Zeekr begins production of the 009 in Ningbo city
Geely’s Premium electric brand Zeekr has begun serial production of its second model. The electric van Zeekr 009 is now rolling off production lines in the company’s plant in Hangzhou Bay, Ningbo city in the east Chinese province of Zhejiang. Deliveries should start shortly.
The Zeekr 009 is an electric van built on Zeekr’s SEA (Sustainable Experience Architecture), as is the company’s first electric car, the 001. The order books were opened in China for the 009 electric van in November 2022. Just like the 001, the 009 has a 400 kW 4WD and two battery options, 116 or 140 kWh capacity (in the 001 it is 86 or 100 kWh). Depending on the battery, the manufacturer puts the maximum range of the new model at 702 or 822 kilometres according to Chinese standards. Peak torque is given as 686 Nm, acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h as 4.5 seconds.
Zeekr is the first electric car manufacturer to use CATL’s latest cell-to-pack battery technology Qilin batteries, which was unveiled in June 2022. The 009 will use Qilin batteries from the start and the 001 with the new 2023 model year although initially only in a special model limited to 1,000 units. Deliveries of the Zeekr 001 began in October 2021, while the 009 will soon be delivered to customers, without the company publically revealing a specific date. Earlier announcements by the manufacturer said deliveries were scheduled for the first quarter of 2023.
The first ZEEKR 009 rolled off the production line🎉 pic.twitter.com/xCq2Y3uhiR
— Geely Group (@GeelyGroup) January 9, 2023
Both the 009 and the 2023 versions of the 001 will feature the Qilin battery in the 140 kWh variant. With the third generation of CtP technology, CATL claims to have set a record for volume-based usage efficiency at over 72 per cent. With the first generation of cell-to-pack technology (CtP), this was still at 50 per cent. With an energy density of 200 Wh/kg, Zeekr is still not fully exploiting the Qilin battery technology. When the new technology was announced in the summer, CATL stated performance of up to 255 Wh/kg with NMC cells and up to 160 Wh/kg with LFP cells.
For the 009 Zeekr revealed details in November about the sensor and IT equipment, which is particularly popular in China. Here, seven cameras, four 360-degree cameras and 13 radars are installed in the model. The information is processed by two 7-nanometre chips. As a price for the top model with 140 kWh, Zeekr mentions a minimum of 588,000 yuan, which is equivalent to about 81,800 euros. The 116 kWh version is offered for 499,000 yuan (about 69,400 euros).
In November 2022, Zeekr launched its SEA-M platform for autonomous electric vehicles. The SEA-M is an evolution of Geely’s Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA) for autonomous vehicles. The first representative of the new SEA-M vehicle type is the Zeekr M-Vision.
