Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Nio has completed final winter testing for its most luxurious and expensive model to date, the ET9, as it prepares to begin deliveries — the company’s principal chief engineer Danilo Teobaldi said on Friday.
“An adventurous flagship. Just ahead of Lunar New Year, the winter test of ET9 has officially ended,” Teobaldi wrote in a LinkedIn post. Nio will begin deliveries of the executive sedan in China this March.
Prices for the four-seater sedan in China start at 660,000 yuan ($91,150) under Nio’s Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) program, which allows customers to pay the battery’s monthly fee separately instead of purchasing it with the car.
The Italian engineer, one of Nio’s earliest employees, said the ET9 outperformed its direct competitors in challenging conditions, such as “icy and extremely slippery roads.”
“Thanks to elevated ground clearance and the coordinated intervention of the SkyRide chassis advanced actuators, ET9 can deliver dynamic experiences that exceed those of traditional executive flagships on icy and extremely slippery roads,” Teobaldi said.
“Shout out to the calibration team. Stay tuned for more information,” he added.
In late December, the company announced a new for its recently unveiled luxurious sedan ET9.
The company’s founder and CEO William Li said late last year that “selling 1,000 units of the ET9 per month would make us very happy.”
After selling all 999 units of the ‘First Edition’ (priced at 818,000 yuan, or $112,100) in just 12 hours, Nio announced on December 26 a new Signature edition priced at 808,000 yuan ($111,600).
The EV maker claims that the ET9 adopts “the world’s first integrated hydraulic fully active suspension, which for the first time highly integrates the shock absorber with the active suspension electric drive unit.”
Amid the launch, Nio said last month that the active suspension allows the model to “adapt to an ultra-large range of transient adjustment capabilities for stiffness, damping, and height, representing the current industry state-of-the-art in suspension technologies, creating a comfortable driving experience for users akin to a passenger aircraft cruising in the stratosphere.”
As of this writing, Nio shares are trading 1.9% higher in Friday’s pre-market session at $4.21. Over the past 12 months, the stock has lost approximately 33% of its value.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
