Geely to buy nearly a third of NIO’s battery-swapping business and bring the technology to its EVs
Geely Holding is deepening its cooperation with NIO and will develop electric vehicles that can use NIO battery-swap stations. The deal is not simply about buying NIO batteries, but about linking the two groups’ battery-swapping technology, standards and infrastructure.
Geely takes a major stake in NIO Power
According to NIO’s official announcement, Geely will contribute its battery-swapping company, Yiyi Power, to NIO Power and invest an additional approximately €83.8 million. Following the transaction, Geely will own 30% of NIO Power, while NIO will retain a controlling 63.6% stake. The deal values NIO Power at approximately €2.1 billion.
Geely will have the option to invest a further approximately €83.8 million within two years, raising its stake to 34%. At the same time, NIO will acquire 10% of Haohan Energy, which operates Geely’s charging network.
Geely to build vehicles compatible with battery swapping
The more important part of the agreement concerns the vehicles. Geely and NIO will develop joint technical standards for battery swapping, Geely will develop new electric vehicles in line with those standards, and NIO Power will provide battery-swapping services for them. The companies have not yet said which Geely Holding brands or models will be the first to receive the technology.
NIO’s system replaces a depleted battery with a charged one in around three minutes. By February 2026, the company had completed 100 million battery swaps and operated 3,790 swap stations worldwide.
This gives Geely access to an established infrastructure that would be expensive and slow to build from scratch. NIO, in turn, will have more vehicles using its stations, improving utilisation of its costly battery-swapping network.
Europe remains an open question for now
NIO has already trialled battery swapping in Europe. In April 2025, it operated 60 Power Swap stations across the region, including in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
However, the new agreement does not confirm that Geely battery-swap models will come to Europe. In Europe, the technology must compete with increasingly rapid DC charging, which does not require costly standardised battery-swapping infrastructure.
The situation is different in China. NIO has already demonstrated that battery swapping can work with a large user base and a dense network. Geely’s addition gives the model considerably more weight.
