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Nio ET7

You could already get a car from Nio in Norway for a while, but the real European adventure is only now beginning for the Chinese, with the large-scale introduction of their flagship model: the ET7. The flagship will hit the road in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden in October. The rest of Europe should follow later.

What is Nio?

In case you don’t remember exactly who or what Nio is, we’ll quickly catch you up. Nio is a Chinese automaker, which has already achieved considerable success in its home country. Over 250,000 Nios are already driving around there. Founded in 2012, the brand is a major player in the premium segment in China. Nio is keen to cross borders and aims to operate in 25 countries by 2025. The foreign adventure begins in Europe.

ET7, EL7 and ET5

The ET7 is not the only model Nio plans to sell outside China. The ET7 will be followed in January 2023 by the European introduction of the EL7 – a midsize electric SUV – and the NIO ET5 – a midsize electric sedan somewhat similar to the Tesla Model 3. All three models are available with 75 kWh and 100 kWh capacity battery packs. A third variant of 150 kWh will be added in 2023. How far you get with that gigantic package is not yet known, but with 100 kWh, the ET7 and ET5 reaches 580 kilometers on a single charge. The EL7 kicks it up to 513 kilometers. An ET7 with 75 kWh in the bottom will travel 445 kilometers.

No slow cars

Nio mounts two electric motors in all its models: one on the front axle and one on the rear axle. In the ET7 and EL7, power is at 653 hp, while the ET5 has to make do with “only” 480 hp. All models shoot from 0 to 100 km/h in under four seconds. During our test drive in Germany, we hit the 200 km/h mark within 16 seconds, as you can see in our video. Impressive, for an electric car. So slow cars they don’t build at Nio.

Smart

Stupid cars don’t either, the models are actually very smart. They are packed with state-of-the-art technology. For example, the ET7 features four NVIDIA Orin X chips, 48 CPU cores, 256 matrix processing units, 8,096 floating point units, a total of 68 billion transistors and 1,016 TOPS of total power. Even though you may not know what it means, it sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

Lidar

The computing power is used not only for a blazing fast infotainment system – but also to get you from point A to point B safely. Around the car are 33 sensors, which monitor the environment and together can generate 8 gigabytes of data per second. Three sensors stand out, as they protrude above the roof. Just above the windshield are three bumps, which Nio collectively calls the “Watchtower. In the outer two bumps are two 8 megapixel cameras and in the middle is a Lidar system. Lidar works similarly to radar and is a technology that determines the distance to an object or surface through the use of laser pulses. These reflect on objects in front of the car, allowing the supercomputer to create a 3D map and understand what is happening in front of the car.

Interior

According to Nio, you can think of the ET7’s interior as a second living room. And indeed, as soon as you swing open the door you get the idea of stepping into a modern living room or beautiful hotel lobby. The materials used are of high quality and the workmanship is excellent. In the interior, you don’t notice that Nio has only been building cars for a few years.

Gadgets

In the interior, the driver gets two razor-sharp, floating screens in front of him, and the air vents – just like on a Tesla Model 3 – are cleverly concealed. A fun gadget is the Nomi system. This personal assistant – which can be compared to Apple’s Siri or Google Assistant – is shaped like an egg and positioned in the middle of the dashboard. She can spin her egg body around to turn toward a person addressing her in the car. You can give her all kinds of commands, but you can also feel free to converse with her for half an hour. That way you are never alone and always have someone to talk to. Nomi therefore stands for No-Me: “not just me.” How it works we show you in the video below.

Battery as a Service

Nio’s cars have another party piece: they can swap their battery in five minutes. For that, you need to go to a Nio swap station. At these switching stations, fully charged battery packs are waiting for Nios that are running low. Users can park their Nio in front of the station, then the car will drive itself inside. Then a robot exchanges the empty package for a filled one. That job is done in five minutes. Those in less of a hurry can charge their car at a fast charger with 140 kW. In Norway and Germany, the first switching stations are now in place; by the end of 2022, a total of 20 sites should be operational. An additional 120 stations will open in Europe next year.

What does a Nio ET5 and ET7 cost?

You order a Nio through the brand’ s website. You can reserve all three models right now. Buying, however, is impossible for now. You can only get a Nio through a lease or car subscription. So you pay a fixed amount per month. For the ET7, you pay at least 1,299 euros per month and for the ET5, you have to transfer at least 1,089 euros monthly to Nio.

Want to know how the Nio ET7 drives, how to change a battery and see all the details of the car? Then watch the video below.