According to Chinese media, WeLion (official), a supplier of NIO‘s automotive battery, will receive investment from strategic institutions such as Xiaomi Group and Huawei. The project is valued at 5 billion yuan and the investment amount is about 500 million yuan. It is reported that Huawei, Xiaomi Group and Shunwei Capital signed in August and decided to invest in WeLion New Energy. At present, Xiaomi has entered the delivery process.
On the NIO Day on January 9 this year, NIO announced plans to launch a solid-state battery with an energy density of 360Wh/kg that can travel 1,000 kilometers and revealed that the battery will be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2022. According to NIO, the 150kWh battery pack will use mass-produced solid-state battery technology, which can achieve a 50% increase in energy density. Equipped with a 150kWh battery pack, all NIO models will have long NEDC range, such as the range of old ES8 will be over 730km and the new ES8 will come up to 850km, ES6 and EC6 will be over 900km, and ET7 comes to 1000km.
WeLion New Energy is the only industrialization platform for solid-state battery technology in the Clean Energy Laboratory of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and it is also the first batch of the Chinese enterprises to achieve mass production of solid-state batteries. As early as August last year, WeLion New Energy has built a 200 million watt-hour hybrid solid-liquid solid-state power battery demonstration production line in the solid-state battery industry demonstration base in Liyang, Jiangsu. The energy density of its solid-state battery products can reach 270Wh/kg, the rate performance can achieve 3C continuous discharge, and the maximum discharge rate can reach 7C, while maintaining good safety performance. The product is currently the first to achieve large-scale applications in industrial drones and special fields.
