If you didn’t get flooded with this car today, you’re not (in the circle).

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If you’re not living under a rock, you probably have seen this car all over your social media feeds.

Yes, NIO EP9, the fastest car in the world, was unveiled in London yesterday along with the new brand name and logo. After looking at all the impressive data about EP9, I could not resist dreaming about it all night.

Here are some of the data worth mentioning:

0-100 km/h in 2.7 seconds

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According to NIO official website, welcome to the 2-second club as well as the 0-200 km/h in 7.1 seconds. The maximum instant speed is 313 km/h.

Although the 0-100 km/h score is impressive, it still falls short of Tesla’s Model S record of 2.4 seconds. That’s why NIO focuses on promoting the 0-200 km/h score instead.

Let’s take a look at the world’s 0-100 km/h acceleration ranking:

Lap time of 7.05 seconds at Nürburgring Nordschleife, breaking the electric vehicle lap record

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Commonly known as the “Green Hell”, Nürburgring Nordschleife is the litmus test for automotive performance, a 20.8 kilometre-long racetrack renowned for its difficulty, long length and numerous high-speed corners. Porsche 918 Spyder currently holds the record of 6 minutes and 57 seconds. EP9 lap time of 7.05 seconds is a near-best timing, especially for the first round. They plan to challenge again next spring.

Nürburgring Nordschleife is the ultimate test for any car, including EV. There are 177 corners, and the total vertical drop of the road is around 300 meters. Therefore, it is a comprehensive test for the vehicle’s acceleration and braking performance, chassis tuning, steering, and tire grip, etc. However, for electric vehicles, lap time is not closely related to the battery, but more to the means of chassis tuning and the weight of the car.

Battery swapping time of 8 minutes, 45-minute fast charging, 427 km range**
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Apart from the long battery replacement time, the data is quite outstanding.

It is worth mentioning that the battery replacement system is currently only used in commercial vehicles worldwide. Private car battery replacement systems have not yet been widely used. The prospect is not optimistic. After all, the construction of battery replacement stations requires heavy asset investment, and the method of completely outsourcing batteries reduces the price of vehicles but also weakens the profitability of automakers. Consumers are not yet so impatient with 1-2 hours of charging time that they have to replace the battery. After all, the replaced battery is not “theirs”, while the car, as an important family asset, is “theirs”. Therefore, Tesla has quietly suspended its battery replacement plan, but its products are designed with battery replacement mode interfaces. In addition, Tesla claims that battery replacement takes only 90 seconds.

It is understood that NIO’s future products will adopt a parallel mode of charging and battery replacement, complementing each other.

In terms of battery life, the EP’s 400 kilometers, although not comparable to the Model S’s maximum battery life of 500 kilometers, is already a very good achievement. After all, electric vehicles have the potential for “one-click upgrading” technology updates. With the improvement of battery management technology, it is not difficult to achieve a longer battery life in the future. When the Tesla Roadster was first put into production, its battery life was only a little over 300 kilometers.

Formula E 2015 season champion vs. NIO’s marketing strategy

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NIO made a big splash in 2014, but has since been relatively low-key.

However, in 2015, NIO won the championship in the Formula E race, which was the “first gold” in the event for Chinese teams, making a remarkable achievement.

NIO’s bosses had a clear idea about this.

In the domestic market, fuel-powered cars at every level are already full, and there is no room for one more NIO. It is like Gueanzhou, which is currently in an awkward situation. There is no natural winner in the electric car market, especially in the high-end electric vehicle brand market, which is still a blank. This is the perfect field for bosses who have both money and passion. They want to imitate Tesla and create a Chinese version.

A group of people with an Internet background are truly daring. Anyway, where there is money, there are people, and where there are dreams, there are VC.In the wave of internet carmaking in China, NIO, due to the branding effect of its founder and a pragmatic approach, always wins the trust of many insiders. Therefore, after receiving 500 million yuan in financing, NIO invested heavily in Formula E. Recently, Mercedes-Benz and Audi also turned to Formula E from Le Mans. After all, the track is a proof of ability.

At the beginning of the establishment of Ford Motor Company, Ford participated in two car races to prove the performance of its products. After winning the championship, it became well-known and then Ford Motor Company was founded. However, Ford himself said that although he did not believe that pursuing speed was the right direction for the development of automobiles, he only took this approach to gain publicity.

I think Li Bin has the same idea, so he explained at the press conference that electric cars have inherent advantages in acceleration, so discussing how fast they can accelerate is meaningless (so actually two or three seconds to break a hundred miles per hour is just a problem with battery technology. If the battery is upgraded, the acceleration will be even faster, as shown in the latest update of Model S).

In any case, Formula E results and the lap time at the Nürburgring are international endorsements of the performance show of EP9, so foreign media did not miss this point when reporting this news.

This time, China’s cars have really reached international leading levels.

100 billion and 3 billion manufacturing plants and motor production bases

Another reason why NIO has always been favored by me and many industry insiders is that they have quietly accomplished several things:

In April, NIO signed a cooperation agreement with JAC Motors to jointly produce new energy vehicles, with a cooperation scale of 100 billion yuan.

In August, NIO Motors signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Nanjing Municipal Government, investing 3 billion yuan to build a high-performance motor and electronic control system production base in Nanjing.

In August, NIO reached a strategic agreement with Navigation engine Four-dimensional digital map, deeply cooperating in navigation engines, car networking, automatic driving, traffic big data online service systems, global business, and other aspects.

These are production qualifications, motor electronic control management, and big data for automatic driving.

Regarding production qualifications: There are already many car companies, and more companies want to make electric cars. Therefore, the relevant departments control and announced some regulations for applying for electric car production qualifications. Let’s not elaborate on the regulations, but the result is that even if you have money, people, cars, and factories, it does not necessarily pass the approval, and it does not count without spending three to five years. For internet companies, time is life. Therefore, NIO confirmed cooperation with JAC Motors for contract manufacturing, using JAC’s production qualifications, but with NIO’s brand. During this period, there were many twists and turns in negotiations, after all, JAC is also a big company, willing to be subordinate and to produce cars seeking for other companies, and the price must be high.The motor and electronic control system is the core component that ensures the performance and quality of electric vehicles and must be controlled in-house. NIO’s plan fully reflects their ambition in the field of electric vehicles and is not just a “money-grabbing” rumor. The cooperation with HERE Technologies also demonstrates that NIO’s plan is comprehensive, and the promotion and application of automated driving systems in mass-produced cars is believed to be already scheduled.

As for the battery, it is reported that NIO’s suppliers are Samsung and CATL. Samsung was present at the NIO Partner Conference in April this year, but currently, Japanese and Korean batteries cannot be found in the latest battery catalog, which means that electric vehicles produced with batteries made in Japan and Korea cannot receive new energy subsidies. Therefore, the specific cooperation details remain unknown.

NIO also has a large team of high-level executives with luxurious resumes, such as Co-President Martin Leach who was an ex-Global CEO of Maserati, former President of Ford Europe and ex-Global Managing Director of Mazda; Chief Development Officer and CEO of NIO USA Padmasree Warrior, who has served as Chief Technology and Development Officer at Cisco and Chief Technology Officer at Motorola; Co-founder Qin Lihong, who was the Deputy General Manager of Chery Sales Company and Executive Director and Chief Marketing Officer of Longfor Properties; and Co-founder and Executive Vice President of the company, Zheng Xiancong, who was previously the President of Maserati China and Chairman and President of Fiat China.

Moreover, there are many mid-level managers and ordinary engineers from traditional car companies such as General Motors, Ford, GAC Motor, and Jaguar Land Rover.

However, like most internet-based carmakers, high salaries to attract traditional automotive talent is not a new trend, and having high-end professionals is not a sufficient condition for success. Internet companies have money, but passion and dreams are what they do not lack. Triple salary poaching is not a legend, but it is said that there have been cases of death from overwork recently, so jumping ship needs to be cautious, and entrepreneurship is risky.

Apart from data, the author was excited after watching the EP9 and ran to check how the foreigners praised NIO. However, it did not cause a huge shock as I had thought. Many media reported NIO’s new car calmly. After calming down, the author immediately realized that he was just blinded by patriotism.

In fact, NIO in 2016, from a global perspective, its significance is far from comparable to Tesla’s emergence back then.

Actually, the EP9 released yesterday cost up to $1.2 million with only 6 units produced. However, as the first step of NIO’s brand launch, it is just a gimmick or facade.

The real intention of NIO is to create electric cars for the masses. Just like Tesla’s trilogy years ago, they also hope to use this cool high-end racing car to win a ticket to the automotive market. From the perspective of creating a top-class electric hypercar, NIO EP9 has succeeded. But the biggest problem is still in mass production after that.

Although they have secured OEM factories, their suppliers are also world-class. However, as a rich kid from the Internet world entering the car manufacturing industry, they are still novices, and whether it is building one or six cars is relatively easy, but thousands and tens of thousands of cars are difficult. This involves a series of problems such as quality control, cost control, supply chain management, and sales services.

Automobiles are the most typical scale economy. Without sales volume, even if they are luxurious and high-end, they will still lose money. That’s why those top sports car brands are often transferred back and forth.

Just look at Tesla. As the pride of Silicon Valley, after Elon Musk founded Tesla in 2003, it took 5 years to launch the Roadster mass production version, and the new car did not sell well. Even if the price exceeded expectations, Tesla still sold at a loss. Thanks to Musk’s perseverance and a Mercedes-Benz investment, they survived the bankruptcy crisis.

The hidden concerns behind NIO’s agreement with JAC are even greater. Although JAC has experience in producing pure electric vehicles, it is still blank in the field of high-performance electric vehicle production. Therefore, quality control is a concern, not only for the actual product quality control level but also for the gap in brand image between the two companies.

On the other hand, there are more shareholders behind NIO. The founders are Li Bin and Li Xiang. Whether the founders and shareholders can consistently support the development of NIO remains to be seen. Because after witnessing Tesla’s existential crisis and Musk’s crazy insistence on continuing, we have to admit that to do something earth-shattering, you really need earth-shattering courage and perseverance.

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