NIO’s self-made batteries: recruiting high-level talents from Apple and Panasonic, 1 billion yuan a year for research and development

IT Home reported on March 3 that NIO made it clear last year that it would manufacture its own batteries. According to the latest news, NIO continues to increase its self-made batteries, spending 1 billion yuan on research and development every year, and constantly poaching people.

According to 36kr report, NIO is looking for talents for the battery project, including recruiting high-level talents from Apple and Panasonic, among which Shawn Hao, senior battery quality manager, and Zack Izaki, general manager of Panasonic Battery North America Technology, are representative. At present, these two executives have joined NIO and report to Zeng Shuxiang, vice president of NIO.

According to the report, Shawn Hao began to enter the automotive project in August 2015 and is a core figure in Apple’s automotive manufacturing engineering. He was previously responsible for battery technology management and supplier quality management for iPhone and other products.

Zack Izaki led the engineering landing of Panasonic batteries in North America, and was also a key figure who pulled Tesla out of “capacity hell” with Musk.

According to previous reports, NIO is planning to build its first battery factory in Hefei to reduce its dependence on CATL. The plant has a planned capacity of 40GWh and its cells are similar to Tesla’s 4680 and 4695 large cylindrical cells.
After production, it is expected to power about 400,000 long-range electric vehicles.

NIO added a new construction project in May last year. It plans to invest about 218 million yuan to lease an industrial plant in Anting Town, Jiading District, Shanghai for the construction of battery research and development laboratories and trial production lines. According to the latest report from 36kr, NIO has developed a prototype of a large cylindrical battery on the small trial production line in Anting, Shanghai. This experimental base covering the battery core and battery pack test line has not yet been fully completed, but key equipment manufacturers have been stationed for nearly half a year.