A new iteration of Nio‘s ES7 SUV was spotted in China on Thursday, nearly a year after the model was quietly discontinued in the country.
The vehicle was spotted on a Chinese highway with little camouflage in a video shared by automotive bloggers on Weibo.
The new generation model shares a similar design with the recently launched Nio ES8 and the upcoming flagship ES9.
The vehicle is one of the three larger SUV models scheduled for launch this year, besides the L80 under the Onvo brand and the ES9 under the core Nio brand.
The vehicle is reported to feature three LiDAR sensors and measure approximately 5.1 meters (200 inches) in length.
2022 — 2025
The first version of the SUV was launched in August 2022 and was one of the first models under Nio‘s second-generation NT2.0 platform.
The model was priced from 468,000 yuan (around $60,000 then), which was lowered to 398,000 yuan (around $50,000) for users opting for Nio‘s Battery as a Service (BaaS) system.
The model is a larger five-seat SUV, compared to the more affordable ES6. Unlike ES6, however, it did not receive an upgrade in mid-2025.
Last year, the entry-level five-seat SUV was revamped in China, along with the EC6 SUV, the ET5 sedan, and the ET5 Touring station wagon.
Sales Slump
In 2024, the ES7 was Nio’s worst-selling model, with only 1,874 units sold. The sales results represented a 71% plunge from the previous year.
Last year, registrations declined by another 82%, with a total of 339 ES7s registered.
The majority of these vehicles were sold in January, while the following four months saw very limited deliveries until eventually no new registrations were listed.
While the company has never officially confirmed that it has discontinued the model, it stopped being sold across China in early 2025.
7-Series
Overall, Nio’s 7-series struggled in the past two years.
Only the ET7 sedan saw an increase in sales in 2024 — reaching 7,244 units — while the ES7 and EC7 SUVs together sold fewer than 5,000 units.
In 2025, compiled sales of the three Nio models reached 4,607 vehicles.
By comparison, the previous generation of the ES8 sold over 9,000 units in 2024.
All other Nio models recorded sales above 26,000 units in 2024, with the best-selling ES6 exceeding 75,000 units.
Last year, the ES8 outperformed the ES6 by far, as did the ET5 Touring, which represented over 39,000 units in the full-year results.
The recently revamped model, which is the most expensive in the SUV lineup, registered over 42,000 units since its relaunch.
Both the ET7 and the ES7 were introduced in Europe, with the latter being named ‘EL7’ in the old continent due to a trademark dispute with Audi.
However, sales for both have also been residual in the past two years.
The models, which customers cannot configure nor purchase as inventory units anymore, are still available through Subscription in Germany.
