Hot on the heels of the new Nio ES6 (EL5 in Europe) being unveiled, it has been revealed that the electric SUV will be the brand’s first model to be offered with a solid-state battery pack.
The Chinese company has been working on a solid-state battery pack for quite some time and unveiled a prototype of this pack back in January 2021. The large pack offers 150 kWh of capacity and has solid-state cells configured in the same way as Nio’s current lithium-ion cells. The battery is supplied by WeLion and the updated user manual in the ES6 offers us some new details about the battery.
Read: New Nio EL6 Electric SUV Comes To Europe With 438HP And Swappable Batteries
For starters, CNEVPost has revealed that the pack weighs 575 kg (1,267 lbs). While that sounds like a lot, it is only 20 kg (44 lbs) heavier than Nio’s existing 100 kWh lithium-ion pack sourced from CATL. It has also been revealed the new pack has an energy density of 261 Wh/kg, some 44.4% greater than the 180 Wh/kg of the 100 kWh pack. Making this pack all the more impressive is that it is identical in length (2,062 mm), width (1,539 mm), and height (185.6 mm) to the 100 kWh pack. It consists of a total of 384 cells compared to the 96 cells of the CATL-sourced pack.
The founder, chairman, and chief executive of Nio, William Li, confirmed in May that the solid-state battery will reach the market in July. The ES6 with the new battery pack is said to offer an incredible 930 km (578 miles) of driving range. WeLion started deliveries of the pack to Nio at the end of June.
It is not yet clear how much ES6 customers will have to pay for the new 150 kWh battery. While speaking with investors earlier this year, Nio co-founder and president Qin Lihong said the pack will cost about as much as an ET5 sedan (~$48,000) but noted it will initially only be available for customers to rent and not to buy outright. Nio had intended on launching the new battery with the flagship ET7 sedan in the fourth quarter of 2022 but a delay pushed this back until 2023.
