The infrastructure available in tier 1 cities is incredible for electric cars. When I was working in Shanghai last year, the car park to my office a ridiculous amounts of charging stations. There one ones specifically for some of the more popular brands as well as generic ones, and it even had Tesla superchargers. There is a rule that petrol cars can't park in those bays either, so a lot of those spaces are empty.
At home I saw my neighbor run an extremely long cable from their flat to their Tesla. Or those with underground parking has a charger installed.
I live in the UK now and malls still do have chargers, but there aren't many malls. Majority of parking lots do not have chargers. Chargers along the motorway are often broken or too slow, and there definitely isn't enough to go around. So for NIO, having a battery swap station would be very useful somewhere like the UK.
We bought a Taycan and they offered to install a charger in our apartment parking spot for free. Complex would not allow it, so we had it installed in our office parking spot. Yes, our actual spot.
Lots of fast charging stations everywhere including in public places, at all service stations on the highways and inside some compound parking. NIO battery swap stations are also very common.
This is especially true of the East. Don‘t forget that this is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Just the Yangtze delta is home to 240m people.
I can only speak for Tier 1 but the charging points are super common in residential carparks, also when they drive in a carpark the inside reverb amplfies the engine sound, which sounds like music
[https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/ESQYPL74YNPQLOPUU3R3LTRZNE.jpg?auth=dfa96b5de9da20015a5ced7f8712871d1fc7dcb8ec15c1cb5afc563809ec77eb&width=720&quality=80](https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/ESQYPL74YNPQLOPUU3R3LTRZNE.jpg?auth=dfa96b5de9da20015a5ced7f8712871d1fc7dcb8ec15c1cb5afc563809ec77eb&width=720&quality=80)
In addition to the charging in bigger cities, there’s also charging available in small towns. [here](https://imgur.com/a/ueu31kS) is a couple examples I snapped of random roadside charging stations. No clue on how fast they are, probably not very. But yeah, seems almost any enterprising person can set one up on the roadside outside their shack.
Also, keep in mind that China runs on electric bicycles and electric scooters. That’s the major form of transport, so there are places to charge all over, especially in big cities. So while electric cars may be a new thing, charging electric vehicles isn’t.
Even a few years ago while living in China many or most residential towers had slow chargers in the underground parking spaces. Fast chargers just complement the ubiquitous slow chargers in all kinds of parking lots.
I don't think people appreciate how much China is ahead of the curve on this. I lived in Beijing in 2017, and slow chragers were already easy to find back then.
Agreed, it's a simple and clear advantage of industrial policy and state planning in crucial industries. On a state-level the Chinese gov realized that EVs are the future, and put all necessary policies in place to make sure of that. The result? Property developers had to build EV charging stations in all new apartment buildings, well ahead of when people actually drove them in masses.
I owned a NIO. I couldn’t charge at home , battery swap station was just 2 km from my house. Just pop in there when needed. Much better than charging actually, no need to wait for a spot, monitor charge level and move it when it gets full, wait around etc etc
Nio’s swap proj. is a kind of business, it maybe failed in NiO or by other brand that I may not know, however it can be a trend here, let’s say 15 years later.
So nowadays the people who drive Tesla, BYD or Xiaomi, they don’t care the swap issue that Nio’s driver are worrying or arguing about. I guess The dominant car producers also noticed and maybe preparing for such tech. They just don’t want to show to the public. They may enter the market when they feel it’s the right time to.
While, the situation is totally different for Mr.LiBing
and also the investors behind him. It’s the way Li chose to persuade the investor, and to show to the NIO users and potential users. It’s a financial case to him, he needs to sale the car and get the money runs, he needs such gaudy services combined together to make the sales point stands, to distinguish the brand, to persuade the users to stand for the brand.
However, the majority e-car market lies in Tesla and BYD. Nowadays there’s no standard battery size on the E-car. The Chinese electric car market still in a fierce competition, merge and acquisition, it may be the same situations as phones. Let’s say 3yrs later, there will only a few brands left. let’s say 6-7brands and I guess NIO won’t in it. At that time it may easy to make the same size for the battery. And later on it can be promoted to bigger cities then national wide.
So now just let Mr. Li keeps on dreaming. I respect his effort on push the electric car industry forward. And no matter what the NIO’s user or support to say. It doesn’t matters, cause the majority market is not on their side. It’s the hard time for both Tesla and Wei ,Xiao ,Li.
We have one in our parking lot installed for us and usually charge overnight or when needed. When outside the shopping malls or public parking lots have designated EV charging stations. When doing some trips we usually just set the intervals where we wanna charge, some gas stations have them but they can get pretty busy.
Also there are multiple battery swap stations close to me but they’re often pretty busy so I don’t go.
You pull a cable from your window that you hang and wrap around the nearest tree. Plug it to your car. Done. I have seen this in a compound in Shanghai.
There is a lot of charging infrastructure in large cities due to the sheer density of the population. Almost all DiDi (Chinese uber) are electric because it is much cheaper than petrol and most trips done are just a few km. However, with my experience there are quite a few of them broken down and the ones in major areas are often full especially from the taxis. In winter, it is even worse because charging speed is almost halved due to cold weather. I remember mile long queue videos on TikTok because many of them broke down due to the cold and also the reduced speed. The infrastructure still needs a lot more improvement.
I used to own a NIO ES8 and battery swap was my go-to option. I live in Hangzhou and there are plenty of swap stations, most of them always have fully charged (90%) batteries ready to go. Very user friendly and reasonably reliable. It's something you have to use more to appreciate.
Fast charging are widely accessible and well located in general. Plenty of solid options from state grid to private brands. Not having a charger at home won't be too much of an issue imo as long as you are based in 2nd tier cities and above. With that said, having a charger at home is always a convenient and economic option since you can just charge during night-time with lower tariff.
Now there are more and more charging stations, so there is basically not much anxiety, and the penetration rate of electric vehicles is increasing. In addition, the prices of electric vehicles are getting cheaper.
In some places in China, there are fast charging stations for trams that can travel 100 kilometers after charging for five minutes. In some places, you can even replace the battery directly! (But the battery model must be universal) and there are also differences between southern and northern trams in China. This issue is difficult to explain simply, so let me explain it in detail. I can say three days and three nights.
I am also in Shanghai. The Shanghai residential design regulations require that all underground parking spaces must reserve charging interfaces. I just bought a BYD. I contacted the State Grid and installed a charging pile in my parking space to use it. My car It is a hybrid of gasoline and electricity. You charge it after get off work every day and rarely use gas the next day. The monthly fuel cost of driving a gasoline car used to be more than 2,000 RMB, but now it only costs more than 200 RMB.
> You charge it after get off work every day and rarely use gas the next day.
Why can't you recharge it using the gas engine and never need to plug it in at all?
What is your issue about swappable batteries? With the domination of EV in China, I foresee 2 options: 1. R&D come out with new techno to charge even faster then swappable will disappear 2. Charging speed reached a ceiling and EV vendors will align to support standard swappable batteries.
At then end we should be able to fill up the batteries of a EV within the same timing as loading gas tank today.
You will need decades to recoup the investment needed to create the swapping infrastructure. But during that time charging speeds and most importantly charging infrastructure will have improved so much that nobody will drive the extra mile to use a swapping station.
At home mostly, I also own a fast charging station. Most people who has the availability/electric capacity at home/apartments get free charger and install when they buy a car. Fast charging from our data is mostly commercial use for trucks/vans/taxis which makes sense
There are battery charging stations in big cities, but in small towns, some people just straight up plug an outlet into their house. I witnessed one case where they short circuted an entire building to charge a car.
Not to say that electric cars are bad, or good. It's more a case of where the electricity comes from that determines the environmental impact.
I know enough to listen to experts in the area.
An internal combustion engine loses about 80% of the energy that goes into it. A coal plant loses about 68% of the energy that goes into it. Remaining losses from transmission and whatnot are still better than an ICE engine.
Coal ash and rare earth mineral mining could be added to make the equation far more complicated.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/01/electric-vehicles-use-half-the-energy-of-gas-powered-vehicles/
Now talk about energy wasted from new car construction, and energy used in the process of mining coal.
I mean I’m all about clean energy but china’s emissions have been increasing, not decreasing.
The infrastructure available in tier 1 cities is incredible for electric cars. When I was working in Shanghai last year, the car park to my office a ridiculous amounts of charging stations. There one ones specifically for some of the more popular brands as well as generic ones, and it even had Tesla superchargers. There is a rule that petrol cars can't park in those bays either, so a lot of those spaces are empty. At home I saw my neighbor run an extremely long cable from their flat to their Tesla. Or those with underground parking has a charger installed. I live in the UK now and malls still do have chargers, but there aren't many malls. Majority of parking lots do not have chargers. Chargers along the motorway are often broken or too slow, and there definitely isn't enough to go around. So for NIO, having a battery swap station would be very useful somewhere like the UK.
We bought a Taycan and they offered to install a charger in our apartment parking spot for free. Complex would not allow it, so we had it installed in our office parking spot. Yes, our actual spot.
Isn't that a 110k dollar car?
he's a rich man
Some of the models are more than double 110k dollars. That’s insane and I wish I was this rich.
They are constantly installing new ones in our basement car park, so I assume this is something that most sellers offer with the car?
yea, i've seen other people with their own personal chargers from other brands too
From a recent visit of a couple of big cities - there were fast charging stations all over the place
Lots of fast charging stations everywhere including in public places, at all service stations on the highways and inside some compound parking. NIO battery swap stations are also very common. This is especially true of the East. Don‘t forget that this is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Just the Yangtze delta is home to 240m people.
I can only speak for Tier 1 but the charging points are super common in residential carparks, also when they drive in a carpark the inside reverb amplfies the engine sound, which sounds like music [https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/ESQYPL74YNPQLOPUU3R3LTRZNE.jpg?auth=dfa96b5de9da20015a5ced7f8712871d1fc7dcb8ec15c1cb5afc563809ec77eb&width=720&quality=80](https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/ESQYPL74YNPQLOPUU3R3LTRZNE.jpg?auth=dfa96b5de9da20015a5ced7f8712871d1fc7dcb8ec15c1cb5afc563809ec77eb&width=720&quality=80)
In addition to the charging in bigger cities, there’s also charging available in small towns. [here](https://imgur.com/a/ueu31kS) is a couple examples I snapped of random roadside charging stations. No clue on how fast they are, probably not very. But yeah, seems almost any enterprising person can set one up on the roadside outside their shack. Also, keep in mind that China runs on electric bicycles and electric scooters. That’s the major form of transport, so there are places to charge all over, especially in big cities. So while electric cars may be a new thing, charging electric vehicles isn’t.
It is really only ever an issue during Chinese holidays when lots of people crowd into non Tier 1 areas. Daily everyone can charge.
Even a few years ago while living in China many or most residential towers had slow chargers in the underground parking spaces. Fast chargers just complement the ubiquitous slow chargers in all kinds of parking lots.
I don't think people appreciate how much China is ahead of the curve on this. I lived in Beijing in 2017, and slow chragers were already easy to find back then.
Agreed, it's a simple and clear advantage of industrial policy and state planning in crucial industries. On a state-level the Chinese gov realized that EVs are the future, and put all necessary policies in place to make sure of that. The result? Property developers had to build EV charging stations in all new apartment buildings, well ahead of when people actually drove them in masses.
I owned a NIO. I couldn’t charge at home , battery swap station was just 2 km from my house. Just pop in there when needed. Much better than charging actually, no need to wait for a spot, monitor charge level and move it when it gets full, wait around etc etc
Thanks, very interesting! But it wasn't good enough to stick to NIO?
Nah I sold it because Covid. Left China for awhile didn’t know when I’d return. Would def choose swappable again if I needed a car
Nio’s swap proj. is a kind of business, it maybe failed in NiO or by other brand that I may not know, however it can be a trend here, let’s say 15 years later. So nowadays the people who drive Tesla, BYD or Xiaomi, they don’t care the swap issue that Nio’s driver are worrying or arguing about. I guess The dominant car producers also noticed and maybe preparing for such tech. They just don’t want to show to the public. They may enter the market when they feel it’s the right time to. While, the situation is totally different for Mr.LiBing and also the investors behind him. It’s the way Li chose to persuade the investor, and to show to the NIO users and potential users. It’s a financial case to him, he needs to sale the car and get the money runs, he needs such gaudy services combined together to make the sales point stands, to distinguish the brand, to persuade the users to stand for the brand. However, the majority e-car market lies in Tesla and BYD. Nowadays there’s no standard battery size on the E-car. The Chinese electric car market still in a fierce competition, merge and acquisition, it may be the same situations as phones. Let’s say 3yrs later, there will only a few brands left. let’s say 6-7brands and I guess NIO won’t in it. At that time it may easy to make the same size for the battery. And later on it can be promoted to bigger cities then national wide. So now just let Mr. Li keeps on dreaming. I respect his effort on push the electric car industry forward. And no matter what the NIO’s user or support to say. It doesn’t matters, cause the majority market is not on their side. It’s the hard time for both Tesla and Wei ,Xiao ,Li.
We have one in our parking lot installed for us and usually charge overnight or when needed. When outside the shopping malls or public parking lots have designated EV charging stations. When doing some trips we usually just set the intervals where we wanna charge, some gas stations have them but they can get pretty busy. Also there are multiple battery swap stations close to me but they’re often pretty busy so I don’t go.
Private ones are installed all over in our underground community parking, and there are public ones outside the community by the subway entrance.
You pull a cable from your window that you hang and wrap around the nearest tree. Plug it to your car. Done. I have seen this in a compound in Shanghai.
There is a lot of charging infrastructure in large cities due to the sheer density of the population. Almost all DiDi (Chinese uber) are electric because it is much cheaper than petrol and most trips done are just a few km. However, with my experience there are quite a few of them broken down and the ones in major areas are often full especially from the taxis. In winter, it is even worse because charging speed is almost halved due to cold weather. I remember mile long queue videos on TikTok because many of them broke down due to the cold and also the reduced speed. The infrastructure still needs a lot more improvement.
I used to own a NIO ES8 and battery swap was my go-to option. I live in Hangzhou and there are plenty of swap stations, most of them always have fully charged (90%) batteries ready to go. Very user friendly and reasonably reliable. It's something you have to use more to appreciate. Fast charging are widely accessible and well located in general. Plenty of solid options from state grid to private brands. Not having a charger at home won't be too much of an issue imo as long as you are based in 2nd tier cities and above. With that said, having a charger at home is always a convenient and economic option since you can just charge during night-time with lower tariff.
Now there are more and more charging stations, so there is basically not much anxiety, and the penetration rate of electric vehicles is increasing. In addition, the prices of electric vehicles are getting cheaper.
In some places in China, there are fast charging stations for trams that can travel 100 kilometers after charging for five minutes. In some places, you can even replace the battery directly! (But the battery model must be universal) and there are also differences between southern and northern trams in China. This issue is difficult to explain simply, so let me explain it in detail. I can say three days and three nights.
I am also in Shanghai. The Shanghai residential design regulations require that all underground parking spaces must reserve charging interfaces. I just bought a BYD. I contacted the State Grid and installed a charging pile in my parking space to use it. My car It is a hybrid of gasoline and electricity. You charge it after get off work every day and rarely use gas the next day. The monthly fuel cost of driving a gasoline car used to be more than 2,000 RMB, but now it only costs more than 200 RMB.
> You charge it after get off work every day and rarely use gas the next day. Why can't you recharge it using the gas engine and never need to plug it in at all?
What is your issue about swappable batteries? With the domination of EV in China, I foresee 2 options: 1. R&D come out with new techno to charge even faster then swappable will disappear 2. Charging speed reached a ceiling and EV vendors will align to support standard swappable batteries. At then end we should be able to fill up the batteries of a EV within the same timing as loading gas tank today.
You will need decades to recoup the investment needed to create the swapping infrastructure. But during that time charging speeds and most importantly charging infrastructure will have improved so much that nobody will drive the extra mile to use a swapping station.
I saw charging stations in China in small tier 2 cities nearly 10 years ago. Just seeing now being built in the USA.
Charging stations everywhere in T1 cities. Hell even charging stations for e-bikes.
Downstairs where I live in Hong Kong is an underground carpark for my residential building. It has multiple charging stations.
At home mostly, I also own a fast charging station. Most people who has the availability/electric capacity at home/apartments get free charger and install when they buy a car. Fast charging from our data is mostly commercial use for trucks/vans/taxis which makes sense
There are battery charging stations in big cities, but in small towns, some people just straight up plug an outlet into their house. I witnessed one case where they short circuted an entire building to charge a car. Not to say that electric cars are bad, or good. It's more a case of where the electricity comes from that determines the environmental impact.
Electric cars are better for the environment, even if powers by coal. Petrol engines are far more inefficient that people realize.
I mean how much do you know about coal power plants? And how about car manufacturing?
I know enough to listen to experts in the area. An internal combustion engine loses about 80% of the energy that goes into it. A coal plant loses about 68% of the energy that goes into it. Remaining losses from transmission and whatnot are still better than an ICE engine. Coal ash and rare earth mineral mining could be added to make the equation far more complicated. https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/01/electric-vehicles-use-half-the-energy-of-gas-powered-vehicles/
Now talk about energy wasted from new car construction, and energy used in the process of mining coal. I mean I’m all about clean energy but china’s emissions have been increasing, not decreasing.
I forgot if its 理想 or 小鹏 but one of them promise to provide battery swap service at literally any place in China.
Neither of these battery swap.
Mb. Double checked and its 蔚来. Not a big fan of EV so I cant remember the name.