The Chinese manufacturer Nio is trying to break through to the very top of the food chain with the new ET9 model, it will compete with the European giants BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Along with its new Firefly sub-brand, Nio is also introducing an all-new car called the ET9. At first glance, it looks like a limousine, but upon further inspection we see that it is more of a coupe-crossover than a limousine. Despite the different body design, it will compete with the BMW i7 and Mercedes-Benz EQS sedans. Its overall dimensions also put it in its class, as the car measures 5,32 m in length with a wheelbase of 3,25 m, and it is over two meters wide. Despite its gigantic dimensions, to put it mildly, the Nio makes no mention of four-wheel steering.
In the interior, the comfort of the passengers was put first. And since the car is currently planned only for the Chinese market, where the comfort of the passengers in the second row is usually more important than those in the first row, a lot of attention was paid to the back seats here as well.
The rear seats will of course be heated and ventilated, and on top of that they will also be electrically adjustable and massage. The luxury accessories do not end here, as passengers in the last row will also be able to refresh themselves with a cold drink from the built-in refrigerator, and when drinking, pillows with built-in noise canceling technology will ensure silence. Nio has also sacrificed space for one passenger for the comfort of those in the back row, meaning the ET9 will only be able to carry four passengers. Music lovers will be delighted with the Nio LYRA sound system, which promises high-level sound quality.
Nio realizes that comfort does not only come from coolers and massaging seats inside, so they have developed a smart adaptive SkyRide suspension that will be able to adapt to road conditions in real time to ensure comfort. Another new technology that the ET9 will use is the steer-by-wire steering system, which disconnects the mechanical connection between the wheels and the steering wheel, which reduces steering wheel vibration and increases precision. Nio also boasted about the stiffness of the chassis, they promise as much as 52.600 Nm/degree of stiffness.
The new ET9 will also boast a new in-house autonomous driving system called Aquila, which uses as many as 32 sensors, including three LiDAR sensors, which will be able to detect obstacles up to 500 meters away. The entire system is quite advanced and requires a lot of computing power to operate, which is why it is powered by a computer with a 5-nanometer processor with as many as 32 cores.
There is certainly no shortage of power, as the new ET9 is powered by two electric motors that together develop as much as 707 hp and 700 Nm of torque. These two figures combined mean that the new 5,32 meter luxury sedan will be able to launch from 0 to 100 km/h in as little as 4,3 seconds. Two battery sizes will be offered, the smaller one will be 100 kWh and the larger one will be 150 kWh. We don't have information on whether this is gross or net capacity, but we do know that it should be sufficient for a 650 km range for the smaller battery, and 1000 km for the larger one. It should be noted that these figures are not calculated according to the WLTP cycle, but according to the Chinese homologation cycle.
A new breakthrough has also been achieved by Nio in the technological field, as the ET9 will be the first car in the world to be built on a 900-volt architecture, surpassing the previous record by 100 volts. This will enable charging speeds of up to 600 kW, which should be enough to restore up to 255 km of range in five minutes.
The Nio ET9 is currently only intended for China, where it should hit the roads as early as March next year. Prices for the base model with a 100-kWh battery will start at €103.300 at current exchange rates, but it will also be available without a proprietary battery, meaning the owner will pay a monthly rental fee for the battery. A similar principle, as it was possible to do here with the Renault Zoe. In the case of a rental battery, the price will be 15 thousand lower. So the Nio ET9 will try to compete with the Europeans on Chinese soil, and they are not ready to take on those battles (at least for now) on European soil.
