Six steps in three years: battery swapping fully enters the consolidation phase.
Battery swap alliances are no longer a novelty in recent years.
However, it remains rare to see a major automaker so explicitly place 100% equity of its long-operated battery swap subsidiary directly into an energy platform led by another automaker.
On September 27, NIO announced that a company under Geely Holding will subscribe for newly issued equity in NIO Power with 100% equity of EASY-i + CNY 640 million in cash.
Upon completion of the transaction, Geely will hold a 30% stake in NIO Power, becoming the second-largest shareholder; NIO China will hold 63.6%, maintaining its controlling position; and Wuhan Guangchuang Fund will hold the remaining 6.4%. The corresponding post-investment valuation of NIO Power will be approximately CNY 16 billion.
Meanwhile, assets are also flowing in the reverse direction.
NIO China will acquire a 10% stake in Geely's Haohan Energy, with the relevant capital increase used by Haohan Energy to purchase some of NIO's charging assets.
Battery swap assets are consolidated into NIO Power, while some charging assets enter Haohan Energy.
Three years ago, the two companies discussed standards, technology, vehicle models, and networks.
Three years later, the collaboration has entered the balance sheet.
This is the most significant change in this transaction.
01. 100% of EASY-i: Why Trade for a 30% Stake in NIO Power?
EASY-i has already become a battery swap system operating at scale.
By the end of 2025, it had deployed 446 battery swap stations, completed a cumulative 38.6 million battery swaps, and achieved a maximum of 600 swaps per station per day.
Earlier data from June 2025 showed that its business had covered 44 cities, with cumulative sales of battery swap vehicles exceeding 103,000 units. The company disclosed that its cumulative R&D investment exceeded CNY 1 billion, and it holds over 1,000 battery swap-related technology patents.
Geely has now chosen to use this entire system as the consideration for its capital contribution.
The corresponding choice is very clear:
Shifting from holding 100% of its own battery swap network to holding a 30% stake in a larger battery swap platform.
NIO is solving the same problem.
Some charging assets are entering Haohan Energy in exchange for a 10% stake in the platform.
Both companies are recalculating how to hold infrastructure assets.
William Li directly stated the reason at the press conference: in the past few years, everyone verified their own technical routes, but now there is a need to "converge together" to reduce redundant investments, minimize waste, and improve corporate operational efficiency.
An Conghui's judgment on the energy replenishment routes has also become clear: in the future, two main routes will be formed, namely ultra-fast charging and battery swapping, covering different users and scenarios. As the routes gradually become clear, competition is shifting from "whether you have it" to "how efficient it is".
In the past, the competition was about who could build stations first.
Now, it is about who can maximize station utilization.
02. Six Steps in Three Years: Battery Swapping Reaches "Asset Consolidation"
Looking back at the Geely-NIO transaction over the past three years, the changes are even more apparent.
The consolidation of battery swap assets has been able to begin because the preceding conditions have been fulfilled piece by piece.
Phase 1 | 2023: Automakers Form Alliances First
In November 2023, Geely and NIO signed a strategic cooperation agreement on battery swapping.
The cooperation covers battery standards, battery swap technology, network construction and operation, R&D of battery swap vehicle models, and battery asset management. Both parties also proposed "co-investment, co-construction, co-sharing, and co-operation."
This phase first addresses: whether enterprises are willing to co-build a system.
Phase 2 | 2024-2025: Infrastructure Begins Independent Financing
In 2024, NIO Power received a CNY 1.5 billion strategic investment led by Wuhan Guangchuang Fund. The energy replenishment business began to break away from the single logic of "internal support for automakers" and became an asset platform capable of independent financing.
In February 2025, CATL's EVOGO and Didi's Xiaoju Energy established EVOGO Xiaoju, with a registered capital of CNY 330 million. Businesses such as battery swap facility operation and battery leasing were directly integrated into the joint venture platform.
Capital and high-frequency mobility scenarios begin to enter.
Phase 3 | March 2025: Battery Giants Enter
The cooperation between CATL and NIO has been upgraded to unified battery standards and parallel dual networks, covering the entire lifecycle of "battery R&D - battery swap services - battery asset management - cascade utilization - material recycling."
Meanwhile, CATL announced the advancement of a strategic investment in NIO Power of up to CNY 2.5 billion.
Batteries, networks, standards, and capital begin to be integrated into the same system.
Phase 4 | April 2025: Energy Networks Enter the Arena
CATL and Sinopec proposed building no less than 500 battery swap stations that year, and jointly building 10,000 in the long term.
The core resource brought in by Sinopec is its existing energy stations distributed across the country.
Station resources begin to be integrated on a large scale.
Phase 5 | 2025-2026: Vehicles and Standards Continue to Be Supplemented
In August 2025, CATL, EVOGO, CAR Inc., and CMB Financial Leasing cooperated, with CAR Inc. proposing to gradually operate over 100,000 battery swap vehicles.
Vehicle demand, battery swap services, battery assets, and financial instruments begin to be organized as a complete set.
On July 1, 2026, a batch of key industry standards, including the "General Platform for Battery Swap of Pure Electric Passenger Cars" for vehicles, battery packs, vehicle-to-facility communication, and battery swap electrical interfaces, were implemented collectively.
The technology foundation shared by multiple brands continues to be improved.
Phase 6 | September 2026: Direct Consolidation of Existing Assets
Geely plans to inject 100% equity of EASY-i into NIO Power.
The cooperation has moved from "building together" to "where to place the already built assets."
Looking back, the six phases have progressed step by step: cooperative relationship - independent financing - batteries and standards - station resources - vehicles and finance - consolidation of existing assets.
Today, the battery swap industry is already facing the issue of asset efficiency.
One Focuses on the C-End, the Other on the B-End
There is another very realistic foundation for Geely and NIO to truly put their assets together.
The two parties happen to occupy the two ends of battery swapping.
NIO has deeply cultivated the C-end private passenger car market, with advantages in its nationwide network, user operations, intelligent scheduling, and BaaS (Battery as a Service).
EASY-i has long served B-end commercial vehicles such as taxis and ride-hailing cars, accumulating capabilities in high-frequency battery swapping, vehicle scheduling, battery monitoring, and maintenance.
NIO has network scale, while Geely has high-frequency vehicles.
The combination of the two directly impacts the two most critical variables in the battery swap business:
coverage density and asset utilization rate.
This network effect can already be seen in Hangzhou.
Locally, NIO has 80 battery swap stations, and Geely has over 20. Qin Lihong calculated on-site that after the two networks are fully interconnected and intelligently scheduled, theoretically, the distance from any point in the city to the nearest battery swap station can be compressed to about 1.5 kilometers, reachable in about 5 minutes under normal traffic conditions.
For commercial vehicles, time is directly revenue.
According to NIO's target scenario calculations, a high-density battery swap network can save up to about 90 minutes of energy replenishment time per day for a commercial vehicle, corresponding to a 15%-20% increase in operating revenue; combined with battery asset operations, the vehicle lifecycle cost can be reduced by up to about 40%. These data belong to target scenario calculations and are not the actual results of the current entire network.
More importantly, Geely is still importing new vehicle demand into the platform.
An Conghui explicitly stated that Cao Cao Mobility's existing battery swap business will be fully integrated into NIO Power, and the Robotaxi currently under development will also comprehensively use battery swap technology.
Both parties have also included Geely's future C-end battery swap vehicle models in the cooperation plan, although specific models and service plans remain to be further discussed.
Only when vehicles come in along with the assets does station utilization truly have a foundation.
Two Networks, Sharing One Set of Underlying Capabilities
The two parties will not simply merge the B-end and C-end into a single network.
After the transaction is completed, NIO plans to continue operating the C-end and B-end networks.
The two networks correspond to different users, different vehicles, and different station layouts.
What truly needs to be integrated is the underlying capabilities.
William Li explicitly listed four items: R&D, supply chain, manufacturing, and operations. Going further down, there are also stations, power facilities, and intelligent scheduling.
This is where platform integration truly generates efficiency.
The B-end and C-end can continue to use different networks; equipment R&D can be shared; procurement and manufacturing can be shared; some stations can be shared; power distribution facilities can be shared; and battery assets can also be managed uniformly.
Front-end differentiates scenarios, back-end achieves scale.
NIO's charging network has already yielded similar results.
William Li disclosed that currently, 87%-88% of the electricity in NIO's charging network is already used by brands other than NIO. This is the economics of public infrastructure.
The Value of Battery Swap Stations: Shifting from Exclusivity to Utilization
The biggest obstacle to battery swapping in the past was that battery specifications, interfaces, vehicle models, and networks were all more complex.
These conditions are loosening one by one.
After battery swapping enters the consolidation phase, "how many stations have been built" gradually loses some of its explanatory power.
What truly determines asset value is: how many vehicles are served a day; how many times a battery is turned over; how many vehicle models a station covers; how high the power distribution capacity utilization rate is; and how much energy business a site can support.
An Conghui defines energy replenishment as an asset-heavy, long-cycle business, and attributes the value of the cooperation to two outcomes: reducing risks and expanding scale.
Battery swapping happens to be a business where scale changes the economics.
The denser the stations, the more convenient for users; the more vehicles, the higher the station utilization rate; the higher the utilization rate, the easier it is to establish new stations, further densifying the network.
Therefore, in this transaction, Geely used an independently operated network to exchange for equity in a larger network.
Asset ownership has changed, but the scale of infrastructure that can be mobilized has actually expanded. Battery swapping is thus shifting from a "self-built capability" to a "platform capability."
10,000 Battery Swap Stations, Followed by 20GWh of Energy Storage
Asset consolidation has another layer of value.
Battery swap stations are entering the energy system.
William Li proposed this time that by 2030, NIO Power's goal is to operate 10,000 battery swap stations.
According to its calculations, 10,000 battery swap stations roughly correspond to 20GWh of distributed energy storage capacity and an annual electricity consumption of the 10-billion-kWh level.
This is already another set of business logic.
The batteries in the stations are themselves dispatchable energy storage assets.
By integrating charging, photovoltaics, and intelligent scheduling, battery swap stations can simultaneously undertake the functions of vehicle energy replenishment, energy storage, and power trading.
Both parties have proposed further connecting to Geely's AI smart charging, co-building some power facilities, and serving the C-end battery swap, B-end battery swap, and charging networks. William Li also explicitly proposed continuing to run through the business model of energy trading and power trading carriers.
Geely further provided specific asset synergy methods: some charging stations originally required separate energy storage cabinets, and in the future, existing batteries and infrastructure in battery swap stations can be used to undertake energy storage functions.
The business chain is thus reconnected:
Vehicles bring load;
High-frequency load improves station utilization;
Massive batteries form energy storage capacity;
Scaled energy storage enters the power market.
The asset value of battery swap stations is therefore no longer determined solely by "how much money is made per battery swap."
Asset Consolidation: Battery Swapping Enters the Consolidation Period
Returning to this transaction.
In 2023, Geely and NIO were still discussing how to unify standards, adapt vehicle models, and share networks.
In 2026, both parties have begun to decide: whose platform EASY-i will be placed into, and where NIO's charging assets will be placed.
Over these three years, the battery swap ecosystem has successively gathered automakers, battery companies, energy companies, mobility platforms, car rental companies, and financial institutions.
Standards are being unified.
Vehicles are being introduced.
Capital is entering.
Networks are expanding.
One step further for the industry is the re-consolidation of existing assets.
What Geely brought to the table this time is 100% equity of EASY-i.
Battery swapping has moved from "alliance" to "asset consolidation."