Chinese Brand Nio Claims 649 Miles on Single Charge

Chinese battery-swap brand Nio claims it has completed a real-world 649-mile (1,045-km) drive on a single charge albeit in a very relaxed tour.

That’s because the performance Nio ET7 sedan, capable of a 0-to-62 mph (100 km/h) sprint time of 3.8 seconds, took a full 14 hours to complete the journey at a leisurely power-saving average speed of just 46 mph (74 km).

Nio founder, Chairman and CEO William Li says he completed the trip, using the car housing the latest Ultra Long Range 150-kWh battery pack, from Shanghai to Xiamen, a city on the southeast coast of China. Despite chilly winter temperatures, he claims to have arrived with 3% of the battery still charged. Li shared the driving with fellow Nio executive Fei Shen and Chenxia Huang, general manager of Tencent News.

The battery used is compatible with Nio’s whole range of cars and currently is available for users of its Battery-as-a-Service subscription model which claims to allow drivers to choose different battery capacity during each stop to suit charging requirements.

Its 150-kWh battery pack also claims to be the world's first pouch-format-cell CTP pack with no thermal propagation design and a cell energy density of up to 360 Wh/kg, the highest capacity and energy density for mass-produced production car battery packs in China.

To date, the automaker claims to have installed 2,322 Power Swap Stations mostly in China but also 33 in Europe including the latest opened in Amsterdam. CEO Li says: “The completion of this range test marks the range of smart EVs going beyond 1,000 kilometers, which will further promote the transformation of the automotive industry from the consumption of gasoline to electricity.”