Will swapping replace charging?

We visit a Nio battery swap station as Chinese firms seek to improve the EV experience

- NICK GIBBS

Frank Skarpass, manager of a Norwegian power grid company, is digesting the information that the structure resembling a high-tech car wash right next to the bank of chargers where he's topping up his Jaguar l-Pace is for swapping EV batteries.

"It only takes five minutes? That's the dream," he says.

"Charging is without doubt a hassle." This battery swap station in Lier, southern Norway, is the first to be installed in Europe by Nio, a Chinese EV company that has been compared to Tesla. The premise is simple, even if the mechanics aren't: the swap station will replace a depleted EV battery for a full one in around five minutes.

Nio already has 836 swap stations in China and plans to increase that to 1300 globally by the end of this year. Twenty of those will be in Norway, and Nio is lining up sites in Germany for its big launch there later this year. When it brings its range of premium-priced SUVs and saloons to the UK (we've been given plenty of hints but no date yet), it will install them here too.

"It gives us a unique selling point," Nio European managing director Hui Zhang told Autocar.

The idea of battery swapping isn't new. Tesla proposed it before settling on building the Supercharger network. And back in 2008, Israeli firm Better place inked a deal with Renault to use its swapping system in EVs, starting with the Fluence ZE. Stations were built in Israel and Denmark, but the idea didn't take off, and Better Place went bankrupt in 2013.

But while battery swapping has been dormant in Europe, in China the tech is advancing at pace. Nio now claims capacity for 30,000 swaps a day to lead the private market, but others are looking to close the gap.