NIO has received a financing proposal from CATL, which is considering investing up to RMB 2.5 billion ($345.6 million) in NIO Power, the power-solution unit of the Chinese electric vehicle maker, as the companies on Monday reached a long-anticipated deal to promote battery-swapping technology.
NIO and CATL, the world’s top battery maker, will jointly strive to build the largest and most advanced battery swapping service network for passenger vehicles globally. The companies said (in Chinese) on Tuesday that future models of firefly, NIO’s mini-car brand, will be compatible with Choco Swap, CATL’s battery-swapping ecosystem.
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“Leveraging our Choco-Swap and the parallel operations of both CATL’s and NIO’s networks, we are able to build a smart power network that caters to a wide range of needs across multiple levels and dimensions,” CATL founder and chairman Robin Zeng said in a statement. The news comes three months after the Chinese battery giant announced its entry into the battery-swapping space with a goal to build 1,000 facilities independently in China next year.
NIO earlier this month received a RMB 2.8 billion cash infusion from two investment firms as part of a RMB 3.3 billion financing package from its three existing state-owned investors, TechNode reported. The company operates 3,172 battery swap facilities as of writing, already the country’s biggest network of its kind, and said last August that it will expand its battery swap network to more than 2,300 of China’s counties by the end of 2025.
READ MORE: China intensifies focus on EV battery swapping as CATL joins the battle with NIO
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