Nio Power And Xpeng Sign Charging Roaming Agreement

Xpeng Motors today announced a collaboration with Nio Power to provide customers of both companies the ability to use charging infrastructure owned by either company. It's basically a roaming agreement like we've seen here in the US between EV infrastructure companies like Electrify America, ChargePoint, EVgo and others. 

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Both companies own and operate high-speed DC fast chargers, or superchargers, as they are called in China. Not to be confused with Tesla's branded DC fast chargers, all high-speed DC fast chargers are generally called "superchargers" in China, regardless of which brand they are from. 

Xpeng Supercharger. Their current units can deliver 180 kW, but they are upgrading them to deliver more power.

Nio Power is also a service supplier and does home charging station installations. As part of the agreement, Nio Power will join Xpeng's home charging service system and provide Xpeng customers with home charger installation.

 “Xpeng Motors is very pleased to work with NIO Power to expand charging facilities for our customers. As frontrunners in the smart electric vehicle manufacturing and services, Xpeng and NIO will continue to explore more efficient ways to optimize our customer experience,” said Mr. XIAO Bin, Senior Vice President of Xpeng Motors. 

Xpeng currently has about 80 supercharger sites across 18 cities in China. Owners access public charging infrastructure with a smartphone app, not with an RFID card as is common in the US. 

Xpeng level 2 charging stations

EV charging roaming agreements like this seem to be forming all the time. Automakers and infrastructure networks see value in sharing their equipment to allow customers more charging options. Tesla is really the only company that hasn't participated in such arrangements. However, why should they?

The Xpeng P7 goes on sale in China in the first half of 2020

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Tesla has already installed 15,000 SuperCharger stalls worldwide and continues to add to that number every day. Also, since they use a different connector than everybody else in many parts of the world, they would have to get past that hurdle if they wanted to share their network. As it is, Tesla customers can use the other networks in many areas with an adapter, so there's not too much of an incentive for Tesla to share their network. In fact, having the advantage of such a large fast-charging network is a big part of Tesla's success. It's no wonder everyone else is partnering up to allow their customers access to as many charging stations as possible.