Will Mercedes Benz adopt NIO battery swapping platform? NIO has not responded to messages | Mercedes Benz | Platform
On August 4th, it was reported online that NIO and Mercedes Benz have reached a cooperation agreement, and NIO will open up a battery swapping platform to Mercedes Benz, opening up a new profit model. As of the time of publication, NIO has not responded to the authenticity of this news.
During this year's Shanghai Auto Show, Kang Linsong, Chairman and CEO of Mercedes Benz Group Co., Ltd., and Li Bin, Chairman and CEO of NIO, appeared in the same frame and were photographed meeting at NIO House. Subsequently, news spread that NIO would collaborate with Mercedes Benz on battery swapping. But at that time, both NIO and Mercedes Benz denied this news.
Although he denied the news of cooperation with Mercedes Benz at the time, Li Bin stated that there were already car companies discussing sharing battery swapping stations with NIO and using NIO's battery swapping model to develop new cars.
In late July, Shen Fei, Senior Vice President of NIO Energy, also mentioned in an interview with reporters that he is in talks with some peers to cooperate and share a power exchange station.
Difficulties in energy supplementation and range anxiety are important reasons that constrain the popularity of pure electric vehicles. Shengang Securities pointed out in its research report that the battery swapping mode will become an inevitable form of popularization of new energy vehicles in all scenarios and an effective supplement to the charging mode.
However, due to the universality of cross brand, multi vehicle model, battery swapping platform and device technology, battery pack communication protocol, electrical connector technology, etc., a battery swapping station can only serve a single vehicle brand or even a single vehicle model. To achieve battery swapping across brands, it is necessary for car manufacturers to maintain consistency in battery pack size, lower body design, etc., which will affect the core design authority of some car manufacturers.
A research and development engineer from a new energy vehicle company told reporters, "If Mercedes Benz adopts NIO's battery swapping, then Mercedes Benz needs to relinquish some body design authority. The design of its vehicle model needs to be planned according to the size of NIO's battery pack, and it also needs to reserve battery pack interfaces of the same specifications as NIO."
At present, NIO has built the largest passenger car battery swapping system in China. According to NIO's previously announced plan, NIO will accelerate the layout speed of its battery swapping network in 2023, with plans to add 1000 new battery swapping stations and build over 2300 by the end of 2023; In addition, in the European market, NIO is also laying out its battery swapping system. On July 28th, NIO launched its fourth battery swapping station in Germany and its 20th in Europe in Hanover; NIO has also established a battery swapping plant in Hungary.