Nio’s new flagship ES9 has drawn pre-orders that accelerated over the last ten days and lifted demand for the ES8 SUV, founder and Chief Executive William Li said on Thursday, days before the executive SUV reaches customers.
The comments were made during the company’s first-quarter earnings call, after Nio reported a narrow quarterly loss alongside rising margins and a fourth straight quarter of vehicle-margin improvement, having stayed profitable on an adjusted basis.
“Since the pre-launch, its technology, as well as its exterior and interior design, have been well recognized and well received by the market and our users,” Li said. “We started test drives of the ES9 on May 11th, and after the test drives we witnessed growing momentum in order intake for the model.”
Li declined to put a figure on that momentum. “We do not disclose specific order momentum or order intake for new models,” he said.
He added that the company has “confidence in its overall performance in the executive flagship SUV segment above 500,000 yuan in China,” and believes the model “is going to change the landscape of the battery-electric vehicle segment above 500,000 yuan.”
Launch and Delivery
Nio had scheduled deliveries to begin on June 1 but has since moved the timeline forward to May 27.
The accelerated date means the ES9 will launch and begin deliveries on the same day.
During an internal meeting last month, Li identified the ES9 and the upcoming Onvo L80 as the company’s top priorities for the second quarter.
The ES9 is positioned to compete directly against premium internal-combustion executive SUVs, including the BMW X7 and Mercedes-Benz GLS.
Li named both as direct competitive targets at the April 10 pre-launch event in Hangzhou, days before the Beijing Auto Show.
The model became one of the most-discussed luxury three-row SUVs during the show’s media day, alongside rivals including the Zeekr 8X and 9X and the Aito M9.
Pricing and Specs
Pre-orders for the Executive Luxury Edition start at 528,000 yuan ($77,600) with the battery included, or 420,000 yuan ($61,700) under Nio’s Battery-as-a-Service leasing scheme, with the 102-kWh pack leased separately for 1,128 yuan a month.
The Executive Signature starts at 588,000 yuan ($86,400), or 480,000 yuan ($70,600) with BaaS. The range-topping Horizon Special Edition starts at 658,000 yuan ($96,700), or 550,000 yuan ($80,900) with BaaS.
The ES9 is the largest model Nio has ever produced and currently China’s largest fully electric SUV.
Nio‘s new flagship SUV measures 5,365 mm long, 2,029 mm wide and 1,870 mm tall, on a 3,250 mm wheelbase — 430 mm longer than the third-generation ES8 it replaces as the brand’s flagship Sport utility vehicle.
The model is built on Nio’s NT 3.0 platform and 900-volt architecture, shared with the ET9 flagship sedan.
The SUV inherits the SkyRide intelligent chassis that debuted on the ET9, combining fully active suspension developed by the Nio Capital-backed startup ClearMotion, steer-by-wire and rear-wheel steering.
Its technology stack includes Nio’s Cedar operating system, two Shenji NX9031 intelligent driving chips, three LiDAR sensors and the AQUILA sensing system.
Priced Well Below the ET9
Despite sharing the ES9’s “9 series” positioning and the full NT 3.0 technology suite with the ET9, the SUV carries a significantly lower entry price.
The ET9 sedan starts at 788,000 yuan ($115,900) with the battery included — roughly 260,000 yuan above the ES9 Executive Luxury Edition’s 528,000 yuan starting price.
Under BaaS, the gap narrows but remains substantial, with the ES9 entry trim starting at 420,000 yuan against the ET9’s 688,000 yuan BaaS price.
The ET9 followed a demand pattern that has become familiar across Nio’s recent launches — strong initial order intake in the weeks around the unveiling, followed by a steep decline as the early reservation backlog is absorbed.
Nio will be looking to the ES9 to sustain momentum beyond the initial spike, particularly as the model enters a segment with structurally higher repeat demand.
The Demand Signal
Li said at the April 11 media session that orders from buyers outside the existing Nio community were running at more than 1.5 times the equivalent period after the ES8 launch last year, though the company has not disclosed absolute pre-order figures.
At that session, Nio’s leadership described the ES9 as having tapped an unmet need for a premium intelligent electric executive vehicle, with Li calling it “the creator of the intelligent electric executive SUV category.”
Deutsche Bank expects average monthly ES9 sales to reach about 5,000 units once production capacity ramps up in the second half of 2026.
The bank lifted its 2026 total deliveries forecast for Nio by about 5% to around 420,000 units, citing the ES9 launch as a key catalyst.
Pre-Launch Incentives
As reported by EV earlier this week, Nio rolled out aggressive pre-launch financing incentives for the ES9, with the centerpiece offer providing zero interest for the first two years of a 60-month installment plan.
The financing plans are available only to customers who pay the ES9 reservation deposit before May 27, and the exclusive reservation channel closes once formal orders open on launch day.
Customers paying the 5,000-yuan deposit before the launch can apply that amount as 10,000 yuan toward the final purchase price — a 5,000-yuan effective discount available only during the pre-launch window.
The ES9 is one of three SUVs Nio is focusing on this year.
The third-generation ES8 had been the top-selling large electric SUV in China for five consecutive months. Under Onvo, the group launched the L80 last week, a five-seat derivative of the three-row L90.
First-quarter deliveries across the group reached 83,465 units, a 98.3% year-over-year increase that exceeded the upper end of management’s guidance.
