The Chinese premium manufacturer sells more cars, but also makes more losses. He has high hopes for his battery changing stations. More and more manufacturers are adopting the technology – including foreign companies.
Like toys in a vending machine, after painting, the car bodies wait in a multi-story warehouse for a conveyor belt to take them further to final assembly. The special thing about the new car factory of the Chinese manufacturer Nio in the city of Hefei: The models are produced here in a mixed bag. Directly behind a pink ET5 sedan with a glass roof, the 750 robots and 2,000 workers could be screwing together a blue ES8 SUV with a third row of seats. This means the start-up can produce up to eight different models in the same factory, much more than a traditional manufacturer like Volkswagen in its brand new factory right next door. Some of Nio’s cars will later end up on German roads.