(Yicai) Jan. 12 -- Nio, a Chinese electric carmaker, is growing its battery swap alliance with two new members, JAC Motors and Chery Automobile, to make the business more efficient.

The owner of brands Refine and JAC iEV, as well as Chery, which makes cars under Exeed and Jetour brands, penned cooperation framework agreements with Nio yesterday, Yicai learned.

The Hefei-based electric vehicle firm is widening its battery exchange collaboration quickly as before this, Chang’an Automobile Group and Geely Holding Group joined the alliance last November.

Chery and JAC will work with Nio on battery swap standards, technology, and service network construction, per the agreements. Hefei-based JAC and Nio will also develop new vehicle models with batteries that can be charged, swapped, or upgraded for better user experience.

JAC and Nio are familiar as the former manufactures Nio vehicles. JAC also has links to Volkswagen as the Chinese arm of the German car giant owns a 50 percent stake in Jianghuai Automobile Group Holdings, the largest shareholder of JAC.

Nio also inked cooperation agreements with Anhui Province Energy Group, a local electric utility, and Anhui Transportation Holding Group, a builder of transport infrastructure, yesterday to set up 1,000 stations capable of both vehicle charging and battery swaps.

Nio is China’s largest operator of battery swap stations for new energy vehicles. It owned almost 2,320 such stations as of Dec. 31, last year, but for now, the stations only serve Nio vehicles which restricts their potential to make a profit.

The company's third-generation battery swap stations need to finish 60 swaps a day to break even, and now around 20 percent of the stations have achieved the goal, a Nio insider said earlier.

Citic Securities said in a recent research report that the domestic battery swap business should skyrocket as the number of NEVs is rising, predicting that China will have almost 27,500 such stations by 2026.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine