NIO's Li Bin discusses the advantages of battery swapping: it facilitates battery recycling and reuse, and the "vehicle and battery combined scrapping" regulation explicitly does not apply to battery swapping models.

IT Home, February 23 — NIO Founder, Chairman, and CEO Li Bin discussed one of the advantages of NIO’s battery swapping: ease of battery recycling and reuse.

Li Bin mentioned that six departments jointly issued the “Interim Measures for the Recycling and Comprehensive Utilization of Waste Power Batteries from New Energy Vehicles,” and the most notable point in this policy is that the regulation of “vehicle and battery integrated scrapping” explicitly does not apply to battery swapping models. Since the vehicle and battery are inherently separate in swapping models, the management of battery health and final environmental recycling are the responsibility of the company.

Li Bin explained, “The battery swapping model decouples the lifespan of the battery from the vehicle, and the company manages the battery recycling uniformly, which can improve recycling efficiency and reduce resource waste.”

IT Home’s nine major advantages of NIO’s battery swapping are as follows:

3-minute rapid charging, as fast as refueling;

Battery health check before swapping to ensure each battery is healthy;

Use small batteries for daily use, large batteries for long-distance and short-term rentals, flexible battery options as needed;

Vehicle and battery separation, batteries can be bought or rented, and all support swapping;

No need to get out of the car during swapping, fully automatic operation, more comfortable than charging;

Battery swapping stations available in urban areas and on highways, convenient everywhere;

Optimized charging current, longer battery life compared to ultra-fast charging;

Flexible battery removal for easier recycling and reuse;

Vehicle-network interaction to help peak shaving and valley filling, reducing energy waste.

On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, February 22, 2026, NIO’s single-day battery swap total reached 177,627 times, setting a new record. On average, less than 0.5 seconds pass before a vehicle completes a swap. Currently, over 8,600 NIO charging and swapping stations have been built nationwide, including more than 3,700 swapping stations and over 1,000 highway swapping stations. These stations connect 9 vertical and 11 horizontal city clusters, covering 16 major urban areas and linking 550 cities across the country.