On stage at NIO Day 2020, NIO CEO, William Li revealed their next electric vehicle, the eT7. The sedan features autonomous driving sensors integrated into the body of the car.
There are lots of familiar queues, including a minimalist interior, complete with an air vent that’s adjustable through the touchscreen.
The car will also feature 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and V2X technology. There’s also some more insane features like the first 7.1.4 sound system in the car from 23 speakers.
The top model with a 150kWh battery will feature more than 1,000km of range. In terms of performance, the top model is good for a 0-100km/hr time of 3.9. That’s about half a second off the Model 3 Performance, but still very respectable.
NAD stands for NIO Autonomous Driving, will assist the car on the freeway, city and charging station. Li spoke at length on the tech included in the car, even throwing shade at Tesla’s image sensor, at just 1.2MP, while they went 6x bigger at 8MP.
There’s a new high resolution LIDAR built into the top of the windscreen, used to monitor the world around you with great detail. This is arranged in a ‘watchtower’ arrangement, with peripheral vision provided by a sensor on each side of the windscreen as well.
Nio’s autonomous driving package is known as Aquila. This includes 11 8MP Cameras, 1x 1,550nm LiDAR, 5x mmWave radar, 12x Ultrasonic sensors and 2x GPS + IMU. That impressive lineup of technology certainly sounds expensive.
These sensors are all connected to a system called Adam. This is a Nvidia-based solution that has redundant processors, much like Tesla’s FSD HW3 computer. The difference is NIO claims their computer is 7x more powerful.
It is also very interesting to see NIO announce their autonomous hardware is built into each model, and will be available as a monthly subscription, something Tesla has promised, but not yet delivered.
Price & Availability
The Nio eT7 is available for pre-order today (in China) and I really hope they bring it to Australia.
With all that tech on-board and some big batteries, ranging from 70kWh, 100kW and the mega 150kWh, the big question is.. what does the NIO ET7 cost? The answer is:
- 70kWh – ¥448,000 (A$89,198.37)
- 100kWh – ¥506,000 (A$100,746.37)
We didn’t get a price on the 150kWh version, but it’s easy to project that this will be well north of $100,000 in Australian dollars. To add complexity to the calculations, NIO unveiled they are working on a solid-state battery for this 150kWh edition, due at the end of 2022.
Those prices are fairly competitive and if those hardware specs are capable of everything NIO promised, it should be very competitive.
If the NIO ET7 was to come to Australia, obviously we need to add 10% GST and delivery and registration costs, so we really are talking about prices above Tesla’s Model 3 offering.
Now if you decide to opt into NIO’s battery as a service, you can drop those prices to:
- 70kWh – ¥378,000 (A$75,261.12)
- 100kWh – ¥378,000
Of course if you go in this direction, you will then pay to rent the battery and to use the battery swap system.
When it comes to the monthly subscription cost A$135.33 per month, which really sets a benchmark for autonomous driving subscriptions. This will now serve as an important comparison to Tesla’s FSD subscription when it arrives.
It looks Great and its what Elon want`s to see happen with the car industries’ it should sell well too Expensive for me though they will eventually come down in price
I was expecting to see a Tesla killer, but its still too expensive, and following the stupid Tesla design of no physical controls, even down to the hidden air vents…
You think the Tesla design is “stupid”? Old thinking! Trouble is many hundreds of thousands (and counting) think it’s brilliant, me included, and I’m not young, a baby boomer. Our 16 month old Tesla Model 3 is absolutely fabulous, and then I get in our 2014 Grand Cherokee (used now only for heavy towing) and it’s like it’s out of the ark – absolutely bloody awful by comparison. The Model 3 is just sooo much better with it’s clean uncluttered design.
Even my wife who is literally about as NON-tech savvy as you can get, INFINITELY prefers the Model 3.
I understand where you are coming from – but the reality is that the Tesla interior “design” of a big ol’ central tablet is as much a cost cutting decision rather than a thinly veiled design one. A few more physical buttons and a driver cluster would be enough though like the more expensive cars. They took it too far.
I saw an estimate that Tesla’s value is about $1.2mil per car produces where GM is about $9k per car produces. If many car makers produce competitive vehicles then we’re not necessarily going to see just about everyone driving around in the same model car due to the diversity of human lifestyles. Will this lead to the market eventually concluding that Tesla is overpriced? Time will tell. The markets smell like the dot com boom atm, but of course, I could be wrong…
The burning question is how long would it take to charge a 150kwh battery at home and how much would that cost in electricity per year………never any answers to this question for a good reason.
About 150kwh would cost about $35 at peak electricity prices and with a fast charger it’d be about a day to charge if other electric car Tech is any guide. Max of 20amps (single phase) in Australian homes but that’s not fully used with current vehicle charging technology, yet.
The maximum single phase current in Australia is much higher than 20A. Most people in Metro area with a Tesla wall charger have them set to 32A single phase.
About 150kwh would cost about $35 at peak electricity prices and with a fast charger my guess (which is about as reliable as any) is about a day to charge a flat battery if other electric car tech is any guide. Max of 20amps (single phase) in Australian homes but that’s not fully used with current vehicle charging technology, yet.
You question was posed like a naysayer thinking you are one up on these guys. There is an easy answer. It’s simple maths. If you charge at 10kW, it will take about 15 hours assuming dead flat to full. This is almost never likely to be needed. Normal charging will be based on usage like any other EV. If you drive 200km and it used 17kWh/100km, that would be 34kWh, so 3.5 hours to charge back to what it was when you started.
And 34kWh would cost between 15 and 30c per kW in WA, or $2.55 per 100km at 15c.
Nothing special for such a high price.
Nothing special! Holy smoke that’s one hell of a vehicle the Chinese are very capable of producing superior machines.
They are capable but I don’t think this will be any different from other Chinese knock offs.
The Chinese don’t even like to buy their own products. They opt for things built in other countries because the quality is much better.
So what does that say about the quality of Chinese products? When their own citizens are reluctant to purchase them.
The 1000 kms, is that just on flat terrain, or are there hills involved
If you went up and down hills to wind up at the same height, it would be similar to flat terrain. Unlike an ICE vehicle downhill regenerates power.
That’s like saying perpetual motion is a thing.
No it isn’t. It still requires the same energy consumption as travelling on the flat. This includes that flat energy for the downhill distance while actually not using this and regenerating and the energy while travelling up. While travelling up the vehicle would be using the mostly unused down distance energy plus the flat distance energy plus the regenerated energy with net less energy stored after a down up leg. Nothing perpetual energy about that. All based on the assumption of the original comment about equal net height leading to same as flat energy use being correct.
Up hill and down hill equals flat terrain – ah na – not in this universe
Will only consider buying one when they design a dashboard that looks like a dashboard and not an inverted computer.
You may be waiting a while, looks like this design trend is here to stay.
made in China:-(
our Australian goods are not good enough for China, same applies for there stuff to us, whatever it is. Stay clear of Chinese stuff, trade is a 2 way street
I completely agree with you. But if you look around your household try and count how many things are made in China. if you did the same in a Chinese household and tried to count how many things are made in Australia, you’ll be counting on one hand
No good for towing a 5th wheel caravan.
My Husband has the last model out, which is an SUV. It has glass roof from front to back. He just drives it into a battery swapping place and within 5 minutes he has a fully charged battery. Otherwise NIO have service vans that come and charge your car at work or side of the road 😀
Can’t wait for it here in Australia
Not inclined to buy Chinese products more than I have too at present.
The Huawei of the vehicle industry? If it’s made in China, no thanks, let it stay in China. Zero trust.
Does anybody seriously believe Technical specs from Chinese company’s? CCP news, we have defeated Covid
Independent sources China locks down 30 million in Northern China due to spread of Covid.
Until independently Tested it’s all just chat.
I was already aware that technology in China can outperform technology in the western world. It is by no mean a discount store product that they sell with a huge markup. However, the specs are by far above moderation. The car could easily damage the road-surface when accellerating, especially, at a hot summer day. I would prefer a more moderate car that boasts superior power economy such as the solar power assisted lightyear one.
Nice Ford, or Chrysler?