NIO signed a cooperation framework agreement with the 2026 Silk Road Challenge and will provide 14 pure electric vehicles and full-service support throughout. The fleet consists of five models: ES8, ES6, ET5 Touring, and Onvo L90 and L80. It will depart from Xi'an on September 16 for Budapest, lasting 41 days, crossing 11 countries, and traveling more than 20,000 kilometers. The China section relies entirely on battery swapping, with a route length of 3,605 kilometers and 33 battery swap stations. As of September 10, NIO had built 4,079 battery swap stations and 5,255 charging stations, with cumulative battery swaps exceeding 123 million.
According to NIO, the company has signed a cooperation framework agreement with the "Silk Road Challenge 2026" (SRC), under which it will provide 14 battery electric vehicles for the event, along with full-route service support and technical assistance. The signing was completed on September 10, with NIO co-founder and president Qin Lihong attending and witnessing the agreement.
41 days, 11 countries, over 20,000 km
According to the published schedule, the convoy will depart from Xi'an, China on September 16 and head to Budapest, Hungary, with the entire journey expected to take 41 days and cover more than 20,000 km. The route crosses 11 countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Turkey, and the convoy will face widely varying road conditions and energy replenishment environments along the way.
The convoy taking part in this challenge is made up of five models: the NIO ES8, ES6, and ET5 Touring, as well as the L90 and L80 from the Onvo brand.
The China leg relies entirely on battery swap
Within China, the convoy will travel west along NIO's "Silk Road" battery-swap route, relying entirely on battery swapping for energy replenishment during the China leg. The battery-swap route is 3,605 km long, with 33 battery swap stations deployed along the way, and is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of September.
NIO said that once the route opens, users can start from any NIO battery swap station in China and reach every provincial-level administrative region in mainland China with battery swapping available the entire way.
This buildout is based on existing routes. In July 2023, NIO announced the opening of the Silk Road charging and battery-swap route from Xi'an to Khorgos in Xinjiang, which is 3,133 km long and has 33 charging and battery-swap stations. Compared with the existing route, the new one is longer, and all 33 facilities are battery swap stations.
In terms of timing, the convoy's September 16 departure date is earlier than the route's planned full launch at the end of September, so energy replenishment on the China leg will need to be completed based on the existing stations.
Power Journeys and network scale
Expanding energy replenishment coverage along long-distance routes is part of NIO's effort to ease concerns about long-distance energy replenishment for battery electric vehicles. Its Power Journeys program mainly deploys charging and battery-swap facilities along tourism and leisure routes. On September 6, NIO announced the opening of its 91st Power Journeys route, located in southern Shanxi, a 1,849-km loop with 13 battery swap stations along the way. The company plans to expand the number of such routes to 100 this year.
As of September 10, NIO has built 4,079 battery swap stations and 5,255 charging stations in China, equipped with 30,296 charging piles, and has provided more than 123 million battery swap services cumulatively.
Network sharing and brand synergy
NIO noted that the newly built battery swap stations can support wheelbases of up to 3.5 meters, allowing models from the three brands NIO, Onvo, and Firefly to share the same battery swap network. This means its battery swap system is evolving from serving a single brand to being shared across multiple brands, making network usage efficiency and coverage radius points to watch going forward.
For Chinese new energy vehicle makers in the process of going global, a long-distance Eurasian route has a dual nature: it is both a real-world test scenario for products under complex road conditions and diverse energy replenishment environments, and a showcase window for their energy network organization and operations capabilities. The actual operating data from this challenge, the execution of battery-swap energy replenishment on the China leg, and subsequent progress in the European market will be areas the industry continues to watch.
