On December 23, 2023, NIO Day 2023 opened in Xi’an with the theme “A New Journey Upward.” At the event, NIO officially launched and began preselling its new executive flagship ET9, and unveiled four core technologies developed for it. NIO ET9 made its debut and started preselling.
The NIO ET9 is the deepest and most extensive model developed by the NIO brand to date. It is also the first model in the 9 series. NIO officially defines the ET9 as the flagship product of the NIO brand and the strongest masterpiece of the NIO brand to date. The new car is now available for pre-sale at a pre-sale price of 800,000 yuan (112780$). Pre-order benefits include a 5000 yuan (700$) discount for 10,000 yuan (1410$), as well as 100 hours of exclusive NIO high-end driver service. The new car will be delivered in the first quarter of 2025.
ET9, based on the NT2.0 platform, features NIO’s mainstream family design language. It inherits the family DNA to a high degree, maintaining a sleek design without being overly exaggerated. Following the PURE-TEC design concept, ET9 continues to minimize exterior design, hiding as many functional elements as possible. Under the “Design for AD” concept, the roof’s laser radar and camera adopt a watchtower-style and corner-style distribution design, continuing to possess the full set of automatic driving hardware of the future family’s NT2.0 platform, NIO’s self-developed intelligent driving chip, super sensing system, super computing platform, and NIO’s automatic driving technology.
The all-new X-bar features a more concise closed grille and a larger hollow area, with a more prominent Shark Nose. The iconic Double Dash daytime running lights have a sharper and deeper exterior contour. The split main headlight unit adopts a projection lighting method, which can focus on the road or objects ahead, and can also project a light curtain on the road, making the lighting method stunning. The new car introduces a new style of welcome light carpet, with a larger area and more refined colors, adding a sense of ceremony to entering and exiting the car.
The new car has a sporty and sleek design, with a compact and upward-sloping rear end. It combines the sharpness of a coupe with the elegance of an executive sedan. The long wheelbase, long rear overhang, slim windows, and 23-inch wheels make the car’s side profile more harmonious. The family-style continuous taillight design further enhances its beauty, and the slim width light strip is very appealing. In terms of body size, it measures 5325mm in length, 2016mm in width, 1620mm in height, and has a wheelbase of 3250mm.
In terms of power, the ET9 uses a 900V high-voltage platform, with a peak charging power of 600 kW and a 5C charge and discharge rate. The power battery uses 46105 large cylindrical batteries, with an energy density of 292 Wh/kg. The new car will use NIO’s fourth-generation electric drive, with a front 180 kW asynchronous + rear 340 kW oil-cooled permanent magnet synchronous electric drive.
The NIO ET9 uses a fully networked intelligent chassis, equipped with the VMC intelligent computing platform to achieve soft and hard decoupling. Combined with the Tian Shu SkyOS, it supports flexible deployment and can expand new functions and new line control hardware. The chassis part adopts the Tian Xing Skyride fully active suspension with rear wheel steering function. For the steering part, it uses fully networked steering technology, and only needs to turn the steering wheel 0.6 circles in parking scenarios.
In terms of the cockpit, the NIO ET9 uses a smart digital architecture for the entire vehicle, with the central control screen changed to a horizontal layout. The center console now features a 1.4-meter-long “skyline screen” with digital skin functionality and “skylight painting” scene mode. The audio system includes 35 speakers, 8 headrest speakers, 2680 watts of power, dual power amplifiers, and a 7.1.4 channel setup, with noise reduction capability reaching 800hz.
The NIO ET9 features a native four-seat layout with a “sky island” and executive bridge. The interior space measures 2049mm in length and 1563mm in width. The “sky island” design on the roof is paired with a custom canopy and a 256-color diffuse ring light. The executive bridge, which is 1.95 meters long and integrates 20 innovative subsystems, includes a 360° continuously adjustable executive desk and a 10L capacity smart refrigerator with a temperature range from -2°C to 55°C. The rear “reclining executive seats” have a maximum backrest adjustment angle of 45°, a seat cushion width of 582mm, and 11 linked adjustments for reclining. Additionally, all four side windows of the vehicle are made of laminated glass and are equipped with seven electric sunshades. The front seats are equipped with a panoramic interactive executive screen, featuring a 14.5-inch OLED high-definition display. Four core technologies released.
As a manifestation and achievement of NIO’s 12-stack technology layout, NIO officially released its self-developed intelligent driving chip, self-developed universal 900V high-voltage architecture, Tianxing intelligent chassis system, and flagship-level safety standard four core technologies, all of which are applied to NIO ET9. NIO officials said it has defined the technical new standard for the next generation of high-end intelligent electric vehicles. Self-developed intelligent driving chip
NIO’s first self-developed intelligent driving chip, Shenji NX9031, is officially released. The self-developed intelligent driving chip can better match its own algorithm requirements. NIO claims that it can achieve the performance of four current industry-leading intelligent driving chips.
The chip is manufactured using 5nm process and has over 500 billion transistors. The CPU cluster and abundant memory bandwidth enable fast and stable processing. The self-developed image signal processor (ISP) enhances the overall sensory experience. The self-developed inference acceleration unit (NPU) runs various AI algorithms flexibly and efficiently. It can wake up all subsystems in microseconds, upgrade the intelligent driving experience with the strongest security redundancy capability. NIO’s vehicle-wide operating system SkyOS will be fully applied on ET9, together with the intelligent driving chip, it will build a 1+4+N technology cluster covering multiple areas such as vehicle control, intelligent driving, cabin, and mobile interconnection. Vehicle-wide 900V high voltage architecture NIO’s vehicle-wide 900V high voltage architecture has been released, with a maximum vehicle voltage of 925V, peak charging power of 600kW, and peak charging current of 765A. NIO’s new generation 900V intelligent electric drive platform uses self-developed and self-produced 1200V silicon carbide power modules, W-Pin continuous winding process, and efficient oil cooling system. The world’s first 925V continuous winding permanent magnet synchronous rear electric drive has a peak power output of 340kW. The front 180kW induction asynchronous electric drive weighs 69kg, with a power density of 2.6kW/kg, reducing the overall volume of the front and rear electric drive systems by 30%, shortening the longitudinal dimension by 280mm, leaving space for the vehicle cabin, front and rear trunk, and chassis systems.
In terms of batteries, NIO has independently developed 46,105 large cylindrical battery cells and battery packs. The energy density of a single battery cell is 292Wh/kg, with a total capacity of 120kWh. The battery pack has a charging efficiency of 5C, and can be charged for 5 minutes with a 5C flash charge to achieve a range of 255 kilometers. In addition, the battery pack uses a thermoelectric separation design, separating the electrical connection and explosion-proof valve at both ends of the battery cell to improve battery safety from the single battery cell. The serpentine pipe achieves dual-sided cooling, providing a safe and stable temperature environment for the 5C charging of the battery pack, with a vertical height utilization rate of 84%. SkyRide intelligent chassis system
NIO integrates the core hardware systems of steer-by-wire, rear-wheel steering, and fully active suspension to create the “SkyRide Intelligent Chassis System.” NIO claims that this is currently the world’s only fully steer-by-wire intelligent chassis system. Under the “SkyRide steer-by-wire” technology, the steering wheel and the steering motor use electronic signal transmission without traditional mechanical structure. With the “rear-wheel steering” technology, the ET9 achieves a maximum rear wheel steering angle of 8.3°, resulting in a minimum turning diameter of 10.9 meters.
Nio’s “Fully Active Suspension” is the world’s first integrated hydraulic fully active suspension. It integrates shock absorbers with active suspension electric drive units, providing high-frequency response, rapid adjustment, and comprehensive improvement in handling, comfort, and safety, developed jointly by Nio and ClearMotion. Flagship Safety Standards Nio ET9 adopts a flight body design, utilizing spatial mechanics structure, and using high-strength steel aluminum magnesium alloys and composite materials to create a vehicle with a torsional stiffness of up to 52600Nm/deg. It comes standard with 9 airbags, with side curtains covering 100% of the protection area for front and rear passengers, and rear passengers equipped with side airbags to meet all side collision conditions in China, Europe, and the United States. Nio ET9 is equipped with the super-sensing system, Aquila 2.0, with added dual side wide-angle laser radar, constructing a 350° laser ring perception system; equipped with Nio’s self-developed Yang Jian control chip for long-range laser radar: adding 4D millimeter wave imaging radar to enhance perception capabilities.
In terms of lighting, the NIO ET9 is equipped with a new intelligent high-definition projection headlight, using MicroLED units and film industry-grade high-precision imaging lenses, deeply integrated with Aquila 2.0, achieving enhanced brightness of far and near light, ultra-wide angle coverage, super large steering angle, and longer irradiation distance, and achieving pixel-level precise light control. NIO stated that, with reference to aviation safety standards, according to the characteristics of intelligent hardware, software, battery, and electric drive system, it has designed sevenfold safety redundancy for core systems related to driving control. [Fourth-generation battery swapping station and ultra-fast charging pile]
Not long ago, NIO completed the goal of adding 1000 new battery swap stations by 2023. NIO announced plans to add 1000 new battery swap stations and 20,000 charging piles in 2024. At the event, NIO officially launched the fourth generation battery swap station and 640kW liquid-cooled ultra-fast charging piles.
The fourth-generation battery swap station supports multi-brand shared battery swapping, reducing swapping time by 22%; equipped with a rooftop photovoltaic system, each station saves nearly 18,000 kWh of electricity per year. NIO’s 640kW fully liquid-cooled ultra-fast charging pile has a maximum current of 765A, a maximum voltage of 1000V, and a peak charging power of 640kW, and can intelligently allocate charging power in real time within the station.