By Nick Carey
LONDON (Reuters) – Nio is partnering with UK artificial intelligence software startup Monolith to test and improve electric car battery packs in real-time using the Chinese EV maker’s battery swapping service in Europe, the companies said on Tuesday.
Testing is due to start soon in five markets in Europe and Monolith CEO Richard Ahlfeld told Reuters the company is working through regulatory requirements to do the same in China. That should enable it to work with other Chinese automakers, Ahlfeld said.
Monolith already works with around 10 of the world’s top 20 automakers test electric vehicle batteries using machine learning algorithms, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Honda, to speed up their development and help western automakers catch up with newer Chinese rivals.
“They’re obviously way behind China so they need to learn really, really quickly,” Ahlfeld said.
A European automaker needs around five years or more to develop a new car, while Chinese EV makers only need around two years.
“The Chinese want to push even faster, they’re currently thinking ‘okay, can we do it in one year?'”, Ahlfeld said.Nio runs a battery swapping service that allows car owners to swap out EV batteries in minutes rather than charging them. Frank Kindermann, Nio’s European battery system head, said that 98% of customers in its five key European markets use the battery swapping service.
That allows the automaker to test out new batteries and check on their health, performance and durability each time they are swapped out, using Monolith’s AI algorithm to crunch the numbers.
“Nio can essentially give you a prototype of a car early on and they keep testing and learning from what you’re doing,” Ahfeld said.
Monolith has so far raised around $22 million from investors, including private equity firm Insight Partners and venture capital firm Pentech.
(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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