NIO's R&D investment of 3 billion yuan per quarter has been concretized. On December 23rd, NIO Automobile released its executive flagship model ET9 on NIO Day. This is the model with the highest self-developed rate and the highest selling price by NIO Auto, with a pre-sale price of 800000 yuan. Delivery will begin in the first quarter of 2025.
The NIO ET9 has a length of over 5.3 meters, a width of 2 meters, and a wheelbase of over 3.2 meters. In the ultra large space, NIO ET9 chooses a four tower layout and pioneered the "administrative bridge" that runs through the front and rear rows, which can achieve zoning while integrating multiple functions. For example, 360& can be used; Deg; The administrative desk with stepless adjustment can meet the needs of rear passengers for reading, working, meeting, chatting, and demonstration sharing.
In the view of NIO CEO Li Bin, the essence of an administrative flagship is a technological flagship, and NIO ET9 brings together NIO's latest research and development of multiple technologies. A week before the release of NIO ET9, several executives from NIO Motors had already opened social media accounts to conduct "relay style" technology preheating.
At the press conference, NIO Automobile launched its first self-developed intelligent driving chip, the Shenji NX9031. This chip is the first in the industry to adopt a 5-nanometer process and has over 50 billion transistors. One chip can achieve the performance of four flagship smart chips in the industry. As a comparison, NIO's mass-produced models are equipped with Nvidia OrinX intelligent driving chips with a process of 7 nanometers and a single computing power of 128 TOPS.
Currently, "Weixiaoli" has started to independently develop chips. According to a later report, Ideal Automobile is focusing on the development of AI inference chips for intelligent driving, which have been assembled and sealed in late October this year, and are ready for a surprise production. Xiaopeng Automotive has a self-developed team of less than 200 people, focusing on the NPU module of intelligent driving chips.
NIO Automotive's self-developed intelligent driving chips were the earliest to be developed, led by NIO Automotive's Vice President of Hardware, Bai Jian. As expected, NIO Automotive will be the first company among new forces to achieve mass production and delivery of self-developed chips.
Generally speaking, the cost of developing an intelligent driving chip is 3 billion yuan, with a development time of 3 to 4 years. A senior executive from a domestic chip company told Interface News that automotive companies are focusing on smart driving chips because this category belongs to the latest technological frontier and brings the highest stock price or brand premium to the company. At the same time, smart driving algorithms are developing towards end-to-end direction, and chips are a key factor driving progress.
Another technological breakthrough of NIO is the battery. Li Bin stated that NIO's self-developed 46105 large cylindrical battery cells and battery pack have a single cell energy density of up to 292Wh/kg, a total capacity of 120kWh, and an overcharge fast change battery pack with a charging efficiency of 5C, which can last up to 255 kilometers in 5 minutes.
It should be noted that achieving mass production of large cylindrical batteries is not an easy task. Tesla's latest electric pickup truck Cybertruck cannot achieve its production target as scheduled, and a major bottleneck is that its production speed of 4680 large cylindrical batteries cannot keep up. At present, the biggest challenge in the production process of large cylindrical batteries lies in welding technology and the corresponding equipment supply, especially with very strict requirements for equipment stability.
Li Bin has postponed the battery self-developed project and entrusted battery production to someone else. In his opinion, the production battery of the manufacturing end has a long investment cycle and occupies fixed assets investment, which is not conducive to the increase of gross profit margin. At present, Weilai Automobile does not have the resource allocation of self-made batteries.
In the era of intelligent electric vehicles, new forces have also proposed innovations in chassis tuning that traditional car companies excel at. The NIO ET9 will be equipped with the Tianxing Intelligent Chassis System, which is the industry's first integration of three core hardware systems: wire controlled steering, rear wheel steering, and fully active suspension.
Among them, the wire controlled chassis integrates key systems such as driving, braking, and steering of the vehicle, and is controlled by a computer, providing a solid foundation for autonomous driving technology. In addition, NIO's fully active suspension is the world's first integrated hydraulic fully active suspension, which can adjust the body in real-time, with a speed 60 times that of air spring suspension. Li Bin believes that the fully active suspension technology is ahead of Porsche's latest Panamera generation.
At the current time point, NIO is launching a model that will only be mass-produced two years later. NIO aims to strengthen the brand's high-end image and technological strength, and increase the company's gross profit margin. The financial report for the third quarter of 2023 shows that NIO's gross profit margin has returned to double digits to 11%, but there is still a gap from the peak of 21.2% in the first quarter of 2021.
At the same time, in the high-end administrative models, traditional brands such as BMW 7 Series and Mercedes Benz S-Class have long dominated the domestic market, and new energy models are still blank in this niche market. Li Bin predicts that the high-end pure electric new energy vehicle market will enter a turning point of explosive growth in the next two years.