Nio has developed a 150-kwh battery that would doubtlessly increase the vary of electrical automobiles considerably increased than what present vary kings just like the Lucid Air can ship.

The Chinese language electrical automobile firm introduced on Tuesday the profitable check of its new Extremely Lengthy Vary battery, which noticed Chairman William Li cowl 1,044 km (roughly 648.7 miles) behind the wheel of a Nio ET7 mid-size sedan. The EPA-rated vary for the Lucid Air tops out at 516 miles.

The true-world check noticed Li and two others drive from Shanghai to Xiamen, in temperatures that at some elements of the journey had been beneath freezing, an element that usually harms a battery’s vary.

The journey took roughly 14 hours to finish and used up 97% of the battery’s cost, in accordance with Nio.

Nio CEO and founder William Li with the 2022 ET7

Nio stated the battery is designed to suit all of its fashions, and is already accessible at a few of its battery-swapping stations in China. Nio stated a buyer may go for the Extremely Lengthy Vary battery when planning an extended highway journey, after which revert to a smaller and lighter battery for regular driving duties. Nio makes it straightforward for patrons to vary batteries by way of versatile choices for upgrading the packs when wanted.

The information comes the identical week that Nio President Lihong Qin stated the corporate plans to launch two further manufacturers targeted on automobiles extra inexpensive than these offered by the present Nio model. The primary, dubbed Firefly, is because of launch in Europe as quickly as 2025.

Nio was as soon as billed as China’s Tesla, however its gross sales have been harm by Tesla’s latest spherical of worth cuts. Nio’s gross sales in 2023 are on monitor to achieve simply over 150,000 models, whereas Tesla is on monitor to achieve greater than 10 instances that determine. To lift capital, the corporate has been issuing new shares. The latest difficulty occurred this week and noticed Abu Dhabi-based CYVN Holdings buy $2.2 billion value of shares. CYVN’s stake in Nio has now grown to about 20%, following the most recent funding plus a earlier $1 billion funding in July.