2024 is just a few days away, and NIO is stepping on the tail of 2023 to review the past year and shift all its models to NT20 platform, strengthening the dual-line layout of charging and swapping, buying back factories to obtain independent car manufacturing qualifications, joining hands with Changan and Geely to establish a battery swap alliance, the success of the 150-degree battery 1,000-kilometer range challenge, and obtaining about 2.2 billion US dollars in financing from Abu Dhabi investment agency CCYVN, etc., all show that NIO is slowly getting better.
After four years, NIO is not working again?
However, NIO's performance in the new energy vehicle market this year has not been satisfactory, with a cumulative delivery of 14 from January to November200,000 units, of which 8,506 were delivered in January, 6,658 in April, and only 6,155 in May, and none of the three months exceeded 10,000 units. Although NIO's delivery volume exceeded the 20,000 mark in July this year, it was because NIO stripped the user's battery swap rights, thereby achieving a disguised price reduction and stimulating the purchase desire of potential consumersAbout 50,000 units, compared with Xiaopeng and Ideal, NIO's staying power is really a little worse. 
At this year's Guangzhou Auto Show, other new power brands are showing their muscles, such as Xiaopeng Motors brought a new MPV model X9, and Ideal brought the MPV model Ideal Mega that made Li Xiang "jump off the building", while Weilai only participated in the exhibition and chose "silence", coupled with the financial report announced by Weilai not long ago, the gross profit margin fell to 8 in the third quarter0%, and the loss in the first three quarters widened to 15.3 billion yuan. Combined with the above signs, many viewers feel that Weilai is no longer good, perhaps after four years, Li Bin is still the worst person, even approaching the annual NIO Day, the remarks about Weilai on the Internet are still cynical. Li Bin can only "tell stories"?
To be honest, it was the first time for me to participate in NIO Day, at first I thought that the process of NIO Day was similar to that of the Manic Dream Festival and the ** Festival, but I experienced the atmosphere of NIO Day at the scene, and I could only say that I thought it was wrong, NIO Day was really different from the activities held by other car brands, with more than 10,000 users coming to the scene, and NIO Day's bid preparation, event planning, More than 2,000 NIO user representatives participated in the stage performances, user reception, and other co-creation sessions, which shows that NIO's brand influence, appeal, and user cohesion are not ordinarily strong, which is something I have never seen in other brands, and it is also the reason why NIO Day can be held for the seventh time. 
"Upward" is the theme of this year's NIO Day, and I think this should be NIO's summary of the past year, as well as its expectations for future development, as well as an optimistic attitude, maintaining an "upward" heart. Maybe it's because it's been silent for too long this year, and there are too many cynicisms, which makes NIO hold back a breath, not to prove itself, but to fight for a breath. Storytelling, is still the "traditional" opening of NIO Day, and it is also Li Bin's best link, you may not know how strong Li Bin's storytelling ability is, so to speak, in 2014, Li Bin took only 8 pages of PPT to introduce Weilai to Liu Qiangdong, who promised to invest in Weilai within a few seconds;At the beginning of 2015, Li Bin invited Ma Huateng, who was attending the meeting in Beijing, to have a meal, and told the "story" of his resignation from Yiche to build a car, hoping to get Tencent's support, and the latter immediately agreed. 
It is worth mentioning that the NIO EP9, which was born in 2016, was mass-produced in only 6 units, and only sold to active investors such as Liu Qiangdong, Ma Huateng and Lei Jun. For example, in 2019, Li Xiang was looking for financing everywhere when Li Auto was in a desperate situation, Li Xiang met with more than 100 institutions, but still did not get financing for the company, but Li Bin seemed much more relaxed, and there are many similar cases, Li Bin can get financing every time he "tells a story" to investors. Because of this, some professionals in the industry will doubt Li Bin's management ability and car-making ability, but they will never doubt Li Bin's financing ability. It's a flagship, but it's also a technology flagship
In addition to "storytelling", Li Bin also showed a set of many flagship technologies in one of the "million-level" NIO ET9 at NIO Day, the new car has 17 first functions, 52 class-leading functions, and more than 500 patents, not so much the NIO ET9 flagship new car unveiled, it is better to show the carrier of technology, and these 17 first functions are integrated in the self-developed intelligent driving chip, self-developed global 900V high-voltage architecture, Tianxing intelligent chassis system, Among the four core technologies of flagship-level security standards. 
It is understood that NIO ET9 is not planned to be launched this year, but a project team will be established in 2021, when Li Bin had three goals for the new car, one of which is to embody the spirit of innovation leader;The second is to make full use of the possibilities brought about by technological breakthroughs;The third is the continuous iteration and evolution of design genes. After two years of exploration and research and development, as well as an investment of nearly 20 billion yuan, NIO ET9 is finally presented in front of everyone's eyes, so has the core technology of the new car met Li Bin's expectations, has it achieved a qualitative breakthrough in the industry, and is it "far ahead" of its opponents?
NIO's ET9 is equipped with the first intelligent driving chip "Shenji NX9031", which is manufactured using a 5nm automotive process and has more than 50 billion transistors, which is 4 times the performance of NVIDIA's Orin X chip, and the chip consumes less energy, has higher reliability, and lower cost. In addition, Weilai also officially released the lidar main control chip "Yang Ji" at the Science and Technology Day in September this year, which has been mass-produced, "Yang Ji" uses an 8-core 64-bit processor + 8-channel 9-bit ADC, with a sampling rate of 1GHz, and its performance is not bad, and Li Bin also said that the chip can reduce the cost of LiDAR of Weilai bicycles by "a few hundred yuan", and the cost can be recovered in about a year. 
Friends who understand intelligent driving chips know that the research and development of this type of chip takes a long time, and it requires a series of processes from design, to tape-out production, to packaging and testing, to identification and inspection, and then to application verification, and at the same time, a lot of money must be invested, otherwise it is difficult to land self-developed intelligent driving chips. This year, NIO has officially released the LiDAR main control chip "Yang Ji" and the intelligent driving chip "Shenji NX9031". I think NIO is so high-profile in the chip field this year, one is to "show off its skills", which proves that the background color of the brand is not only service, but also technology, the second is that self-developed chips can perfectly match the development of their own intelligent driving algorithms and systems, and the third is that self-developed chips are economic accounts, although there is a lot of investment in the early stage, as long as the results can be implemented, with the increase in the number of Weilai's holdings, R&D and manufacturing costs can be reduced, it can be said that self-developed chips kill three birds with one stone. 
The NIO ET9 is equipped with a full-range 900V high-voltage architecture, with the highest voltage of the 925V vehicle, a peak charging power of 600kW, and a peak charging current of 765AThe electric drive platform is composed of self-developed and self-produced 1200V silicon carbide power module + world-leading W-PIN continuous wave winding process + leading and efficient oil cooling systemThe power battery uses 46105 large cylindrical cells, which are specially designed by NIO for the global 900V high-voltage architecture, with an energy density of up to 292Wh kg, a whole pack capacity of 120kWh, and a charging efficiency of 5C for the supercharging and quick-change battery pack. While other brands are still "involuting" with 800V supercharging, NIO has developed towards 900V supercharging with higher energy replenishment efficiency, occupying the 900V supercharging highland in advance. 
The SKYRIDE intelligent chassis system can be said to be the most eye-catching of the four core technologies, the system integrates the three core hardware systems of steer-by-wire, rear-wheel steering and full active suspension, which can make the steering ratio intelligently adjusted when the vehicle speed and steering wheel angle change, the steering wheel angle is 6:1 at low speed, the steering wheel angle can be restored to 14:1 at high speed, and the rear wheel steering angle can reach up to 83°, minimum 10The turning diameter of 9 meters can make the vehicle more convenient to operate at low speeds and more stable at high speeds. In addition, the fully automatic suspension of NIO ET9 is the world's first integrated hydraulic fully active suspension, each shock absorber is highly integrated with independent electro-hydraulic pumps, and the brushless DC motor responds quickly, which can complete information processing, calculation and response within 1 millisecondAt the same time, the suspension also supports a large height adjustment, with 1,000 torque adjustments per second. 
In order to show the strength of the Skyride intelligent chassis system, Li Bin placed three layers of champagne on the hood of the test car over the speed bump at the scene, showing that when the test car passed the speed bump, the three-layer champagne was "as stable as Mount Tai", and not a drop of champagne was spilled throughout the whole process, which made the audience marvel, and some people shouted "far ahead", but Li Bin's response was "the only one in the world". Re-evolution of the energy replenishment system
In addition to the release of new cars and new technologies, NIO also announced the development plan of the energy replenishment system, one of which is the world's first 640kW fully liquid-cooled fast charging pile, which not only has high charging power, but also weighs only 24kg, which will be put into use in April next year. 
The second is the first-class battery swap station, which uses 4 NVIDIA Orin X chips + 6 ultra-wide-angle lidars, which can make the computing power of the battery swap station exceed more than 90% of the smart car, and can achieve more comprehensive environmental perception, and at the same time is compatible with multi-planning battery packs, and supports more brands to share battery swaps. Weilai has always been alone in the field of battery swapping, investing a lot of money in the early stage, and finally ushered in a good situation this year, Weilai and Chang'an and Geely joined hands to form a battery swap alliance, according to Li Bin's internal speech, there are four or five cooperative enterprises to talk about battery swapping, so that as Weilai holds hands with multiple players, it has also improved its strength in the field of battery swapping, and has also further strengthened its own energy supplement system moat.
It can be said that this year's NIO Day, NIO is really full of dry goods, and it also shows the true strength of the new forces. Weilai thought that after the end of NIO Day, everyone would have a better view of Weilai's strength, who knew that the cynicism on the Internet was even more serious, among which everyone complained the most was the delivery time of Weilai ET9, which was not officially delivered until the first quarter of 2025, and everyone said that the new car was **. Why is ET9 not favored?
In fact, those who are familiar with NIO know that this is not the first time that NIO has "played" like this, and this was the operation of NIO ET7 before, which made users wait for more than a year, and at the same time, it also brought a heavy blow to NIO;Because the new energy market is always changing, users can wait, but competitors will not wait for you, but think about how to surpass you. In addition, according to NIO's plan, NIO will no longer release new cars in 2024, Qin Lihong said: "The current 8 cars are our main models in the next two years. ”
The domestic auto market is already very "involuted" in 2023, and it is estimated that it will become more "involuted" in 2024, and even the knockout of traditional car companies and new forces, who does not "involute", who will leave the gambling table, Weilai only relies on 8 "old products", and it is estimated that it will be more difficult in the new energy market in 2024. In addition, everyone thinks that it is not easy for NIO ET9 to hit the "million-level" flagship administrative market, you must know that the market has always been the world of BMW 7 Series, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Audi A8L and Porsche Panamera and other models, and these brands have spent nearly 100 years to make everyone feel that the "million-level" flagship executive sedan should be like this, just like imprinted in everyone's cognition.
It is estimated that the success of the U8 in the luxury high-end SUV market has broken the myth of BMW X7, Mercedes-Benz Big G, Aston Martin DBX707, Range Rover SV and other models, which makes Li Bin have confidence in the impact of NIO ET9 on the "million-level" flagship executive sedan market. However, according to the statistics of the Passenger Association, in the car market of more than 400,000 yuan, fuel vehicles are still the dominant players, while the proportion of pure electric vehicles is only 12%, the penetration rate is extremely low, and as strong as BBA, Porsche, etc., they are also folding on luxury electric models, for example, in 2022, the annual sales of Porsche Taycan will only be 3,292 units, and the Mercedes-Benz EQS price reduction of nearly 400,000 yuan will not stimulate sales, so everyone feels that in this environment, the situation of NIO ET9 is not optimistic.
In fact, judging from the pricing of NIO ET9, I personally feel that the new car is not a volume model, and as I mentioned above, the debut of the new car is more like a carrier for NIO to display technology;In this way, NIO ET9 is the face of the brand, and the target group is not our ordinary consumers, it may be NIO's "10 million" club, or it may be a new entrepreneur, and sales volume is not so important. With the addition of NIO ET9, the tone of the NIO brand can be higher, consolidating the brand's position in the smart luxury market, and at the same time, the technology displayed by NIO ET9, NIO can be split or simplified, to the two sub-brands of NIO, and I think the focus of the NIO brand in 2024 will not be on the main brand, but on the sub-brand, that is, the sinking market, after all, the second brand of NIO is the main 200,000-300,000 pure electric family car market competition is very fierce, with the support of NIO's core technology, in order to make the sub-brand more competitive in the market。 Editor's summary
The release of NIO ET9 shows the "yang mou" of the upward development of the NIO brand;Daxiu technical "muscle" and energy replenishment system are to pave the way for multi-brand layout and entering the sinking marketObtaining $2.2 billion in financing, giving up the position of the first shareholder of NIO, and allowing the brand to have more funds, this big gamble proves Li Bin's determination to fight a long-term battle, and it will take time to verify whether he can break through in the sinking market. So the question is, do you think NIO will become one of the top ten car companies in the world by 2035?