Although the sales performance is still mediocre, NIO Motors is still thriving this winter. After completing the 150 degree battery pack endurance test and a $2.2 billion financing, NIO Motors will also welcome its annual NIO Day celebration. At that time, NIO will release the executive flagship sedan ET9, and in recent days, the official has begun a "relay style" warm-up, continuously releasing the "top technology" of this product.
On December 22nd, Wang Qiyan, Vice President of NIO Digital Systems, posted on Weibo stating that the NIO vehicle wide operating system SkyOS · Tianshu will be fully mass-produced on the flagship model ET9. According to Wang Qiyan, SkyOS is the underlying operating system of NIO vehicles, which includes the vehicle system, intelligent driving system, intelligent cockpit system, China Unicom service replenishment, and mobile interconnection, solving the security, real-time, and application complexity issues between different domains of the vehicle's various systems.
"SkyOS establishes a comprehensive and three-dimensional technical system, enabling various devices to organically integrate and achieve efficient collaborative work," added Luo Jinhua, a senior expert in NIO software architecture.
In addition to being equipped with the SkyOS · Tianshu operating system, NIO also announced in the upcoming trailer series that the ET9 will be equipped with a fully line controlled intelligent chassis, a 900V high-voltage architecture, and a self-developed next-generation intelligent driving chip.
On December 19th, Xiao Baihong, the head of NIO's vehicle application software, introduced on social media that the "brain" of the ET9 full line control intelligent chassis has evolved into a VMC intelligent computing platform, achieving software and hardware decoupling. Combined with the support of Tianshu SkyOS for flexible deployment, it can expand new functions and new line control hardware. And it is connected to AD intelligent driving on top and various actuators on the bottom, integrating drive system, braking system, steering system, active suspension and other line control hardware, making the vehicle's motion control reach a new height, while possessing the ability to evolve, iterate, and grow.
The following day was December 20th, when Bi Lu, the team leader of NIO Power Drive and High Voltage System, pushed the 900V high-voltage architecture carried by ET9 to the forefront. It is understood that the 900V high-voltage architecture is based on the upgraded electric drive platform of NIO, which further reduces the weight and volume of the motor to achieve higher power density. ET9 is expected to be able to diagnose the health status of the 900V electric drive system in real-time online, and achieve faster charging speed with the upgraded high-voltage wiring harness.
On December 22nd, while reviewing the development of intelligent driving chips, NIO Vice President Bai Jian also revealed NIO's plans for the next generation of intelligent driving chips. The first generation of NIO's assisted driving system used Mobileye's EyeQ4H chip, paired with NXP's S32V chip. In order to achieve perception openness, data closed-loop, improve development efficiency and iteration speed, NIO began to conduct full stack self-development from sensors, domain control hardware, and AD algorithms starting from NT2.
Bai Jian stated that in the coming years, intelligent driving algorithms will definitely evolve towards end-to-end and large model directions. Therefore, core components such as CPU/NPU/MSP need to meet the current requirements of BEV, network occupancy, end-to-end perception and control, while also considering the future to perfectly match end-to-end large model algorithms. "The current four Orins are certainly sufficient. However, the next generation of intelligent driving chips should be made even better." Bai Jian asked himself, "Do you have such chips? I think so. Stay tuned for NIO Day."
ET9 is officially referred to as the "crystallization of technological innovation" of NIO brand, and such large-scale preheating also shows that NIO has high expectations for it.
NIO Chairman Li Bin recently stated that ET9's competitors include luxury brand models such as the Maybach S-Class, BMW 7 Series, and the Bosch Panamera. "This market has always been difficult for Chinese car brands to enter, but we believe that in the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the government flagship has always been a representative of cutting-edge technology."
The reason for launching the ET9, a high-end executive sedan, at this point is also based on NIO's judgment of the high-end market. "Due to factors such as insufficient charging and swapping infrastructure and skyrocketing battery material costs, the high-end pure electric new energy vehicle market has not yet ushered in explosive growth opportunities." Li Bin judged that, combined with the current market trend, high-end pure electric new energy vehicles will face a turning point in the next one to two years.
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 highest 21.2% in the first quarter of 2021. At the same time, NIO's R&D investment has never decreased, with R&D expenses in the third quarter reaching 3.04 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.2%, and exceeding 3 billion yuan for four consecutive quarters. In this situation, NIO Automobile is bound to launch products with higher gross profit margins to dilute costs and seek sustainable development. Based on this, the emergence of ET9 is not only a "technology runway", but also a key work for NIO to further expand into the high-end market.