[Shanksta]

The NIO ES8

* This is China's first all electric SUV.
* NIO, formerly known as NextEV, is a startup electric automotive company founded in 2014.
* Their track car EP9 holds the record for the fastest lap around the Nurburgring, a time of 6minutes 45.9 seconds.
* The ES8 is a full time four wheel drive SUV having a motor on each axle, both combined putting out 480kW of power (644HP) and 840 Nm of torque.
* 0-60MPH in 4.4s.
* It has an all Aluminum body made with aerospace grade 7003 aluminum alloy. It has apparently surpassed the 5 star crash test safety rating.
* It has a 70kWh liquid cooled battery pack giving it a real world range of 355kms (Company claimed 500kms).
* It costs 448000 Yuan ($67000) this is before subsidy wherein the Chinese government reimburses upto $7000. Tesla's are not eligible for subsidies since they are imported. The Model X costs twice as much as an ES8.
* In addition customers can also buy the ES8 for 348000 Yuan and have a unique battery subscription scheme costing roughly $200 a month and also being eligible for a free battery upgrade in the future.
* The first 10000 units will be called the founders edition and will cost 558000 Yuan. All units have been pre-ordered. It comes with 21inch alloys, Nappa leather, advanced all weather package, NIO Pilot HUD.
* NIO will complete a 3 million kilometer road test before delivering the first customer vehicles in the first half of 2018.
* Currently available only in China and expected to be launched in USA next year.

NIO Power Swap Station

Following Tesla's idea of swapping battery packs to reduce time, NIO has also adapted a similar model. The NIO power swap stations mechanism is unique and take up only 3 parking spaces. The mechanism and design used carries over 300 patents filed by NIO. The swap time is only 3 minutes.

NIO will build 1100 power swap stations by 2020 around the world. It has currently tied up with over 400k charging stations across China. Also a charging station every 3km has been promised. The subscription scheme actually makes this battery swapping attractive since you need not worry about your battery pack.



NIO Power supply

This is official powercharge unit you get installed at home while buying a NIO ES8.



NIO Concierge service

This consists of a mobile charging unit charging your car for a 100km range in 10 minutes.




NIO Pilot

The ES8 comes with NIO's advanced driver assistance system. This system is consists of 23 sensors. The package includes a tri-focal front facing camera, five millimeter wave radars, four exterior surround cameras, a driver monitor and 12 ultrasonic sensors.

The system uses Mobileye eyeQ4 chip which was being developed with Tesla before Mobileye ended the partnership with Tesla due to a traffic collision involving the Model S leading to a fatality.



NOMI

NOMI is an AI assistant developed by NIO which uses the in car cameras and sensors to provide suggestion, help and intutive experience. It uses both in-car and cloud computation to assess the passengers in the car and give them a friend on the road.

Other Points

Huge Cargo area with all seats folded down.



I absolutely love that gear shifter it is so simple yet looks premium



The gorgeous interiors



A calf rest in the passenger seat, now that is thoughtful.



Flush door handle like Tesla.



The beautiful rear



The Launch event which I saw, has subtitles.

https://youtu.be/p0IU8J2QjOc

The Global road test.

https://youtu.be/jNlUQtVcpfE

IMHO NIO seems to be the most promising electric startup I have seen after Tesla. While other startups like Lucid motors and Faraday are having a tough time trying to get funding for their projects, NIO has shown that it can be done with. Surprisingly like Tesla NIO too first built an electric super car (EP9) and are part of Formula E which helped them raise a billion dollars from investors to make the ES8 a reality.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Shanksta

It has an all Aluminum body made with aerospace grade 7003 aluminum alloy. It has apparently surpassed the 5 star crash test safety rating.
In addition customers can also buy the ES8 for 348000 Yuan and have a unique battery subscription scheme costing roughly $200 a month and also being eligible for a free battery upgrade in the future.
NIO Power Swap Station
....The swap time is only 3 minutes.

NIO will build 1100 power swap stations by 2020 around the world. It has currently tied up with over 400k charging stations across China. Also a charging station every 3km has been promised. The subscription scheme actually makes this battery swapping attractive since you need not worry about your battery pack.

This is official powercharge unit you get installed at home while buying a NIO ES8.
NIO Concierge service....

This consists of a mobile charging unit charging your car for a 100km range in 10 minutes.

Beautiful car, outstanding interiors, driver assist and safety technology and the support services being planned for above. The Chinese may just leap frog into a leadership position on EVs and leave some of the traditional car manufacturers biting the dust just the way the makers of horse driven carriages got left out 110 years ago.

Some say there is no infrastructure today to support lakhs of EVs on the road tomorrow. Same way there was little by way of infrastructure to support ICE cars in 1905. When the demand builds the infrastructure follows. In 1965 when Boeing started to design the famous Boeing 747 there was much criticism because there were only 18 airports world wide to support such a heavy aircraft with a wing span of over 70 metres. But Juan Trippe of Pan Am and Boeing's Bill Allen plunged ahead nevertheless regardless of the arm chair critics. Guess what it was the hundreds of airports across the world who upgraded their infrastructure and lengthened and strengthened their runways.

EVs are coming. In 2055 it is possible that Team BHP will have a special section for ICE enthusiasts. Guess what all the main line sections will be about!

[GTO]

Thanks for sharing, Shanksta! Moving your post to a new thread.

[volkman10]

Some more info. on China's all-electric, seven-seat SUV – ES8,

The ES8 is produced at a world-class fully automated factory. The R&D, design, supply chain, and factory ensure the ES8’s premium quality. The ES8 will finish a 3,000,000 km road test before NIO begins delivering the vehicle to users.

Powered by big data and cloud services, NIO’s power cloud connects each of the super chargers, power swap stations, NIO Mobile vehicles, battery pack, ES8, NIO Specialist and NIO’s user. As a result, NIO’s users can enjoy worry-free power services with just one click. The same mobile connectivity is also applied to vehicle services. NIO’s services cloud also integrates each of the NIO House, repair center, delivery center, service car, ES8, NIO Specialist and NIO user to provide worry-free services.

NIO also announces a strategic partnership with JD and SF Express to provide NIO users with in-car delivery services.

NIO has opened NIO Houses in Beijing, and announces their plan to open more NIO Houses in nine more cities in 2018, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Hefei, Suzhou and Wuhan.

2018 NIO ES8 SUV (Exterior,Interior),

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqvzx14mi3I

NIO ES8 - NIO PILOT Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS),

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5c72hqg7Qo

Source

[wheelguy]

Deliveries for the refreshed 2020 Nio ES8 commenced:

Chinese electric vehicle startup Nio revealed the refreshed version of its flagship electric SUV, ES8 in December 2019 and the company has now started customer deliveries. Pictures of the new ES8 rolling off the production line has been tweeted by the company last week while the first customers have been handed keys yesterday in China. The keys were handed to Mr Jia at the Hefei Advanced Manufacturing Center by Mr William Bin Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Nio.

Nio says that the 2020 ES8 gets 180+ improvements on the interior, exterior and digital features.

The new Nio ES8 is driven by two electric motors – a 160 kW permanent magnet motor and a 240 kW induction motor, making the electric SUV an all-wheel-drive. The ES8 makes a total output of up to 544 hp and 725 Nm and is powered by the company’s new 100 kWh liquid-cooled thermostatic battery pack in its highest specification, offering an improved range of up to 580 km (NEDC). In this high-spec, the ES8 sprints from 0-100km/h in 4.9 s.

Lesser known fact is Nio's R&D is being spearheaded by Tata Technologies.

Nio has sought Tata Technologies help since their beginning days. ES8 has been developed with their help at various levels.

Tata has engaged with NIO to drive major engineering aspects related to the development of ES8, such as body structures, closures and exteriors, advanced manufacturing engineering, product lifecycle management (PLM), and off-car connectivity. The companies have worked on a range of concepts on weight optimization using advanced materials and on creating a process that would pioneer the way for more advanced material based vehicles in China. The result of implementing such expertise is that the ES8 is currently achieving high body weight efficiency targets.

The ES8 is the first car to have an all-aluminum body and chassis featuring aerospace grade 7003 series aluminium alloy, enabling a torsional stiffness of 44,140 Nm/Deg. According to NIO, the vehicle features the highest amount of aluminium for any mass production car, providing excellent passive safety design and 21 active safety features.

Roger Malkusson, vice president of Vehicle Engineering for NIO noted that Tata was “able to pool in experts and teams from China, India, U.K., and Romania to work together with the NIO engineering team to deliver the final product which adhered to the highest standards in safety and finesse. The first finished product, ES8, is an all-aluminum SUV that broke lightweight index benchmarks and was delivered in record time from a blank page to a validation vehicle in world class duration.”

Link

[vibbs]

Interesting to know how Power snap works in the real world.

If it can be a universal model and applied across different makes, it can overcome the drawback of limited range and long charging times for EVs.

[volkman10]

Audi files lawsuit against Chinese EV maker Nio over trademark rights.

According to Audi, Nio's decision to name two of its models ES6 and ES8 infringes Audi's trademark for its own model designations S6 and S8.


Link

[joslicx]

If I am not wrong, Sixt is launching its robotaxi service in Germany with a fleet of Nio ES8. It is supposed to be launched this year itself (maybe a limited launch in the beginning with a ramp later as people get more used to it. )