Recently, at the 2023 NIO Day, NIO's new flagship model NIO ET9 was officially released and pre-orders were opened, with a pre-sale of **800,000 yuan. The new car is positioned as NIO's executive flagship sedan, with a four-seat layout and a series of new NIO technologies. It is reported that the new car will be benchmarked against traditional million-level luxury models such as Mercedes-Benz S-Class, BMW 7 Series, and Porsche Paramela.
In terms of appearance, the front face of the new car adopts the NIO family design, with a closed central grille, narrow daytime running lights, and split headlights. However, the most controversial thing is that the NIO ET9 is like the flattened EC6 EC7, with a slender body and a high chassis ground clearance, which makes this sedan have a hint of SUV flavor.
However, such a design is "failing" in the eyes of many netizens, and it is not the aesthetic style that NIO has always had. The NIO ET9 is 5325 mm long, 2016 mm wide, 1620 mm high, and has a wheelbase of 3250 mm. Such a design will lead to a slight incongruity in the proportions of the body lines. But in Brother Jiang's view, the currently unveiled NIO ET9 may not be the final mass production shape, but a bit of a "concept car", because this time its role is to "show off muscles".
NIO defines ET9 as a "technology flagship" this time, and as the name suggests, it is equipped with NIO's latest technological achievements. Specifically, it includes a full-wire-controlled intelligent chassis, a 900V high-voltage architecture, a very low internal resistance battery, a self-developed 5nm intelligent driving chip, and a global operating system for the whole vehicle, SkyOS Tianshu, etc.
Each item is taken out separately, and it has a high "gold content".
For example, the full-wire intelligent chassis integrates the vehicle's drive, braking, steering and other key systems together, and is uniformly controlled by the computer. It is reported that this is currently the world's only real full-wire intelligent chassis that integrates the three core hardware systems, cancels the traditional mechanical steering column structure, converts the steering wheel rotation angle into electronic signals, and realizes steering through computer control, which can improve vehicle driving comfort, handling and safety, and provides a solid foundation for automatic driving technology.
NIO's chassis-by-wire concept began with the first-generation ES8, when the air suspension and braking systems were controlled by wire, in addition to the steering system being a mechanical structure. In ET9, the "brain" of the full drive-by-wire intelligent chassis has evolved into a VMC intelligent computing platform, which realizes the decoupling of software and hardware, and integrates drive-by-wire hardware, braking system, steering system, active suspension and other wire-controlled hardware, and the vehicle's motion control has been improved again.
For steer-by-wire, the system supports a steering ratio range from 6:1 to 14:1In terms of rear-wheel steering, the car has a minimum turning diameter of 109m；It is known as "the world's first integrated hydraulic fully active suspension", equipped with an active suspension electric drive unit, and officially said that "undulating roads are not bumpy".
For example, the ET9 adopts a global 900V high-voltage architecture, including core components such as batteries, motors, DC-DC, and on-board chargers, with a maximum voltage of 925V, a peak charging power of 600 kW, and a peak charging current of 765A.
It is important to know that the industry is gradually shifting from a 400V (230-450V) voltage platform to a high-voltage system with a voltage range of 800V (550-900V). This architecture is based on NIO's upgraded electric drive platform, which further reduces the weight and size of the motor to achieve higher power density.
All of NIO's current production models are based on the NT20 platform, and does not use 800V high voltage system. With the launch of the ET9, the technology may be devolved to the next generation of models.
At the same time, the ET9 is equipped with a 120kWh battery pack, using NIO's self-developed 46105 large cylindrical cells, with an energy density of 292Wh kg and a maximum charging rate of 5C, which can achieve a range of 255 kilometers in 5 minutes.
Finally, NIO ET9 is also equipped with the first self-developed intelligent driving chip - Shenji NX9031. The chip uses a 5nm automotive-grade process, has more than 50 billion transistors, and supports 32-core** processors. It is reported that NIO's self-developed chip can achieve the performance of the four flagship intelligent driving chips in the industry. In addition, the NIO ET9 will also be equipped with SKYOS Tianshu, NIO's global vehicle operating system.
Summary
To sum up, it can be seen that the NIO ET9 demonstrates NIO's latest technological achievements in new energy and intelligence. The launch of the 900V platform can be regarded as a follow-up to the current mass production technology of new forces such as Xpeng and ZhijiThe full wire-controlled intelligent chassis is a bit on par with the taste of BYD's cloud systemThe self-developed chip and global operating system ensure that its intelligent driving system is in the first echelon and has not been thrown away by Huawei and Xiaopeng. In this way, NIO's layout in the next generation of models is still the leading one. As for the NIO ET9, when it comes to mass production, the proportions and details may be further optimized. What do you think about this?Welcome to pay attention to "Boundless Vehicle" and leave a message in the comment area below to share your views.