NIO Day 2018, the annual conference of NIO Inc. (NYSE: NIO) with its hosts and guests, was held in Shanghai Oriental Sports Center. The important agenda for NIO Day 2018 is the first official introduction of its brand-new product ES6. NIO planned to start delivery of ES6 at June 2019.
Dec 15, 2018, Shanghai /EqualOcean/ - NIO Day 2018, the annual conference of NIO Inc. (NYSE: NIO) with its hosts and guests, was held in Shanghai Oriental Sports Center. The important agenda for NIO Day 2018 is the first official introduction of its brand-new product ES6.
Before introducing the ES6, LI Bin (William Li, 李斌) first announced that NIO had already successfully delivered 9726 models of ES8 in 22 cities and then delivered the 9727th ES8 to LEI Jun (雷军) at the conference, the Founder and CEO of Xiaomi company, as well as one of the investors of NIO. LEI Jun shared an important reason for his investment, that LI Bin himself was willing to invest USD 150 million in this EV startup, which showed great confidence and determination.
Compared with NIO’s current production vehicle ES8, which is a full-size SUV with 7 seats and a wheelbase of 3,010 mm, ES6 is positioned as a mid-size SUV with 5 seats and built on a wheelbase measuring of 2,900 mm.
Li Bin gave three keywords to describe this brand new model: High-performance, Long-range and Smart Electric SUV with 1-100 km/h Acceleration of 4.7s, 100-0 km/h Braking Distance of 33.9m, 200km/h top speed and 510km NEDC range by using NIO's new 84kWh battery.
The price of ES6 will range from CNY 358,000 to 448,000 before subsidies, while the price of ES6 could be as low as CNY 198,000 for the lowest end model with Battery Rental Plan. NIO planned to start delivery of ES6 in June 2019.
What is new for ES6 would be its first-ever design with PM Motor and IM Motor, which enables ES6 to maintain high efficiency and performance.
NIO Pilot, the company's advanced autonomous driving assistant system, is not something new for NIO's fans, which had already been introduced on ES8's, while it still cannot be used currently. LI Bin announced that all models of ES6 will be equipped with NIO Pilot using Mobileye Eye Q4, which is comprised by a trifocal front-facing camera, 4 surround exterior cameras, 5-millimeter wave radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and 1 driver monitoring camera. However, when NIO Pilot can be put in use is still unkown.
For better user experiences, NIO ES6 also provides a few thoughtful designs and functions, like the Convenient Living Space under the central control part for storage of shoes and bags, the Intelligent Fragrance System that can automatically control the aroma in the car, and users can even control the fragrance by speak to Nomi, the voice-control assistant, like "Hi, Nomi, give me some 'Sunshine'", Sunshine is a name of fragrance among all the 5 options.
As to NIO's unique battery swap service, which is seriously doubted recently, the company is about to complete constructions of battery swap networks alongside other two expressways in China soon, after G4.
Good news for ES8 owners would be NIO’s battery upgrade plan, which enables the previous ES8 models to upgrade with the new 84-kWh battery.
The ES6 will be another milestone for NIO, according to LI Bin's speech, it can help further to complete NIO's product line, and keep pushing the company to fulfill their prospect of "Smart EV".
- Author: ZHANG Fan; Write to ZHANG Fan at ZhangFan@EqualOcean.com