U.S. podcaster Joe Rogan, whose show draws tens of millions of listeners, praised Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio and its flagship ET9 sedan in a new episode released on Wednesday.
“China’s electric vehicles are so good!” said Rogan. “They’re so advanced!”
The comedian and podcaster, a close friend of Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, commented on the suspension system used by the EV maker on its recently launched flagship sedan, the ET9.
Speaking with Amjad Masad, CEO of cloud-based coding platform Replit, Rogan said: “I’ve never even heard of these companies [EV manufacturers] and they’re incredible. They’re so advanced!”
He went on to describe a suspension demonstration shown by Nio in a video late last year.
“They did a demonstration where they drove one of these Chinese electric vehicles over an obstacle course, and then they had like a BMW [shaking] and a Mercedes go over. […] And the Chinese one is f****** flat planning the entire way right,” Rogan stated, referring to the Nio ET9 sedan.
“Every bump in the road is being completely absorbed by the suspension. It’s so much better than what we have,” he added.
“There’s so much better than what we have right like so much,” Rogan added. Below is the full video with Rogan’s comments.
The model he referred to is the ET9, Nio’s most expensive and technologically advanced vehicle to date.
The sedan features what Nio calls the world’s first integrated hydraulic fully active suspension system, branded SkyRide. According to the company, the system can process information and respond “within 1 ms.”
“By instantaneously adjusting stiffness, damping, and height, the ET9 ensures a stable ride with extraordinary body control,” the EV maker says.
ClearMotion’s tech had already been praised by Joe Rogan last year, with the podcaster calling it “the most advanced car suspension I’ve ever heard of.”
The SkyRide system is based on ClearMotion1, a technology developed by Boston-based startup ClearMotion, which acquired the Bose Ride business in 2017.
Nio was an early investor in the company and is the first carmaker to implement the system in mass production.
In December 2023, ClearMotion — backed by Nio Capital, an investment firm affiliated with the EV maker — announced it had “officially partnered with Nio to bring three million units of ClearMotion1 into production.”
Nio Capital is led by William Li, founder and CEO of Nio, and by Ian Zhu.
A few months later, in April 2024, ClearMotion said the same system will also be used by Porsche vehicles in the future.
The system enables 1,000 torque adjustments per second using a high-performance brushless motor and actuator response frequency of 40Hz — making it approximately 60 times faster than traditional air suspensions.
The ET9 includes a suspension demo mode, in which the front center screen plays videos of different road surfaces, first simulating the bumps a “normal” car would register, then replaying them in SkyRide mode to show the contrast.
The car also features the world’s first production version of 5D PanoCinema, where the chassis can vibrate and react to the action of a movie playing inside the vehicle.
Nio began deliveries of the ET9 in China in late March.
The four-seat model starts at 660,000 yuan ($92,110) under the battery subscription model and rises to 788,000 yuan ($109,970) with the battery included.
The company sold out the 999-unit First Edition, priced at 818,000 yuan ($114,160), within 12 hours. A Signature Edition followed at 808,000 yuan ($112,760).
Nio delivered 682 units of its executive flagship ET9 sedan in May, taking the two-month total to 1,492 units, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association.
The sedan features what Nio calls its most advanced suite of technologies to date, includes also steer-by-wire system, a new digital cockpit, and an improved audio setup.
“As an epitome of Nio’s 10-year innovation and the full-stack R&D capabilities in 12 areas, the Nio ET9 boasts 1,081 patents filed and obtained,” the carmaker said amid the launch last December.
