As usual the Chinese are streets ahead with this. At first sight it seems about as sensible as unbolting an empty petrol tank and exchanging it for a full one. But their website claims only three minutes to do it, which is about as long as it takes to fill an empty tank. However, it would need impressive logistics to provide twenty fully charged batteries an hour to several exchange points at busy times. But in theory there would be no busy times because usually charging would be done at home and the swap facility only used for the occasional long journey.

I'm inder the impression that batteries are usually built into the floor pan and form part of the vehicle chassis. They are definitely not connected to the main power converters with a simple plug.

I don't think Id be happy to swap my battery pack that was 6 months old with just 2000 easy miles and gentle charging, for another that was 4 years old, had done 80,000 miles and had a life of rapid charging.

"I don't think Id be happy to swap my battery pack that was 6 months old with just 2000 easy miles and gentle charging, for another that was 4 years old, had done 80,000 miles and had a life of rapid charging."

My thoughts exactly. I used to get annoyed enough when I used to go camping exchanging a nice clean shiny gas cylinder and getting a tatty rusty one in return...Totally irrational of course. With exchange batteries there could (would?) be some degradation in performance.

Yes depends if the NIO system is purely rental of the battery? If so then the car itself minus a battery would be comparatively cheap to buy. I asked above if you could charge your own battery which would infer that you bought it? I cannot see the battery exchange being cheap to run, the capital start up of such a system would be very high. Someone would maybe change batteries everyday while someone else perhaps as long as a month so would it cost you per exchange or time held?

PS thanks for moving this to its intended place!

The battery lease model was tried by Renault due to the high initial cost of batteries - discontinued a few years ago. Leasing may attract new car buyers by reducing the initial EV cost to below that of an ICE.

A battery pack costing (say) £5000 may need to be recovered over (say) 4 years - £1250pa (£104pm). As the battery supplier covers admin and defaulters, financing costs, technical risk etc - perhaps they make a profit by year 6 or 7.

Charging costs are additional - probably a per KWH charge. At 4 miles per KWH + overheads, the charge would need to be around 10p per mile driven. For a mileage of 12000pa - total cost is £100 per month.

This may attract new car buyers and companies keen to promote green credentials. Second owners would be committed to a possibly unaffordable lease.

Back of a fag packet calculation gives monthly "fuel" costs of ~£200pm for 1000 miles - 20p per mile. A bit more than ICE which at 40mpg and £6 per gallon is ~15p per mile.

No real surprise - EV currently only works if recharged at tax free domestic rates, with additional battery costs recovered through a high annual mileage. Reality is that we will have to pay for a nicer environment through higher transport costs.