NIO ET7: Can a Chinese car beat Tesla?

China also wants to be a superpower in car production. This is also why the Chinese manufacturer of electric cars NIO often in the media they call it the Chinese Tesla, and has seen strong growth in recent years due to the increasing demand for e-vehicles in China. NIO has had two major announcements in recent days – one related to a new electric vehicle model, and the other related to collaboration with Nvidia and Qualcomm in the development of autonomous vehicle technology. They are certainly very ambitious in their plans for the future.

The newly launched NIO ET7 attracts the most attention with its powerful batteries, due to which the owners of this vehicle should no longer worry about the range. The car is powered by two electric motors with a total power of 480 kW, and several battery versions are available, which will depend on the final price of the vehicle. The weakest battery (70 kWh) should last more than 500 km according to NEDC, while with a 100 kWh battery the range should increase to 700 km, and with the most powerful battery with 150 kWh even to more than 1,000 km according to the standard NEDC. Otherwise, the NEDC standard rarely represents an objective situation in real conditions, so the owners of these vehicles will have to go to the charging station more often than these numbers indicate. Although it will not be possible to reach 1,000 km on a single charge with the most powerful battery, the realistic range should be somewhere around 800 km, which is huge for an electric car.

Of course, we are also interested in other capabilities of this type of vehicle. You will be amazed by the acceleration, as pressing the gas pedal will push you to 100 km/h in a mere 4 seconds. The NIO ET7 is designed to be ready for autonomous driving with 33 sensors (including 8 cameras, LIDAR radars, ultrasonic sensors, etc.) and as many as 4 Nvidia Orion chips. This makes it a serious competitor to Tesla's autopilot, which is considered advanced, but still not completely reliable in practice.

Nvidia hardware can also be expected in other vehicles from the Chinese electric car maker, as they have agreed a partnership to use Orion in this model, as well as in vehicles to be introduced in the coming years. Cooperation in the use of their platform was also agreed with Qualcomm Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit and platforms for 5G connectivity.

NIO ET7 it is expected to go on sale next year at a base price of just under 70,000 US dollars, but it will also be available at a lower price, but then you will have to pay a monthly subscription for battery usage. Similar to the Renault Zoe model. Owners of this vehicle will also have access to some safety and autonomous driving options, but users who want to enjoy all the autonomous driving options that this car has to offer will also have to pay some kind of monthly fee to use this option. A very similar principle was introduced by Tesla, which charges for "programs" for autonomous driving as an option for a new vehicle, which is quite expensive. Otherwise, they are not betting on monthly payments, but rather a one-time larger payment of around 8,000 euros.

By all attributes, the NIO ET7 is a serious contender for the crown in the Chinese market. Will we also see the vehicle on European soil, but at this moment it is not known.