Nio introduces new battery pack combining NMC & LFP cells
The Chinese electric car manufacturer Nio is bringing a new battery pack of a special kind to its cars. The new 75-kWh battery pack contains both NMC and LFP cells. The newly designed energy storage system replaces the previously used 70-kWh battery pack with NMC cells.
Nio claims that the redesigned battery offers greater cold-weather range and more accurate state-of-charge (SoC) estimation thanks to patented technologies, while still maintaining battery performance at the same level as an NMC-only battery. The cells are integrated directly into the battery pack in the new examples according to the cell-to-pack approach without modules. The Chinese carmaker does not disclose the ratio of NMC to LFP cells.
According to a company statement, Nio electric models with the new 75 kWh battery can be ordered now and will be delivered from November. The 70-kWh version will no longer be available. The 100-kWh version will remain in its current NMC composition for the time being.
Compared to the previous 70-kWh battery with NMC chemistry, the new battery should simplify production and assembly by ten per cent and increase energy density by 14 per cent to 142 Wh/kg. To compensate for the weaknesses of LFP chemistry at lower temperatures and in SoC estimation, Nio says it has found new software and hardware solutions. Among other things, the Nio release states that it has developed a complete software and hardware system for thermal management of the standard range battery (75 kWh) “that reduces range loss at low temperatures by 25% compared to its LFP counterpart”.
A system developed by Nio to estimate the SoC is also said to ensure that estimation errors are less than 3 per cent, matching the level of pure NMC batteries.
Batteries made from different cell chemistries are still rare. However, there are several approaches that go in this direction. CATL, for example, recently demonstrated a battery system that mixes lithium and sodium-ion cells.
The portal InsideEVs speculates on this basis that Nio and CATL could have joined forces in the development of the new 75 kWh battery with NMC and LFP cells. The portal considers the fact that CATL is already Nio’s current battery supplier and that the design approach of Nio’s and CATL’s new battery developments, which can be seen in press images, is similar, to be indications of this. There is no official statement on this.
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