On February 3, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of China released the “Announcement on Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products” (batch 341) with a total of 136 models from 75 companies.
Most of the new homologated electric vehicles were full electric as you can see from the list below.
It’s clear that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) are dead in China and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) aren’t a viable alternative to battery electric vehicles (BEV) either.
Moreover, it’s mind-boggling that most legacy automakers in Europe and North America are still wasting resources in developing hybrid cars. Instead, they should be preparing to produce all-electric cars in high numbers by taking advantage of – already available – cobalt-free batteries.
Anyway, the most interesting electric car in this publication is definitely the Xpeng P7, now homologated with a cobalt-free LFP battery made by CATL. Remember that recently the Xpeng G3 also got a cobalt-free battery made by CATL.
MIIT approves #XPeng #P7 #CATL #LFP version for production/sales in #China, local media citing min doc. pic.twitter.com/f61LBCBu1H
— Moneyball (@DKurac) February 4, 2021
Xpeng P7 specs (LFP version)
Unfortunately, range and battery capacity in this LFP version aren’t known yet, but I’ll update the article when I have more information.
Anyway, the Xpeng G3 is already on sale in Norway and soon it will be joined by the P7.
Nowadays I don’t even bother much with announcements of electric cars that still have cobalt in their batteries, since they won’t be produced in high numbers. If you want to know how serious an automaker is about electric cars, check the battery technology they use.
While NIO and Li Auto are the Chinese automakers currently getting most of the media’s attention, I think that is BYD and Xpeng the ones with the best potential to grow. They have more efficient/aerodynamic electric cars and know the importance of cobalt-free batteries to achieve high volume production.
