Nio (NYSE:NIO) is negotiating with multiple carmakers about licensing its battery swap technology, which represents one of the key strengths of the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer's strategy to increase its market share in Europe, the FT reports.
The Shanghai-based automaker is holding talks with both local and overseas automotive companies to expand its network of battery charging stations, said Hui Zhang, Vice President of Nio Europe.
The company expects to increase the number of its charging stations from 800 to 5,000 by the middle of the decade. Nio hopes the battery swap technology will help it gain a strong position in Europe, one of the most competitive electric vehicle markets.
The company expects to build 1,000 battery swap stations outside China by 2025, primarily in Europe and the U.S., a market that Nio wants to target after Europe.
"We want to be a well-established player in the premium segment [in Europe] by 2025," Zhang said.
Nios's plan involves licensing its battery-swapping solution to other carmakers in an effort to expand the use of this technology which the company believes will address concerns related to the limited number of battery chargers and the time needed to charge a car.
To address these worries, Nio developed a battery swap system that involves unscrewing the bottom of the electric vehicle and replacing the battery through a hatch on the floor of the charging station.
The battery swap process takes just a couple of minutes, significantly faster than even the quickest electric car chargers that take about an hour to power up an empty battery.
The Chinese carmaker went public in 2018 and has sold 180,000 vehicles in China. While dozens of other Chinese carmakers have developed their own battery swap technologies, only Nio has commercialized the product until now.
Nio stock price is up 1.5% in pre-open Tuesday.