Thanks to NIO’s battery as a service philosophy, owners who have the 70 kWh battery installed in their cars can also upgrade to the new 100 kWh battery :-
- for a one time fee, or
- they can pay for it in monthly installments
- they also have the option of paying a yearly fee
What is interesting about the “battery as a service” approach is that drivers can swap one size battery for another at any time at one of NIO’s 158 automated battery exchange centers located throughout China.
The process takes about 6 minutes. To date, NIO has performed nearly 1.2 million battery swaps.
Theoretically, a driver who uses the car for short trips most of the time can opt for the smaller battery and save money every month. But when the time comes to visit family in the provinces, the 100 kWh battery can be swapped in for a month or two.
No other manufacturer offers such flexibility.
The new 100 kWh battery utilizes NIO’s patented cell to pack technology, which has a 37% higher energy density than the 70 kWh battery.
To date, NIO has been awarded more than 300 patents pertaining to the larger battery, which features better thermal runaway management, a highly integrated design that streamlines the manufacturing by 40% and improves space utilization by 20%.
It also has an all climate thermal management that improves the performance and extends the lifetime of the battery and a cloud based bi-directional battery management system that supports smart adjustments based on actual conditions to improve the battery’s performance under all circumstances.
Reference- Clean Technica, NIO website & PR, Financial Express