Chinese EV maker Nio announced on Thursday that it will be holding a pre-launch event for the third generation of its debut production model, the ES8 SUV, on August 21.
The information was revealed by VP of Nio Brand & Communication Ma Lin via a post on the Nio app, in which he stated, “Creating a new realm — the all-new Nio ES8, see you on August 21 at 19:30.”
The upcoming ES8 was spotted this week being tested on a road trip, in which it only using the company’s battery swap stations, to Mount Everest.
Nio‘s founder and CEO William Li further detailed the trip in a comment on Ma Lin’s post, in which he said the vehicle was, this Thursday, “on the way from the airport to Lhasa,” from where he will then drive to Rikaze and then to the base camp of Mount Everest.
“While inspecting the 318 battery swap network, we will also be conducting a major family test of the all-new ES8’s performance on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,” Li added.
Earlier on Thursday, Nio’s co-founder and President Lihong Qin drove the new ES8 and performed a battery swap at the company’s newest facility in the Gongbo’gyamda County, in Tibet.
The station is located 4,500 meters above sea level, now the highest battery swap station in the world.
Nio veteran and Onvo chief Shen Fei also left a comment on the post, in which he reaffirmed that the “all-new ES8 is excellent” and that “for 500,000 yuan [$69,700] large three-row SUVs, it’s the best-choice.”
Shen Fei added that “for 300,000 yuan [$41,800] family cars, they’ll definitely choose the Onvo L90,” the second model from Nio‘s sub-brand, which was launched late last month.
The updated ES8 will be officially launched at the annual ‘Nio Day’ event, which will take place in Hangzhou on September 20.
Normally held at the end of the year, this year’s event was moved forward to align with the model’s release.
The model was first revealed last month in a MIIT regulatory filing in mid-June. In comments made in a WeChat group earlier this week, William Li said the new ES8 will not feature electric running boards, as they “are not needed.”
The ES8 will feature Nio‘s in-house developed Shenji NX9031 autonomous driving chip — the same used by the brand’s flagship sedan ET9, which was launched earlier this year, with deliveries starting in late March.
In May, the Shanghai-based brand updated several models in its lineup.
The company updated both its ES6 and EC6 SUVs in mid-May, immediately starting deliveries of the models.
Then, later that month, it also launched the refreshed iterations of the ET5 sedan and ET5 Touring models, featuring more than 500 upgraded parts and keeping prices unchanged from previous versions.
In July, Nio delivered 12,675 vehicles — a drop both sequentially and year over year.
The second-generation ES8 represented 1,090 out of the total, a 5% share of the brand’s deliveries. It was the model’s highest monthly total year to date.
