On August 25th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced 336 batches of “Announcement of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products”. Among the announcements, Roewe has two new cars, one Ei5 and one ER6. The appearance of Ei5 has not changed, while ER6 is a new car from Roewe. The NEDC range for ER6 is up to 620 km, and its price is below 200,000 RMB. The key point is that the official product name for both cars is “Battery-Swappable Pure Electric Vehicle Sedan”.
During the Roewe Three-electricity Sharing Meeting, Zhu Jun, Vice Chief Engineer of SAIC Motor Corporation Ltd., Deputy Director of SAIC Technology Center, and General Manager of Jieneng Company revealed that the battery pack size of the E1 phase is the same, and only the number of modules or cell types are adjusted according to demand.
In other words, one battery pack supports multiple capacities, which also lays the foundation for battery swapping.
In addition, SAIC has also adapted the software according to different battery capacities. Therefore, if the user buys a car with a small battery version, it is possible to upgrade to a large battery by swapping. Both hardware and software are supported.
However, it should be clear that this battery swapping is not as fast as NIO’s. It is expected to be available at service centers.
Moreover, an insider from SAIC has previously revealed that the Shanghai municipal government hopes that they can do battery swapping for online ride-hailing and taxi services. It is worth paying attention to how SAIC will do it in the future.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.