Nio Unveils Longer Range, Cheaper 75-kWh Hybrid Batteries: What You Need to Know

NIO Inc. NIO shares, which have been under pressure of late, are seeing a nice upward bounce Thursday.

What Happened:  Nio launched a standard-range 75 kilo-watt hour hybrid-cell battery powered by hybrid ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate cells. It is manufactured by applying new-gen cell-to-pack technology.

The EV maker noted that the battery comes with a longer range in cold weather and accurate state-of-charge estimation. It provides a battery performance that is on par with that of a ternary lithium battery.

A complete thermal management software and hardware system designed by Nio reduces the range loss in low temperature by 25% compared to its LFP counterpart.

"The radiant thermal compensation heater uniformly heats the battery cells to maintain the working temperature of the battery while taking into account the energy consumption," Nio said. The hybrid layout of ternary lithium cells and LFP cells makes full use of the low-temp performance advantage of ternary lithium cells to improve the overall battery performance in low temperature, it added.

Additionally, the 75-kWh standard-range battery is equipped with the new-generation CTP technology, which simplifies manufacturing and assembly by 10%, increases volume utilization by 5%, and increases energy density by 14% to 142 Wh/kg.

Related Link: Why This Nio Analyst Expects Net Loss to Widen In 2021-22 

Why It's Important:  Nio is likely to phase out its existing 70-kWh batteries for the longer-range 75-kWh batteries. The use of hybrid materials reduces the cost of batteries.

Nio said both the standard-range 75-kWh hybrid-cell battery and the long-range 100-kWh ternary lithium battery are available for new NIO car orders, beginning Thursday. Deliveries to customers will begin in November, the company added.

The prices of Nio models with the new 75-kWh battery and their BaaS subscription remain the same as those with the previous 70-kWh battery.

In premarket trading, Nio shares were up 1.74% to $36.32.

Related Link: Nio, XPeng, Buffett-Backed BYD Among Top Quality EV Brands In China: Survey

Price Action: NIO shares are trading 0.92% higher at $36.03 premarket on the last check Thursday.

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