Nio's 1,000th battery swap station in Lhasa is its first such facility to use 100 percent clean energy.

(Image credit: Nio)

Nio (NYSE: NIO, HKG: 9866, SGX: Nio) today put 12 new battery swap stations into operation in China, bringing the total to 1,011 and officially crossing the 1,000th milestone.

The company's 1,000th battery swap station went into operation in Lhasa, Tibet autonomous region in Southwest China, the highest altitude of the facility, according to an article shared on the Nio app.

The battery swap station is also Nio's first to use 100 percent clean energy, with all of the electricity required coming from photovoltaic or hydroelectric power, the company said.

As CnEVPost has reported, Lhasa is a city with abundant sunlight, and Tesla built a new supercharger station in the city last year that utilizes a solar power and storage system for an efficient cycle of clean energy.

Since putting its first second-generation battery swap station into operation on April 15 last year, Nio has seen the number of the facility increase from 200 to more than 1,000 in 15 months.

This means that Nio was putting an average of two facilities into operation each day, and has opened four times as many battery swap stations in the last 15 months as it did in the three years prior to that.

Nio's initial 200 battery swap stations were first-generation facilities, and the company put its first second-generation battery swap station into operation on April 15, 2021, making it Nio's 201st battery swap station.

Nio's second-generation battery swap stations can store up to 13 batteries and have a maximum daily service capacity of 312 times. In comparison, the first generation battery swap stations store up to 5 batteries and have a maximum daily service capacity of 120 times.

Nio's battery swap stations have covered all provincial administrative regions in the Chinese mainland, and 63.5 percent of users have a battery swap station within a 3 km radius of their home, according to the company.

To date, Nio has 1,011 battery swap stations in China, as well as 1,681 charging stations providing 9,603 charging piles, the company said today.

Reaching the 1,000th battery swap station milestone is the result of support from Nio's partners, the company said.

Nio's partnerships with companies including Sinopec and Shell have accelerated the placement of battery swap stations, it said.

(Nio's partners)

The cumulative number of battery swap services provided by Nio reached 10 million on July 4, the company said Monday.

Nio will hold Nio Power Day 2022, the company's other major annual event in addition to Nio Day, online today at 15:00 Beijing time.

For Nio, more battery swap stations mean that it is more attractive to potential consumers.

Research from Nio stores shows that battery swap stations can increase people's intention to buy Nio vehicles, whether for ET7 or ES7, according to Sun Shaojun, founder of local auto consumer service platform Che Fans, on Weibo.