Tencent-backed Leading Chinese EV Maker NIO Patents Technology for Wireless Charging System, Method

Leading Chinese electric vehicle maker NIO patented a technology on July 17 for a wireless charging system for an electric vehicle, as well as the same charging method (CN111422080A), according to the Chinese enterprise information query website TianYanCha.

It is the fifth patent NIO received this month. The former four include method, system, and apparatus for monitoring short circuit of single battery in power battery (CN111413629A) patented on July 14, automatic coding method and system for CAN bus fault processing (CN107179971B) patented on July 3, and others, according to another enterprise information query website Qcc.

Qcc extracted the 2020 semi-annual patent numbers of 25 domestic new energy vehicle-related companies. According to the data, NIO ranked second in 816 patent numbers, with 281 utility models, which according to the law, provide shorter-term protection compared with other patents and are cheaper to obtain, and 535 other patents.

Pandaily reported earlier that according to the Chinese National Passenger Car Information Exchange Association (CPCA), the top ten leading domestic electric vehicle firms sold 45,795 EV Coupes, MPVs and SUVs in total in the first half of this year, accounting for 14.1% of the domestic electric vehicle total sales. NIO topped the list with its sales volume reaching 14,169, accounting for 31% of the top ten EV firms’ total sales, 4,669 more than that of second-place Li Auto.

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Founded in 2014, Shanghai-based NIO develops high-performance smart electric vehicles and successfully kicked off trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with the stock code “NIO” on September 12, 2018. The backers include Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase, Reuters reported in 2018.

On June 19, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed that China’s Tech giant Tencent, through its subsidiary Huang River Investment Ltd., bought 1.68 million American Depositary Shares (ADS) of NIO, with a total investment of $10 million.

NIO will launch its smart electric coupe, the NIO EC6 SUV, at the 2020 Chengdu Motor Show tomorrow and announce the price, according to the company’s Weibo account.