Hello World
This is the theme of the 2021 NIO Day, saying “你好，世界” in Chinese.
In my memory, this is the first demo project for university C language, and programmers use “Hello World” to open the door of programming world.
Starting with “Hello World”, NIO’s intention is obvious: to move towards internationalization from China.
More competitive new cars, more complete energy replenishment network, and further global deployment. This year’s NIO DAY shouts “Hello” to the world.
New car ET5, “narrowing” ET732.8K
As usual, the protagonist of the NIO DAY is the new car. In summary, don’t wait for ET7, ET5 is coming faster.
Regarding the already-launched ET7, NIO’s chairman, William Li, briefly reviewed the results of continuously improving the product this year during mass production, including over 20 new configurations and functions have been enhanced, such as acceleration from zero to one hundred kilometers per hour improved to 3.8 seconds, wind resistance coefficient optimized to 0.208, etc.
At the same time, it is “inevitable” to emphasize the excellent endurance performance of ET7: The 75 kWh battery version CLTC endurance is 550km, the 100 kWh battery version CLTC endurance is 705km, and the updated 150 kWh battery CLTC endurance is 1000+ km.
The biggest suspense is obviously the delivery time of ET7. This question finally has an answer: pre-sale locking will start on January 20, 2022, and delivery will start on March 28, 2022.
“After ET7, don’t wait.” This is Li’s promise after a brief review of this new car. And the protagonist of the press conference is the brand new intelligent pure electric car, NIO ET5.
The two most important aspects are highlighted upfront: the pre-subsidy sale price of ET5 and BaaS starts at 328,000 yuan and 258,000 yuan respectively, with scheduled delivery beginning in September 2022 in the order of intention deposits.
Starting today, ET5 is available for pre-order: paying a deposit of 2000 yuan will give you a design package worth 8000 yuan. For the user service equity, NIO provides car owners with 10 years of unlimited mileage free quality assurance, free exclusive charging piles, free lifetime battery swapping, free car networking, and free roadside rescue services.
For NIO old car owners, ES8 founding edition car owners can receive a 50,000 NIO points reward when purchasing ET5 while other existing NIO car owners can receive a 30,000 points reward.
Compared with the ET7, which sells for 448,000 yuan to 526,000 yuan, the price threshold of ET5 has dropped below 400,000 yuan. In terms of product competitiveness, ET5 is directly equivalent to a “miniature version” of ET7.
In terms of body size, ET5 measures 4,790/1,960/1,499 mm in length, width, and height, with a wheelbase of 2,888 mm. For comparison, the ET7 measures 5,098/1,987/1,505 mm in length, width, and height, with a wheelbase of 3,060 mm.
In terms of power, based on the new generation of efficient electric drive platform with the NIO silicon-carbide power module, ET5 also adopts a dual-motor layout, with a maximum power of 360 kW, maximum torque of 700 N·m, zero to one hundred kilometers per hour in 4.3 seconds, and a braking distance of one hundred kilometers to zero at 33.9 meters, with a low wind resistance coefficient of 0.24.
The ET5 will be equipped with front and rear five-link suspension, with 8 selectable driving modes, bringing rich driving pleasure to car owners.
The ET5 body is designed according to the C-NCAP and Euro NCAP five-star safety standards, incorporating ultra-high-strength aluminum and steel mixed body, with torsional stiffness of the entire vehicle reaching 34,000 N · m/deg.
Interestingly, NIO also specifically emphasizes that the ET5’s center of gravity height is only 482.6 mm, which, paired with a 1,685 mm ultra-wide wheelbase, results in a lateral overturning coefficient of 1.7, surpassing the US NHTSA five-star standard – not only is the body “hard”, but the car runs more “stable”.
Like the ET7, the ET5 will also have three battery capacity options: 75 kWh, 100 kWh, and 150 kWh, with a maximum range of over 1000+ km.
The fascinating fluorescent orange sport calipers, panoramic sunroof, frameless electric suction doors, and the iconic “watchtower”-style layout of the LIDAR sensors are all present on the ET5, having been “handed down” from the ET7.
In addition, complementing the entry-level price, ET5 offers more diverse and youthful color schemes, including 9 body colors. Among them, Pure Pink and Cloud Primrose are exclusive colors, while NIO’s annual color, Aerospace Blue, will also be available on the ET5.
As for the interior, ET5 inherits the design elements of the ET7, featuring a 12.8-inch AMOLED central control screen, concealed air vents and other design elements.
What makes it different is that NIO’s panoramic digital cockpit, PanoCinema, which applies AR/VR technology, will be installed on the ET5 for the first time.
According to NIO, the PanoCinema will “bring a unique full sensory immersion experience from hardware, software to content.” However, the current information is still emphasizing the rich sound and light configuration in terms of hardware.
Regarding the audio-visual system, the ET5 is equipped with a brand new 256-color digital light strip and a 7.1.4 Dolby panoramic sound system. The cabin light strip can change and dance according to the melody of the music.
Of course, having rich light effects and excellent sound systems is not something exotic in luxury cars. What NIO brings this time are the following two pairs of glasses.The first image shows the ET5 exclusive AR glasses developed by NIO in collaboration with the innovative AR device company NREAL, which can project a large screen equivalent to 201 inches with a viewing distance of 6 meters.
The second image depicts the NIO VR Glasses developed in partnership with the VR innovation company NOLO, equipped with ultra-thin pancake optical lenses, capable of achieving dual 4K displays.
“With this kind of experience, there is no need for so many screens in the car,” said Li Bin when introducing the ET5 VR/AR cabin experience.
Unfortunately, there were no actual demonstrations of the experience at the press conference, except for several hardware parameter PPTs. Whether the experience can reach this level can only be demonstrated after the ET5’s official delivery.
Finally, the NIO Autonomous Driving (NAD) system was also present on the ET5, and the NIO super-sensing system Aquila and the supercomputing platform Adam are standard on all ET5 models.
The ET5’s NAD system is identical to that of the ET7. With the support of 33 high-performance sensing hardware and a total computing power of 1016 TOPS provided by four NVIDIA Orin chips, the ET5 will be equipped with 19 assisted driving functions as standard, and will gradually achieve point-to-point autonomous driving in scenarios such as highways, urban areas, parking, and battery swapping.
Just like the information announced at last year’s NIO Day, the complete functionality of NAD on ET5 is provided through a “monthly subscription and payment” service model, and will gradually be available after development and verification are completed, with a monthly fee of 680 yuan.
Finally, as usual, we will present a PPT of the new car’s highlight configurations commonly seen at new car launch events.
For 328,000 yuan, you can buy a “shrunken version” of ET7 without having to wait for more than a year.
“Do you think ET5 is competitive? What pressure will it put on other similar products?”
Power supplement network
Besides the product, the power supplement system is the other end of the current competition among all the new forces.
“At this NIO Day, NIO, which features a unique battery replacement mode as a moat, also introduced us to the latest developments and plans in this field.”
As for home charging stations, in 2022, NIO will add 7 kW and 11 kW DC charging stations to provide more complete home charging options along with current 7 kW AC charging stations and 20 kW DC charging stations.
Currently, NIO has deployed 3348 destination charging stations and 3136 supercharging stations. It’s worth noting that Li Bin said that 77.1%, i.e., more than three-quarters of the charging volume, is for electric vehicle users of other brands.
In addition, NIO has connected to more than 440,000 third-party charging stations, covering 333 prefecture-level administrative regions in China.
To improve charging experiences for self-driving products in eight provinces and regions in northern China as well as tourism and leisure, NIO launched POWER NORTH and POWER UP PLAN.
NIO has built destination charging networks where charging and battery swapping facilities are not yet complete. 17 fixed routes such as the Hexi Corridor and Shenzhou North Pole have already been connected.
“Li Bin said that 30 such routes will be opened next year. ‘Silk Road, Xishuangbanna and other routes that everyone admires will all be built one by one.'”# NIO DAY 2021: Updates on Battery Swap Stations and Global Expansion
In terms of battery swap stations, as of now, NIO has built 733 battery swap stations. Just 8 days ago, they achieved the 700th station. It must be said that the speed is really fast.
Currently, NIO has provided users with more than 5.5 million battery swap services.
Remember the previous plan for the five vertical and three horizontal high-speed battery swap network in the four major metropolitan areas? Currently, NIO has laid out 169 stations and will be fully built soon.
In 2022, the charging and battery swap network will continue to expand its reach. In China, 1,300 battery swap stations, 6,000 supercharging piles, and 10,000 destination charging piles will be built.
Moving towards global expansion, Li Bin, the founder of NIO, mentioned that NIO will officially land in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden in 2022 after entering Norway this year. By 2025, NIO will provide services to users in more than 25 countries and regions around the world.
In conclusion, compared to last year’s explosive NIO DAY, this year is more practical: the ET5 with a price of CNY 328,000, the gradually improved energy supplement layout, and the more ambitious global strategy all show that NIO is rapidly innovating while continuing to fill every piece of their enterprise system puzzle.
In our community, many members have eagerly placed orders, demonstrating the great appeal of this car.The expected outcome is that, after mass production, ET5 is expected to become NIO’s biggest cash cow. Tomorrow, we will continue to bring you a more detailed product introduction about the ET5 model.
As we always say, although the new energy vehicle market has developed rapidly this year, it is still just the beginning. After ET5, more new car models with competitive power are not far away from us.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.