Battery swapping for EVs has been talked about for years however at all times appeared too far-fetched to work. Yet, Chinese EV producer Nio not too long ago clocked up 30 million battery swaps throughout its Power Swap Stations community, which is principally in China but additionally Europe (and is predicted to achieve the UK at some stage too).

The benefit is just time. It takes simply 2min 30sec to swap a Nio car’s battery for a totally charged one, so the full course of from arrival to departure takes roughly the identical time as utilizing a petroleum pump – a lot faster than the quickest battery cost.

The course of is totally automated from begin to end. The driver parks within the station’s recharge space and faucets the ‘auto parking’ possibility that seems on the car’s touchscreen. The car will then park autonomously within the station, coming to relaxation on a mattress of rollers, permitting equipment to minutely place it prepared for the swap. Next, a mechanism undoes the ten ‘bayobolts’ holding the battery in place, drops the battery, strikes it apart to a storage space on the right-hand aspect of the station and installs a contemporary one as a substitute utilizing a locking gun. After the swap is full, the car performs a well being test, and if it passes that, the driving force is sweet to go away.

Nio’s newest (third-generation) station can retailer 21 batteries, eight greater than the earlier one, enabling it to finish 30 p.c extra swaps with a complete capability of 408 per day.

The station makes use of two LiDAR sensors and Nvidia Orin processors plus Nio’s personal ADAS features to precisely align the car over the ‘gate’ previous to closing alignment by the station’s mechanism. In China, the saved batteries are charged on a night-time power tariff, the decrease value being handed on to customers in the course of the day.

Nio’s battery-swapping service has grown at a rare charge. It took 1,506 days for it to achieve its first 10 million swaps however solely 273 days to achieve the following 10 million, and the third 10 million got here simply 189 days later. Although spreading throughout all markets and suitable with all Nio fashions, the expertise is unique to this one car maker for now.

Nio has, nevertheless, entered right into a strategic settlement with Shell to construct and function battery charging and swapping services, and is open to sharing the expertise with different corporations. If the trade can break down the barrier of conflicting requirements so that each car makes use of the identical battery, very similar to family units use AAs or AAAs, the thought might work throughout the board.

Nio drivers don’t must rely solely on battery-swapping, although: they will additionally use public fast and residential chargers in the identical manner as with every different EV. Now confirmed, the battery-swapping idea might additionally work for bigger business and even long-haul autos, which received’t have the time to cost enormous battery packs.