- A 150 kWh pack is available via short-term rental, enabling a driving range of up to 1,055 km under CLTC conditions.
Wow, is this the first vehicle on the market to exceed 1,000 km (1 Mm) range?
Mercedes did a showcase a few years back, they built a car with 100 kWh battery and managed to drive more than 1000 km without charging. But this was not for sale.
And some of that technology will be in the new CLA, delivery beginning in the next weeks/ this summer. 792 km of (WLTP) range with a 85 kWh battery. THAT is interesting. For comparison, according to this calculator that is similar to 966 km in CLTC.
With the same 150 kWh battery the CLA could reach 1700 km in CLTC (a bit less, because the battery would be heavier, etc.). Or the other way around, the CLA would “only” need a battery of 93 kWh for the same range. Of course these are only a ballpark figure, the reality would be somewhat worse for the CLA. At least to me the CLA is still the more interesting car.
150 kWh and under CLTC. Not that impressive, except for the price.
Edit: just to be clear, reaching longer range just by installing a bigger battery is, in my opinion, pretty boring. The car industry should strive for range through higher efficiency. In terms of efficiency the Nio should be a bit worse than a Lucid Air or Mercedes EQS, both from 2021-23 I think. The Mercedes would need a little smaller battery than the Nio, the Lucid battery would be smaller still for the same range.
The price is the interesting part, the same range as a car that costs twice or more than the Nio. So, we should look how Nio reaches that price, what can western car makers copy to reach the same? Is it only cheap labour, incentives from the Chinese government or a more efficient manufacturing process, lower margins, etc?
Editedit: And the CLTC is known to result in a higher range compared to WLTP for example. So reaching 1000 km is meh.
Pay attention, the article mentions nothing about the price for the 150 kWh model. The mentioned price is for the 75 kWh model.
Oh, you’re right. I missed that, aka I read the headline and just scanned through the text.
