Will swapping electric car batteries become the norm?

The electric car automatically reverses into the charging station without anyone needing to touch the steering wheel. The battery will be replaced with a new one at this facility owned by the Chinese electric car manufacturer Nio. This technology is already widespread in China, but just south of Oslo lies Europe’s first battery swap station.

The company hopes that by replacing the entire battery, it will appeal to customers who are concerned about electric car range or who simply dislike waiting in line to charge their vehicle. Booking a time slot on the Nio app was easy, and once I arrived at the station, I simply parked in the designated area and waited in my car. I could hear the bolts loosening as the battery was automatically removed from under my vehicle and replaced with a fully charged one.

Espen Byrjall, Director of Energy and Operations in Norway. In just five minutes, I can get back on the road—much faster than waiting 30 to 40 minutes for a standard charge. According to Byrjall, “There’s no battery degradation. You always get a healthy battery. So you can keep the cars longer.” The company plans to create 20 of these stations in Norway, with the capacity to handle up to 240 swaps per day. It has also partnered with energy giant Shell to deploy them across Europe, with the goal of installing 1,000 by 2025. “This will be a network that will allow you to drive all over Europe,” says Byrjall.

Alternative ideas

However, Nio, with its eye-catching new showroom in central Oslo, offers a contrasting business model: customers buy the car but lease the battery. According to Marius Hayler, Nio’s managing director for Norway and Denmark, this approach has many advantages, including the fact that, first and foremost, the customer doesn’t have to buy the most expensive part of an electric motor—the battery.

The cost of the battery is then multiplied by the number of months it takes to recoup the initial investment. The monthly battery lease payment, which ranges from £120 to £215 depending on the battery size, must also be factored in. However, there’s another advantage to consider. “You’ll always have the latest battery technology,” explains Hayler. Nio is one of the latest Chinese vehicles to arrive in Norway, along with competitors like Xpeng, Voyah, and Hongqi, ahead of wider European launches. There are already 500,000 electric cars on the road in Norway, and the country plans for all new cars to be zero-emission by 2025.

According to the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Council, 83% of all new cars sold in the first three months of 2019 were fully electric, with diesel and gasoline engines accounting for 6%. “Norway has long been a test market. It’s only natural that Chinese car manufacturers come here.”