Article by Zhang Ruichen
Editor: Wu Xianzhi
On the Christmas Eve of December 24th, 2022, NIO Day was held as scheduled and ended perfectly. This year marks the sixth consecutive year that NIO has held NIO Day, which was not lacking in new car releases and surprises.
At NIO Day 2022, NIO mainly announced the third-generation battery swapping station, supercharging, NIO EC7, and the all-new NIO ES8.
Third-generation battery swapping station
The battery swapping time of the third-generation battery swapping station has been reduced by 20%, while the efficiency has increased by 30%, but multiple car battery swapping has not yet been achieved. The battery compartment has been increased to 21, equipped with two laser radars and two Orin chips, supporting on-call swapping and automatic parking, and is expected to be deployed starting from March 2023.
Supercharging
The single machine power can reach 500kW and the maximum current is 660A. NIO’s self-developed liquid-cooled charging gun is adopted, and the new materials make the charging gun lighter, which allows for one-handed charging operation. It takes only 20 minutes for the 400V models to charge from 10% to 80%, and for the 800V models, it takes only 12 minutes, which is expected to be officially deployed in May 2023.
NIO’s all-new ES8 and the new EC7 model released
The all-new NIO ES8 is based on the NIO NT2.0 platform, with a selling price ranging from 528,000 to 6.38 million yuan. The price of renting the battery is 980 yuan per month for 75 kWh and 1680 yuan per month for 100 kWh. After renting the battery, the selling price ranges from 458,000 to 510,000 yuan. Delivery is expected to be completed in June 2023.
# NIO Launches New Model EC7 at a Higher Price
The new NIO model, EC7, which can be considered the coupe version of ES7, is priced between 488,000 and 578,000 yuan. The battery rental price is consistent with that of ES8. The price after adopting the battery rental scheme is between 418,000 and 450,000 yuan, with a delivery time of May 2023.
Although NIO is confident in the two newly released models, it does not intend to sell them in large quantities. Compared with the currently available NIO ES8, the new generation models are priced higher, and the starting price of the new model EC7 is also two thousand yuan more than that of ES7.
After NIO Day 2022, NIO’s founder Li Bin and co-founder Qin Lihong revealed NIO’s 2023 plan and their ideas on the development of the new energy industry in discussions with Photon Taxi and others.
2023 Sales Outlook
Due to natural formation of orders, there will still be a climbing process in the first half of 2023, and NIO will also introduce three new models to the market in the fourth quarter of next year. Li Bin expressed his high confidence in NIO’s long-term development, although the market sales of passenger cars have declined. However, the new energy vehicle market, a subdivision of the passenger car market, is growing. Currently, NIO has more than 70% of the market share for pure electric vehicles priced above 400,000 yuan, but maintaining such a percentage is difficult.
NIO has already achieved high market share in many cities, such as Shanghai, Beijing, and even in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, and the company is still expanding to other third- and fourth-tier cities. Although the process may be longer, Li Bin expressed his confidence that NIO’s sales will exceed those of Lexus.
Conclusion
Li Bin said, “Next year, our annual sales will certainly be different from the sales of oil-powered cars of BMW, Benz, and Audi. However, we are confident that our sales will surpass those of Lexus in the same category.”
According to data from China Passenger Car Association, NIO delivered 106,671 vehicles from January to November 2022. The delivery volume for November 2022 alone was 14,178. By comparison, Lexus delivered 168,644 vehicles from January to November 2022, with November 2022’s delivery volume down 16.45% YoY to 12,643 vehicles.
The UX pure electric vehicle and NX Plug-in Hybrid were included in Lexus’ November 2022 delivery data, but NIO has surpassed Lexus in terms of sales performance. Furthermore, Li Bin stated that NIO has surpassed Lexus in gasoline-based vehicle sales performance.
Response to data leak: No compromise, even if it bankrupts the company
On December 20th, criminals were found selling NIO’s related data online. Prior to this, NIO had received an external email claiming possession of internal data and demanding payment of $2.25 million bitcoin in exchange for not leaking the data. As a response, NIO promptly formed a special team to investigate and handle the incident.
During a media communication meeting, Li Bin responded again: “We will never compromise with criminals or set a precedent of compensation even if the company goes bankrupt.” NIO has also reported the incident to the authorities and called on the entire industry not to yield to data buyers.
Li Bin also stated that NIO would take responsibility for any losses incurred by users due to the data breach, and the legal proceedings of this incident will be carried out to the end.
Build smartphones to make better cars
Li Bin said that NIO is positioned as a high-end new energy vehicle brand, and the higher the end of the car, the more personalized needs it actually has. High-end brands like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Porsche, etc. do not rely on just one popular car. Products of different price points are closely related to consumer demand. NIO is expected to launch three new cars in 2023.
Even though the smartphone business has been expanded, the ultimate goal is still to make better cars. Making smartphones is also to provide the best intelligent mobile platform for cars and users, and it is not the mainstream business of NIO.
Striving for break-even in 2024
The auto production industry as a whole, not just NIO, has been affected by complex external factors that have hindered production, logistics, and delivery. This has prevented NIO from achieving its sales target of 150,000 vehicles per year. With the reduction of government subsidies and a broader economic slowdown, Chinese new energy vehicle manufacturers may face challenges in the first half of next year, but a recovery is expected in May or June.Except for Tesla, the industry as a whole is in a state of negative profitability. The chip shortage has seriously hit the industry, but in fact, new energy batteries have not reached the level of chip shortage. At present, upstream suppliers are making huge profits with low transparency of key components. In order to achieve balance between revenue and expenditure, NIO will vertically integrate key components and plan to launch the first mass-market model in 2024.
NIO plans to expand business in 25 overseas markets, including the United States, in 2025. Currently, NIO’s quarterly R&D scale for core technologies of intelligent electric vehicles is about 3 billion yuan, and it will focus on developing and producing its own batteries and chips. The seat frame platform and comfort system are all self-developed by NIO. Like smartphones and other vehicle-centered intelligent devices, NIO is also actively investing. It is expected to achieve a balance between revenue and expenditure by 2024.
Competitors Are Still Oil-Powered Cars
Li Bin stated that NIO’s current competitors are still oil-powered cars, and electric cars are still allies. The competition between the new energy sectors will be greater when the ownership rate of oil-powered cars is only 30% to 40%. At present, it is still difficult to transition from high-end mechanical watches to smartwatches in the high-end market.
NIO’s market share in Shanghai of over 400,000 RMB is still rising. Li Bin said that what NIO can do now is to do its own thing well, and more users will naturally come.
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.