NIO unveils impressive autonomous electric car with huge battery

NIO today unveiled an impressive new electric car, the NIO ET7, with a huge battery and the potential to be fully autonomous.

NIO

NIO is a Chinese electric vehicle company that has grown rapidly in recent years.

Often called the ‘Tesla of China’, the electric vehicle company has succeeded in selling some electric SUVs in the growing Chinese market.

We also report on them for succeeding where several other EV companies have failed; to make the battery changes work.

Eventually, the company plans to expand beyond China.

NIO ET7 Electric Sedan

At NIO Day 2020 in Chengdu today, NIO unveiled its next electric vehicle: the NIO ET7.

It is an electric sedan with an impressive powertrain.

The ET7 is equipped with a 480 kW dual engine transmission system and is powered by a battery that can go up to 150 kWh.

NIO describes the ET7’s electric power train:

“The ET7 inherited NIO’s high-performance DNA with a 180 kW permanent magnet motor in the front and a 300 kW induction motor in the rear. Maximum power is rated at 480 kW with peak torque at 850 N · m. The ET7 accelerates from 0 to 100 km / h in 3.9 seconds, and has a braking distance of 100 km / h of 33.5 m. With a drag coefficient of 0.23 Cd and the application of the 2nd generation high efficiency electric drive platform with silicon carbide power module, energy efficiency is further improved. With a 70 kWh battery, the ET7 has an NEDC range of more than 500 km, or more than 700 km with a 100 kWh battery. When combined with the new 150 kWh battery, the ET7 has an NEDC range of over 1,000 km. “

This 1,000 km (621 miles) number is based on the NEDC cycle, which is rarely representative of driving in the real world.

However, with 150 kWh of energy capacity and an efficient-looking design, the ET7 is likely to have more than 500 miles of range on a single charge.

In addition to the powertrain, the ET7 is also impressive for its extensive autonomous steering hardware.

NIO says the electric sedan comes equipped with 33 sensors and 4 Nvidia Orin chips:

“NIO has developed NAD’s full stack autonomous driving capability, including perception algorithms, location, control strategy and platform software. The NIO Aquila Super Sensing has 33 high performance detection units, including 11 8MP high resolution cameras, 1 ultra-long range high resolution LiDAR, 5mm wave radars, 12 ultrasound sensors, 2 high positioning units precision, V2X and ADMS. Aquila can generate 8 GB of data per second. NIO Adam features 4 Nvidia Orin SoCs with a total computing power of 1,016 TOPS. “

The company was able to seamlessly integrate these many sensors without greatly affecting the design:

NIO unveils impressive autonomous electric car with a massive battery pack

The ET7 is priced from RMB 448,000 (~ $ 69,000 USD) before EV incentives and will also be offered in the NIO battery as a service (BaaS) model, which comes with a cheaper price and a monthly cost for the battery .

In addition, NIO is taking a similar approach to Tesla’s with regard to autonomous driving capabilities.

It will offer safety features enabled by its autonomous driving technology as standard features, but will charge for autonomous driving features, which will be offered as a subscription.

Deliveries are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2022.