Geely Takes 30% of Nio Power as Battery Swap Consolidates in China

Most of what Geely is paying is not cash. Under the deal announced on 28 September, Geely contributes the entire equity interest in Yiyi Power, its commercial fleet battery swap operator, plus RMB640 million ($94.8 million), according to CnEVPost. Electrek puts the same cash figure at $94 million and the post-money valuation at RMB16 billion, or $2.4 billion.

After closing, Nio China holds 63.6% of Nio Power. Geely holds 30%, and the Wuhan Guangchuang Emerging Technology Phase I Venture Capital Fund keeps 6.4%.

Geely's stake is tied to operational milestones. It can be adjusted downward after closing if the business underperforms, but not below 20%. Geely also holds an option to inject another RMB640 million in cash within two years of closing, or sooner if Nio Power signs binding agreements for a new financing round. Exercising it would lift Geely to 34% and cut Nio China to 60%, the filing says.

The second leg runs the other way. Nio China is subscribing in cash for newly issued shares of Zhejiang Haohan Energy Technology, Geely's charging arm, taking 10% on completion. Haohan will use the proceeds to buy certain charging assets from Nio. Neither company disclosed the amount. The transaction still needs regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.

What Geely is actually buying

Yiyi focuses on commercial fleet swapping rather than private cars, so the deal folds a fleet business into Nio Power's existing network. Nio says the two companies have preliminary plans to bring battery swapping to consumer models from Geely-related entities and to Geely's commercial mobility businesses. Electrek notes those plans still need to be finalized, and the Hong Kong filing describes them as preliminary.

Nio brings a large network to the table. It had 3,790 swap stations when it passed 100 million cumulative swaps in February, and it is targeting 1,000 more this year, according to Electrek. It also set a single-day record of 175,976 swaps earlier in the year. Nio Power aims to operate 10,000 swap stations by 2030, when annual electricity demand across the network is expected to exceed 10 billion kWh, CnEVPost reports.

On the charging side, Geely plans more than 22,000 charging stations with over 100,000 connectors by the end of 2027, including more than 15,000 smart stations with over 50,000 smart connectors.

Electrek is blunt about the valuation. The Wuhan fund's 6.4% works out to roughly 9.1% before Geely comes in. If little else changed in the cap table, that puts Nio Power at about RMB16 billion back in 2024, when the network had far fewer stations. On that reading, the headline number has barely moved in two years.

Nio is not selling from weakness, at least on the numbers in its latest earnings. It delivered 107,658 vehicles in the second quarter of 2026, posted an 18.5% vehicle margin and eked out a small non-GAAP profit, while still losing RMB528 million on a GAAP basis. It had RMB56.7 billion in cash at the end of June, according to Electrek.

The deal also settles an older question. Nio said in March 2025 that CATL was advancing an investment capped at RMB2.5 billion in Nio Power. That investment never materialized, CnEVPost reports, and CATL does not appear in the ownership table Nio published.

China's swap market is splitting into camps: Nio's network, CATL's Choco-Swap, and BYD betting on ultra-fast charging instead. A Geely brand shipping Nio-compatible packs at volume would make Nio's network the default for a large slice of the market, Electrek argues. The two companies previously signed a battery swap strategic partnership in November 2023 and expanded cooperation to charging network connectivity in March 2024.

Solid state keeps slipping to the right

While swap infrastructure consolidates, the next battery chemistry is still a promise. BYD executive vice president Stella Li told Carwow's Spanish outlet that BYD would release its first car with a solid-state battery in 2027, Engadget reported on 27 September. "Talking about solid-state batteries, BYD is in the leading position," Li said. "We're in the leading position for commercialization and technology."

That timeline tracks with earlier company statements. Sun Huajun, chief technology officer of BYD's battery subsidiary FinDreams, said at a conference in February 2025 that BYD would demonstrate and install solid-state batteries in 2027 before mass production around 2030. BYD chief scientist Lian Yubo said at the same event that solid-state would sit alongside lithium iron phosphate rather than replace it, mainly in high-end models.

Hyundai's research and development chief, Manfred Harrer, is more cautious about cost. He told reporters last week that small-volume cars with solid-state packs will reach the market within five years, but that raw material costs will stay extraordinarily high for many years. "I am not believing you can solve the raw material cost problem in five years from now," Harrer said, according to InsideEVs. He also said the technology cannot be abandoned: "You cannot give up right now on that. That's clear."

The timelines in the dossier are not identical. BYD points to a 2027 car; Hyundai expects small-volume halo models within five years; QuantumScape, cited by InsideEVs, expects high-performance vehicles by the end of the decade. Those are different claims about different markets, not a single industry schedule.

Trucks, and the commercial case

At IAA Transportation 2026 in Hanover, CATL unveiled TECTRANS II, a modular battery platform for commercial vehicles. CleanTechnica reported on 27 September that the heavy-duty configuration offers a claimed range of up to 1,000 kilometers, 80% charge in 25 minutes on megawatt-level charging, and a gravimetric energy density of 170 watt-hours per kilogram. CATL claims a 12-year or 1.5 million kilometer service life with 70% capacity retention, and says standardized packs can cut commercial vehicle development cycles by about 50% and research and development costs by 60% to 70%. CATL also signed a memorandum of understanding with DHL Group at the show to develop green freight corridors in Europe.

Volvo Trucks took International Truck of the Year 2027 at the same event for its heavy-duty electric range, CleanTechnica reported. The award covers the FH Electric, FM Electric, FMX Electric and the new FH Aero Electric, whose flagship variant Volvo says can travel up to 700 kilometers on a charge. Series production of the next generation began on 14 September at Volvo's Tuve plant in Gothenburg. Volvo says about 7,000 of its electric trucks have accumulated roughly 500 million kilometers since 2019, with nearly 2,000 customers in more than 50 countries.

Away from vehicles, University of Florida researchers found that simple repeated visual patterns, such as black-and-white stripes, can cause stereo-camera depth estimation in autonomous vehicles and robots to misjudge how far away an obstacle is. Sara Rampazzi, who led the work, said the problem does not require an attacker. "These things can also happen naturally, so it's not a matter of imagining a sophisticated attacker. It becomes a safety problem," she said, according to the university's news release. The team tested multiple sensors, algorithms and AI models with two universities in Japan and will present the findings in November at ACM CCS.

For now, the money is still moving through swap networks and fleet batteries, not solid state. Geely's stake in Nio Power is the largest dated commitment in this batch, and its milestone clause means the final price depends on whether the business delivers.