Nio launches e-SUV

Nio has launched its first production vehicle in China, an all-electric SUV.

The Chinese EV start-up revealed the Nio ES8 in April, but has just launched it at a big event in Beijing, bringing in thousands of reservation holders.

It’s a full size seven-seater with a 70kWh battery pack enabling about 355km of range, with probably closer to 300km of real-world range.

Specs are fairly similar to Tesla’s Model X, with slightly lower performance but cheaper, electrek reports.

An onboard artificial intelligence assistant system called Nomi is also on the ES8.

The new Nio Pilot driver assist system is featured, the hardware suite fairly similar to Tesla’s latest Autopilot suite, but it is powered by Mobileye’s technology and EyeQ4 chip instead of Tesla’s vision system on Nvidia hardware

The standard ES8 starts at NZ$97,518 or NZ$81,743 after government incentives, about half the price of the Tesla Model X in China.

Nio, previously known as NextEV, also offers a battery renting structure, similar to Renault’s Zoe battery scheme, which lowers the upfront price of the vehicle to NZ$60,223.

The battery renting costs about NZ$287 a month, but it also gives owner access to a battery swap system to get more range quicker.

Nio is building battery swap stations, which it says can autonomously replace a battery pack on the ES8 in about three minutes.

About 1100 battery swapping stations are planned by 2020.

Mobile charging is also offered.