A Nio ES6 at a battery swap station in Shenzhen, China. Credit: Nio.
- Nio’s 4,168 battery swap stations completed 1,192,221 swaps from October 1 to 7, with the daily average rising 22% year-on-year.
- Daily battery swaps reached 183,664 during the return travel peak on October 5.
Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO) provided nearly 1.2 million battery swaps during the recent 7-day National Day holiday in China, setting daily records twice as peak travel demand put its energy replenishment network to the test.
The Chinese EV maker’s 4,168 battery swap stations completed 1,192,221 swaps from October 1 to 7, with the daily average rising 22% from a year earlier, according to a holiday charging and battery swap report released on Friday.
Including charging, Nio’s 9,567 charging and battery swap stations across China provided 2,071,582 services during the holiday, with the daily average up 20.5% year-on-year. The figures cover its 3 brands: Nio, Onvo and Firefly.
Daily battery swaps hit a record 183,469 on October 1, China’s National Day. That record was broken again during the return travel peak on October 5, when swaps reached 183,664.
That meant a vehicle completed a battery swap and departed every 0.47 seconds on average at peak demand, Nio said.
The previous daily record was 177,627 swaps, set on February 22 during the Spring Festival travel peak. Daily swaps reached 170,585 on May 1 during the Labor Day holiday peak, according to previous CnEVPost reports.
During this year’s Labor Day holiday, Nio’s 3,839 battery swap stations completed 1,031,469 swaps over 7 days.
Highways accounted for a key share of holiday battery swap demand. From October 1 to 7, Nio’s highway charging and battery swap facilities supplied more than 24.83 million kWh of electricity, up 30.8% year-on-year and accounting for 13.7% of the nationwide highway total.
Nio currently operates 1,073 highway battery swap stations, connecting more than 550 cities across China. Of those stations, 250 set daily swap records during the holiday.
The highway swap stations saved users more than 309,124 hours of waiting for energy replenishment, 14.7% more than a year earlier, Nio said.
A battery swap station at the Rizhao service area on the G15 Shenyang-Haikou Expressway in Rizhao, Shandong province, was the busiest highway swap station during the holiday, with a daily peak of 211 swaps.
For long-distance travel, 203,581 users relied entirely on battery swapping to replenish their vehicles during holiday road trips. A total of 197,684 users drove more than 1,000 kilometers over the holiday, up 65.1% year-on-year.
Another 127,542 users drove more than 500 kilometers in a single day, up 74.6% year-on-year. Users across the 3 brands drove more than 714 million kilometers during the holiday.
Nio’s battery swap stations now cover more than 1,300 districts and counties across China. Battery swap orders in county towns rose 144.2% from the preceding period during the holiday.
Nio’s charging network is open to vehicles across the industry. The company currently operates 5,399 charging stations and 31,091 charging points, with vehicles outside the Nio Inc group accounting for 86.69% of the electricity delivered.
On October 3, Nio’s cumulative charging sessions surpassed 100 million.
Nio continues to expand its energy replenishment infrastructure. On September 26, it completed its Silk Road battery swap route, spanning 3,605 kilometers from Xi’an in Shaanxi province to Horgos in Xinjiang, with 33 battery swap stations along the way.
Users can now depart from any battery swap station in China and reach every provincial-level administrative region in the Chinese mainland using only battery swaps, Nio said. The company aims to bring its total number of scenic routes with charging and battery swap coverage to 100 in 2026.
Nio’s September intelligent assisted driving report, also released today, showed that its navigate-on-swap feature was used 105,403 times during the month, accounting for 24.7% of swap orders at stations where the feature was available. The feature allows vehicles to automatically enter a battery swap station and complete a swap.
Geely will invest its entire equity interest in Yiyi Power and 640 million yuan in cash in Nio Power, integrating battery swap operations for commercial fleets.
