Nio to release three new electric vehicles as EV market nears “tipping point”

Chinese EV maker Nio revealed on Wednesday that it plans to deliver three new EVs in 2022 based on its Nio Technology Platform 2.0, including the already announced ET7, a flagship premium smart electric sedan.

Nio also published its second quarter financial results on Wednesday, beating analyst expectations and reporting deliveries for the first half of 2021 of over 40,000 – an increase of nearly 200% over the same period a year earlier.

The second quarter revealed that vehicle deliveries reached 21,896, an increase of 127% over the second quarter of 2020 – which, of course, was heavily impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic, especially in China.

Revenue was also up in the second quarter, to RMB8,448.0 million (US$1,308.4 million), an increase of 127.2% from the second quarter of 2020 and an increase of 5.8% from the first quarter of 2021.

“We achieved a record-high quarterly delivery of 21,896 vehicles in the second quarter of 2021, followed by 7,931 vehicles in July, bringing the cumulative deliveries of NIO vehicles to 125,528 as of July 31, 2021,” said William Bin Li, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of NIO.

“While the global supply chain still faces uncertainties, we have been working closely with our partners to improve the overall supply chain production capacity.

But it was Bin Li’s announcement that the company was planning more EVs that made the biggest headlines, as Nio seeks to expand its offerings into both electric vehicles as well as autonomous vehicles.

“We aim to deliver three new products based on the NIO Technology Platform 2.0 in 2022, including ET7, a flagship premium smart electric sedan,” he said.

“As the EV adoption begins to reach a tipping point worldwide, we believe it is imperative to speed up the launch of new products to provide more premium smart EV offerings with superior holistic services to the growing user base in the global market.”

Nio currently makes three EVs – the EC6, ES8, and ES6, all of which are SUVs and boast all-electric range of around 600-kilometres.

The company also unveiled earlier this year its flagship ET7 smart sedan, boasting an all-electric range starting at 500-kilometres with the 70kWh battery pack, and scaling up to over 1,000-kilometres with the company’s new 150kWh battery pack.

The new Nio 150kWh battery will also be available for the company’s three SUV models, providing the Nio ES8 with up to 850-kilometres, the ES6 with 900-kilometres, and the EC6 with 910-kilometres.

The ET7 was already announced as expected to launch in the first quarter of 2022, but with this week’s announcement we know now that it will be followed by two more unspecified electric vehicles.

Nio also offers a unique Battery as a Service (BaaS) subscription which sees customers pay a monthly subscription cost and allow them to swap depleted batteries for fully charged batteries in a matter of minutes, as well as allowing customers access to the company’s latest battery technology.