NIO has measured a battery life of more than 1,000 degrees, and the 150-degree battery is good, but 800V can't compare?

NIO's 150-degree battery pack has a range of 1,044 km at one time.

The test vehicle, NIO ET7, with a battery capacity of 150 kWh, departed from Shanghai Hongqiao at 6:30 a.m. and headed south to Fujian. After a few hours, the final result was 1044km when the final charge was still 3%, which has already exceeded the 1000km mark. This should be the longest distance that domestic mass-produced pure electric vehicles can run without charging at one time.

In fact, as early as NIO Day in 2021, NIO has announced a 150-degree battery pack, which will be installed on the ET7 model. At that time, the data released by NIO was that the 150-degree battery pack no longer used the industry's mainstream liquid lithium battery technology, but adopted solid-state battery technology, which achieved an energy density increase of about 50%, and finally achieved a high energy density of 360Wh/kg.

After Li Bin's personal test, let's analyze the strength of this battery.

Test, can you see the real strength?

This 150-degree large battery pack has not yet been finally mass-produced, and it should be a battery pack that is relatively close to the production version after internal debugging. According to the previously released data, the type of this battery pack is still ternary lithium battery, and the size is the same as that of the 75-degree and 100-degree battery packs.

Some people may begin to wonder how to make the power bigger when the size has always been the same.

One of the technical highlights of this battery is the solid-liquid electrolyte. To put it bluntly, the battery pack contains both a solid electrolyte and a liquid electrolyte, specifically one end of the electrode is all-solid, the other end of the electrode is liquid, and the solid electrolyte is close to or more than half of the mass ratio or volume ratio. Coupled with the high nickel cathode and silicon carbon anode, the changes in these element materials have led to today's 150-degree semi-solid-state battery pack.

Of course, this battery is a few days later than the planned deadline. The plan was announced in 2021, and the delivery was originally scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2022, but then moved to the third quarter of 2023, and finally, the public test was not until the fourth quarter of 2023, and mass production will have to wait for the second quarter of 2024. It can be seen that it is not easy to make such a battery, and there should be many difficulties.

So, what about the strength of this battery developed?

First of all, it is necessary to recognize the technical level of NIO's self-developed batteries, and have developed a semi-solid-state battery pack that is rare in the industry, at least other battery suppliers have not done (perhaps due to cost considerations). Then, let's analyze the usage of the whole process. In this test, the whole process is basically maintained at a speed of about 90km/h on the high-speed road, and the official does not give the average speed of the whole process for reference.

The total distance traveled was 1044km, and the number of intelligent driving kilometers was 957km, accounting for about 91%. Then, the comprehensive energy consumption of the trip is 13.2 degrees / 100 kilometers, and this energy consumption is getting lower and lower, which is directly related to the temperature, this trip is from Shanghai to the south to the end of Fujian, with the increase of outdoor temperature, the temperature in the car also decreases, which is understood as the meaning of reducing the temperature of the air conditioner, that is to say, the air conditioning power in the rear section of the test may be lower than the early stage of the test.

In the early stage of the test, the comprehensive energy consumption was 13.7 kWh/100km, and at the end of the trip, the energy consumption was 13.2 kWh/100km.

Analyze one by one, why not raise the speed of the vehicle, and why is the use rate of intelligent driving more than 90%?

As we all know, the large battery pack only gives a premise with a longer battery life, how far it can run, what kind of data it can run, in the final analysis, it still depends on how the driver drives. Combining the two data, the constant speed of 90-95km/h and 91% of the distance are completed by intelligent driving. In other words, under certain conditions, a car equipped with this battery can run a range of more than 1000km.

Combined with the final energy consumption, 13.2 kWh/100km + 1044km range, this time it used about 140 kWh, and the remaining 10 kWh of power. The energy consumption performance of the tram depends on whether you have rapid acceleration, high-speed driving, and air conditioning usage, and NIO has almost framed the driving speed range this time and used a lot of intelligent driving, and the air conditioning temperature is decreasing with the trip (the air conditioning power becomes lower), which all contribute to the final range performance.

Then, if you look at it this way, the ultimate power consumption of this battery is 15 kWh/100 km. It can be said that the comprehensive power consumption of this test is close to the limit value. If the speed is increased to 100km/h or 110km/h, perhaps the range of 1000km will become very extreme.

Of course, this is not the final version of mass production, maybe there will be further improvements after mass production, at least the ability to show us in front of us this time is still worth affirming. It is also very easy to interpret NIO's idea, they pay more attention to the actual mileage demand, rather than making the tram run faster at the speed limit on the highway (think about it from another angle, if you run far enough at a time, you can avoid a certain number of charging times, and it is also time-saving).

High energy density, how about this performance?

Then, let's talk about another topic. This 150-degree battery pack has a very high energy density of 360Wh/kg, which is a very high level. Wh/kg is the unit of energy density of the battery, which indicates the amount of energy that can be stored per kilogram of battery, which means that the higher the energy density, the better.

So, is NIO's 360Wh/kg battery excellent for a range of 1000km?

In general, the higher the energy density of an EV battery, means that a battery of the same weight is able to store more energy, providing a longer range. The energy density of 360Wh/kg means that 360Wh of energy can be stored per kilogram of battery, which is a very high level in the current market. Referring to the Tesla Model 3 battery pack, the energy density is 161Wh/kg, and the Kirin battery is 255Wh/kg, and the 150-degree battery pack made by NIO directly doubles the energy density. The change brought about by the high energy density this time is to make the car go farther.

This time, we will just take it as a test, at least this test confirms a few points:

1.1000 km endurance, which is actually achievable;

2. CLTC mileage can achieve more than 1000km endurance performance;

3. As long as you want to have a higher range, you can achieve it by slowing down the speed.

To be honest, this performance is good, and it has also received a lot of recognition from the industry, which is a test to promote changes in the pure electric vehicle market. Although it is different from the 800V development route, the ultimate goal is the same, which is to change the Xi and experience of tram owners.

How about this experience? A car is not charged, as long as the driver is no problem, it can be achieved by driving 1000km in one breath, this is the change brought about by large battery and high energy density; in the past, a pure electric car, driving 500, 600 or the limit point of about 800 kilometers, you have to charge once, for people who really have long-distance needs 1000km is still of practical significance.

In addition to making the battery life longer, what else does it bring?

NIO has a battery swap system, so the current battery swap capacity of the third-generation battery swap station is basically once every 3 minutes. If the energy is replenished, the use scenario of 150 kWh of power in 3 minutes and 1000km of battery life in 3 minutes can greatly improve the car owner's car experience, and can also better reflect the advantages of vehicle and electricity separation.

Another benefit of high energy density is the increased charging capacity of the battery pack. Maybe this is just an auxiliary function for NIO, which puts battery swapping first, but its charging rate may not be measurable by 4C and 5C, and we will look at it after mass production next year.

If it weren't for the use of semi-solid-state technology, achieving such a high energy performance of 360Wh/kg might increase in weight and volume, in fact, the weight of the NIO 150-degree battery pack has also increased, about 20kg. Overall, the 150-degree battery pack has an energy density of 360Wh/kg and a range of more than 1000km, which is a good result.

We can look forward to the final production version, so that NIO's battery swap system 75, 100 and 150 degree battery pack flexible leasing scheme will bring more car owners a change in the car experience.