Never again at the charging station? The first real Dutch battery exchange station | in the track

Batteries swapping has become a success in forms of mobility other than cars. With an e-bike the battery can of course be changed very easily and this technology is also used in electric scooters.

For example, shared bicycle and scooter providers such as GO Sharing ensure that electric bicycles and scooters are equipped with a full battery on time. If you have an empty battery with electric OV-fi, you can exchange it for a full battery at the drop-off point at the NS station.

NIO thinks it’s a good time to try again with cars. At the changing station, you can also choose a larger capacity battery. In addition to the existing batteries with a capacity of 75 or 100 kWh, there will also be a battery with a capacity of 150 kWh in due course.

After the battery exchange station in Tilburg, the battery exchange station in The Hague, Apeldoorn, Utrecht and Harmelen will soon follow. NIO eventually wants to find about a thousand exchange stations across Europe, creating a comprehensive network.

According to NIO, a switching power plant should be considered primarily as an auxiliary service. Each car of this brand comes with a home charger. “Most drivers will mainly charge at home, but on long trips a power swap can be a solution,” says Norwegian NIO CEO Marius Hayler in an interview with AutoWeek. “Replacement terminals are mainly to upgrade your battery—or even downgrade your battery, should your circumstances change and you need a smaller, and therefore less heavy, battery.”

However, the question remains whether the battery replacement station will work. Technical developments surrounding electric driving are moving at lightning speed. For example, there is already a lot of experimentation with wireless charging via induction plates on the road surface and fast charging will only get more powerful in the near future – which will greatly reduce wait times at the charging station.