Zhaoliao Auto/Fei De
On June 10, Nio officially announced that the Singapore EV charging and swapping standard "SS 722", formulated with the company's deep participation, has been officially launched.
Compared to the previous version, this standard adds a new content, establishing technical specifications for battery swapping and mobile charging for electric passenger cars and heavy-duty trucks for the first time. Nio was not just a participant, but one of the core leading units. To put it plainly, Singapore's battery swapping "national standard" was written based on Nio's technical path.
For the current Nio, this news can be described as mixed feelings of joy and concern.
In terms of technology export, it is not common in the past for Chinese enterprises to lead the formulation of overseas national standards. Nio's technology accumulation in the battery swapping field is indeed profound. As of June 10 this year, the company has applied for over 1,650 global battery swapping patents, and has led or participated in the formulation and revision of more than 50 national, industry, and group standards. It also participated in the formulation of 4 IEC international standards. Singapore's choice to use Nio's technical framework as the national standard means that both the technical maturity and the results of industrial practice of this system have gained international recognition.
In the first quarter of 2026, Nio's financial report was quite impressive: delivery volume of 83,500 units, up 98.3% year-on-year; total revenue of 25.53 billion yuan, doubling year-on-year; gross margin of 18.8%, reaching a four-year high.
But on the other side of the financial report, Nio still lost 332 million yuan in the first quarter. Although this loss is not large, it exposes a problem - Nio's source of profit is still car sales, and the battery swapping system currently cannot help the company make money.
So, given that this Singapore "national standard" came out at this time, it is really hard to say whether it is joy or worry.
Because according to currently retrieved information, although the standard has been released, Nio's battery swapping stations have not yet entered Singapore.
According to prior reports from Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao", Nio plans to enter the Singapore market in the first quarter of 2026 through car dealer Wearnes Automotive, with the first model being the small electric car Firefly. At that time, what Nio stated in the announcement was "we will assess whether it is possible to implement battery swapping technology in Singapore", and the Land Transport Authority of Singapore had not yet formulated relevant technical standards at the time, merely listing battery swapping technology into a sandbox framework for pilot projects on heavy-duty vehicles.
Now that the standard has landed, it has cleared obstacles from the institutional level for the construction of battery swapping facilities. However, when Nio's battery swapping network in Singapore will be rolled out remains unknown.
There is another issue regarding the differences between Singapore and domestic markets, and it is unknown if Nio has considered this.
The reason why Nio's battery swapping mode works well domestically is because our domestic user base and battery swapping network are large and dense enough.
However, the operating cost of this network is extremely high. Li Bin himself has stated more than once that they do not pursue single-station profitability in the short term, but continue to invest ahead of schedule. However, in overseas markets, Nio is currently adopting a cautious expansion strategy. For example, in Europe, affected by trade barriers such as EU anti-subsidy taxes, Nio has explicitly stated that it will slow down its pace of going global and prioritize focusing on the Chinese market.
So under this background, for a country like Singapore where both land area and electric vehicle market size are not large, how much investment cost of battery swapping facilities users can absorb is something Nio itself needs to calculate.
Of course, the release of Singapore's "SS 722" standard is undoubtedly a good move for Nio at the globalization level. It turned Nio's technical route from a commercial choice of a Chinese enterprise into an official standard of a country.
Li Bin once said a sentence - Nio's moat is battery swapping. So this Singapore "national standard" can be understood as drawing one more point on the world map for this moat that Li Bin mentioned. As for when this river can flow to Singapore and whether it can sustain itself there, that is another issue.
Original article by Zhaoliao Auto. For reprint permissions, please contact us
*Pictures sourced from the internet, if infringing please contact the author for removal*
