- A Nio owner tested out the startup automaker's new 150-kilowatt-hour "semi-solid state" battery pack.
- He managed to travel 554 miles before needing to recharge.
- It's a testament to the power of battery swapping and Nio's new, denser battery chemistry.
You’ve likely heard that China is way ahead of the rest of the world on electric vehicles. EVs there are cheap, popular, high-tech and constantly evolving. One part of China’s EV landscape that doesn’t get as much airtime is battery swapping. One Nio owner’s epic road trip across China suggests we should all pay a little more attention.
Nio, a Chinese EV startup, is the primary player in the country’s battery-swap arena. Owners of Nio’s EVs can avoid long, boring charging stops by simply replacing their dead EV battery with a fresh one at any of the company’s thousands of “Power Swap” locations. Better yet, Nio owners can now select a positively massive, 150-kilowatt-hour battery pack when they need as much range as possible. That’s what we’re digging into today.
Thanks to one intrepid Nio owner who documented his experience online, we know how much range that enormous 150-kWh battery provides. A YouTuber named Ran swapped the new pack into his Nio ET5 sedan and set off on a 100%-0% range test. He managed to travel a distance that puts most U.S.-market EVs to shame.
First off, you should know that a 150-kWh battery is huge. Really huge. Here in the U.S., we see packs that big (or bigger) only in the beefiest electric SUVs and pickup trucks. And even in those kinds of vehicles, huge battery packs yield 300 or 400 miles of range because they need to lug around so much metal. Sticking one into one of Nio’s sleek, modestly sized sedans or crossovers should yield much more driving range. And that’s what Ran found out.
Another key detail is that the 150-kWh pack uses what's known as semi-solid-state technology, which helps with energy density. Full solid-state batteries promise to vastly improve safety, energy density and charging speeds over current-generation lithium-ion batteries by replacing liquid electrolytes with a solid material like ceramic. They're widely seen as the holy grail of EV battery tech, but they're still in development. Semi-solid-state tech—which use hybrid of liquid and solid electrolytes—offers some of the same benefits.
The 150-kWh pack became available to rent from Power Swap stations on June 1, and Ran said it wasn’t easy to find one nearby. But he managed to reserve one, headed to the station and swapped out his ET5’s 75-kWh pack for the bigger one. He arrived with a 42% state of charge and an estimated 239 km (148.5 miles) of range. Minutes later, post-swap, his car projected a whopping 981 km (609 miles) at a 93% charge.
Any EV owner who’s waited at a charger for 30 or 40 minutes just to get to an 80% charge knows how awesome that sounds.
On the first day of his trip, Ran covered 398.4 miles and arrived at his hotel with a healthy 21% charge remaining. He charged up overnight to 99% and embarked on a bona-fide range test the next day. The ET5 displayed an projected total range of 1,054 km, or 655 miles.
He managed to cover 891.4 km—or 554 miles—before arriving at a swap station with the Nio displaying a 0% state of charge and 1 kilometer of remaining range. The ET5 clocked a solid efficiency 4 miles/kWh during the trip. Ran seemed disappointed in the result, which fell short of the 1,000-km range Nio advertises. Indeed, last year Nio's CEO demonstrated that an ET7 sedan equipped with the 150-kWh pack can go 1,044 km, or 648 miles.
Still, in the grand scheme of things, 554 miles of mainly highway driving is beyond excellent. The longest-range EV we get in the U.S. is the Lucid Air Grand Touring. It's rated to drive 512 miles on a charge and uses a 118-kWh pack. Most U.S.-market cars fall far short of that.
Having tons of range at one’s disposal would certainly be a welcome advancement for lots of EV drivers and buyers on the fence. After all, surveys show that worries around range and charging are keeping Americans out of EVs. What sounds even more dreamy, however, is the ability to unlock big range only when you need it. And that’s the kind of lifestyle Nio provides. Ran paid 300 RMB (around $42) to upgrade his battery pack for two days.
Realistically, many people would be served just fine by an EV with, say, 200 miles of range. Or maybe even less; the average American drives around 40 miles per day. And yet, car buyers won’t consider an EV unless it has 300 or 400 miles of range—because they might go on a long road trip someday. Of course, it makes perfect sense to want your expensive new car to do everything you want, not just 90% of it.
But those demands push EV prices upward and make the world mine more battery minerals than will practically get used on a daily basis. Still, lots of people do in fact take long road trips every once in a while—journeys that can be a pain in the ass in an EV when you consider the extra time spent charging.
All of that makes Nio’s battery-swapping system—complete with what it calls “flexible upgrades”—look like an appealing solution.
Contact the author: tim.levin@insideevs.com
