By
Svetlana Soroka
April 18th, 2024
With a new electric sedan, Nio seems to take on Tesla that has just started selling its Model Y vehicles from its Shanghai factory. However, Nio itself says their main rivals are BMW’s X3 and Audi’s Q5 sports utility vehicles.
Chinese electric vehicle producer Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO) introduced its first electric sedan on Saturday, during the NIO Day 2020 held in Chengdu. Called ET7, the model with self-driving technology features is expected to make strong competition to Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) Shanghai-made Model 3.
According to Nio, the ET7 electric sedan features NIO’s latest NAD (NIO Autonomous Driving) technology. It includes NIO Aquila Super Sensing and NIO Adam Super Computing. NAD brings safer and more relaxing autonomous driving from point A to point B, gradually covering use cases from expressways and urban parking to battery swapping.
Further, the ET7 offers two battery options, 70 kWh and 100 kWh for an NEDC range of 311 miles and 435 miles respectively. By late 2022, there also will be a 150 kWh battery version that will go 620 miles NEDC on a single charge.
With a dual-motor all-wheel-drive powertrain, the car is able to achieve acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.9 seconds only.
Nio founder and chairman William Li stated:
“We will continuously invest in products and technologies, and speed up the development of our service network, thereby bringing a better experience of smart electric vehicles to users.”
The price for the sedan starts at 448,000 yuan ($69,000) with a 70 kilowatt-per-hour battery pack. It can be bought upfront or with the battery as a service (BaaS), as a part of a monthly subscription. For a 100 kilowatt-per-hour battery pack, the price starts at 506,000 yuan ($78,142). For a 100 kWh Premier Edition battery, buyers will spend 526,000 yuan ($81,230).
Pre-orders for ET7 are already available, but the deliveries are expected no earlier than in the first quarter of 2022.
Competition in China’s EV Market
With a new electric sedan, Nio seems to take on Tesla that has just started selling its Model Y vehicles from its Shanghai factory. However, Nio itself says their main rivals are BMW’s X3 and Audi’s Q5 sports utility vehicles.
Peter Chen, an engineer with car component maker TRW, commented:
“NIO is sending a strong message that it will stand firm in making better and smarter cars than its rivals including Tesla. Judging from the ET7’s design and price tag, NIO is hoping to keep its edge over other leading EV makers with its technology and driving range.”
He further added:
“We are targeting at the established marques powered by internal combustion engine. We do not view Tesla as our main rival.”
The Chinese EV market is rapidly growing, with the competition increasing. For example, Nio’s Q4 2020 deliveries totaled 17,353 vehicles, twice more than a year before. Other Chinese vehicle leaders Li Auto and XPeng have announced record deliveries as well. In particular, for the fourth quarter, Xpeng recorded 12,964 EV deliveries. This is a 303% increase year-over-year and a 51% increase from the previous quarter. Li Auto’s deliveries for Q4 reached 14,464, or 67.0% higher than those for the third quarter.
With Tesla increasing its offerings in China, the competition in the country becomes even higher.