NIO CEO cites Tesla’s warm welcome in China as it demands equal access from US gov’t
As an American automaker, Tesla continues to grow its production footprint (and sales sheet) in China, but the same opportunities are not currently available to Chinese EV automakers, like NIO, hoping to enter the US market. NIO CEO William Li hopes that will soon change as both he and Elon Musk stress the need for improved relations between the US and China.
Earlier this summer, Elon Musk visited China, where he was welcomed by Foreign Ministers who rolled out a Tesla red carpet to the CEO as his American company continues on pace to deliver record-setting sales overseas.
Tesla’s Gigafactory Shanghai continues to pump out EVs for the local market, which are now also being shipped to Canada, meaning Tesla electric vehicles built in China have made their way into the North American market. So why not NIO’s ET5 or XPeng’s upcoming G6? I test-drove the BYD Han in California, but that Chinese EV is not sold in the US.
While Chinese automakers continue to expand to new markets in Europe, several, including NIO, haven’t broken their gaze from the prospect of one day selling their EVs in the US. So far, however, it’s been a one-way door. That’s because the cover charge to get into the US EV market comes in the form of astronomically high tariffs that inhibit new entrants because they simply don’t make sense from a business perspective.
NIO’s CEO, William Li, has taken note of this unequal treatment across two extremely prominent automotive markets and is demanding change so US consumers can benefit from the advanced and innovative technology Chinese electric vehicles can offer.
NIO’s plans for US sales in limbo until the gov’t eases up
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, the NIO founder and CEO called on the US government to offer Chinese automakers equal access to its market – similar to China’s sales of Tesla EVs as well as countless joint ventures with American and European OEMs.
As we’ve noted numerous times in the past, the Chinese automotive market is the largest in the world and is easily the most saturated. There are over 600 startups in China specializing in EVs alone, joining an already crowded market of conglomerates like Geely, SAIC, and GAC, which each have their own arsenal of sub-brands selling vehicles.
This ultra-competitive market has been stoked by Tesla, who significantly slashed its prices earlier this year, igniting a price war that inevitably caused the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) to step in and demand a market-wide cooling off of price cuts between competitors, followed by a pledge that was quickly retracted as it flirted with violating Chinese anti-monopoly laws.
As a result, expansion to new markets is crucial to the survival of Chinese companies like NIO and XPeng (which are still startups, after all), hence why the US protectionism Li mentions is so frustrating, arguing that automakers should not be punished for political tensions amongst competitive countries. Per the interview:
The world should be more open and stop politicizing business. The global political climate has become totally different from that when we set up our company back in 2015, especially after the pandemic stirred up division and antagonism.
Li also made a point to say that three-quarters of NIO’s investors come from outside of China, and the automaker is currently listed on the New York Stock Exchange ($NIO), despite not selling its EVs in the US. NIO currently has a US headquarters on the West Coast – a footprint we’ve kept a close watch on as we’ve anticipated entry into the North American market – but it appears we will still have to wait until the US government eases its tariff on Chinese EVs.
New qualifying terms for federal tax credits outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act don’t make things any easier for automakers importing EVs into the US – another reason we may not see NIO hit its original target of selling EVs in North America by 2023.
NIO reported a net loss of almost $700 million in Q1 of 2023 but recently got some breathing room thanks to a $740 million investment from the Abu Dhabi government. To do what? Expand its EV business to new international markets, of course!
For now, NIO’s CEO said the company will focus its efforts on Europe and will continue to monitor developments in the US before making any further decisions about expansion.
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After years of waiting and many false starts, Formula E is finally going to debut its mid-race charging system, which will give cars a quick boost of energy charging at a rate much faster than current road cars can.
For years now, we’ve been hearing about FIA plans to introduce charging stops to electric racing.
In gas car racing, some series allow mid-race fueling and some don’t. The World Endurance Championship, which runs the 24 Hours of Le Mans, obviously needs to fill up several times during the race. But Formula 1, which hosts shorter races, eliminated mid-race fueling in 2010.
Plans to bring mid-race charging to Formula E started in 2021, when the FIA started kicking around plans for an Electric GT racing series with 700kW charging.
But the FIA already had one electric racing series, Formula E, which had debuted in 2014. At the time, each driver had two cars, and would swap mid-race to a fresh car with new batteries.
Battery-swapping had been considered, but it would be too complicated to set up at temporary race facilities in city downtown areas, as many Formula E tracks are.
Then, in 2018, Formula E debuted a new “Gen 2” car which had a big enough battery not to need a charge mid-race, and later a “Gen 3” car in 2022, which had much stronger regenerative braking, capable of 600kW of braking power. Gen 3 also has an “Attack Mode” feature that lets cars unlock additional power for a short period each race, adding to strategy and mixing up the race order.
That 600kW charging ability could also be used for mid-race charging, so Formula E said that it was working on a system to allow for this. It announced that mid-race charging would come at some point in the 2023 season, but then pushed back those plans until 2024, and pushed them back again, this time with an uncertain date.
The issues involved building the charging system in temporary facilities and ensuring safety of the system (and of pit stops in general, which is always a concern when cars are driving rapidly near people). But after winter testing prior to this season, Formula E now says the system is ready to go.
So, once again, Formula E is ready to announce that mid-race charging is definitely, totally, positively, 100% certain at the upcoming Jeddah E-Prix, on February 14-15 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Formula E thinks that proving this high-power charging technology could help road cars to charge more quickly, which could have myriad benefits for electric cars in general.
The series is calling the system “Pit Boost,” and it will consist of a 34-second pit stop that provides around 10% additional charge to the cars (about 4kWh). While 10% isn’t a lot, 34 seconds is also not a lot of time. For comparison, one of the fastest-charging cars out there, the Ioniq 5, can charge from 10-80% in 18 minutes, which means 10% charge takes 2.5 minutes – five times as long as Formula E cars will manage the feat.
The stop will be mandatory for all drivers to take at some point in the race, and will mean new strategy options for drivers. Taking the stop means getting more energy, which means that your car won’t have to do as much energy saving to get to the end of the race – but it also means giving up your position on track, which can be hard to get back if you do it late in the race.
However, we’ve never seen it happen before, so it will be interesting to see what kind of strategic options develop.
If you’re interested in seeing how it turns out, tune in to the Jeddah E-Prix on February 14-15 to see what happens. It’s a doubleheader race weekend, with night races both on Saturday and Sunday, February 14-15, at 5pm UTC, 9am PST, 12pm EST, and 8pm local time. You can check out how to watch the race in your area by going to Formula E’s “Ways to Watch” section. In the US, Roku should be the most reliable way to watch.
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JackRabbit, the maker of pint-sized electric microbikes, is back with a new product designed to quickly recharge their batteries from pure, uncut photons mainlined into an e-bike directly from the sun. In true independent charging form, the Solar Charging Kit from JackRabbit keeps riders rolling even when there’s not a convenient AC outlet in sight.
Unveiled this week, the Solar Charging Kit consists of a single folding solar panel and a tiny voltage converter that is configured to output 42.0V, which is the exact voltage required by JackRabbit’s little e-bike batteries. There’s also an added USB-A and a USB-C charging port for powering other devices in addition to charging JackRabbit batteries.
“This Solar Charging Kit plugs directly into your bike,” explained the company, “letting you recharge without needing an outlet, but with a speed comparable to the charger that comes with the OG/OG2 (42V, 2A).”
That would mean the panel outputs around 80W of solar power, which the company says can recharge its batteries in just three hours. That fairly quick recharging speed is helped by the fact that JackRabbit’s batteries are a mere 151 Wh, or around a third of the size of most e-bike batteries.
If that sounds small, then you’re right – it is. But JackRabbit is all about going micro, offering barely 25 lb rideables that are easy to store and bring on adventures, even when they aren’t actually being ridden.
With small batteries that fit under the 160Wh limit for many airlines in the US, the batteries can be quickly charged and taken to the widest number of locations. And for riders that want to go further than a single 10-mile (16-km) battery will allow, extra batteries are small enough to fit a pants pocket. The company also offers much larger Rangebuster batteries, though they won’t pass by TSA and make it onto an airplane in your personal item.
It sounds like the Solar Chargking Kit should be able to charge up JackRabbit’s large RangeBuster batteries, though likely in more than three hours.
The $349 Solar Charging Kit is a bit pricier than building something similar yourself, but it’s also safer and more convenient than hacking together your own battery charger since it’s designed to work with JackRabbit’s batteries right out of the box.
Technically it’s only inteded for JackRabbit’s micro e-bikes (themselves technically seated scooters, even if they look and feel more like a typical bike), but it’d probably work for just about any 36V e-bike that requires 42.0V to charge.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen solar charging kits for electric bikes, and it’s a trend that is certainly appreciated by outdoors and camping enthusiasts, festival goers, or anyone who finds themself and their bike spending extended periods in the great, sunny outdoors.
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