After NIO ES8 was launched and NIO House Oslo opening from October 1 2021, NIO is scheduled to expand in Germany in 2022, and to provide mobile service and car pickup-and-delivery services in the near future.
NIO has appointed Ralph Kranz, who is the director of commercial operations at Volvo, to be in charge of the German market. At the same time, NIO also posted two jobs on LinkedIn about hiring automotive semiconductor talents.
Ralph Kranz moves from Volvo to NIO
As of March 1, Ralph Kranz who is the director of commercial operations at Volvo Cars Germany will resign and take over responsibility for NIO’s German market as managing director.
Ralf Kranz has worked for Volvo Germany for 10 years in various management positions, including responsibility for sales, the used car business and customer service. Prior to that, Ralph Kranz worked for Aston Martin, Toyota and Lexus.
NIO hiring semiconductor talents in Germany for SiC and IGBT chip design
NIO has introduced SiC technology, the latest power semiconductor technology, to the ET7’s front permanent magnet synchronous motor.It posted two positions on LinkedIn on Monday related to SiC and IGBT chip design and development, respectively.
NIO’s description of the responsibilities of the “Expert, Chip Design & Development (SiC)” position is:
- Be a thought leader in the Semiconductor Technology Lab, driving team growth and new idea generation.
- Be involved in the modelling (TCAD), design, fabrication and testing of SiC power semiconductor devices. Testing work may span from on-wafer probing to reliability assessments and/or failure analysis of various devices.
- Provide technical expertise in areas such as semiconductor materials, device physics and design, device fabrication and test.
- Compose documentations related to SiC chip design, fabrication and test.
- Stay abreast of literature and identify research trends related to compound semiconductor-based power devices of interest to NIO. Introduce the latest process routes and design methods into the product. Participate in making and updating NIO’s drive system technology roadmap.
- Effectively deliver research results by preparing written reports and making presentations describing analyses performed, solutions developed, and knowledge obtained.
- Leader as a cross-founction team to define NIO’s SiC device and module roadmap.
The job description for the “Expert, Chip Design & Development (IGBT)” position is almost identical to the SiC position, except that IGBT is replaced with SiC.
Both positions require a PhD and experience in the field. The LinkedIn page information shows that as of now there are 2 applicants for each of these two positions.
NIO plans to deliver its new flagship model, the ET7 sedan, starting in March 2022, hoping to launch as well in Germany. With the ET5, NIO also hopes to offer a mass-market model to compete with the Tesla Model 3 starting in the fall of 2022. The start-up EV company, which relies on direct sales and its own outlets in Norway, planning to build 20 battery swap stations in 2022. These batteries can be replaced in six minutes at so-called power exchange stations.
From the perspective of the global market, in the first 11 months of this year, 985,000 pure electric vehicles were sold in Europe, a year-on-year increase of 77.6%. Among them, the penetration rate of pure electric vehicles in the Norwegian market is 71.1%; 20.6% in the German market; 25.9% in the Swedish market; 26.6% in the Dutch market; 20.3% in the Danish market.
Taking advantage of the expansion of the new energy market in Europe and the United States, NIO is accelerating its layout, and talent recruitment is a key part of NIO’s efforts to enhance its competitiveness.
NIO’s move for European expansion recently: NIO responds to a rumour that it will sell cars in the US, NIO Norway’s First FOTA Software Upgrade Service in the Global Market
