NIO NIO EP9
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Nio Inc. (Chinese: 蔚来; pinyin: Wèilái; stylized as NIO) is a Chinese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Shanghai, specializing in designing and developing electric vehicles. The company develops battery-swapping stations ' for its vehicles, as an alternative to conventional charging stations.
DjordjeC63
Vorsprung Visionary
Now look at this 
DjordjeC63
Vorsprung Visionary
Cashmere
RPM Ruler
@DjordjeC63 It took a while but i'm impressed with your transformation into a EV warrior. Keep it up 
DjordjeC63
Vorsprung Visionary
DjordjeC63
Vorsprung Visionary
China's answer to Tesla is already selling cars in significant numbers. CarAdvice is among the first to experience the all-new ES6 EV ahead of overseas sales starting later this year.
While premium carmakers love to tell us about their plans for an electron-fuelled future, none of them have got close to challenging Tesla's global lock on the pricier end of the EV market.
So far, the only luxury leccy to have moved in any kind of volume is the Jaguar iPace, but it has still managed only 13,000 globally after nearly a year of sales.
Things are different in China, where Nio is well on the way to establishing itself as the People's Republic's answer to Tesla.
After a fair amount of pre-launch hype, including setting a Nürburgring record in the ultra-limited EP9, the brand started selling the ES8 SUV last year, and has already delivered 15,000 of them.
Deliveries of the cheaper and more agile ES6 will begin in June, with the ambition being to rapidly move annual sales towards six figures.
There are no plans to sell outside China in the short term – despite the fact Nio is listed on the New York Stock Exchange – but the company's long-term ambition is to become a major player within the high-end EV market globally.
CarAdvice has already tested the ES6 in the PRC. As tends to be the case with Chinese launches, my drive took place exclusively on-track – in this case the newly opened V1 Auto World course near Tianjin.
But I was pretty much given free rein of the place for half an hour, and can report the ES6 delivers seriously impressive performance. Indeed, apart from the iPace, it is the first EV I've driven to deliver acceleration that can raise a similarly sized smile to that of a powerful Tesla.
The ES6 will be offered with two different powertrains. The standard version will use a pair of 160kW permanent magnet motors, one turning each axle.
The beefier Premier Edition (along with the less-well-equipped Performance that will follow it) swap out the rear unit for a beefier 240kW induction motor shared with the ES8.
Two battery packs will be offered, a regular 70kWh unit and a long-range 84kWh unit. But as well as fast charging, Nio also offers owners use of an innovative battery swap system, which allows empty packs to be changed for fully charged ones in less than five minutes.
China uses the generally optimistic EUDC calculation for EV range, and on that the Premier and Performance versions of the ES8 can go 430km on the 70kWh battery and 510km on the 84kWh.
The equivalent numbers for the Chinese market Tesla Model X and Jaguar iPace are 552km and 456km respectively.
Performance impresses. V1 Auto World is a mostly tight 2.5km circuit designed to meet China's growing appetite for track days, but even its generally short straights gave the ES6 a chance to stretch its legs.
Acceleration felt strong, the Nio delivering organ-sloshing longitudinal loadings well before the accelerator pedal reached the bulkhead. But the official 4.7-second 0–100km/h time underplays the any-speed urge of a car that doesn't need to change gears to start really pulling.
There wasn't enough room to confirm the 200km/h limited top speed, but at an indicated 130km/h the ES6 was still pulling strongly.
Cornering was more of a challenge. Nio claims the ES6 can lap V1 just four seconds slower than a BMW M4, but getting the most out of it meant entering corners slowly and staying disciplined with power.
Big understeer angles were embarrassingly easy to engender, with the stability control not allowing any element of rear-end slip.
But within those limitations, and those imposed by the low-feel steering, the ES6 can be hustled at an impressive pace. For a couple of laps, at least – after more than that, the massive thermal loads of pulling power from the battery and putting it back under regen’ caused the powertrain to de-rate, as Teslas tend to under harder use.
A sedate lap then cooled everything down enough for another faster stint.
Brakes struggled under track use. Not with fade – the sizeable Brembo discs coped well with the need for some big stops – rather with an over-aggressive 'boost' function, which lends assistance if it thinks an emergency stop is required by adding pressure to help.
This causes the pedal to lurch downwards, and makes it very hard to modulate retardation or stay smooth. Not something the ES6's more typical duty in China's crowded cities is likely to lead to very often.
Driving gently proved the Nio stayed smooth and refined under lower-intensity use, with sufficient regeneration to allow one-pedal operation. Lower-speed use, plus a passenger ride on Chinese streets, showed off what felt like a reasonably compliant ride on 20-inch wheels.
The ES6’s interior also felt well up to the standards of mainstream rivals, being spacious for both front and rear seat occupants, and impressively well finished.
The 11.3-inch central display screen is crisply rendered, and the test car was also fitted with Nio’s cutesy NOMI display – a circular screen on top of the dashboard with an animated face that serves as the main interface for the car’s voice-recognition system, and turns to face whoever is speaking to it.
Testing was limited by the fact it currently only supports Chinese language input. While what’s basically a live, animated emoji might grow old quickly, I suspect kids will love it.
Pricing is where it gets interesting. The ES6 is much more expensive than the cheaper models that are intended to get China’s private transport system electrified (Cars like the Geely Geometry A that we drove last month). But it is much cheaper in China than the western import brands it is intended to compete against.
The ES6 range starts at RMB 358,000 before subsidies – $75,000 at current exchange rates – rising to RMB 498,000 ($104,300) for the fully loaded Founder’s Edition that we tested.
For context, a Tesla Model X 100D is RMB 794,000 ($166,000) in the PRC, and a Jaguar i-Pace is RMB 630,800 ($132,000).
Nio says it is still several years from exports, but if it can keep its price advantage when it starts to sell outside China, it could become a serious threat to established carmakers.
Nuts & Bolts
On sale: June (China)
Engine: Electric motor, permanently magnet (front), electric motor, induction magnet (rear)
Power: 160kW (F), 240kW (R)
Torque: 725Nm
Gearbox: Single speed, independent both ends, all-wheel drive
Weight: TBC
Top speed: 200km/h
0–100km/h: 4.7sec
Economy: TBC
CO2: TBC
While premium carmakers love to tell us about their plans for an electron-fuelled future, none of them have got close to challenging Tesla's global lock on the pricier end of the EV market.
So far, the only luxury leccy to have moved in any kind of volume is the Jaguar iPace, but it has still managed only 13,000 globally after nearly a year of sales.
Things are different in China, where Nio is well on the way to establishing itself as the People's Republic's answer to Tesla.
After a fair amount of pre-launch hype, including setting a Nürburgring record in the ultra-limited EP9, the brand started selling the ES8 SUV last year, and has already delivered 15,000 of them.
Deliveries of the cheaper and more agile ES6 will begin in June, with the ambition being to rapidly move annual sales towards six figures.
There are no plans to sell outside China in the short term – despite the fact Nio is listed on the New York Stock Exchange – but the company's long-term ambition is to become a major player within the high-end EV market globally.
CarAdvice has already tested the ES6 in the PRC. As tends to be the case with Chinese launches, my drive took place exclusively on-track – in this case the newly opened V1 Auto World course near Tianjin.
But I was pretty much given free rein of the place for half an hour, and can report the ES6 delivers seriously impressive performance. Indeed, apart from the iPace, it is the first EV I've driven to deliver acceleration that can raise a similarly sized smile to that of a powerful Tesla.
The ES6 will be offered with two different powertrains. The standard version will use a pair of 160kW permanent magnet motors, one turning each axle.
The beefier Premier Edition (along with the less-well-equipped Performance that will follow it) swap out the rear unit for a beefier 240kW induction motor shared with the ES8.
Two battery packs will be offered, a regular 70kWh unit and a long-range 84kWh unit. But as well as fast charging, Nio also offers owners use of an innovative battery swap system, which allows empty packs to be changed for fully charged ones in less than five minutes.
China uses the generally optimistic EUDC calculation for EV range, and on that the Premier and Performance versions of the ES8 can go 430km on the 70kWh battery and 510km on the 84kWh.
The equivalent numbers for the Chinese market Tesla Model X and Jaguar iPace are 552km and 456km respectively.
Performance impresses. V1 Auto World is a mostly tight 2.5km circuit designed to meet China's growing appetite for track days, but even its generally short straights gave the ES6 a chance to stretch its legs.
Acceleration felt strong, the Nio delivering organ-sloshing longitudinal loadings well before the accelerator pedal reached the bulkhead. But the official 4.7-second 0–100km/h time underplays the any-speed urge of a car that doesn't need to change gears to start really pulling.
There wasn't enough room to confirm the 200km/h limited top speed, but at an indicated 130km/h the ES6 was still pulling strongly.
Cornering was more of a challenge. Nio claims the ES6 can lap V1 just four seconds slower than a BMW M4, but getting the most out of it meant entering corners slowly and staying disciplined with power.
Big understeer angles were embarrassingly easy to engender, with the stability control not allowing any element of rear-end slip.
But within those limitations, and those imposed by the low-feel steering, the ES6 can be hustled at an impressive pace. For a couple of laps, at least – after more than that, the massive thermal loads of pulling power from the battery and putting it back under regen’ caused the powertrain to de-rate, as Teslas tend to under harder use.
A sedate lap then cooled everything down enough for another faster stint.
Brakes struggled under track use. Not with fade – the sizeable Brembo discs coped well with the need for some big stops – rather with an over-aggressive 'boost' function, which lends assistance if it thinks an emergency stop is required by adding pressure to help.
This causes the pedal to lurch downwards, and makes it very hard to modulate retardation or stay smooth. Not something the ES6's more typical duty in China's crowded cities is likely to lead to very often.
Driving gently proved the Nio stayed smooth and refined under lower-intensity use, with sufficient regeneration to allow one-pedal operation. Lower-speed use, plus a passenger ride on Chinese streets, showed off what felt like a reasonably compliant ride on 20-inch wheels.
The ES6’s interior also felt well up to the standards of mainstream rivals, being spacious for both front and rear seat occupants, and impressively well finished.
The 11.3-inch central display screen is crisply rendered, and the test car was also fitted with Nio’s cutesy NOMI display – a circular screen on top of the dashboard with an animated face that serves as the main interface for the car’s voice-recognition system, and turns to face whoever is speaking to it.
Testing was limited by the fact it currently only supports Chinese language input. While what’s basically a live, animated emoji might grow old quickly, I suspect kids will love it.
Pricing is where it gets interesting. The ES6 is much more expensive than the cheaper models that are intended to get China’s private transport system electrified (Cars like the Geely Geometry A that we drove last month). But it is much cheaper in China than the western import brands it is intended to compete against.
The ES6 range starts at RMB 358,000 before subsidies – $75,000 at current exchange rates – rising to RMB 498,000 ($104,300) for the fully loaded Founder’s Edition that we tested.
For context, a Tesla Model X 100D is RMB 794,000 ($166,000) in the PRC, and a Jaguar i-Pace is RMB 630,800 ($132,000).
Nio says it is still several years from exports, but if it can keep its price advantage when it starts to sell outside China, it could become a serious threat to established carmakers.
Nuts & Bolts
On sale: June (China)
Engine: Electric motor, permanently magnet (front), electric motor, induction magnet (rear)
Power: 160kW (F), 240kW (R)
Torque: 725Nm
Gearbox: Single speed, independent both ends, all-wheel drive
Weight: TBC
Top speed: 200km/h
0–100km/h: 4.7sec
Economy: TBC
CO2: TBC
DjordjeC63
Vorsprung Visionary
Isn't available in Britain, and you should be sad about that. Not quite there yet, but ES6 shows a lot of promise for Nio's future.
Overview
What is it?
A car you’ve probably never seen before, from a company you’ve never heard of - the ES6 is an electric SUV very much in the mould of the Audi e-Tron, Mercedes-Benz EQC, Jaguar I-Pace and Tesla Model X.
Its manufacturer, Nio, is a five-year-old Chinese startup. You might have heard of its somewhat successful Formula E team, or the EP9 hypercar that held the Nurburgring EV lap-record for two years (until VW smashed it with the I.D R). It employs 9,000 people – three times as many as Ferrari, but a fraction of, say, Tesla’s 45,000-strong workforce – and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. So it’s a thing.
Even though it has offices in Germany, the US and the UK, Nio (or Weilai - meaning ‘Blue Sky Coming’ in Mandarin) doesn’t sell cars outside of China. Not yet, anyway. The five-seat ES6 is its second model (not counting the EP9, which wasn’t road-legal and built in extremely limited numbers) after the seven-seat ES8, of which it’s sold more than 15,000 examples since sales began last year. The ES6, which shares a great deal with the ES8, went on sale in June 2019.
‘NEVs’ – ‘new energy vehicles’ – are big business in China. Nio is one of almost 500 NEV manufacturers registered there, but one of the tiny minority that’s actually built, sold and delivered some cars. Though overall car sales are falling, sales of NEVs in China are growing steadily. That said, the government has just slashed generous subsidies paid to manufacturers by as much as half, putting pressure on the industry.
The ES6 is available with either a 70 or 84kWh battery, giving up to a claimed 317 miles or so of range (on the wildly-optimistic NEDC cycle). The cheapest ES6 claims around 260 miles.
Driving
What is it like on the road?
Despite extensive use of CFRP and aluminium in its construction, the ES6 is a heavy thing. Not much less than 2.5-tonnes, a lot of which is down to the battery. At least the weight is nice and low, so it doesn’t roll about too much. But you can feel that heft in the way the ES6 rides and steers.
This is a car that would need a bit of suspension tuning, should Nio ever attempt to sell it in Europe. There’s a softness to it that makes it comfy enough around town, but on the motorway and country roads introduces loose body control that sees it bounce its way along somewhat inelegantly. It’s never going to rival the Jaguar I-Pace for handling – the ES6 isn’t massively at home being hustled – but it could definitely do with a bit of tightening up. But hey, if softness is what the Chinese really want, you can’t blame Nio for obliging.
The powertrain is impressive though. All ES6s are all-wheel drive – cheaper ones get a permanent magnet motor on each axle, but cars like the one we tried get a better induction magnet motor at the back, improving performance and efficiency. In such cars, you’re looking at 536bhp, 0-62mph in 4.7 seconds and a top speed limited to 125mph.
It delivers those numbers with the characteristic punch of a big, expensive EV. Shrugging off its weight to deliver acceleration the uninitiated would no doubt find genuinely startling.
On the inside
Layout, finish and space
Of course there are similarities between the ES6 and any Tesla. The door handles motor out of their housings to meet you, there’s no start button (just put your foot on the brake and select a gear) and there’s a whopping interior-dominating portrait touchscreen.
Said touchscreen uses Nio’s own software, which is impressively slick. As far as we can tell, anyway – at the moment it’s only available in Mandarin, which we can’t read. It responds to inputs quickly and the graphics are crystal-clear. The most other-worldly thing in here is the voice assistant, which Nio calls Nomi.
In principle it works like systems from Mercedes and BMW – only this time it has a FACE. A little swivelling head thing that sits on top of the dashboard, where in, say, a Porsche you’d find the stopwatch. It looks at you when you talk to it (which you can do from any of the car’s five seats) or if you don’t put your seatbelt on. And if you’re listening to music it starts shaking a set of virtual maracas.
All very odd, but rather amusing nonetheless. As for the voice control itself, our aforementioned lack of Chinese language skills renders us incapable of actually talking to Nomi. Seemed a bit hit and miss when native speakers were feeding it nav destinations, though.
The design and layout of the interior is interesting. Nio hasn’t done a Tesla and entirely deleted the centre tunnel (though no doubt it could have done). It’s quite high, in fact, so the driver and front passenger feel cocooned to a degree. There’s storage underneath, a wireless charger on top and a deep centre storage bin. Material quality feels broadly good – we were expecting something that felt built down to a price, but the ES6 isn’t like that at all.
It’s big, too. Very spacious wherever you’re sitting. A front passenger’s seat that slides right the way back and gets an extendable footrest is very comfortable indeed, and the driving position is bang on for a car of this size and type. We spent two whole days behind the wheel and didn’t feel fatigued in the slightest. Not from the car, anyway.
Owning
Running costs and reliability
You can’t buy an ES6 because you don’t live in China. But for those that can, this is where things get really interesting.
See, buying a Nio is like buying into a club. It grants access to any ‘Nio House’ – the company’s dealers/clubhouses that can be found in shopping malls in many of China’s biggest cities. These spaces, which are a bit like a Tesla Store crossed with an Apple Store crossed with a Starbucks, contain a publicly-accessible bit where prospective owners can buy cars, and an invite-only section (often a whole floor) for existing owners and their friends/family. These bits contain a coffee shop, library, children’s play area and even rentable office space. Would Brits use them? No clue – but they seem to work in China. We visited a couple while we were there driving the ES6 and both seemed reasonably well attended.
Owning a Nio also gives you access to the company’s network of 123 power-swap stations – the only network of its kind anywhere in the world. Nio has lined three of China’s busiest expressways with these stations, and you’ll find some in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
Though manned 24-hours a day, the process is entirely automated. Once the Nio man has manoeuvred your car into place, he goes into a little room and prods some buttons. Your car is then shuffled into place and lifted into the air. Its battery is unscrewed and a new, fully-charged one fitted. The whole process takes less than ten minutes and costs the equivalent of around £20. Each station contains five batteries at any one time, and can service 70 cars a day.
Of course you can charge the car too – Nio’s app is so good at keeping track of public chargers, a lot of non-owners rely on it. Getting the ES6 from zero to 80 per cent takes a little under an hour on a fast DC charger.
As well as the power-swap stations, Nio has a fleet of vans you can call upon for a quick charge. Simply hail one from the app, and a chap will drive to wherever you are to deliver the EV equivalent of a splash and dash – 60 miles of range in ten minutes.
In its native China, the ES6 starts at 358,000 RMB, or around £42,000. Our top-spec Premier Edition ES6 is the equivalent of around £58,000. The cheapest Jaguar I-Pace, meanwhile, costs the equivalent of £73,000 in China, while the Tesla Model X is over £90,000.
Verdict
Final thoughts and pick of the range
Isn't available in Britain, and you should be sad about that. Not quite there yet, but ES6 shows a lot of promise for Nio's future.
The Nio ES6 is a good car. In many respects it’s on par with competition from Europe – the interior is comfortable, spacious and feels well-made, the infotainment looks and feels slick and the powertrain is smooth, quiet and makes this 2,345kg car properly quick.
Another massive plus is the access to Nio’s battery-swap stations – something we wish someone had thought to implement in the UK. It’s not all good, though – the ES6 isn’t even slightly sporty, much like the EQC, the body control leaves much to be desired and for the most part it feels its substantial weight. But as a marker in the sand, only Nio’s second car, it’s an impressive bit of kit.
Now, the score. It’s a tricky one, this, because the Nio isn’t available here and therefore doesn’t have UK prices or specs. We’ve gone with a 6 because it’s a surprisingly good thing, if lacking in a few areas. Nio’s charging ecosystem might have earned it an extra point, but it’s still unproven and, again, only a thing in China. Should the ES6 ever materialise in Europe, we’d be only too happy to revisit our review and revise our score accordingly. But for now - we can’t say for certain whether it’s better or worse than the comparable Audi, Mercedes or Jaguar.
Overview
What is it?
A car you’ve probably never seen before, from a company you’ve never heard of - the ES6 is an electric SUV very much in the mould of the Audi e-Tron, Mercedes-Benz EQC, Jaguar I-Pace and Tesla Model X.
Its manufacturer, Nio, is a five-year-old Chinese startup. You might have heard of its somewhat successful Formula E team, or the EP9 hypercar that held the Nurburgring EV lap-record for two years (until VW smashed it with the I.D R). It employs 9,000 people – three times as many as Ferrari, but a fraction of, say, Tesla’s 45,000-strong workforce – and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. So it’s a thing.
Even though it has offices in Germany, the US and the UK, Nio (or Weilai - meaning ‘Blue Sky Coming’ in Mandarin) doesn’t sell cars outside of China. Not yet, anyway. The five-seat ES6 is its second model (not counting the EP9, which wasn’t road-legal and built in extremely limited numbers) after the seven-seat ES8, of which it’s sold more than 15,000 examples since sales began last year. The ES6, which shares a great deal with the ES8, went on sale in June 2019.
‘NEVs’ – ‘new energy vehicles’ – are big business in China. Nio is one of almost 500 NEV manufacturers registered there, but one of the tiny minority that’s actually built, sold and delivered some cars. Though overall car sales are falling, sales of NEVs in China are growing steadily. That said, the government has just slashed generous subsidies paid to manufacturers by as much as half, putting pressure on the industry.
The ES6 is available with either a 70 or 84kWh battery, giving up to a claimed 317 miles or so of range (on the wildly-optimistic NEDC cycle). The cheapest ES6 claims around 260 miles.
Driving
What is it like on the road?
Despite extensive use of CFRP and aluminium in its construction, the ES6 is a heavy thing. Not much less than 2.5-tonnes, a lot of which is down to the battery. At least the weight is nice and low, so it doesn’t roll about too much. But you can feel that heft in the way the ES6 rides and steers.
This is a car that would need a bit of suspension tuning, should Nio ever attempt to sell it in Europe. There’s a softness to it that makes it comfy enough around town, but on the motorway and country roads introduces loose body control that sees it bounce its way along somewhat inelegantly. It’s never going to rival the Jaguar I-Pace for handling – the ES6 isn’t massively at home being hustled – but it could definitely do with a bit of tightening up. But hey, if softness is what the Chinese really want, you can’t blame Nio for obliging.
The powertrain is impressive though. All ES6s are all-wheel drive – cheaper ones get a permanent magnet motor on each axle, but cars like the one we tried get a better induction magnet motor at the back, improving performance and efficiency. In such cars, you’re looking at 536bhp, 0-62mph in 4.7 seconds and a top speed limited to 125mph.
It delivers those numbers with the characteristic punch of a big, expensive EV. Shrugging off its weight to deliver acceleration the uninitiated would no doubt find genuinely startling.
On the inside
Layout, finish and space
Of course there are similarities between the ES6 and any Tesla. The door handles motor out of their housings to meet you, there’s no start button (just put your foot on the brake and select a gear) and there’s a whopping interior-dominating portrait touchscreen.
Said touchscreen uses Nio’s own software, which is impressively slick. As far as we can tell, anyway – at the moment it’s only available in Mandarin, which we can’t read. It responds to inputs quickly and the graphics are crystal-clear. The most other-worldly thing in here is the voice assistant, which Nio calls Nomi.
In principle it works like systems from Mercedes and BMW – only this time it has a FACE. A little swivelling head thing that sits on top of the dashboard, where in, say, a Porsche you’d find the stopwatch. It looks at you when you talk to it (which you can do from any of the car’s five seats) or if you don’t put your seatbelt on. And if you’re listening to music it starts shaking a set of virtual maracas.
All very odd, but rather amusing nonetheless. As for the voice control itself, our aforementioned lack of Chinese language skills renders us incapable of actually talking to Nomi. Seemed a bit hit and miss when native speakers were feeding it nav destinations, though.
The design and layout of the interior is interesting. Nio hasn’t done a Tesla and entirely deleted the centre tunnel (though no doubt it could have done). It’s quite high, in fact, so the driver and front passenger feel cocooned to a degree. There’s storage underneath, a wireless charger on top and a deep centre storage bin. Material quality feels broadly good – we were expecting something that felt built down to a price, but the ES6 isn’t like that at all.
It’s big, too. Very spacious wherever you’re sitting. A front passenger’s seat that slides right the way back and gets an extendable footrest is very comfortable indeed, and the driving position is bang on for a car of this size and type. We spent two whole days behind the wheel and didn’t feel fatigued in the slightest. Not from the car, anyway.
Owning
Running costs and reliability
You can’t buy an ES6 because you don’t live in China. But for those that can, this is where things get really interesting.
See, buying a Nio is like buying into a club. It grants access to any ‘Nio House’ – the company’s dealers/clubhouses that can be found in shopping malls in many of China’s biggest cities. These spaces, which are a bit like a Tesla Store crossed with an Apple Store crossed with a Starbucks, contain a publicly-accessible bit where prospective owners can buy cars, and an invite-only section (often a whole floor) for existing owners and their friends/family. These bits contain a coffee shop, library, children’s play area and even rentable office space. Would Brits use them? No clue – but they seem to work in China. We visited a couple while we were there driving the ES6 and both seemed reasonably well attended.
Owning a Nio also gives you access to the company’s network of 123 power-swap stations – the only network of its kind anywhere in the world. Nio has lined three of China’s busiest expressways with these stations, and you’ll find some in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
Though manned 24-hours a day, the process is entirely automated. Once the Nio man has manoeuvred your car into place, he goes into a little room and prods some buttons. Your car is then shuffled into place and lifted into the air. Its battery is unscrewed and a new, fully-charged one fitted. The whole process takes less than ten minutes and costs the equivalent of around £20. Each station contains five batteries at any one time, and can service 70 cars a day.
Of course you can charge the car too – Nio’s app is so good at keeping track of public chargers, a lot of non-owners rely on it. Getting the ES6 from zero to 80 per cent takes a little under an hour on a fast DC charger.
As well as the power-swap stations, Nio has a fleet of vans you can call upon for a quick charge. Simply hail one from the app, and a chap will drive to wherever you are to deliver the EV equivalent of a splash and dash – 60 miles of range in ten minutes.
In its native China, the ES6 starts at 358,000 RMB, or around £42,000. Our top-spec Premier Edition ES6 is the equivalent of around £58,000. The cheapest Jaguar I-Pace, meanwhile, costs the equivalent of £73,000 in China, while the Tesla Model X is over £90,000.
Verdict
Final thoughts and pick of the range
Isn't available in Britain, and you should be sad about that. Not quite there yet, but ES6 shows a lot of promise for Nio's future.
The Nio ES6 is a good car. In many respects it’s on par with competition from Europe – the interior is comfortable, spacious and feels well-made, the infotainment looks and feels slick and the powertrain is smooth, quiet and makes this 2,345kg car properly quick.
Another massive plus is the access to Nio’s battery-swap stations – something we wish someone had thought to implement in the UK. It’s not all good, though – the ES6 isn’t even slightly sporty, much like the EQC, the body control leaves much to be desired and for the most part it feels its substantial weight. But as a marker in the sand, only Nio’s second car, it’s an impressive bit of kit.
Now, the score. It’s a tricky one, this, because the Nio isn’t available here and therefore doesn’t have UK prices or specs. We’ve gone with a 6 because it’s a surprisingly good thing, if lacking in a few areas. Nio’s charging ecosystem might have earned it an extra point, but it’s still unproven and, again, only a thing in China. Should the ES6 ever materialise in Europe, we’d be only too happy to revisit our review and revise our score accordingly. But for now - we can’t say for certain whether it’s better or worse than the comparable Audi, Mercedes or Jaguar.
DjordjeC63
Vorsprung Visionary
DjordjeC63
Vorsprung Visionary
Centurion
Apex Apex Predator
Trust is the biggest barrier to western consumers buying a Chinese car. Nio's most logical path to enter foreign markets is by lending their platform and manufacturing techniques to a European car manufacturer.
KiwiRob
Autotechnik Ace
It doesn't appear to be a problem in Norway. Chinese cars are steadily making inroads into the Norwegian market. Hongqi has sold nearly 1400 E-HS9's in Norway this year outselling the Tesla Model X which is fairly impressive IMO.
Centurion
Apex Apex Predator
That’s very positive. I welcome affordable EVs.
KiwiRob
Autotechnik Ace
That's the point it's not cheap.
