NIO ES6: The real Tesla killer from China

Literally immediately after arriving in China, we found an extremely interesting car dealership, which had beautiful and interesting cars under the NIO brand. It soon became clear that this is a new Chinese company that made one of the fastest hypercars in the world – NIO EP9. It was this car that held the record at the Nurburgring for some time, and now it is the fastest on three tracks at once: the Paul Ricard circuit in France, the Circuit Of Americas in Austin, Texas (and in two “disciplines” – with a driver (2:11.30) and on autopilot (2:40.33), as well as on the track in his native Shanghai.

Interestingly, the NIO brand is mainly known for its participation in Formula E championship racing, i.e. electric car racing! By the way, the price of NIO EP9 is approximately 2.5 million pounds – that is, approximately 200 million conventional units! In fairness, it must be said that it is impossible to buy EP9, it was sold only to brand investors! Today we will tell and show a car from NIO, which is already on sale and drives through the streets of China. Meet NIO ES6.

NIO ES6 started production in 2019. This is an all-electric five-door midsize crossover. In fact, this is a more compact version of another NIO ES8 car that was introduced earlier.

Inside, “at the minimum” is a lithium-ion battery with a capacity of 70 kWh. There are also versions for 84 and 100 kWh. The power reserve of the youngest version is 430 km, and the older one is 510 km. The battery powers two electric motors, one for each axle. And of course, you wanted to know about horsepower. Here, too, there are a couple of versions of the usual and Performance. Under the hood, the base version has 436 horses or 320 kW, it accelerates from zero to hundreds in 5.6 seconds.

Quickly, if you don't know that the Performance version removes almost a second from this result – 4.7 seconds to hundreds. An extra hundred horses are responsible for this: in total there are 544 of them or 400 kW of power!

The car body is made of aluminium. Outwardly, it is very reminiscent of the NIO ES8, which we saw right there in the cabin. He is a couple of millimeters higher and 3 mm wider, but 17 cm shorter than his older brother: because of this, he does not have a third row of seats. Dimensions NIO ES6: 4850 x 1965 x 1758 vv. Wheelbase length = 2900 mm. Interestingly, the NIO ES6 has two charging ports at once – on the left and on the right. The problem is that they have different outlets. As far as we understood, one is classic standardized, the second is proprietary NIO and apparently it is a little faster! By the way, the salon also sold its own chargers among accessories.

NIO also offers its customers a service for replacing the battery with charged ones at special service points. Anyone can replace the battery, even if it has lost capacity.

The handles are interesting. In the normal state, they are closed and do not protrude from the body of the car. But if you click on them, they open slightly. Shortly after closing, they automatically drive back.

Inside, everything is very expensive and rich: leather interior, a lot of plastic, but not bad and crackling, but of high quality and pleasant to the touch. There is a panoramic roof. Three things stand out in particular: a central console with a large display – a command center, a small screen on the dashboard with all the data and a cute NOMI assistant in the center, which can be controlled by voice. And if you don’t ask him anything, he will look at you cutely and blink. He even turns around: and in this way he can, as it were, personally talk to both the driver and the passenger in the front seat.

By the way, you can give him not just commands for navigation, music, or opening doors or a sunroof, he can even take a selfie – for this, the car has a camera in the cabin!

There is also a HUD – a head-up display that can display trip information on the windshield.

On the screen of the center console, in addition to navigation, you can display a circular view. This is convenient when you are driving down a narrow street.

The gearbox is made in the form of a strange joystick: forward – D, back – R and the handbrake is activated by pressing from the side. Under the lever there is a kind of pocket, which in more expensive versions is equipped with wireless charging. Put your smartphone in there and charge it. But not only him: the Chinese made the key to the car not only beautiful, but also with wireless charging. Just put it in your pocket and it charges! It is not necessary to insert it into any larva, respectively.

One of the features of the car is the autopilot. He is here, as it were, in the car there are all the “brains” and radars for this. But the software is not yet fully developed, so the car cannot drive completely on autopilot, rather something like advanced cruise control. As part of the test drive, by the way, we tried it: we immediately saw computer vision. The car even tried to rebuild, and also completely slowed down at a traffic light.

After the test drive, we had no questions about driving characteristics, driving a car and comfort: nevertheless, it was convenient and comfortable to sit in front and behind. Questions remain about reliability and how the company will perform in long-term use. Still, the company is new, the EP9 hypercar was released only in 2016 and it was the company's first car on the market, and the ES8 and ES6 are the second and third, respectively! However, the development of the company is literally leaps and bounds, though only in China. These cars have not yet left the Celestial Empire … By the way, at the time of shooting in December, there were already 2,500 NIO ES6 cars driving in Shenzhen, and every month the number is growing by 300 cars. The NIO factory itself produces about 1000 ES6s per month – the rest are sold in the largest Chinese cities, mainly Beijing and Shanghai.

The price of the NIO ES6 car varies depending on the battery and range, as well as some chips available in more expensive versions. The younger version will cost 358,000 yuan, and the older version will cost 548,000 yuan. It turns out that in conventional units it is more than 3.2 million to 4.9 million conventional units. On the one hand, it is expensive, on the other hand, it is almost three times cheaper than the Tesla Model X.

By the way, the company plans to launch five new cars at once in 2020-2021, including two sedans, a minivan and a couple more crossovers – the medium EC6 and the more compact ES3. We wait!