I give my review of Nio Day 2021, giving a review of the key announcements about the new NIO ET7 Sedan, Nio Swap Station 2.0, Nio Autonomous Driving, their 150 kWh battery giving 1000+ km range and more.
Nio had about an hour of build up to Nio Day itself, with footage from their other cars and production line, as well as other things to entertain the large crowd. When the event started, they took us through some case stories from a few current drivers, as well as performances from the Nio Band and others.
Blue Point Plan
William Li, the CEO of Nio, took us through the launch of the Blue Point Plan, a collaboration with China Classification Society Certification Company and the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange which allows Nio customers to certify their emission reductions and trade carbon credits.
Blue Sky Lab
Li announced then announced that Nio Life would launch a green-thinking product line called Blue Sky Lab, a collaboration with over 100 designers to create eco-friendly clothing using waste from the Nio production line.
Nio Battery Swap Station 2.0
Next up, we heard that the Nio Swap Stations would be expanded to hold 13 battery packs, allowing them to perform 312 daily ev battery swaps. They are looking to roll out more swap stations, up from 177 to 500 this year.
150kWh Battery Pack
The capacity of their battery packs have been growing 20% year on year. In 2018 they had a 70kWh battery pack, 2019 saw an 84kWh battery pack. By 2020 this had grown to a 100kWh battery pack. William Li announced that Nio would release a 150kWh battery pack this year. Adopting the most advanced production-ready solid-state battery technology, will help improve the energy density by 50%. The end result is an energy density of 360Wh/kg.
The 150kWh battery pack will enable the new car, the Nio ET7, to travel 1000+ km according to NEDC standards.
Nio ET7 Sedan
William Li then announced the launch of their new sedan, the Nio ET7. Described as Ready for Tomorrow, as the ET7 is Autonomous Driving ready and can achieve an NEDC range of 1000+ km with the 150kWh battery pack. It can achieve 0-100km in 3.9 seconds through its dual motor intelligent all-wheel drive system. There is a 180kW permanent magnet motor on the front and a 300kW induction motor on the rear, making a combined output of 480kW.
Features of the Nio ET7:
Exterior
- Design for Autonomous Driving
- Outclassing Dimensions
- Soft-Closing Door With Frameless Window
- Flush Door Handle
- All-Glass Roof
- Heartbeat Taillight
- Sporty Colour Caliper *
- Moon Theme Exterior Set *
Space
- Second Mobile Living Space
- Karuun® Renewable Rattan
- Microfiber Headliner
- Front & Rear Invisible Air Vents
- Waterfall Ambient Lighting
- Smart Fragrance and Air Quality System
- Seat Heating, Ventilation, Massage
- Nappa Interior*
Digital Cockpit
- UWB Digital Key
- 10.2″ HDR Instrument Cluster
- 12.8″ AMOLED Centre Display
- Enhanced HUD
- All New Smart Cockpit Domain Controller
- NOMI AI Companion
- 5G Connectivity
- 23 Speakers, 7.1.4 Immersive Sound System
Performance
- 0.23Cd
- 1,000km+ NEDC Range
- 180kW PM Motor With SiC
- 300kW Induction Motor
- 3.9s Acceleration (0-100km/h)
- 33.5m Braking Distance (100-0km/h)
- Smart Air Suspension
- CN & EU 5-star Standards
The ET7 is due to be available in China from Q1 2022.
* Available on the top-of-the-range model
Nio Autonomous Driving
Nio Autonomous Driving uses 8MP High Resolution AD Cameras, which compare favourably with the 1.2MP used by Tesla FSD. This allows detection of objects at a further distance and with greater detail. This will enable earlier response and in theory fewer accidents.
Their LiDAR technology allows detection of objects not visible with the current camera technology, especially in low-light scenarios or dealing with glare from lights. LiDAR is critical to improving the safety of autonomous driving.
There is an 8GB data per second throughput, which needs a lot of processing power. Nio unveiled their Adam Supercomputer, which has 4 NVIDIA Drive Orin units giving a total processing power of 1,016 TOPS.
The specifics of the NAD system are:
Aquila Super Sensing
- 33 High Resolution Sensing Units
- 8MP High Definition Cameras
- Ultralong Range High Resolution LiDAR
- 360° Visual Redundancy
- All Direction Fusion
Adam Super Computing
- 4 x NVIDIA DRIVE Orin
- 1,016 TOPS Computing Power
- Super ISP Pipeline
- Ultrahigh Bandwidth Backbone Network
- Hot Standby Redundancy
Autonomous Driving Algorithm
- Multi-Solution Perception Fusion
- Multi-Source Integrated Localisation
- Multi-Modal Prediction and Planning
- Crowd AI
- Personalisation
Vehicle Platform for Autonomous Driving
- NIO Vehicle Operating System
- Power Supply and Communication Redundancy
- Steering Redundancy
- Parking Brake Redundancy
- Dual Motors
As well as this Nio Day 2021 Review, you may also be interested to view my pre-Nio Day preview or Nio Sub-brand: Reportedly “Close” To Deal With BYD.
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