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Topics: Cars, Tesla, Technology
Gerrard Kaonga
Topics: Cars, Tesla, Technology
Tesla's rival electric car company has just had a breakthrough in its battery life following a stunt by the CEO.
Nio CEO William Li has built up a reputation as the Chinese Elon Musk, and his latest stunt certainly seems like he is on the right tracks.
Li and his car manufacturing company have developed a battery with a range of 1,000km, but seeing really is believing.
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The CEO decided to put it to the test by driving for 14 hours on a single charge between two Chinese cities while live-streaming the event.
He got his stunt underway on December 17 going between Shanghai to Xiamen.
After his successful journey, he took to Chinese social media platform Weibo to express his gratitude at being able to make the long journey.
“The 150kWh battery life challenge was completed, with a final score of 1044 kilometers!" he said on a translated Weibo post about the stunt.
"Let me tell you, after 14 hours and 1 minutes of hard work, the 150kWh battery life test reached a final score of 1044 kilometers with 3% power left."
He also explained that he was able to make the trip off one charge despite the adverse weather conditions.
“There has been a nationwide cold wave in recent days. When we set off from the Shanghai World Expo Center battery swap station at 6:32 in the morning, the temperature was minus 2 degrees,” he added.
“The team did not expect the actual battery life to exceed 1,000 kilometers today. Beyond everyone’s expectations, the ET7 and 150kWh battery performed almost perfectly!”
As to be expected, he also took the opportunity to praise the work his company has been doing with its battery technology.
“This battery is the battery pack with the highest energy density in mass production in the world and has excellent safety performance," he wrote in the post.
"More importantly, all models on sale can be flexibly upgraded to 150kWh batteries through the NIO battery swap system.
“NOP+ not only fully demonstrated its excellent ability to relieve driving stress, but also made an important contribution to reducing power consumption. Thank you team and partners for a job well done,”
The company is expected to mass-producing 150 kWh batteries in April 2024 but early predictions have suggested it is likely going to be expensive.
Only time will tell if Nio will be able to compete with Tesla in the Chinese market!