station. According to the agreement, both parties will jointly promote the establishment of battery replacement standards. On the basis of a unified battery pack standard, Changan Automobile will jointly develop interchangeable electric vehicle models with NIO Automobile. Changan Automobile's first interchangeable electric passenger car model that shares a battery pack with NIO Automobile is planned to be launched in 2025. At the same time, NIO can also collaborate with traditional car companies to develop electric vehicle replacement models and strengthen the popularization of electric vehicle replacement. At the same time, NIO stated that as the number of cooperative car companies increases, the battery replacement business may improve NIO's financial situation, and it will have greater say in battery replacement standards, battery asset management mechanisms, and other aspects.