Finance

China’s Nio to expand battery swap services to gain EV infra edge

Published

12 months ago

April 5, 2024

Business Finance News

Pictured here is a Nio battery swapping station in Haikou, Hainan province, China, on May 9, 2023.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese electric car company Nio has been expanding its battery swap partnerships in a bid to gain an edge on the infrastructure side of the EV ecosystem.

Since November, Nio has partnered with at least four Chinese automakers — Changan, Geely, Chery and JAC — for developing battery swap standards and expanding the network in China. Nio also announced agreements earlier this year to work with two local battery companies on battery swap services.

All these efforts are aimed at alleviating consumers’ anxiety about driving range. While having a large network of battery charging stations helps address those concerns, battery swapping is a faster method as it takes only a few minutes.

“Swapping right now is mainly driven by Nio. Of course, Nio found out this is an ecosystem,” CLSA’s deputy head of research Ding Luo said in an interview. “If only one player is trying to build up the whole ecosystem, it’s impossible for [them]. That’s why they’re thinking whether they can invite some partners.”

Battery swapping still isn’t mainstream because the car batteries need to be standardized, he added.

While a charging station resembles a typical gas station, battery-swap technology is housed in a shed-like structure. It uses machines to automatically exchange depleted batteries for pre-charged ones in compatible cars.

Nio said in mid-March that it completed 40 million battery swaps compared with nearly 37 million charges at its public stations — Nio consumers can also access third-party charging stations, or install one at home.

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“I think our outlook is very simple,” Shen Fei, senior vice president of Nio’s power division, said in Chinese translated by CNBC. “The first thing is to serve Nio’s users, and then provide a good battery charging and swapping experience, make charging more convenient than refueling, and at the same time help the company sell more cars.”

The company claims that with battery swap, drivers can get a fresh charge in three minutes, if they opt in for a paid battery service plan.

Shen said more car models will be added to Nio’s battery swap network, while adding that swapping can allow drivers to keep abreast with improvements in battery technology. He did not specify which automakers will likely be added to its network.

Power services and other products account for just about 10% of Nio’s total revenue. The company said that category of “other sales” for 2023 grew by 69% to 6.36 billion yuan ($895.9 million). Nio does not break out swap station revenue.

Battery swap’s checkered past

Battery swapping has been tried by the industry with mixed success, especially in the U.S.

Tesla and a startup called Better Space tried out swapping more than 10 years ago, but the venture soon closed.

In 2021, another startup, Ample, opened its battery swap stations in the San Francisco area — aimed at Uber drivers using the Nissan Leaf car.

While it’s not clear how much headway Ample has made in the U.S., the company has since expanded its partnerships overseas. Last month the company announced it would serve corporate car fleets in Kyoto, Japan, while it teamed up with Stellantis to roll out battery swaps this year in Madrid, Spain.

“For swapping to work it can’t be niche,” Tu Le, head of consultancy Sino Auto Insights, said. “Battery inventory investment is massive, so it needs to be amortized over lots of swapping.”

But he was cautious on whether Nio could sell enough of its own premium-priced cars to make the economics work. “For now I still think the combination of swapping and charging makes for a pretty attractive feature set, but swapping alone likely doesn’t help them sell that many more cars.”

“I think the nudge the Chinese government gave to encourage others to join forces with Nio on swapping could create the necessary pool of vehicles to make swapping viable,” he added.

The business of charging

Nio is the first major electric car company to roll out battery swap stations in addition to charging stations, alongside its own vehicles in mainland China and Europe.

The company has installed more than 2,300 battery swap stations, and plans to install 1,000 more this year.

Nio’s investment in battery swap stations is about two years ahead of market demand, CEO William Li said last month, adding that less than a fifth of battery swap stations that Nio operates are processing 60 orders a day, likely the minimum orders needed for a station to break even.

Nio’s battery charging stations, on the other hand, reached profitability last year, according to the company. It plans to build 20,000 more this year.

Passenger car battery swap stations can cost around $500,000 to build, while a relatively basic charging station with two ports costs around $200,000 to $300,000, according to Shay Natarajan, a North America-based partner at Mobility Impact Partners, a private equity fund that invests in transportation.

CLSA’s Luo said businesses also prefer to invest in normal charging stations than swap stations because they make a higher return. But if businesses want to install faster-charging stations, he said they might face power grid challenges.

CLSA’s analysis found that the power required for five superchargers in one location would be more than what 300 families would normally consume.

Tesla is also collaborating with automakers in battery charging, with its over 50,000 superchargers worldwide that claim to restore about two-thirds of a battery’s charge in 15 minutes.

In February, Ford reached a deal that allows its electric cars to use Tesla’s superchargers in North America. General Motors announced a similar agreement last year.

Sustainability considerations

The rapid development of electric cars, ostensibly aimed at reducing carbon emissions, also raises questions about battery waste.

Nio pointed out that recent growth of new energy vehicles, which include hybrids, means nearly 20 million batteries will be reaching the end of their eight-year warranty period between 2025 and 2032.

Last month, the company announced a partnership with battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology to develop batteries with a longer lifespan, particularly for those used in swap stations.

Nio claimed that by using battery swap and big data, it can retain 80% of a battery’s capacity after 12 years of use. Nio also said last month that CATL will develop batteries with longer lives for the company.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Michael Wayland contributed to this report.

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Finance

Tariffs may raise much less than White House projects, economists say

Published

17 hours ago

April 1, 2025

Business Finance News

President Donald Trump speaks before signing executive orders in the Oval Office on March 6, 2025.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

President Donald Trump says that tariffs will make the U.S. “rich.” But those riches will likely be far less than the White House expects, economists said.

The ultimate sum could have big ramifications for the U.S. economy, the nation’s debt and legislative negotiations over a tax-cut package, economists said.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Sunday estimated tariffs would raise about $600 billion a year and $6 trillion over a decade. Auto tariffs would add another $100 billion a year, he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Navarro made the projection as the U.S. plans to announce more tariffs against U.S. trading partners on Wednesday.

Economists expect the Trump administration’s tariff policy would generate a much lower amount of revenue than Navarro claims. Some project the total revenue would be less than half.

Roughly $600 billion to $700 billion a year “is not even in the realm of possibility,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. “If you get to $100 billion to $200 billion, you’ll be pretty lucky.”

The White House declined to respond to a request for comment from CNBC about tariff revenue.

The ‘mental math’ behind tariff revenue

There are big question marks over the scope of the tariffs, including details like amount, duration, and products and countries affected — all of which have a significant bearing on the revenue total.

The White House is considering a 20% tariff on most imports, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. President Trump floated this idea on the campaign trail. The Trump administration may ultimately opt for a different policy, like country-by-country tariffs based on each nation’s respective trade and non-trade barriers.

But a 20% tariff rate seems to align with Navarro’s revenue projections, economists said.

The U.S. imported about $3.3 trillion of goods in 2024. Applying a 20% tariff rate to all these imports would yield about $660 billion of annual revenue.

“That is almost certainly the mental math Peter Navarro is doing — and that mental math skips some crucial steps,” said Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab and former chief economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Biden administration.

Trade advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump Peter Navarro speaks to press outside of the White House on March 12, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Kayla Bartkowski | Getty Images

That’s because an accurate revenue estimate must account for the many economic impacts of tariffs in the U.S. and around the world, economists said. Those effects combine to reduce revenue, they said.

A 20% broad tariff would raise about $250 billion a year (or $2.5 trillion over a decade) when taking those effects into account, according to Tedeschi, citing a Yale Budget Lab analysis published Monday.

There are ways to raise larger sums — but they would involve higher tariff rates, economists said. For example, a 50% across-the-board tariff would raise about $780 billion per year, according to economists at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Even that is an optimistic assessment: It doesn’t account for lower U.S. economic growth due to retaliation or the negative growth effects from the tariffs themselves, they wrote.

Why revenue would be lower than expected

Tariffs generally raise prices for consumers. A 20% broad tariff would cost the average consumer $3,400 to $4,200 a year, according to the Yale Budget Lab.

Consumers would naturally buy fewer imported goods if they cost more, economists said. Lower demand means fewer imports and less tariff revenue from those imports, they said.

Tariffs are also expected to trigger “reduced economic activity,” said Robert McClelland, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

For example, U.S. companies that don’t pass tariff costs on to consumers via higher prices would likely see profits suffer (and their income taxes fall), economists said. Consumers might pull back on spending, further denting company profits and tax revenues, economists said. Companies that take a financial hit might lay off workers, they said.

Foreign nations are also expected to retaliate with their own tariffs on U.S. products, which would hurt companies that export products abroad. Other nations may experience an economic downturn, further reducing demand for U.S. products.

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“If you get a 20% tariff rate, you’re going to get a rip-roaring recession, and that will undermine your fiscal situation,” Zandi said.

There’s also likely to be a certain level of non-compliance with tariff policy, and carve-outs for certain countries, industries or products, economists said. For instance, when the White House levied tariffs on China in February, it indefinitely exempted “de minimis” imports valued at $800 or less.

The Trump administration might also funnel some tariff revenue to paying certain parties aggrieved by a trade war, economists said.

President Trump did that in his first term: The government sent $61 billion in “relief” payments to American farmers who faced retaliatory tariffs, which was nearly all (92%) of the tariff revenue on Chinese goods from 2018 to 2020, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The tariffs will also likely have a short life span, diluting their potential revenue impact, economists said. They’re being issued by executive order and could be undone easily, whether by President Trump or a future president, they said.

“There’s zero probability these tariffs will last for 10 years,” Zandi said. “If they last until next year I’d be very surprised.”

Why this matters

The Trump administration has signaled that tariffs “will be one of the top-tier ways they’ll try to offset the cost” of passing a package of tax cuts, Tedeschi said.

Extending a 2017 tax cut law signed by President Trump would cost $4.5 trillion over a decade, according to the Tax Foundation. Trump has also called for other tax breaks like no taxes on tips, overtime pay or Social Security benefits, and a tax deduction for auto loan interest for American made cars.

If tariffs don’t cover the full cost of such a package, then Republican lawmakers would have to find cuts elsewhere or increase the nation’s debt, economists said.