This January, William Li, founder of the electric vehicle company Nio, conducted a 16-hour, multiday livestream from China’s frigid northeast. On the last day of the stream, Li got behind the wheel of a Nio EC7 SUV and drove from Heihe on the Russian border, where the thermometer read a brisk -27°C, over 600 kilometers north to Mohe, where he visited some of the company’s northernmost charging stations as lows dropped to -42°C.
Li’s goal was to show that electric car owners no longer need to worry about battery life, even in some of the coldest regions on Earth. Nevertheless, he was forced to concede on stream that weather still mattered: “It’s true that an electric vehicle’s range does take quite a hit in extreme cold.”
At first glance, the stream might seem a typical marketing stunt. But it reflects a growing competition for what may be the last untapped NEV market in China: the far north.
Annual production of new energy vehicles — a category that includes both electric and hybrid vehicles — passed the 10-million mark in China last year, and NEV sales now account for more than 50% of retail sales, suggesting that NEVs have become the vehicle of choice for most consumers. But the good news for the industry has been tempered by a ferocious price war between traditional car companies such as BYD and Geely, relative newcomers like Nio, XPeng and Li Auto, and big tech crossovers like Huawei and Xiaomi. As the three camps compete for market share, they have all invariably started to set their sights northward.
What’s driving this shift? Data shows that, in the first 10 months of 2022, the market penetration rate of NEVs in Northwest China and Northeast China was 15.4% and 9.7%, respectively. That was significantly lower than the rest of the country: NEVs accounted for 28.5% of the cars on the road in East China that year and 32% of cars in South China.
Those numbers have risen in the intervening years, but the market penetration rate of NEVs in the northeastern Heilongjiang province, where Li finished his livestream, is still barely half that of the southern island province of Hainan.
Much of this gap can be explained by the very real barriers to NEV adoption posed by northern China’s cold climate. The battery performance of electric vehicles is significantly reduced at low temperatures: According to test data, at -7°C, NEVs retain only 60% of their maximum range; that falls to just 40% at -20°C. In addition to the decline in driving range, the fall-off in battery performance also results in range anxiety, as drivers worry about using too much power on heating, weakened vehicle acceleration, and soft braking. Charging also becomes more difficult in the cold.
Of course, these user frustrations mean opportunities for ambitious firms, and automakers have already begun looking for an edge over their competitors in this untapped market.
The most obvious solution lies in improving battery technology. NEVs sold in North China generally use ternary lithium batteries because of their greater resistance to low temperatures compared to their lithium iron phosphate (LFP) counterparts.
Recently developed lithium-titanate battery cells promise better results, with an operating range from -50°C all the way up to 60°C. Already, northeastern cities such as Harbin, Jinzhou, as well as the northern city of Baotou, have opted for lithium-titanate battery models when making the switch over to electric buses. China’s state-owned FAW Group has also developed a low-temperature battery suitable for use in the frigid northeast, which greatly improves the range of NEVs by improving the low-temperature capacity of the cells.
Other automakers and battery manufacturers are developing more advanced thermal management technologies that work by recycling the heat generated when the battery is discharged. Domestic battery companies have developed self-heating battery technologies that quickly charge and discharge the power cell in a short period of time, causing it to heat up and thereby minimize the effect of colder temperatures.
Another important innovation involves optimizing vehicle energy consumption and improving the efficiency of vehicle thermal management systems. For example, Huawei’s smart thermal management system features redesigned components to reduce pipeline heat loss. Luxury car brand Voyah developed an intelligent dynamic thermal management system that can adjust the vehicle’s thermal management as the environment and temperature change, ensuring performance and driving experience are unaffected even in extreme weather. Meanwhile, Geely’s smart air conditioning system adjusts in real time according to the weather outside and number of passengers, reducing energy consumption by up to 40%.
Car companies cannot solve the winter anxieties of NEV owners through a single approach. Alongside technological innovation, some brands have introduced other measures to assuage buyers experiencing range anxiety. While not initially designed to tackle problems related to low temperatures, initiatives like Nio’s automated battery swapping system, which can replace a vehicle’s battery with a fully charged one in just a couple of minutes, offer additional security.
Underlying these new technologies is a pattern of collaboration between industry, universities, and research institutes. Researchers at the Beijing Institute of Technology had successfully developed all-climate batteries as early as 2017, for example.
Then there’s the matter of government assistance. One important feature of China’s industrial ecology is the role played by government departments. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has organized vehicle manufacturers, battery companies, industry bodies, and universities to carry out technical research, accelerate the industrialization of key technologies related to all-climate batteries, and improve the driving performance of NEVs in low temperatures.
Thanks in part to these measures, the market share of NEVs in China’s northeast has been rising steadily in recent years. Take the northeastern city of Shenyang, for example. Last year, total sales of NEV passenger vehicles jumped 69% year on year, and the market penetration rate now stands at 42% — low by national standards but up from just a few years ago.
Beijing lies at a latitude of around 40°N. One-third of the world’s population lives north of this line, making the knowledge acquired from driving NEVs in the winter a matter of global importance. In this respect, the accumulation of experience by Chinese electric vehicles manufacturers may even give them a significant competitive advantage in the global market.
Translator: David Ball; editor: Wu Haiyun.
(Header image: VCG)
