NIO has rapidly scaled its strategic cooperation agreements, ranging from vehicle manufacturers, state-owned energy enterprises, solar energy to foreign entities.
Latest progress in NIO's strategic alliance includes the addition of a cooperation framework with CSG Energy Storage Technology and a license agreement with CYVN's subsidiary Forseven.
With all these rapidly evolving turns of event, here is a comprehensive summary of NIO's partnerships.
Strategic Partnership Agreement (4 vehicle OEMs)
Changan Automobile (November 21, 2023)
NIO's founder Li Bin announced with the Changan partnership that "NIO's battery swap network and energy cloud are now ready to open up to the industry," he stated.
NIO and Changan will cooperate in four areas: establishing battery swap standards, building and sharing battery swap networks, developing swappable vehicle models, and creating an efficient battery asset management mechanism.
Changan plans to launch its first swappable EV using a shared battery pack with NIO in 2025. Changan Automobile produces and sells its vehicles primarily under six brands, including Changan, Nevo (Qiyuan), Deepal, AVATR, Oshan, and Kaicene. Changan also has joint venture brands such as Changan Ford, Changan Mazda and JMC. Cumulative sales of all brands as of October 2023 reached 25.3 million units.
Geely Holding (November 29, 2023)
Geely became the second brand joining the strategic alliance with NIO on battery swapping and the agreement entails cooperation in various fields similar to Changan's. The partnership is not limited to a single Geely brand, but extends to its entire portfolio, including Geometry, Lynk & Co, Zeekr, Lotus, Volvo, and Polestar.
Geely Holdings has been exploring battery swapping under its entity called E-ENERGEE, targeting the B2B market. E-ENERGEE already provides swapping to certain ride-hailing vehicles like the Caocao 60, Maple 80V, and Livan 9.
E-energee currently operates over 300 battery swapping stations, swapping over 20,000 batteries daily with a capacity of over 600,000 kWh and plans to operate 2,000 stations within the next three years.
JAC & Chery Automobile (January 11, 2024)
JAC & Chery became the 3rd and 4th members of the power exchange alliance, committing to similar terms that Changan and Geely agreed upon. JAC is a Chinese passenger and commercial vehicle manufacturer selling nearly half a million vehicles annually and has previously signed a manufacturing cooperation agreement with NIO in 2016. JAC owns the brands Sehol, Yiwei, JAC Refine, and JAC.
Chery is a state-owned enterprise and was the 9th largest automobile manufacturer in China in 2022, and most importantly, the largest exporter of Chinese branded passenger vehicles for 21 straight years. Chery's brand portfolio features Chery (NEV), Exeed, Luxeed, Jetour, iCar, Omoda, Jaecoo, Karry Auto as well as a 50% stake of Jaguar Land Rover in China.
Cooperation Framework Agreement
Wenergy Group & Anhui Transportation Holding Group (January 11, 2024)
NIO signed a cooperation agreement with two state-owned groups from Anhui province, which jointly commit to support a new JV named Zhong'an Energy. Collectively, they will promote battery swapping across the province and help build 1,000 stations with energy storage, charging and battery swapping capabilities.
CSG Energy Storage Technology (February 26, 2024)
NIO signed a cooperation agreement with CSG Energy Storage Technology, a subsidiary of China Southern Power Grid Energy Storage Co., Ltd. Both parties will jointly collaborate in building battery swapping stations and integrating charging and swapping stations, energy storage stations, and adjustable loads into the virtual power plant (VPP) platform. Together, they will promote the application of battery swapping stations as distributed energy storage. NIO and CSG will also cooperate in areas such as battery recycling and cascading utilization to improve asset operation efficiency. Cascading utilization involves repurposing batteries from electric vehicles for less demanding applications after they no longer meet the performance criteria for powering vehicles.
VPP is not a power plant in the traditional sense, but an energy management system. Through advanced measurement, information and communication, control and management technologies, it can aggregate, coordinate and optimize distributed energy resources such as clean energy, energy storage systems and controllable loads on the user's side, and participate in the operation of the power grid.
VPP profits in the market through electric energy trading. According to Hua'an Securities, by 2025, the market space of China's virtual power plants will reach 78.4 billion RMB, and by 2030, it will reach 172.9 billion RMB.
Technology License Agreement
Forseven Limited (February 26, 2024)
NIO Technology entered into a technology license agreement with Forseven, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi government fund CYVN Holdings, NIO's largest shareholder having invested a total of 3.3 billion RMB in 2023. The license will grant Forseven non-exclusive and non-transferable worldwide licensing rights to use some of NIO's technical information, technical solutions, software and IP rights. In return, NIO will receive license fees, comprising of a fixed upfront license fee and royalties based on future sales of licensed products under Forseven.
Other Strategic Cooperation Agreements
CATL (March 11, 2024 & January 17, 2023)
On March 11, 2024, NIO entered into a framework agreement with CATL to advance R&D efforts for long-life battery technology for swappable batteries. The two parties had already entered in a five-year strategic partnership agreement on January 17, 2023 to deepen ties in technical cooperation for the new brands, projects, and international expansion.
LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (January 3, 2024)
LONGi is a Chinese photovoltaics company that manufactures solar modules and develops solar power projects. Notably, LONGi is the worldès largest manufacturer of monocrystalline silicon wafers, a main component of solar panels that helps convert sunlight into electricity. NIO and LONGi will jointly promote the use of solar panels on swapping stations and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration. NIO's first HPBC (Hybrid Passivated Back Contact) photovoltaic converter station, in collaboration with Longi Green Energy, has been put into operation at the Xi'an Olympic Sports Center.
CNOOC - China National Offshore Oil Corporation (June 28, 2023)
China National Offshore Oil Corporation, otherwise referred to as CNOOC, is the largest offshore oil and gas producer and operator in China. NIO and CNOOC will jointly build charging piles and battery swapping stations.
Royal Dutch Shell plc (November 25, 2021)
Shell and NIO will develop a network of co-branded BSS in China and collectively aim to build 100 sites by 2025. They will also mutually benefit from building additional co-brand BSS at Shell EV charging hubs and Shell Recharge fast chargers at NIO sites. Cooperation in Europe has begun with pilot tests in 2022. NIO users will also gain access to Shell's EV charging network.
On August 1, 2022, the first co-brand battery swap station was launched in Xiamen, Fujian province of China, featuring a 2nd gen. BSS and two supercharging piles. On May 16, 2023, the first European co-branded BSS was launched in the Netherlands.
CNPC - China National Petroleum Corp. (November 24, 2021)
CNPC is a major state-owned oil and gas corporation in China and the parent company of the publicly listed PetroChina. NIO and CNPC launched two 2nd gen. co-branded BSS in Shaanxi Province. On September 30, 2021, both parties collaborated on the construction of a supercharging station with 4 charging piles.
Sinopec Corp. (April 15, 2021)
NIO signed a strategic cooperation with China's largest gas station network provider, Sinopec Corp., which operates over 30,000 gas stations across China. On the 2 years anniversary of the partnership, NIO revealed that they have already built 102 BSS, 121 supercharging stations, and 28 destination charging stations already at Sinopec's gas stations.
NIO Power Infrastructure Today
As of March 10, 2024, NIO features the largest number of charging piles and power exchange stations in China, with 2,380 BSS and 21,640 public charging piles across the country. As of the end of February 2024, NIO has integrated 587 power exchange stations and more than 27,000 charging piles to participate in the demand response and peak adjustment auxiliary services in 14 provinces and cities across the country, with a total peak adjustment capacity of about 300,000 kW. In 2024, NIO plans to build a total of 1,000 battery swap stations and 20,000 new charging piles.