Electric Vehicle Battery Swapping: What NIO’s Fourth Generation Station Shows

Electric vehicle battery swapping replaces a depleted pack with a prepared one instead of waiting to recharge the same pack in the car. NIO’s June 13, 2024 announcement of its Power Swap Station 4.0 provides a concrete example of how the approach works. Its figures describe the station and rollout at that time. They are useful for understanding the technology, but they should not be treated as a promise about every driver’s total stop time.

What happens during a swap?

According to NIO, a driver can start an automated swap with one tap on the vehicle’s center display. The company also described a way to start without remaining in the car. The station handles the exchange: it removes the installed battery and fits a prepared battery that is compatible with the vehicle. The driver leaves with a different pack, while the original pack can be handled within the station’s battery system.

NIO said the fourth generation station can complete a swap in 144 seconds, 22% faster than its third generation station. That is a stated swap duration, not a measure of the entire visit. Reaching a station, waiting for access and completing any steps around the exchange can add time. The distinction matters when comparing swapping with charging on a real journey.

What the station is designed to handle

NIO enlarged the battery compartment to hold 23 batteries and stated that a station can provide up to 480 swaps per day. The company also listed six ultrawide field of view LiDAR units and four Orin X chips as standard equipment, with stated computing power of 1,016 TOPS. These details illustrate that swapping is an infrastructure system as well as a vehicle feature: the station must position and identify cars and manage batteries consistently.

The word up to is important in the daily capacity figure. It describes a stated maximum, not a guarantee that a particular site will process that many vehicles. The actual experience depends on demand and on whether an appropriate battery is ready when a compatible car arrives.

Does multiple brand support mean any EV can use it?

No universal compatibility follows from NIO’s announcement. NIO said the fourth generation station supports automated swaps for multiple brands and vehicle models, and named NIO, ONVO and its battery swap strategic partners as potential users. A vehicle still needs a compatible battery and swap design, and the relevant station must support it. A driver should check the specific vehicle and station rather than infer access from the phrase “multiple brands.”

This requirement is a basic difference between swapping and plugging in. A swap station needs to exchange a physical pack that fits the car and its service system. The headline speed is useful only when those compatibility conditions are met.

Where the rollout stood in June 2024

NIO identified the first fourth generation stations in Guangzhou’s Liwan District and at the Luoji Service Area on the G40 Shanghai–Shaanxi Expressway in Lu’an, Anhui. On June 13, 2024, it also reported 2,432 Power Swap Stations and 22,633 chargers installed in China. Those are historical figures from the announcement, not a current network map or availability check.

The company introduced a 640 kW liquid cooled power charger alongside the new swap station. Charging and swapping remain separate services. A charger’s peak rating does not describe how fast a battery exchange occurs, and the swap time does not describe how quickly a vehicle charges.

How to judge whether swapping is useful

Swapping separates the time a battery spends being prepared from the time the driver spends at the station. That can make the exchange itself short. Its usefulness on a given trip depends on station access, supported vehicles and an available compatible pack. Charging keeps the car’s own battery in place, with stop time affected by the car, charger and charging conditions. For a driver, the practical comparison is the whole trip and the services actually available along it, rather than one headline specification.

References

• Source verification required before publication: NIO Power Swap Station 4.0 Now Operational