from horses mouth 2020 https://www.nio.com/blog/past-present-chinas-ev-subsidies " Electric vehicles that utilize battery-swapping technologies are not limited to the 300,000 yuan price limit and will still qualify for the subsidies."
All EV specially in China have received subsidizes. Both swapping and charging have been subsidized at different times in different places. I would say battery swapping has received far less focus then other charging.
Just linking a few articles about limited subsidizes doesn't mean the company wouldn't exists or would be bankrupt if not for subsidizes. And some of the articles don't even specifically mention a lot of money.
First article, 40% subsidize on some stations in a single city. The build most of those stations before this new subsidy. So at best this articles shows that they might get some subsidy in the future.
Second articles, a few cities give out subsidizes for cars with battery swapping. Literally a pilot project that has only recently started. Third article just mentions the same pilot program.
Forth article, small change in regulation to existing subsidizes making it slightly more attractive to have a battery swappable car. Since 2020 regulations about what gets how much subsidy have changed many times over in China. And have been in general reduced by a whole lot as China wanted to get its industry of subsidies.
We are talking about a market of millions vehicles with billions of money put into intensives and infrastructure. With government putting in billions as well. Such as the US with the 7500$ tax credit.
To call them specifically 'heavenly' subsidized is just plane inaccurate, they got some subsidy, like every other EV maker. Swapping has got some funding once in a while, but its far from the primary thing that gets subsidies. The company didn't do swapping because it received the most subsidizes.
That's the same wrong argument people made about Tesla for years. Link to any article about the word 'subsidy' and then claim that the whole business only exists because of that.
Its not at all like hydrogen in California. NIO alone makes more cars then global hydrogen sales.
And just to be clear, I don't even like swapping or think that its a good idea but that it has bankrupt every company that tried it or its only viable because of some massive subsidy (that you fail to prove exists) is completely false. Nio has existed since 2014. Unless you can actually point to a subsidy program, specifically for swapping, that funneled multiple billions of $ into Nio pockets, I'm gone call bullshit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nio_Inc.