Introduction: Is NIO causing trouble again? Can the battery capacity be changed at any time?
Everyone will see how the new energy vehicle market will be in 2025. The price war has been fierce, and various car companies have been desperately trying to cut prices and promote sales. But Weilai, a car company, doesn’t take the usual path – while others are pricing in prices, it is pricing in services.
Just recently, Weilai officially upgraded its “flexible battery upgrade” service policy. To put it simply: when you buy a car, you can choose a small battery. If you want a larger battery later, you can change it at any time! And it is not a buyout, it is rented on demand, and you can exchange it back after you use it.
As soon as this operation came out, netizens were immediately confused: “Isn’t this just using the battery as a power bank?” “I have seen battery replacement on mobile phones, but can I still do this with car batteries?”
What’s even more outrageous is that NIO has built more than 2,700 battery swap stations, covering major cities and highway networks across the country. It only takes 3-5 minutes to change the battery, which is faster than going to a convenience store to buy a bottle of water.
Today, let’s take a closer look. What kind of black technology is Weilai’s “flexible battery upgrade”? Can it really solve the battery life anxiety of electric vehicles? What does it mean for the entire industry?
What exactly is NIO’s “flexible battery upgrade”?
To make this clear, we have to start with Weilai’s battery swap mode.
In 2025, NIO made a major upgrade to its BaaS (Battery as a Service). According to the latest policy announced by NIO, users can choose the “vehicle and battery separation” solution when purchasing NIO models – that is, when buying a car, they only buy the body and rent the battery separately.
What’s the benefit of this? For example:
Assuming you are interested in Weilai ET5, you can buy it for about 300,000 yuan in full. But if you choose to separate the car and battery, the car price will be directly cheaper by about 70,000 yuan! The remaining battery fee is charged on a monthly basis, which ranges from 980 to 1,680 yuan per month, depending on the battery capacity you choose.
Here’s the key point – the battery capacity can be changed at any time!
NIO currently offers two standard battery packs, 75kWh and 100kWh, as well as the latest 150kWh ultra-long-life battery pack. For daily commuting, a 75-kilowatt-hour battery is enough, and the monthly rent is cheap. If you want to travel long distances by car, make an appointment in advance, go to a battery swap station and directly replace it with a large 100-kilowatt-hour or even 150-kilowatt-hour battery. The battery life will instantly increase from 500 kilometers to more than 700 kilometers!
After using it up, you can replace it with a small battery when you come back, and the rent will still be calculated based on the small battery.
Isn’t this just using the battery as a power bank? You can rent a larger one when you need it and return it when you don’t need it. It’s very flexible!
Judging from actual data, NIO’s battery swap station service capabilities are also constantly improving. As of the third quarter of 2025, NIO has built more than 2,700 battery swap stations across the country, including more than 800 highway battery swap stations, basically covering major intercity travel routes. The time for a single battery change has been reduced to less than 3 minutes, and the entire process is fully automatic, and the driver does not even need to get out of the car.
This speed is faster than refueling!
How can the battery swap mode enable “flexible upgrade”?
[Dismantling of Technology and Business Model]
Many people may ask: Replacing the battery sounds simple, but is it really so easy to operate?
It is true, but behind this is the technical system and infrastructure that Weilai spent tens of billions to build.
First, let’s talk about battery standardization.
Weilai has thought about one thing clearly from the beginning: to engage in battery swapping, batteries must be standardized. Therefore, all NIO models, whether it is the sedan ET series or the SUV ES series, use battery packs of the same specification. The size is the same, the interface is the same, and the software protocol is the same.
This is like a mobile phone power bank. No matter you have an iPhone or Android, you can use it as long as the interface is connected. The same idea applies to NIO’s batteries: No matter which car you drive, the battery from the battery swap station can be installed in your car.
Secondly, the technical content of battery swap stations is higher than you think.
Even though the battery swapping station looks like a big iron box on the outside, there are quite a few doorways inside. Each battery swap station is equipped with 13-21 spare batteries, which can support 300-400 battery swap services per day. The batteries are stored in a constant-temperature warehouse, and the temperature and humidity are strictly controlled to ensure the health of the batteries.
What’s even more powerful is that the battery swap station has an intelligent dispatching system. It can automatically allocate battery resources based on surrounding users’ driving habits, battery inventory, grid load and other factors. For example, during the peak hours of electricity consumption during the day, replacing the batteries in the power station can “discharge” the power grid to make money; at night, when the electricity price is cheap, the batteries can be slowly recharged.
This is called “vehicle-to-grid interaction” (V2G), which is equivalent to turning the battery swapping station into a mobile energy storage power station, which can not only serve vehicles, but also provide peak and valley filling for the power grid, killing two birds with one stone.
Let’s talk about the shrewdness of the business model.
On the surface, NIO has invested a lot in power swapping – the construction cost of a power swapping station is about 2-3 million yuan, plus operation and maintenance costs, it is indeed an asset-heavy business.
But looking at it from another angle, Weilai is actually replacing “selling batteries” with “selling services”.
Traditional car companies sell cars in one go, and then they can only make a small fortune through maintenance and repairs. What Weilai sells is “battery subscription”, which provides stable rental income every month. Moreover, batteries are always in the hands of NIO as an asset and can be managed, maintained and upgraded in a unified way.
For example: If battery technology improves in the future, Weilai can directly replace the old batteries in the battery swap station with new batteries. Users do not need to worry about anything and can directly enjoy the longer battery life of the new batteries. If this were a traditional car company, users would have to pay for a battery replacement themselves, and would have to go to a 4S store for a long time.
From a user perspective, there is another hidden benefit to separating cars and electricity: second-hand cars have a higher value retention rate. Because the battery is rented and is not included in the car price, second-hand car buyers do not have to worry about battery degradation and are naturally willing to pay a higher price.
Why don’t other car companies follow the battery swap model?
[In-depth analysis of the industry]
NIO’s battery swap mode sounds so good, why don’t other car companies follow suit?
This matter must be analyzed from several dimensions.
First, the investment is too high and not everyone can afford it.
As mentioned earlier, Weilai has built more than 2,700 power swap stations, each costing 2-3 million yuan, and the investment in infrastructure alone exceeds 6 billion yuan. This does not include R&D expenses, operating expenses, and labor costs.
For sales giants such as BYD and Tesla, their strategy is to rely on economies of scale to drive down battery costs and follow the “big battery + fast charging” route. Since the construction cost of charging piles is much lower than that of battery swapping stations, why should we engage in the asset-heavy business of battery swapping?
Second, battery standards are not unified, making it difficult to form a battery replacement alliance.
The core reason why Weilai can convert electricity is that its own battery standards are unified. But if you want the battery swapping model to be promoted throughout the industry, batteries of different brands need to be interchangeable.
This is too difficult. Each car company’s battery size, voltage, and communication protocol are different. To unify standards is to force everyone to give up their own technical barriers. Do you want BYD and CATL to use the same battery? Basically impossible.
Although the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology took the lead in promoting “standardization of battery replacement mode” in 2024, progress is currently slow. All car companies are waiting and watching, and no one is willing to be the first to “compromise.”
Third, charging technology has advanced too fast, and the advantages of battery replacement are shrinking.
A few years ago, slow charging of electric vehicles was the biggest pain point, and the “full charge in 3 minutes” of battery replacement was indeed very attractive. But now, 800V high-voltage platform + ultra-fast charging technology has gradually become popular, and many new models can add 300-400 kilometers of battery life by charging in 10-15 minutes.
For most users, if the charging speed is fast enough, why bother with battery replacement?
But having said that, the battery swap model is not without a future.
In some specific scenarios, battery replacement still has irreplaceable advantages:
Operating vehicles: Taxis and online ride-hailing vehicles travel hundreds of kilometers every day, and there is no time to wait for recharging. Battery replacement is an urgent need.
Alpine and cold areas: Battery performance declines seriously in winter, and constant-temperature storage at battery swap stations can ensure battery status.
Old communities: For users without fixed parking spaces and charging piles, battery replacement is the only “power up” option.
NIO is targeting these scenarios, using battery swap services to target high-value user groups.
What are netizens asking? Are these concerns justified?
[Responses to hot issues]
After NIO’s “flexible battery upgrade” policy was released, the discussion online was quite heated. Let’s take a look at some of the issues that everyone is most concerned about:
Question 1: “Is it cost-effective to rent a battery? I feel like it’s a loss to keep paying rent.”
This issue needs to be settled in detail. Taking Weilai’s 75kWh battery as an example, the monthly rent is about 980 yuan, which is 11,760 yuan per year. If it is opened for 10 years, the total rent will be close to 120,000.
But don’t forget, if you choose to buy out the battery, the car purchase price will be about 70,000 more. Moreover, the bought-out battery will definitely decay after 10 years, and replacing the battery will be another expense.
If you rent a battery, battery degradation is NIO’s business and has nothing to do with you. And as the technology has been upgraded, you can just replace it with a new battery.
So how to calculate this account depends on the age of your car and your psychological expectations. If you plan to change the car within 5 years of driving, leasing is obviously more cost-effective; if you plan to drive it for more than 10 years, buying out may be more appropriate.
Question 2: “Will there be long queues at battery replacement stations? What should I do if I can’t get batteries during peak hours?”
This worry does exist, especially during peak travel periods during holidays. NIO’s solution is: advance reservation + intelligent scheduling.
Users can reserve battery replacement time in advance through the App, and the system will allocate battery resources based on the reservation. If a site is too full, the App will recommend nearby free sites.
Judging from the actual situation, the queuing situation for daily use is not serious, and the average waiting time is within 10 minutes. However, there will indeed be pressure during the long holidays, and NIO is also continuing to increase the layout of power swap stations to alleviate this problem.
Question 3: “If the battery has been used by someone else, will it affect performance and safety?”
This problem is actually the biggest misunderstanding about the battery swap mode.
The batteries in the battery swap station are “shared”, but not “second-hand”. Each battery has an independent code and health file. NIO will monitor the battery’s charge and discharge times, temperature curve, capacity attenuation and other data in real time.
Once the health of a certain battery falls below the standard, it will automatically be taken offline for maintenance or eliminated. Every battery that users get is a “qualified product” that has been tested and certified.
From a safety perspective, batteries at battery swapping stations are stored in a professional environment and are more controllable than leaving them exposed to wind and sun in the user’s own car.
Question 4: “Will Weilai go bankrupt one day? What will happen if all battery replacement stations are closed?”
This is a sad but realistic question.
Objectively speaking, any enterprise has operational risks, and Weilai is no exception. But from the current point of view, Weilai has survived the most difficult period, with sales increasing steadily and cash flow continuing to improve.
Moreover, the power-swapping network is NIO’s core asset. Even if NIO does have a problem, this network will still be worth transferring or being acquired. After all, the infrastructure is there and it won’t just disappear.
Conclusion: Is NIO’s battery swap model a “new approach” or a “all-in-all” approach?
Back to the original question: NIO turns batteries into “power banks”. Is this a viable path?
From a technical perspective, NIO’s battery swap model is quite mature. 3-minute battery swap, flexible battery upgrade, car-network interaction… These functions have indeed solved some of the core pain points of electric vehicles.
From a business model perspective, the separation of cars and batteries lowers the threshold for car purchase, battery subscriptions create ongoing income, and user stickiness is stronger. This is a set of self-consistent business logic.
But the biggest challenge in the battery swap model is not technology, but scale. Only when the density of battery swap stations is high enough and the coverage is wide enough, can users truly enjoy the convenience of “swapping battery anytime, anywhere”. This requires continuous heavy asset investment, time, and patience.
For consumers, NIO’s “flexible battery upgrade” does provide a new option. If you are anxious about battery life and don’t want to be tied up by the battery, this mode is worth considering.
As for whether Weilai can successfully complete this road, it still depends on its performance in the next few years. After all, on the track of new energy vehicles, no one can lead forever. Only continuous evolution can survive.
One thing is certain: NIO’s battery swap exploration is providing a reference sample for the entire industry. Regardless of final success or failure, this kind of courage to “dare to be the first” deserves respect.
