Five-minute recharge: China’s Nio rolling out new electric-car battery swap stations in Europe and UK

Charging times continue to present a challenge for electric-car owners – and even the latest models and fastest stations still need about 20 minutes for a 10 to 80 per cent recharge.

But Chinese electric-car start-up Nio is looking to deliver a full charge in a quarter of this time with a new generation of its battery-swap technology.

The drive-through stations can swap out a battery in under three minutes, with the full process – including car alignment and safety checks – taking less than five minutes.

This is a minute faster (a 30 per cent improvement) than the second-generation stations currently in use by Nio in China.

Similar to an automatic car wash, drivers simply pull into the swap bay, are told when and where to stop, and the automated station will remove the car's battery from underneath and swap in a fully-charged unit.

In the video of the second-generation system below, some cars can even 'auto park' into the swap station themselves.

All of Nio's cars are compatible with the battery-swap stations, and the brand says 60 per cent of Nio owners use the battery-swap technology on a regular basis.

The new stations store 21 batteries and recharge 'swapped' ones once they have been removed from the car. In China, owners can lease a battery and even pay to upgrade to a larger-capacity one if they need more driving range for a longer trip.

It's just like the swap-and-go gas bottle service for your BBQ.

Nio currently operates 1360 battery-swap stations across China and a further 13 in Europe (Netherlands, Norway and Germany), but the brand's expansion to the UK later this year will see this grow.

The stations are produced at a factory in Hungary, and Nio expects to add a further 1000 locations in China and 70 locations across Europe and the UK by the end of 2023.

Nio is due to launch in the UK later this year with a right-hand-drive version of the ET5, a Tesla Model 3-sized sedan.

While there are no confirmed plans the brand will expand into Australia, the company has previously hinted at the possibility – and the development of at least one right-hand-drive model is a promising sign.