This New Electric Car Has No Battery and Shakes Up the Entire Car Industry

These evs are sold without a battery. If you think thats odd stay with me, the idea is that you just pay for a battery subscription and you can drive up to a station for a quick battery, swap no more plugging in your ev in a long wait time today, im talking about neo and Why tesla should be nervous now, if youre an average american consumer? You probably havent heard about neo and i dont blame you: the company isnt even 10 years old, neo, realized batteries, add significant cost to an electric vehicle and they wanted to compete with the big names in the traditional gasoline powered market. So they brainstormed how to reduce ev battery costs and heres what they came up with just removed the cost of the battery from the product completely. This would make their evs more affordable, accessible and reusable sounds like a no brainer. Only in hindsight and its really revolutionary now neo did have some home charging stations for the batteries, but very few homes in china actually had the needed infrastructure to support the installation of home charging points. Most chinese ev consumers live in super large cities, high rise condos, in other words, self installation, home charging stations, werent an attractive choice, let alone even an option. So neo decided to establish a battery swapping station and network. They call it battery as a service or boss. For short, basically, its a battery subscription plan heres how it works.

Consumers buy a new electric car, nearly eleven thousand bucks cheaper than other evs. The car is cheaper because it doesnt come with a battery inside. Instead, you pay a neil ev battery subscription plan to replace your batteries whenever needed. Imagine if you can save 11 grand on an ev and instead pay a nominal subscription fee. Youd have to worry about battery repair costs. Wouldnt you take that offer. This is a new idea for many americans, but neo has been doing it for two years already under neos boss, subscription plans, consumers pay just 12 buck monthly fee to lease a battery and as part of this special subscription, they have access to free charging and swapping Services too, as of last year, neil had executed more than 2 million battery swaps and almost 40 percent of the consumer base had converted over to the boss plan, but it gets better. The service is offered through a mobile based solution, thats connected to a network of battery swapping facilities, and the swapping process is completely automatic heres how it works. First, you drive your ev to the station from there its serviced by a car lift system that replaces the batteries automatically. Every battery pack, thats removed from the vehicle for electrical performance gets inspected by a cloud based battery management system before it gets recharged for the next drive. If any problems get identified, the battery gets taken out of circulation and sent in for repairs and battery swaps.

At these stations are fast, takes an average of three to five minutes to replace the existing battery in the vehicle with a fully charged one. Compare that to an average of 75 minutes to fully charge a supercharging station. Now, its more like pumping gas into a combustion engine car, just how large are these swapping stations anyway, neo swiping stations were as large as three hole. Parking spaces talk about picking a punch in a tiny footprint. The size of these stations makes them convenient to install in parking facilities and even in crowded public places. As of last year, neo had installed 301 battery swapping stations across china and by 2025 they plan to expand to 3 000 swapping stations globally. Did you know that these battery swaps are also cheaper than other battery alternative? 3Vs neos service offers six swaps a month for 12 monthly subscription pan six swaps will get you around 1500 miles of range. Go ahead equates to about 10 cents per mile test. The superchargers on their hand, cost you a tad more than that, and if you have problems with the battery, you have to think about those repair costs too for the battery to ensure that any new batteries can fit older cars and theyll standardize their battery sizes. That makes it possible for those batteries to become a replaceable module in a larger vehicle. As of last year, there were some seventy five thousand five hundred neo evs on the road.

Analysts estimate that the boss subscription service generated about four and a half million dollars in monthly. Recurring revenue were talking a whopping 54 million bucks a year, and this revenue is only expected to increase as neo expands. Its production. Neo was co founded in china back in 2014 by two entrepreneurs named william lee and lihong quinn, as of they have no manufacturing factories here in the us, their international business headquarters is located in shanghai, but actually neo isnt limited to just china. They have offices in places like beijing, munich, oxford, oslo and even san jose california. Some are creating the buzz that neo is chinas, answer to tussle, believe it or not. China is actually a leading car manufacturing country for years. China has been subsidizing evs and every year, evs account for a large share of new registrations in china. So how did this company go from being a small startup to becoming chinas answer to tesla? As of this year, neo has already produced over 100 000 cars in china and that milestone did not go unnoticed by the global ev community. In fact, even elon musk tweeted out as congratulations to neo for reaching that tough milestone of a hundred thousand units thats. Not all if you think a hundred thousand cars is a feat. Well, listen to this. Just this past may neo announced that they had delivered almost 205 000 vehicles globally. In fact, neo was already among the biggest car makers in the world in terms of market value.

Right now, its market caps around 34 billion dollars that puts them in a similar playing field with hyundai keo, volvo, nissan and renault. How did neo reach such high numbers in such a short period of time? Well, it has to do with their creative outside the box. Thinkings and neo is expanding first up theyre in norway. Now norway was officially the first european market to become home, to neos electric vehicles and unique charging infrastructure. This includes es8 suv and et7 salon models and, while theyre not super popular mainstream, yet they received plenty of positive reviews. The first battery swap station in norway opened this past january. The neo stations are basically identical to the ones in china. Unlike the chinese stations, they need less than five minutes to extract the depleted batteries from the eevee and install a fresh pack, thats been charged to 90. The reason they dont charge to 100 is because charging to 90 percent lengthens the life of the battery cells, each norwegian station holds 13 battery packs that are kept in temperature control conditions to keep everything optimal. You can imagine why thats important when you consider the frigid temperatures in norway, especially theyre, infinitely long and cold winters norwegian neo owners who opted to select a bus subscription and not buy the battery pack will be able to use the swapping station for two free swaps. Each month or get the equivalent kilowatt hours of charge, any additional swaps are available at an extra cost.

Currently in norway, neo is charging 10 euros per swap plus an additional 20 euro cents per kilowatt hour. Neos boss service came to norway only since past march and get this around 92 percent of norwegians who bought a neo opted for boss. This has given neo further proof of concept and now neil plans to expand across europe. Currently, 20 more expansions are under construction and by the end of this year, neo plans to set up shop in deutschland germany, sweden, denmark and the netherlands. But what about here in the u.s? Well, neo does have an office on american soil, its located in san jose. California and its not small its a 202 000 square foot corporate facility they have over there. Recently chinese media released some reports about a few eye, catching job announcements from neo, specifically neo is hiring professionals experienced and factory building in the united states. The company is also hiring a blueprint planner with experience in at least one u.s factory project. So does this mean that neo will open a factory in the u.s? If you ask me, i say it looks like it. If you consider the specific job opening its almost undeniable proof of neos current plans for an american factory, but as of right now, the company hasnt disclosed any details about this. Now, if you think, building a factory in the u.s might be straightforward. Well, its not as simple as that, but itll be even more complex or neo because of how they manufacture their cars.

Analysts are wondering how exactly neo would assemble their evs when they build their factory here. Heres the thing currently neo doesnt manufacture any of its vehicles independently, since 2016 theyve been partnering with xi, ang wu, automobile group or jac for short aac is a state owned automobile manufacturer, neo, page jac, for each vehicle that jac makes for them. All of these vehicles are produced in the czech neo advanced manufacturing base in the province of on hue in china. If neo does come to the us, its unclear if itll be managed independently by neo or co, managed by neo and jac, and if jec does end up getting involved, the involvement of a chinese state owned company would most likely catch the attention of u.s regulators and Politicians, but now lets talk about another one of neos automotive innovations. A few weeks ago, neo announced their brand new electric suv, the es7 and boy. This will be a tough competition for the tesla model y. The es7 is only the fourth vehicle for neo. Today, this new suv will cost anywhere around seventy thousand dollars, but this isnt any old suv, its the hills, fastest suv. It can hit 60 miles an hour in less than four seconds on a full battery. The es7 will be able to travel 301 miles where the tesla model y can travel 330 on a single full charge. So not a huge difference, but tesla does beat the es7 in a standard range department.

Now neo does plan to offer an optional ultra long range battery pack reported at least well for drivers, a whopping 528 miles of driving range. Did you know that neo aimed to make the es7s cabin feel so comfy? That would be like your second living room. It comes with heated, ventilated and even massaging front seats, heres a feature. The s7 has which the tesla model y does not bi directional charging capability. That means your es7 can actually share power with appliances and devices. Not only can the ev supply power to towed equipment, but you can also support vehicle to load, discharging and camping mode to power outside devices too. If youre wondering, when will the es7 be released well, last february, neil said it unveiled the new suv in april, but due to a rise in covert cases, a mass lockdown was enforced throughout shanghai and that just happened to be where neos global headquarters is located. As a result, the debut was pushed to late may, but then there was another post moment. Neal announced theyd share details this summer when he all owned. Initially, the first car was the ep9 sports car. It wasnt a road legal car, but for track use. Only only six of these were sold to neo investors for some 2.5 million british pounds. Each was an all electric supercar that set the fastest lap times at a number of racetracks. In fact, in 2017 it was the worlds fastest production electric car neos.

First mass produced car was the es 8. It was launched in 2018 and it was an all electric suv with a range of 311 miles, considering how young the company is theyve come a long way already and itll be interesting to see how neo enters the us. They say. Competition is good because it pushes all players to do more, so i feel itll be a good thing for consumers if neo enters the north american market soon.