NIO’s ES7 SUV Officially Debuts in China: Unique Positioning and Shared Technology with ET7
On May 13, NIO’s ES7, the company’s first SUV model developed on its NT2.0 technology platform, officially received approval from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in China.
The new SUV model has a unique positioning as a mid-size SUV after the ES8, and its main target is the five-seat segment, filling the market gap left by the ES8 without a five-seat model.
Not only is the position unique, but in many areas of technology and design, it shares a lot with ET7, and is also a “global model” that will be launched in Europe later, targeting mainly luxury brands such as BMW X5 and Porsche Cayenne.
This shows NIO’s ambitious plans for this new SUV model. As for the model’s competitiveness itself, let’s explore it together.
Faster SUV
As a new force in the automotive industry, NIO has a similar idea to other brands: to use acceleration and intelligence as selling points. It is understood that the ES7’s 0-100km/h acceleration has broken through four seconds, making it the fastest of NIO’s SUV family.
Why is NIO ES7 so fast?
The large motor power is one aspect, and it is understood that the driving motor is independently developed and equipped with silicon carbide technology. The ES7’s three-electric system is consistent with that of the ET7, with a total power of 480kW and a total peak torque of 850N·m.
Putting the same power system into models with different weight ratios and overall vehicle weights is also a challenge for NIO’s research and development team. However, such “copying” settings are often reflected in traditional brands, and it is difficult to talk about innovation and progress.
Improvements on Fastest SUV in the Family
On the other hand, intelligence is also a major selling point for new car companies, and the key improvement of NIO’s NT2.0 platform lies in the improvement of smart hardware and software.In the NIO ES7, we can still see the intelligent cockpit composed of Snapdragon 8155 chip, new central control display and new generation of NIO OS that can be found on the ET5 and ET7 models, as well as the ADAM intelligent driving platform with 800+300 megapixel camera, LiDAR and 1016TOPS computing power.
In addition, NT2.0, as the latest platform, will have stronger OTA capability than NT1.0 platform in the future.
ES7 is equipped with NAD autonomous driving technology, which makes up for the shortcomings of ES8 and ES6 in intelligent driving assistance, and helps to enhance NIO’s voice in the SUV market.
If we dig deeper, the in-car electronic architecture of NT2.0 platform is completely different from that of the previous generation. For example, a higher-performance gateway is used, and data is transmitted through high-speed Ethernet inside the car, with significantly improved bandwidth.
If you are a follower of the NIO brand or a fan of high-end intelligence, these upgrades are undoubtedly exciting, but for the ES6, if the price range is similar, the ES7 is more like a successor to the ES6, which may have an impact on the sales of NIO’s main model ES6.
Is NIO ES7 under double pressure?
Let’s talk about NIO’s external competition first. NIO President Qin Lihong said that the main competitor of ES7 is BMW X5.
As we just mentioned, in terms of power and intelligence, NIO is competitive, and even better than higher-level models.
The only thing worth considering is that BMW’s car-making philosophy is focused on handling, and X5’s handling has also been recognized by many car owners. Compared with BMW, NIO still has many shortcomings in terms of handling.
Let’s take a comparison of the chassis of the two models. Both models use a double wishbone and multi-link configuration, but the difference is that this generation of BMW X5 uses aluminum alloy material in the main components, and the ball joint structure design can ensure certain return force, and the improved suspension system can filter out a lot of engine noise.
In contrast, in terms of chassis tuning experience, NIO may have some gaps with BMW. For example, even if ES6 is equipped with air suspension, the feeling of the chassis to the driver is still very direct, and some car owners have reported that the chassis support of ES6 is insufficient.
Although NIO believes that in the SUV models, ES8 has already held the “leading” position in the 6/7-seater market, and the appearance of ES7 is to compete for the market share of 5-seater models, too many high-end SUV models will inevitably make them overlap in price and naturally increase the degree of user overlap.In the pricing of ES6 and EC6, the top-of-the-line signature model only exceeds 500,000 yuan after options, which is only the base price of ES7. However, the price difference between the base ES6/EC6 and ES7 is as high as 100,000 yuan, obviously not in the same category, will there be a “chicken head and phoenix tail” dispute?
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.