During the last few weeks, a lot has happened here behind the scenes. Our development team has successfully completed several milestones at once. This brings about news that we would like to share with you.
Continental - Another Partner for Series Production Was Nominated
We can officially announce today: Continental, the world's second largest automotive supplier, will build the Sion’s electric drive unit, which combines the motor, power electronics and transmission in one compact unit. As a carry-over part, the drive unit can be integrated into the Sion with little development effort. With Continental, we have gained an experienced partner, whose name stands for outstanding quality worldwide. Equally outstanding are the characteristics of the drive unit, surpassing the previous values of our prototype in many respects: the e-motor of the series vehicle comes with a higher torque (290 Nm), has significantly more horsepower (163 PS) and delivers an improved peak performance (120 kW). We can hardly wait to experience this driving experience in our Sion next year.
With the decision in favor of the drive unit from Continental one thing is now certain: the Sion will have front-wheel drive. Among other things this has positive effects on efficiency and recuperation.
Now, if you are curious to get more details, take a look at our latest Vlog. Besides a lot of information about our drive unit, our founders Laurin and Jona give updates on the battery of the Sion.
About the Battery
In recent weeks and months we have been intensively involved in the development of our battery and, together with our partner ElringKlinger, we have reached a significant milestone. It is now clear that the Sion's battery will have a capacity of 35 kWh. We have opted for a battery technology that is based on 51Ah-PHEV-II cells, which is particularly future-oriented and features by far the highest energy density available on the market to date. This makes the battery more compact and lighter than comparable models. What we are particularly pleased about is, that the cobalt content in the cell chemistry is significantly lower than usual. This reduces dependence on an important raw material and possible environmental damage. This is a step into the right direction; for electromobility and thus for all of us.
Another positive news is that in order to secure series production, we have concluded long-term supply contracts. In doing so, we have ensured that sufficient capacity is always available, even in times of high demand.
Now that the battery specifications have been defined, we can talk about price assumptions with greater certainty. In 2016, all serious forecasts were predicting battery prices below €100 / kWh for the year 2020. Based on these forecasts, we initially estimated the price for the battery at around €4,000.
Since then, however, the situation has changed radically: emissions scandals, diesel driving bans and climate changes have enormously increased the pressure on politicians and automobile manufacturers to expand electromobility. This is leading to rising demand on the EV market and also to the fact that cell prices have not decreased as much as expected. For this reason, we have to adjust our expectation of the Sion’s battery price to €9,500. We know that these aren’t great news for you and it is very challenging for us to share it with you. This makes it all the more important for us to give you the opportunity to speak with us personally and openly about this topic. Therefore there will be a live question-and-answer session on our Facebook page tonight (22 November at 18:00) in which we will explain all background information in more detail. We are looking forward to you and your questions!