Kandi Technologies Group, a Chinese battery and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, have announced it has signed a framework agreement with Hunan Hengrun Automobile, to jointly produce battery-swap enabled pure electric vehicles.
According to the agreement, Kandi and Hengrun will use their respective capabilities to jointly produce battery-swappable pure electric vehicles (EVs). The specific division of labour and cooperation content will be clarified in a separate agreement. The vehicles will be sold under the “Henghe” brand name.
Hengrun specialises in the research, development, manufacturing, sales and after-sales service of automobiles, parts and accessories. It is certified for the production of passenger cars and commercial vehicles, including electric vehicles. It is one of several automobile companies fully certified to produce complete vehicles.
Kandi Technologies currently offer their electric cars in their home country and can also be found in the USA. The big pull is their prices start from $11,999 (before State incentives) for the brand’s K27 mini electric car which has a 45kWh battery and offers up to 116 miles (187km) of range.
Collaborations like this are becoming more widespread in the auto world. It makes complete sense when it comes to new technologies, especially batteries that are one of the most expensive components found in electric cars.
Hopefully, this will result will be more affordable electric vehicles that will help speed up the transition to zero-emissions motoring. It would be interesting to see cars with a similar price tag, or lower than K27, hitting Europe.
Hu Xiaoming, Kandi chairman of the board of directors, said: “Kandi is pleased to partner with Hengrun. We are a pioneer of EV battery swapping in China. Our accumulated experience of building over 50,000 electric vehicles combined with our dozens of battery-swap patents gives us a strong competitive advantage in this initiative.
“By utilising our battery swap expertise and Hengrun’s vehicle production expertise, together we expect to create meaningful new benefits for customers and thus promote the development of China’s EV industry.”
