WeLion reportedly expects to send NIO 150 kWh solid-state batteries at volume in Q2 2024
Days after Chinese automaker NIO showcased the massive range potential of its incoming 150 kWh solid-state batteries, their manufacturer, WeLion, shared some insight on when consumers can expect to see the technology roll out in mass quantities. This could herald a new era of EV mobility of safer cars that charge faster and drive farther.
Solid-state batteries remain the holy grail for OEMs as their non-volatile, lightweight, and energy-dense properties offer the performance spec consumers have long sought in their decision to ditch gas-powered vehicles once and for all.
While solid-state technology already exists and continues to evolve amongst several battery developers, the ability to scale and reach cost parity with traditional lithium-ion cells remains a massive hurdle.
Chinese OEMs are paving the way by introducing the first passenger EV models to feature the tech. For example, some vehicles with semi-solid-state cells are already for sale overseas, but we have yet to see the full potential of solid electrolyte batteries on the consumer market.
NIO ($NIO) hopes to change that with its EVs, particularly its ET7 sedan. When the flagship EV was first introduced in early 2021, NIO also unveiled a 150 kWh packed equipped with solid-state batteries from Beijing WeLion New Energy Technology, better known as WeLion.
However, the public saw few updates on the progress of the potentially revolutionary battery technology until this past May, when a filing with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology revealed that two NIO SUVs and one sedan would receive battery upgrades using cells from WeLion. By the end of June, WeLion held a ceremony with NIO to commemorate the progress of the potentially revolutionary battery technology.
Earlier this week, NIO founder, chairman, and CEO William Li took an ET7 equipped with WeLion’s solid-state batteries out for a range test and successfully drove 1,044 km (650 mi) with 3% battery remaining.
Now that we’ve seen the range potential of the solid-state packs in real-world driving situations, WeLion has shared that it expects to begin mass production of the packs next year.
NIO may be first to offer EV lineup with solid-state batteries
According to a report from Chinese media outlet Jiemian, WeLion has made plenty of progress on its 360 Wh/kg solid-state batteries for NIO and is planning to deliver them in mass quantities by April 2024. Per WeLion:
The company expects to supply semi-solid-state batteries to Weilai (NIO) in bulk in April next year. The specific scale will be determined based on Weilai’s needs, and it should be a gradual climb.
NIO will use the solid-state batteries in a cell-to-pack (CTP) design that removes the need for modules, thus further increasing energy density and, as a result, all-electric range. While we’ve already seen the technology propel NIO’s ET7 sedan, we should expect to see solid-state batteries in plenty more of its current and upcoming models.
As we reported back in October, NIO’s initial tests with WeLion’s energy-dense cells led the automaker to file plans to expand the battery upgrades to 11 additional EV models. This Saturday during its annual NIO Day event, the automaker will unveil its most premium model to date – an executive flagship sedan called the ET9. No word yet on whether that EV will offer the solid-state CTP technology, but it would make sense given the sedan is expected to debut as NIO’s most technologically advanced offering to date.
We will learn more as we venture into 2024 and approach WeLion’s Q2 mass production target.
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Environment
Elon Musk Tapped to Lead New ‘DOGE’ Department—Despite the Government Already Having One for Efficiency
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is to officially join Trump’s administration as the co-head of the new US Department of Government Efficiency – a second federal department with the goal of making government spending more efficient.
You can’t get more ironic than that.
Throughout the elections, Musk, who is already CEO of Tesla, and SpaceX, a well as the defacto head of X, xAI, Neuralink, and the Boring Company, has been floating the idea to add to his workload by joining the Trump’s administration to lead a new department aimed at making the federal government more efficient.
He has been calling it the “Department of Government Efficiency”, which spells out ‘DOGE’, a meme that Musk appears to enjoy.
Well, now Trump appears to want to be going through with this idea.
He announced the new department and Musk as head, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, in a statement today:
I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”). Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the “Save America” Movement. “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” stated Mr. Musk.
What’s most ironic is that there’s already a federal department with the goal of cutting government waste and ensuring efficiency: the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO’s main objectives are:
- auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively;
- investigating allegations of illegal and improper activities;
- reporting on how well government programs and policies are meeting their objectives;
- performing policy analyses and outlining options for congressional consideration;
- issuing legal decisions and opinions;
- advising Congress and the heads of executive agencies about ways to make government more efficient and effective
It sounds similar to what Musk described when talking about his DOGE, but Trump hasn’t gone into many details other than it will “cut waste.”
He also has a confusing message as he compares the initiative, which is supposed to cut government spending, to “The Manhattan project”, a massive and expensive government project.
Trump said that DOGE will help the government “drive large scale structural reform”:
It will become, potentially, “The Manhattan Project” of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of “DOGE” for a very long time. To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.
The statement also noted that DOGE will only operate until July 4, 2026.
Musk has previously claimed that he could cut at least $2 trillion dollars of the $6.5 trillion dollar US federal budget.
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A pump jack in Midland, Texas, US, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.
Anthony Prieto | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Oil prices may see a drastic fall in the event that oil alliance OPEC+ unwinds its existing output cuts, said market watchers who are predicting a bearish year ahead for crude.
“There is more fear about 2025’s oil prices than there has been since years — any year I can remember, since the Arab Spring,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS, an oil price reporting agency.
“You could get down to $30 or $40 a barrel if OPEC unwound and didn’t have any kind of real agreement to rein in production. They’ve seen their market share really dwindle through the years,” Kloza added.
A decline to $40 a barrel would mean around a 40% erasure of current crude prices. Global benchmark Brent is currently trading at $72 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures are around $68 per barrel.
Oil prices year-to-date
Given that oil demand growth next year probably won’t be much more than 1 million barrels a day, a full unwinding of OPEC+ supply cuts in 2025 would “undoubtedly see a very steep slide in crude prices, possibly toward $40 a barrel,” Henning Gloystein, head of energy, climate and resources at Eurasia Group, told CNBC.
Similarly, MST Marquee’s senior energy analyst Saul Kavonic posited that should OPEC+ unwind cuts without regard to demand, it would “effectively amount to a price war over market share that could send oil to lows not seen since Covid.”
However, the alliance is more likely to opt for a gradual unwinding early next year, compared to a full scale and immediate one, the analysts said.
Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double.
Martoccia Francesco
Energy strategist at Citi
The oil cartel has been exercising discipline in maintaining its voluntary output cuts, to the point of extending them.
In September, OPEC+ postponed plans to begin gradually rolling back on the 2.2 million barrels per day of voluntary cuts by two months in an effort to stem the slide of oil prices. The 2.2 million bpd cut, which was implemented over the second and third quarters, had been due to expire at the end of September.
At the start of this month, the oil cartel again decided to delay the planned oil output increase by another month to the end of December.
Oil prices have been weighed by a sluggish post-Covid recovery in demand from China, the world’s second-largest economy and leading crude oil importer. In its monthly report released Tuesday, OPEC lowered its 2025 global oil demand growth forecast from 1.6 million barrels per day to 1.5 million barrels per day.
The pressured prices were also conflagrated by a perceivably oversupplied market, especially as key oil producers outside the OPEC alliance like the U.S., Canada, Guyana and Brazil are also planning to add supply, Gloystein highlighted.
Bearish year ahead for oil
The market consensus is that there’ll be a “substantial” oil stock build next year, said Citibank energy strategist Martoccia Francesco.
“Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double… reaching as much as 1.6 million barrels per day,” said Francesco.
Even if OPEC+ doesn’t unwind the cuts, the future ofl prices is still looking break. Citi analysts expect Brent price to average $60 per barrel next year.
Further fueling the bearish outlook is the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, whose return is associated by some with a potential trade war, said analysts who spoke to CNBC.
“If we do get a trade war — and a lot of economists think that a trade war is possible, and particularly against China — we could see much, much lower prices,” said OPIS’ Kloza.
Trump has also touted a “drill baby drill” policy for U.S. producers, vowing to cut energy prices in half.
For that to happen to retail gasoline prices, oil would need to drop to “below $40” per barrel, said Matt Smith, Kpler’s lead oil analyst.
Right now, retail gasoline prices are at a “sweet spot” at $3 per gallon, where consumers do not feel the pinch and input prices are still sufficiently high for producers, Smith added.
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