The Chinese giant behind Volvo, Polestar and Lotus will join forces with NIO on battery tech.
Geely Holding, the parent company of Volvo, Polestar and Lotus, has signed a technical agreement with electric car company NIO to align battery standards and share innovative battery-swapping functionality between the two companies for future products.
This wide-ranging agreement covers a variety of elements, including a standardisation of cell technology within the battery packs, battery swapping technology, network expansion and battery asset management.
NIO might bnot be close to entering the Australian market yet, but it’s already made waves in Europe by offering battery swapping tech as a feature in its models. The technology, which allows a depleted battery to be automatically swapped for a fully charged one in minutes, can potentially go a long way to alleviating range anxiety on long journeys.
The new agreement with Geely will see a collaboration between the two companies in the development of this tech, while also adding critical scale to NIO’s battery swapping network that’s already in place in China and some parts of western Europe.
This could lead to future Volvo, Polestar and Lotus products integrating similar battery swapping functionality, and will also apply to Geely’s other brands that include Zeekr, Lynk & Co and Smart.
William LI, Founder, Chairman and CEO of NIO said: “NIO and Geely share a profound understanding of battery swapping and have been dedicated to the investment in the battery swapping technology and network for private cars and commercial vehicles with rich experience in swapping service and operations.”
On the road to full EV adoption, the electric charging and infrastructure network has been criticised for a lack of consistency across its many stakeholders. Agreements like this aim to help reduce the complexity and make long journeys easier in the future.