Xpeng may be preparing for future battery development. A month ago, a similar company established by Nio received a lot of media coverage.

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

Xpeng Motors has set up a subsidiary whose business scope includes battery manufacturing, perhaps in preparation for developing its own batteries in the future.

The company, called Guangzhou Pengbo Automotive Technology Co Ltd, was established on November 16 with a registered capital of RMB 5 billion ($700 million), with Xpeng co-founder and president Henry Xia as legal representative, according to its registration information.

The company's business scope includes battery manufacturing, battery spare parts production, battery sales, battery spare parts sales, automotive parts research and development, and research and development of electric motors and their control systems.

It is wholly owned by another Xpeng subsidiary, Guangzhou Pengyi Automotive Technology Co Ltd, which was registered on October 26 and is wholly owned by Xpeng Power Battery (Hong Kong) Limited.

It's not clear if the move means Xpeng will enter the battery manufacturing space, but it's a noteworthy development. The company's local counterpart, Nio, has previously confirmed that it is developing its own batteries.

In a June 9 conference call, Nio founder, chairman and CEO William Li said the company has a battery team of more than 400 people to research areas including battery materials, cells and battery management systems, and to fully establish battery system development and industrialization capabilities.

Nio will put its new battery pack into production in 2024, and it will support 800V high-voltage fast charging, Li said at the time.

On August 24, local media LatePost reported that Nio was developing lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP) and 4680 batteries in-house.

On October 21, a company called Nio Battery Technology (Anhui) Co Ltd was registered in Hefei, Anhui province, with a registered capital of RMB 2 billion, and is wholly owned by Nio Holding Co Ltd.

The business scope of this subsidiary of Nio includes battery manufacturing, battery sales, graphite and carbon products manufacturing, synthetic materials manufacturing, auto parts and accessories manufacturing, and resource recycling technology research and development.

The move received a lot of local media coverage at the time, and Li later said in an interview with local media outlet Yicai that it was a normal strategy for automakers to make batteries.

There were no previous rumors that Xpeng would enter the battery manufacturing field, although the company had applied for a related patent.

On August 13, 2021, Xpeng disclosed a patent related to battery life prediction that would be able to significantly improve the accuracy of the prediction.

The abstract of the patent shows that it builds data models based on information about the operating conditions of different vehicles to predict their battery life.

The method fully takes into account the impact of the vehicle's actual usage environment, driving habits and other factors on battery life, greatly improving the accuracy of the prediction, the abstract shows.