NIO Unveils Patent for Cylindrical Batteries
An Anhui subsidiary of Shanghai-based new energy vehicle firm NIO released a patent regarding a “cylindrical battery” on Tuesday. According to public information, this patent is expected to solve the problem of a low utilization rate in the effective height of a battery cell, caused by the fact that the existing cylindrical batteries mostly have pole ears at both ends.
The patent abstract shows that the cylindrical battery of the invention comprises a shell, a positive pole, and a core winding assembly installed in the shell with the positive ear and the negative ear arranged on the same side, thus increasing the effective space utilization rate of the battery cell, reducing manufacturing difficulty and improving production efficiency. The positive and negative ears are arranged in a multi-ring distribution to optimize the distribution of the pole ears and reduce the internal resistance of the battery cell.
NIO disclosed its financial report for the first quarter of 2022 on June 9. According to the document, NIO has been continuously increasing its investment in power battery-related fields. At present, the firm has a battery-related team composed of more than 400 employees, deeply involved in the R&D of battery materials, battery cell and whole package design, battery management system as well as the manufacturing process. It has comprehensively established and enhanced the systematic R&D and industrialization capabilities of batteries, and has established advantages in terms of cost, performance and safety. From a long-term perspective, NIO has adopted the manufacturing strategy of “self-made + outsourcing,” which may effectively improve its future profitability.
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In addition, NIO said that it will launch a new 800V high-voltage platform battery pack in 2024. According to industry insiders, when the battery voltage is increased to 800V, it is equivalent to a great increase in charging power, as it can greatly shorten the charging time of the battery, thus realizing fast charging in the true sense and relieving user anxiety to supplement energy and improve service quality.
In addition to power batteries, NIO has full-stack self-developed technologies. The firm will continue to promote other self-developed technologies, including electric drive, power battery swap, NIO autonomous driving (NAD) and so on. Since the delivery of the ET7 model, the company has enabled NT2.0 to achieve rapid iterative upgrades through the software and hardware platform, full-stack self-developed algorithm, end-to-end data closed loop and operation capability, and introduced more than 200 new functions, doubling the performance index of assisted driving compared with the first generation technology.
