The city of Hefei in eastern China's Anhui province plans to apply to become a pilot city for the battery swap model for new energy vehicles, and related projects have already started, the local Hefei Evening News reported Thursday.

The city hopes to create a replicable "Hefei model" in the field of new energy vehicle charging and battery swap, the report said.

At the end of April this year, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Energy Administration decided to jointly organize a pilot project for the application of the battery swap model for new energy vehicles, with the aim of implementing the New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035).

The pilot is to strengthen key technology research and development, accelerate battery swap infrastructure construction, promote battery swap mode vehicle application as the goal, the formation of new energy vehicles charging battery swap mode complementary benign development ecology.

As the location of Nio China headquarters, Hefei will send teams to research local battery swap infrastructure construction in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hainan, and carry out battery swap pilot program pre-research, the Hefei Evening News said.

In early August, Hainan has announced that it will carry out a pilot to accelerate the construction of local battery swap stations for electric vehicles in cities including Haikou, Sanya, Danzhou, Yangpu, Qionghai and Wanning.

The pilot sites in Hainan include tourist road stations around the island, highway service areas, gas stations, stations, ports, and airports.

In recent years, Hefei has also introduced a series of policy measures to support the development of supporting infrastructure for new energy vehicles.

The city's average daily charging capacity of new energy vehicles is about 240,000 kWh, with a cumulative total of more than 48,000 charging piles, and the ratio of vehicles to the number of charging piles is close to 1.25:1, which is close to the level of developed cities, according to the Hefei Evening News.

Compared to ordinary charging facilities, battery swap facilities take less time and are more efficient, helping to enhance the experience of vehicle owners, the report said.

Since last year, Nio and the city of Hefei have been working together to build battery swap facilities and plan to add 20 new ones within two years, according to the report.

Hefei, where NIO China is headquartered, plans to introduce new policies to promote NEV industry

(Hefei. Photo source: Nio App)