Two Chinese electric vehicle players are teaming up to share their charging stations and services in a way to tame costs in the country’s slowing EV market.
China’s southern Guangzhou-based Xpeng Motors today announced a partnership with Nio Power, the charging service arm of EV maker Nio, to collaborate on vehicle charging. The two will share their supercharger stations across China and connect the payment system with each other.
Owners of Xpeng vehicles can be able to use Nio Power’s supercharging stations and pay via Xpeng app, and Nio owners can also use Xpeng’s station to charge their vehicles. Nio Power will also be incorporated into Xpeng’s home charging service system as a supplier, to provide Xpeng vehicle owners home installation services for charging piles.
Xpeng and NIO will continue to explore more efficient ways to optimize customer experience and expand collaboration opportunities with other charging service providers, said Xpeng’s senior vice president Xiao Bin in a statement.
Before this collaboration, both Xpeng and Nio have already spread their tentacles to the EV charging sector to seek new opportunities for business growth, as the EV market in China is gloomy lately with an unprecedented slump in sales.
Xpeng has established a partnership in October with TELD, the operator of China’s largest charging network and ecosystem. Xpeng car owners will gain access to TELD’s 50,000 charging piles across more than 180 cities in China. Currently, Xpeng owners can access over 100,000 third-party charging piles across the country, and the EV maker plans to build 200 supercharging stations across 30 cities.
Nio has spun off its charging business Nio Power in July to raise funds to expand services to more cities. The company confirmed that its charging services, which used to be only available for its car owners nationwide, was able to serve all EV users in 53 cities since April 16th. Nio’s co-founder and president Qin Lihong also disclosed in August that 55% of the daily users for Nio’s charging services are not owners of Nio vehicles.
Other companies in the mobility industry are also turning their attention to the charging sector and are busy forming alliances to gain an upper hand.
Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has formed a joint venture with BP, one of the leading fuel retailing and convenience businesses in the world, to build EV charging infrastructure in China. Didi has also formed strategic alliances with the State Grid of China and China Southern Grid to expand charging facilities.
Baidu-backed EV maker WM Motor is cooperating with TGood, one of the largest EV charging operators in China, to jointly build and maintain a WM-branded charging network.
Volkswagen and two of China’s automobile manufacturers, FAW and JAC, have established a joint venture in Changzhou, a city in China’s Jiangsu province, with Star Charge, one of China’s leading EV chargers. This joint venture called CAMS aims to build up a smart charging infrastructure ecosystem in China.