Nio's in-house electric drive has won one of China's top automotive engineering awards. On Oct. 28, a project led by Nio with Tongji University, Harbin University of Science and Technology and Baoshan Iron & Steel won first prize at the China Society of Automotive Engineers (China-SAE) Science and Technology Awards. China Daily says it was chosen from more than 200 entries.
The numbers
- Motor power density: 19.06 kW/kg
- Controller power density: 226.92 kW/L
- Peak boost-charging power, using the drive hardware: 202.78 kW
CarNewsChina cautions that these figures are for separate components and shouldn't be compared directly with ratings for complete drive units that include the gearbox, differential, inverter and housing.
How it works
Instead of hairpin windings made from many welded copper segments, Nio's "W-Pin" design forms continuous rectangular copper conductors into the stator. CarNewsChina reports that the process uses 12 flat copper wires, each five metres long, formed into 24 bends. It holds the insulation layer to 0.14 mm and assembly tolerances to within 0.02 mm. The drive also reuses its hardware to boost voltage when charging.
In production
The drive entered mass production in December 2024 and is used in several Nio models and in Onvo's L90 and L80. China Daily says production has reached the million-unit scale and that the drive and the cars are built in Hefei. It adds that Nio holds 146 granted patents in electric-drive technology.