Battery leasing has often been proposed as a way to bring down the up-front cost of an EV, and to allay consumers’ fears about battery degradation. Chinese EV-maker NIO has embraced this concept, and launched Battery as a Service (BaaS) for customers in China. NIO BaaS users can purchase a car without owning the battery,… Read more »
The transport treehouse podcast is a good place to hear some of the world’s top EV experts talk about trends in the industry. Hosts Chelsea Sexton and Russell Frost are two of the most experienced EV journalists out there, and they have an ongoing stream of guests who have expertise in various aspects of the… Read more »
Global interest in plug-in vehicles continues to grow, but Big Auto continues to take only timid and halting steps toward electrification. This presents opportunities for bold new competitors to establish footholds in the auto market of the future. A new report from Guidehouse Insights identifies some of the “leading EV upstarts.” Guidehouse notes that momentum… Read more »
Remember battery swapping? Following Tesla’s abandonment of the concept, and the spectacular rise and fall of Better Place, most in the EV industry probably wrote it off as a failed transitional technology. However, over in China, NIO has been diligently improving its battery swapping technology. The company introduced its Power Swap system in December 2017,… Read more »
Chinese EV maker NIO plans to reduce its workforce by at least 1,200 by the end of September, CEO Li Bin revealed in an internal e-mail (as reported by Gasgoo). Bin said NIO will retain roughly 7,500 staff after the cut. The layoffs are part of the company’s recent efforts to control cost, improve operation… Read more »
China has announced substantial cuts to existing subsidies for EV purchases. The subsidy for pure EVs with ranges of 400 kilometers (250 miles) and above will be halved, to 25,000 yuan ($3,700) per vehicle, the Chinese Ministry of Finance said (via Bloomberg). The minimum range to qualify for any subsidy will also be raised from… Read more »
China is by far the world’s largest EV market – nearly 373,000 plug-in passenger cars were sold there in the first half of this year (according to EV Volumes). It’s widely believed that Chinese automakers hope to ride the electrification wave to the top of the global industry, but so far the only Chinese company… Read more »
NIO, the Chinese EV startup backed by Tencent Holdings, has filed for a US initial public offering, Bloomberg reports. The Shanghai-based carmaker NIO (formerly known as NextEV) has submitted an initial confidential filing with the SEC, according to unnamed sources. The share sale, which could raise as much as $2 billion, is expected to take… Read more »
Chinese EV startup Nio, formerly known as NextEV, has raised more than $1 billion in its latest fundraising round, led by existing investor Tencent Holdings, bringing the firm’s valuation to about $5 billion, Reuters reports. Nio, which was founded by Chinese internet entrepreneur William Li in 2014, plans to launch its first production car –… Read more »