This year's NIO Day was successfully held in the ancient capital of Xi'an, and NIO shocked the audience with an executive flagship sedan supported by various high-end technologies, the ET9, which also allowed many NIO users to see the accelerated development of the convenience of subsequent charging and swapping. At the subsequent meeting, Li Bin and Qin Lihong also shared a lot of information about NIO with many ** very frankly. In my opinion, this information can be summarized in three directions: NIO will firmly follow the high-end brand route, NIO will stick to the existing product and technology route, and NIO will stick to its long-termism.
According to my personal preference, the ET9 is a bit of a misnomer to be called an executive flagship sedan, after all, there is no luxury brand executive flagship sedan on the market other than the Porsche Paramela that looks like this. However, according to Li Bin, the models released by NIO still have to continue their own brand design language, which is what a high-end brand should look like.
Therefore, we saw this ET9 full of various "top black technologies", and a pre-sale price of 800,000 yuan. Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO, said: "The ET9 should be the first car for the entire Chinese auto company to truly enter the core fortress of the BBA-based international brand. This time, NIO is a very organized and step-by-step upward climb with technology as the foundation and the real pace of product launch. ”
In Li Bin's view, the existence of any high-end brand needs to be supported by core technology, so this time on NIO Day, NIO focused on the full-stack self-developed Shenji NX9031 intelligent driving chip, the global 900V high-voltage architecture, the Tianxing intelligent chassis, and the flagship-level safety system, most of which are embodied in the NIO ET9. Li Bin said: "As the original intelligent electric executive flagship of a Chinese brand, the ET9 fully demonstrates NIO's R&D strength and achievements, bringing the executive flagship sedan into the era of intelligent electric vehicles, representing NIO's determination, confidence and enterprising spirit to continue to impact the high-end market. NIO will continue to provide users with high-quality products and services through technological innovation. ”
At NIO Day, NIO also released technologies and products such as a global 900V high-voltage architecture, a 46105 large cylindrical battery and a new battery pack, a first-class battery swap station, and a 640kW fully liquid-cooled ultra-fast charging pile. At present, NIO is already the enterprise with the most complete charging and swapping network construction and the largest number of outlets in China.
In terms of charging, NIO has completed 20,955 charging piles across the country, covering 307 cities. In terms of battery swapping, as of December 22, NIO has reached the planned goal of adding 1,000 new battery swap stations in 2023, and has established a total of 2,309 battery swap stations in China. Among them, there are 745 high-speed battery swap stations, forming a high-speed battery swap network of 7 vertical, 6 horizontal and 11 urban agglomerations.
Battery swapping is the best way to experience energy replenishment, and there is no one. Li Bin said that in 2024, NIO plans to add 1,000 battery swap stations and 20,000 charging piles. According to NIO's plan, the construction of battery swap stations in 2024 will focus on serving the Alpine project and the shared battery swap system of partners such as Geely and Changan.
NIO has always adhered to its own technical solutions in terms of energy replenishment system, which can be charged, replaced, and upgraded, in the hope of bringing users a more convenient experience. For many people who question this asset-heavy business model, Li Bin explained: "If you can't figure out the logic behind battery swapping, just think about the world's leading technology companies, what kind of process they have gone through to do cloud services, how many years they have lost, and they may not have made a lot of money today." But if they don't do this business, the company as a whole will have much less room for imagination and moats. ”
Although Li Bin has said many times this year that "long-termism is not an excuse for not doing a good job in short-term execution, every step of the marathon needs to be run well", and there have been many rumors that NIO will give up "long-termism". But judging from this year's NIO Day, NIO will still stick to its long-termism.
Just as Li Bin said in the exchange, NIO has always insisted on seeking long-term development through technological innovation and full-stack self-development, and the technologies and products released by NIO Day are also the results of NIO's full-stack self-development. With the improvement of NIO's short-term execution capabilities, Li Bin is also full of confidence in NIO's development: "Around 2035, Chinese brands will account for five of the top 10 global car rankings, and NIO will strive to become one of them." ”