NIO has announced a new charging system for their electric vehicle batteries. This is said to power up very quickly at 500 kW. The new charging system can recharge electric cars from 0% to 80% in just 12 minutes.
This makes charging the company’s electric cars extremely fast, significantly reducing waiting times. The 500 kW NIO charger is part of a range of products and innovations highlighted during the NIO Day 2022 event.
The new charging technology will also be available for non-NIO electric cars, which is good news. This system is open to all makes of electric vehicles and has a maximum output of 660 A.
NIO says that the 500 kW charging system can charge vehicles built on 800 V platforms at a higher rate than electric cars from 400 V platforms. It can take up to 20 minutes to reach 80% charge for 400 V electric vehicles and 12 minutes for 800V models.
This ultra-fast charger has a 15.6-inch display and exclusive liquid cooling technology. This allows the weight of the charging cable to be significantly reduced and users can easily operate it with one hand.
The 500 kW charger is one of the highest capacities announced for an electric vehicle so far. This system comes after another Chinese company, XPeng released a 480 kW charging system earlier this year. The XPeng Supercharger has a maximum current output of 670 A. It can charge several electric cars from the XPeng range from 0% to 80% in 15 minutes.
NIO is also expanding its swap station capacity to accommodate up to 408 battery swaps a day. This expansion will allow the swap station to operate on up to 21 batteries at a time. The updated 500 kW battery charger and swap station will be available in March 2023.
The NIO charging network, according to CEO William Li, is open to all vehicle brands. Li also said that about 80% of the power provided at charging stations goes to more than 110 non-NIO brands. Several electric vehicle brands that take advantage of NIO’s charging infrastructure include BYD, Tesla, XPeng, and Li Auto.
