Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Nio launched a new edition of its upscale smart car, Nio 2024 ET 7, hoping to lure high-end consumers amid an escalating price war among some of the country’s top players. The Shanghai-based carmaker’s updated executive car features more powerful smart-driving capabilities, an enhanced digital cockpit, an extra-long driving range and more comfortable passenger seats, according to Founder and CEO William Li. “Through our technological innovations, the ET 7 executive car has elevated the driving and seating experience to the next level,” Li said at a launch event at the Beijing Automotive Exhibition, which began on April 25 and runs through May 4. The standard version of the new model sells for CNY428,000. Nio is currently accepting pre-orders for the vehicle. Delivery starts on April 30 in China. Li said shipments of the original ET 7, which began in late March 2022, have reached nearly 30,000, making it the top-selling all-electric car in China priced above CNY400,000.
Nio is putting a hefty price tag on its latest ET 7 model even as rivals, including BYD, the world’s largest EV marker, Tesla China and Xpeng, rush to offer additional discounts on their vehicles due to falling demand. Despite the mounting pressure, Nio has kept the price of its cars – all costing more than CNY300,000 – unchanged.
At the launch event, Li also touted the driving range of Nio’s new model, which he said is the world’s first fully electric executive car that traveled more than 1,000 kilometers in a single test drive, thanks to its 150 kilowatt-hour battery pack. Nio said it sought to address the “range anxiety” of EV drivers through a joint effort with partners, including Chang'an Automobile, Zhejiang Geely Group, JAC Group and Chery, to promote battery-swapping technologies and standards. The company’s nationwide charging network has over 2,400 power swap stations and 21,000 charging stands, according to Li. “Thanks to our power swapping system, our ET 7 driving range is even longer than fuel vehicles,” he said. Nio also unveiled the fourth version of its power swap station and liquid-cooled ultra-fast charger, which it plans to deploy soon.
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL), the world’s largest vehicle battery maker, unveiled its upgraded fast-charging, super-long range electric vehicle battery at the 2024 Beijing exhibition. The lithium iron phosphate battery (LFP), Shenxing Plus, is able to offer a driving range of 600 kilometers after a mere 10-minute charge. LFP batteries are environmentally friendlier and cheaper than the lithium-ion batteries more commonly used in EVs. The move comes just months after the company launched its fast-charging battery able to deliver a driving range of 400 km with a 10-minute charge in August.
Last week, China also introduced a new policy to encourage trade-ins of more polluting vehicles for new energy vehicles (NEVs) or fuel-efficient cars. This initiative, launched as part of an action plan to foster large-scale equipment renewal and trade-in of consumer goods, is designed to stimulate domestic consumption while advancing the country's green transition. Under the new policy, which will remain effective until December 31, 2024, China will provide a one-time fixed subsidy to consumers who scrap vehicles that meet emission standards of China III or below, or those NEVs registered before April 30, 2018. The subsidy amounts to CNY10,000 for those who replace their old cars with NEVs, and CNY7,000 for those opting for new vehicles with a displacement of 2.0 liters or less, according to the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).
It has also been reported that oil consumption in China’s transport sector will peak next year “at the latest” as rapid adoption of EVs by Chinese drivers reduces petrol consumption, according to PetroChina, the nation’s largest oil and gas producer. Overall domestic demand for oil will rise only 1% year-on-year in 2024 to 764 million tons, compared with 11% in 2023. Although oil consumption will continue to grow in other sectors such as petrochemicals, the oil industry has to seek new business models and breakthroughs amid the global clean-energy transition, said Wu Mouyuan, Vice President of the CNPC Economics & Technology Research Institute (ETRI), a research arm of the parent company of PetroChina. “From 2031 to 2050, oil will no longer be consumed as a transportation fuel, but converted into a feedstock for chemical production,” he said in Hong Kong. China’s consumption of oil will continue to decline after 2031, to 200 to 250 million tons per year after 2050, as the country strides towards nationwide net-zero carbon emissions by 2060, he estimated.
This overview is based on reports by the China Daily, the Global Times and the South China Morning Post.
