NIO founder and chairman Li Bin said on June 12 that reducing weight in
new-energy vehicles has significant user value but is not straightforward. He
said lightweighting is an integrated outcome of cost, technology, engineering
and product definition, and estimated that once a vehicle’s basic definition is
set, each kilogram removed in the final lightweighting sprint costs roughly
1,000 yuan; cutting weight from 2.0 tonnes to 1.9 tonnes is relatively easy, but
the cost per kilogram rises the further weight is reduced.
