NIO officially announced a new battery swap fee model to be implemented on September 12.
Unlike the previous flat service fee structure, the new model aligns costs with the amount of electricity swapped, offering greater flexibility to users.
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Old Pricing Model
NIO’s previous pricing formula was straightforward: Service fee (30 or 50 CNY per swap) + electricity cost * kWh swapped = total swap cost.
In this older model, the service fee remained fixed regardless of how much electricity was exchanged, which led many users to run their batteries as low as possible before swapping. This discouraged battery swaps when the charge was above 20%, creating some inconvenience and limiting flexibility for users.
2 New Potential Pricing Model Breakdown
To address these issues, NIO has rolled out two new pricing plans, offering a more customized approach to battery swapping.
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Plan 1: Basic Service Fee + kWh Pricing
Basic Service Fee: 9.9 CNY per swap
New Formula = Basic Service Fee (9.9 CNY) + (Electricity Cost (real-time rate) + Service Fee (real-time rate)) * kWh swapped
Under this plan, the basic service fee drops significantly to just 9.9 CNY, compared to the previous 30 or 50 CNY.
The total cost now depends on the amount of electricity swapped, factoring in both the electricity price and an additional service charge based on real-time rates.
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Plan 2: Total kWh Cost
New Formula 2 = (Electricity Cost (real-time rate) + Service Fee (real-time rate)) * kWh swapped
This simplified option combines the electricity and service fees into one “per kWh” rate.
If the user swaps less than 20 kWh under plan 2, the service fee will be calculated based on the 20 kWh minimum quantity, while the electricity cost will still reflect the actual amount swapped.
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This measure is designed to prevent users from frequently swapping small amounts of electricity to ensure efficient use of NIO’s swap stations.
While both plans will introduce a flexible Service Fee element, Plan 2 will likely use a higher fee given that Plan 1 retained a small fixed Service Fee of 9.9 CNY per swap.
The final plan selection will be unveiled and implemented on September 12.
NIO has currently completed over 52.4 million swaps and built 2,505 battery swapping stations (BSS) and 2,334 supercharging stations as of September 6, 2024.