Smart and Sustainable Electric Mobility
NWTN will get a 27.5 percent stake in Evergrande NEV and the right to nominate a majority of the board of directors, valuing the Chinese carmaker at $1.82 billion.
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Mavel, founded in Italy in 1999, will be a supplier of core components for Nio's next-generation platform, Nio Capital said.
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HoloMatic expects its losses to narrow dramatically by 2024 and to break even by 2025, when it will apply for a stock market listing.
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Sunwoda's power battery installations in China amounted to 0.73 GWh in June, placing it at No. 6 with a 2.21 percent share.
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Talent's second phase of a 2 GWh/year plant in Chongqing is expected to be completed by the end of 2023, and a 10 GWh/year industrial park project in Anhui is under construction.
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Tianqi has acquired a 2.83 percent stake in Smart, giving the Mercedes-Geely JV a valuation of $5.3 billion.
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Voyah will raise a Series B round next and has plans for an initial public offering, its CFO said.
(A Voyah Zhuiguang on display at the Shanghai auto show. Image credit: CnEVPost)
Voyah, Dongfeng Motor's new energy vehicle (NEV) brand, has received RMB 15 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) in credit lines from six local banks, setting it up for future expansion.
Voyah held a signing ceremony for the partnerships with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of Communications, China CITIC Bank and China Merchants Bank.
Voyah will invest more in product development and marketing and launch more quality products, its CEO Lu Fang said, according to a press release.
The NEV maker has completed its Series A financing and will next raise Series B, Local media Shanghai Securities News quoted Voyah CFO Shen Jun as saying.
Voyah has plans for an initial public offering, and it will have more than 300 core employees holding shares, Shen said.
Voyah is the brand Dongfeng Motor announced in late 2020, when the first model, Voyah FREE, was also unveiled.
The Voyah FREE went on sale in China in June 2021 and is available in an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) version as well as an all-electric version, with current starting prices of RMB 333,600 to 393,600 respectively.
On May 7, 2022, Voyah's second model, the Dreamer MPV, was launched with a starting price of RMB 369,900.
In November 2022, Voyah announced the completion of RMB nearly 5 billion Series A financing, valuing it at nearly RMB 30 billion.
On April 18 of this year, Voyah launched the Zhuiguang sedan on the first day of the Shanghai auto show, offering three versions with a starting price of RMB 322,900.
Voyah has had a lukewarm sales performance over the past two years, selling 3,003 vehicles in May, bringing combined January-May sales to 12,024 units.
For comparison, Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI), which currently only offers EREVs, delivered 28,277 vehicles in May for a combined January-May total of 106,542 vehicles.
($1 = RMB 7.1631)
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NIO has acquired a 19.9 percent stake in Neo Fusion and NIO Capital has acquired a 10.1 percent stake.
(Image credit: CnEVPost)
NIO (NYSE: NIO) has invested in a new nuclear fusion startup, its second such investment in the past year or so.
The Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker has invested in nuclear fusion startup Neo Fusion and told CnEVPost that the project will be funded by multiple parties, including NIO and NIO Capital, in phases, and that it plans to attract additional strategic and financial investors to support the project's long-term development.
The investment was first reported by Reuters earlier today. NIO invested RMB 995 million ($142 million) for a 19.9 percent stake, while NIO Capital, an investment firm founded by its founder, chairman and CEO William Li, invested RMB 505 million for a 10.1 percent stake, according to the report.
The newly formed Neo Fusion will research and develop technologies aimed at making controlled fusion available for global commercial use within 20 years, the report noted.
Neo Fusion has a registered capital of 5 billion yuan and is 50 percent controlled by China's eastern province of Anhui government-owned energy companies and investment arms, according to the report.
"Fusion power is a clean and efficient energy source, and also potentially one of the ultimate clean energy solutions to sustainability, making fusion power strategically significant to carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, as well as solving the global energy crisis," NIO said in a statement sent to CnEVPost.
Staying true to the original aspiration of Blue Sky Coming, NIO aims to facilitate the R&D and commercialization of nuclear fusion technology by making financial investment into this project, so that it can play a bigger part in realizing long-term suitability and enhance its influence industry-wide, the statement said.
Notably, NIO Capital had invested in a company engaged in a similar business a year earlier.
On February 25, 2022, Energy Singularity, a startup researching nuclear fusion technology, announced the closing of a nearly RMB 400 million round of funding, its first since founding in 2021.
NIO Capital and local gaming giant miHoYo were co-leaders in the funding, with Sequoia China Seed Fund and Bluerun Ventures participating in the financing.
The funds will be used primarily to develop and build the world's first small-scale tokamak experimental device based on high-temperature superconducting materials, and to develop advanced magnet systems that can be used in the next generation of high-performance fusion devices.
($1 = RMB 7.0217)
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Smart delivered 4,390 vehicles in China in April, down 25.73 percent from 5,911 units in March.
(A Smart #1 on display at the Shanghai auto show in April 2023. Image credit: CnEVPost)
Chinese lithium giant Tianqi Lithium is considering buying a minority stake in Smart Automobile, a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and Geely Holding Group, as part of the latter's latest round of private funding, Bloomberg said today, citing people familiar with the matter.
Tianqi is in advanced talks to invest $100 million to $200 million in Smart in a deal that could value Smart at several billion dollars, people familiar with the matter said, adding that an agreement could be reached as soon as the next few weeks.
Shenzhen-listed Tianqi, one of China's largest lithium producers, raised about HK$13 billion in a Hong Kong IPO on July 13, 2022.
Mercedes first launched Smart in Germany in 1998 and brought the brand to the US a decade later, with the original two-seat model aimed at urban buyers with crowded parking spaces, the Bloomberg report noted.
Geely and Mercedes-Benz officially announced a 5.4 billion yuan ($783 million) Smart joint venture in Hangzhou Bay, Ningbo, in early 2020.
As part of the agreement, Mercedes-Benz designers will design the Smart cars and Geely will engineer them.
Smart has been considering raising capital as part of its effort to revive the compact car as an all-electric brand. The company was initially aiming to raise between $500 million and $1 billion in fresh funds, according to a Bloomberg report last year.
Smart delivered 4,390 vehicles in China in April, down 25.73 percent from 5,911 units in March, according to data monitored by CnEVPost.
The brand currently has only one model on sale in China, the Smart #1, which went on sale in China on April 25, 2022, with deliveries starting on September 24.
The model was designed by Mercedes-Benz, with the Smart R&D team leading the engineering development, and is based on Geely's SEA (Sustainable Experience Architecture) architecture.
On April 17, Smart unveiled its new Smart #3, its second product since its electrification transition, on the eve of the Shanghai auto show.
($1 = RMB 6.8964)
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Qingchun was founded in March 2021, and the core team members have been involved in SiC semiconductor technology for over 20 years, according to NIO Capital.
(Image credit: NIO Capital)
NIO Capital has invested in a local Chinese silicon carbide (SiC) chip maker as it continues to expand its investments in the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry chain.
The company recently co-led a several hundred million yuan Series A+ round of financing for Qingchun Semiconductor (or SICHAIN), which will be used to improve the SiC chip maker's supply chain layout, expand its team and build mass production labs, according to a press release today.
Founded in March 2021, Qingchun's core team members have been involved in SiC semiconductor technology for more than 20 years and are one of the few companies in China currently capable of achieving world-class performance and reliability of SiC devices, according to NIO Capital.
The SiC chip maker is also one of the companies able to mass produce automotive SiC MOSFETs based on its production line in China, and its products have been used in new energy power generation and NEVs, according to the release.
Since its inception, Qingchun has made a series of significant advances in SiC device technology and product development, including the maturation of its 1200V SiC MOSFET platform technology and the mass production of multiple products.
The company launched the first 15V drive SiC MOSFET to be mass-produced in China, shipping nearly one million units to various industries, particularly photovoltaics and energy storage, according to the release.
Qingchun also launched the 1200V 14mΩ SiC MOSFET, which has the lowest on-resistance and is currently being validated by several vehicle companies, according to NIO Capital.
The SiC market is spacious and growing fast, with a wide range of application scenarios in areas such as NEVs, and Qingchun is one of the best startups in China for that, said Ian Zhu, managing partner of NIO Capital.
Earlier today, Geely's electric vehicle brand Zeekr announced a long-term supply agreement with US chip maker Onsemi involving silicon carbide power devices.
Zeekr will use Onsemi's M3E 1200V EliteSiC MOSFET products to complement its expanding lineup of high-performance all-electric models, according to a press release.
The SiC module is an upgrade to the IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor chip) module, a third-generation power semiconductor with higher efficiency, higher temperature resistance and higher voltage characteristics.
The module will help upgrade the electrical architecture of NEVs from 400V to 800V and enable NEVs to charge from 0 to 80 percent in 10 minutes.
NIO Capital leads latest funding round in US-based suspension startup ClearMotion
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