- NIO expanded its highway battery-swap footprint in Yunnan by opening 10 new stations at major state-run service areas, scaling from pilots to corridor-wide network coverage across the province.
- NIO reports 9,328 charging and swap sites nationwide, including 4,075 battery-swap stations and 5,253 charging stations, and says cumulative investment exceeds RMB 20 billion (about $2.98 billion).
- The rollout targets long-distance EV travelers on key expressways and directly competes with fast-charging networks, but execution risks include land access, operational integration with SOEs, and capital intensity.
NIO Power and Yunnan Transport Investment & Development Co. have put 10 new highway battery-swap stations into operation in Yunnan province.
The expansion follows the two sides’ initial deployment of highway battery-swap stations in 2024, with all of the new sites located at major highway service areas operated by Yunnan Transport.
The new swap stations cover the G5621 Kunming-Chuxiong Expressway, G85 Yinkun Expressway, G78 Shantou-Kunming Expressway, G5 Beijing-Kunming Expressway and G8511 Kunming-Mohan Expressway, with stations serving both directions.
The sites span central, eastern, western and southern Yunnan, filling gaps in battery-swap coverage across several major highway corridors in the province.
For EV owners traveling long distances between regions, highway service areas already provide parking, dining and rest facilities, allowing battery swapping to be completed alongside a break.
Compared with the first round of cooperation in 2024, the latest deployment is more concentrated.
The partnership expands from individual pilot sites to network coverage across multiple major highway corridors.
Yunnan Transport, a state-owned enterprise under the Yunnan provincial government, is primarily responsible for investment, construction and operation of road, rail and waterway transportation infrastructure.
Its highway service-area network provides an existing infrastructure base for deploying energy-replenishment facilities.
The partnership is also part of NIO Power’s broader cooperation model with local state-owned enterprises.
On Aug. 12, NIO Power and Wuhan Optics Valley Transportation Group completed the handover of their first batch of 36 jointly developed charging and battery-swap stations in Wuhan.
On Aug. 27, NIO Power and Science City (Guangzhou) Investment Group Co. completed the handover of their first 23 industrial cooperation battery-swap stations in Huangpu, Guangzhou.
As of Sept. 8, NIO Power had partnered with more than 40 local state-owned enterprises and financial institutions across 25 provinces, municipalities and regions in China, jointly building more than 800 battery-swap stations.
For NIO, partnerships with local state-owned platforms allow the company to leverage partners’ advantages in transportation infrastructure, land and regional resources.
This reduces the investment burden of building its network independently while expanding swap-station coverage across urban areas and highway networks.
In terms of energy infrastructure, NIO had built 9,328 charging and battery-swap stations as of Sept. 8, including 4,075 battery-swap stations and 5,253 charging stations, along with 30,284 charging points.
According to the company, NIO has invested more than RMB 20 billion ($2.98 billion) cumulatively in battery-swapping technology, charging technology and related infrastructure.
Its battery-swap service has been used more than 120 million times, while cumulative charging and swapping services have exceeded 200 million.
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