SWAP SHOP DEAD BATTERY? NIO BATTERY
@rsp_ingram
THE time it takes to charge an electric car – and indeed, how far you can travel on a top-up – has been steadily improving over the past decade. Rewind to 2011 and a 30-minute ‘rapid’ charge in a Mk1 Nissan Leaf gave you, on paper, nearly 90 miles of range. In reality, the distance it could cover was a whole lot less.
Nowadays, the latest EVs can replenish their cells to 80 per cent (circa 240 miles) in just 18 minutes. But what if that’s just not quick enough? What if you want to recharge your vehicle’s battery in the same time it takes to fill a car with petrol or diesel? Chinese brand NIO reckons it might have the answer: battery swapping.
It isn’t actually a new technology. The brand already has more than 860 ‘Power Swap’ sites in China alone, and has completed
