NIO Day in Suzhou

I had the pleasure of attending NIO Day in Suzhou, where the entire event was fascinating. From the opening music performance to the stories of NIO’s customers, to the achievements of NIO Power in 2021, to their ambitious goal of building over 1,300 battery swapping stations, 6,000 supercharging stations, and 10,000 destination charging stations, as well as establishing charging facilities along 30 famous tourist routes by 2022. NIO also announced its entry into the global market, starting in Norway and expanding to Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and other European markets by 2022, with the aim of being active in over 25 countries and regions by 2025. Additionally, there were discussions regarding the vehicle owner’s benefit partner program, which will launch in 2022 with an investment of 80 million points, as well as Clean Parks and other exciting initiatives.

The most exciting part of the event was the release of the ET5.

Note: Alan Walker’s performance of “Hello World” was also electrifying after the announcement.

ET5’s Price

I analyzed NIO’s sales performance in past quarters and found that the turning point where sales volume began to climb steadily was in Q2 2020. Sales numbers per quarter rose steadily from 10,000 to 25,000, even during the chip shortage period. However, the core issue remains the price-performance ratio of NIO’s products.

NIO’s brand is positioned as luxury and service-oriented, and the company initially focused on research and development and vehicle model expansion. Later on, it shifted its attention towards the luxury image of the NIO brand and customers’ service experience. Through layout adjustments regarding vehicle models, consumer services, internal company processes, vehicle digitalization, and guiding customers’ lifestyles, NIO has made significant progress.

At present, NIO’s vehicle models are the keys to its success.

From a time perspective, NIO first delivered the ES8 in June 2018 after establishing its brand image and reputation in 2015-16 through high-performance supercars. NIO then released two luxury SUVs, the ES8 and ES6, in 2017-18, transitioning from the larger ES8 to the smaller ES6. In particular, in July 2020, NIO launched the EC6 coupe SUV, marking a unique strategy of going from larger to smaller vehicle models.At this press conference, NIO announced that the new pure electric vehicle model ET7, which was released in January this year, will be delivered on March 28, 2022. The smaller and more cost-effective ET5 will be ready for delivery in September 2022.

The interval between the two releases is for the ET7 model to bear the development costs and explore new frontiers, and then replicate the strategy with the ET5 becoming a vehicle that can bear the heavy load.

Overall, the ET5 intentionally lowered its price, especially the price of the BAAS version which was reduced to 258,000 yuan, to make a big impact.

From a market perspective, I understand that this ET5 model targets the entry-level gasoline vehicles of BBA, such as the Audi A4L, BMW 3 Series, and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. It can also compete with the BYD Han EV, Tesla Model 3, and XPeng P7 in terms of market share.

NIO’s main strategy this time is to improve product competitiveness by stacking product configurations, and then compete with gasoline vehicles to distance themselves from other electric products.

(2) Automatic Driving and Cabin

From the battery point of view, the ET5 is also designed around the previous battery system and is equipped with a standard range battery pack (75 kWh) with a range of more than 550 kilometers, and with a long-range battery pack (100 kWh) with a range of more than 700 kilometers.

It is uncertain whether the 150 kWh semi-solid-state battery and the 1000 kilometer driving range can be achieved by 2022, which is the biggest highlight of 2022.

This 150 kWh battery system uses the semi-solid-state battery technology of a domestic supplier. The energy density of the battery cells is 360Wh/kg. It uses a solid-liquid electrolyte that is cured in situ and a silicon-carbon negative electrode that is pre-lithiated using an inorganic process, together with a high nickel positive electrode with a nano-scale coating process. We can estimate how many battery packs can be produced in 2022.The next-generation high-efficiency electric drive platform equipped with silicon carbide power modules was integrated into both the ET7 and ET5 models by NIO. The ET5’s zero to one hundred kilometers per hour acceleration time is 4.3 seconds. This system has become a platform spanning the ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7, and ET5 models, demonstrating a high degree of foresight.

(2) Autonomous Driving Assistance System

Following the rendering of the ET7, the ET5 is now fully equipped (even the 250,000 RMB model has four NVIDIA Drive Orin chips). The Aquila NIO Super Sensing System and ADAM are standard across the entire series, as well as NIO’s supercomputer platform.

The appearance of the ET5 has been redesigned to become more family-oriented, similar to that of the ET7, with its characteristic long-nose style (the front-mounted LiDAR is embedded in the roof, while the side cameras are also embedded to form a shape resembling a pair of horns). The main difference between the perception systems of the ET5 and the ET7 is that the four surround-view cameras have been updated to SONY’s 3 million pixel high-sensitivity surround dedicated camera, which is better suited for performance under low-light conditions such as 360 panoramic imaging, transparent chassis, guard mode and parking assistance.

In other words, both the ET7 and the ET5 will be equipped with NIO Autonomous Driving (NAD) technology, gradually achieving point-to-point autonomous driving in high-speed, urban, parking, and battery swap scenes. If based on the sales volume of the ET5 model, a “monthly subscription, monthly payment” service subscription model for NAD is likely to logically emerge. In the future, I believe that AD as a Service (ADaaS) in the automotive industry will become a major trend.

(3) Cabin Design and AR VR

In terms of overall cabin design, the ET5 inherits the overall design of the ET7, with a 10.2-inch digital instrument and a 12.8-inch AMOLED central control screen. In terms of lighting design, the Pano-Cinema has been introduced, using digital light curtains, matching sound and light effects, creating a theatrical atmosphere. Here, not only the screen, but also the overall light path design is used to create a high-end feeling, which is similar to my previous ideas.In terms of exterior design, which is particularly interesting, NIO has collaborated with the innovative AR device company NREAL to develop exclusive AR glasses (weighing only 76 grams) for the ET5, which can project a screen equivalent to 201 inches from a viewing distance of 6 meters. Furthermore, NIO has also collaborated with NOLO to develop the NIO VR Glasses, which feature ultra-thin Pancake optical lenses and are capable of achieving dual 4K displays. This is an innovative approach worth noting.

Note: NOLO VR, invested by NIO Capital, is a VR interaction technology company founded in Beijing in 2015. Currently, NOLO VR is a leading 6DoF mobile VR hardware brand in the world, with patented PolarTraq audio-visual positioning interaction technology that can achieve large-scale, high-precision, high-robustness, low-power, low-latency, small-volume, and cost-effective 3D spatial positioning technology. Its real performance can only be known by trying it out.

In summary, according to the sales of the P7 and Han EV, the sales of the ET5 may also start from 5,000 and increase to a maximum of 10,000, which is worth paying attention to. In the heat of innovation in the sedan market, it has created great pressure on both the fuel and electric vehicles of BBA.

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.