Chinese EV battery manufacturer CATL and EV manufacturer Nio, known for its battery swapping technology, have closed an R&D deal on long-life battery solutions.
The scope of the cooperation is set to enhance the development of Nio’s power swap package, according to Nio.
The current lithium-ion battery packs provided by Nio have eight-year warranties. This means the warranties of many batteries will expire between 2025 and 2032. Nio said car owners risk high battery replacement costs and the amount of waste will increase rapidly.
It has therefore developed a battery health monitoring system. It checks temperature, charging and discharging intensity and frequency. Nio claims the battery pack will retain up to 80% capacity after 12 years.
CATL has worked with technical improvement of battery components and chemistry, for example by using a self-repairing solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) film and lithium supplement. The modifications will reduce the degradation rate of the lithium-ion battery and extend the service life of the battery pack.
“CATL and Nio will continue to leverage their respective resource advantages to build a battery supply system with efficiency and synergy and improve innovation capabilities and efficiency based on advanced battery technology”, said CATL.
The partnership will combine technologies from both companies seeking to lower the full life cycle costs of batteries. This is key for the operating costs of Nio’s 2,300+ battery-swapping and charging stations, said William Li, Nio’s founder and CEO. It claims to have provided more than 40 million battery swaps.
The company said it would keep investing on its own in developing core technologies such as batteries. It has commercialised 150kWh semi-solid-state batteries for its EVs. Manufactured by Beijing Welion New Energy, they have a claimed range of up to 1,000km.
