Nio Collaborates with CATL to Develop Long-Lasting Electric Car Batteries

Nio has signed a new cooperation agreement with its battery supplier CATL to develop longer-lasting electric car batteries, aiming for the battery to retain 85 per cent of its capacity after 15 years. This agreement is part of Nio’s efforts to reduce the overall costs of electric vehicles.

CATL has developed technologies to extend the service life of vehicle batteries, such as a self-repairing SEI (Solid Electrolyte Interphase) film and special additives. Nio, on the other hand, has developed an intelligent battery cloud system to optimize battery management for a longer service life.

Nio’s founder and CEO William Li emphasized the importance of solving the battery life issue for the industry as a whole. “This is not only a problem that Nio needs to solve, but one that the whole industry must work together to solve,” Li told reporters in Beijing.

NIO and @catl_official signed the framework agreement in Beijing. We will jointly accelerate the development and adoption of long-life battery technologies based on NIO's battery swap, to deliver better battery swap services to EV users and facilitate the sustainable development. pic.twitter.com/fqP4FrTlZ4

— NIO (@NIOGlobal) March 14, 2024

With Nio’s battery swap system, the batteries remain the property of the company, and users pay a monthly battery rental fee for access to swap batteries. If these batteries last longer, Nio has to replace them less often, reducing costs for both the company and customers. Nio has announced that it will reduce monthly fees by up to 33 per cent as a result of the longer-lasting batteries.

CATL has been Nio’s most important battery partner for years. All batteries from Nio’s Power Swap System currently come from CATL. The five-year agreement signed in 2023 stipulated that CATL would remain Nio’s main supplier.

Nio currently operates 2,382 power swap stations and 21,652 charging stations, primarily in China. The charging business is already profitable for Nio, but the company is still losing money on battery swaps, according to Li. Nevertheless, Nio wants to hold on to the battery swap stations due to their potential for energy storage and grid stabilisation.

Nio continues to invest in the development of core technologies such as batteries, despite efforts to become profitable more quickly after major investments by Abu Dhabi investor CYVN Holdings.