Chinese EV brand Nio recently held its Nio Day 2023 event, where it launched new charging technologies, gave company updates, and held performances to a crowd of more than 10,000 people in an Olympic stadium. The biggest news was the debut of the ET9 sedan, which Nio describes as a “smart executive flagship.”
Stretching 209.6 inches long and riding on a 127.9-inch wheelbase, the ET9 is slightly longer than a Mercedes-Benz S-Class. While the ET9’s “landjet” design has no body cladding or other elements that would make it crossover-like, it does have a taller ride height and more ground clearance than most sedans, sitting 4.5 inches higher than the S-Class. The wheels are 23 inches, too — this is a big car.
It has a fastback design with a rounded, sloping greenhouse akin to a first-gen Porsche Panamera, though the ET9 looks nice and sleek overall. Its fairly bluff nose has thin running lights above separate micro-LED headlight pods, which Nio says use high-def imaging lenses like movie cameras for better illumination. An active spoiler at the rear sits atop a thin light bar at the rear, and it looks like the ET9 has a traditional sedan trunk instead of a liftback hatch.
The ET9 is only available as a four-seater with a fixed center console running from the front of the cabin all the way to the back, and those rear seats look like a serene place to sit. Nio says the ET9’s rear seats feature 24 original patents; they can recline at up to 45 degrees, have integrated footrests and 11 different adjustments that can be made at once. There are just enough design flourishes inside for the ET9 to be interesting without being overdone or derivative; I particularly like the way the rear bulkhead subtly wraps around the seats, and the two-tone cream and blue color scheme of the pictured car.
At the rear the center console has multiple storage cubbies and wireless charging pads, and the upper section is floating so there’s space for bags or other things underneath — plus a champagne fridge slides out from the back. A deployable tray table can be adjusted 360 degrees, and it even has an integrated mirror. The front seatbacks each have a screen for rear passengers, and the center console has its own touchscreen that pops out as well.
No good images of the dashboard or front passenger area were released, but in that regard the ET9 looks similar to other Nio models, with a squircle steering wheel and a large central touchscreen. A seam runs down the center of the roof, splitting the panoramic sunroof into two separate panels, with the bar housing ambient lighting and touch controls. There are seven blackout sunshades for the cabin — the roof, the side windows and the rear windows — and they can all be activated at the press of a button.
The ET9’s 120-kWh battery pack uses a 900-volt architecture that allows for peak charging speeds of 600 kW, both of which are world firsts. That’s powerful enough to gain 158 miles of range in just five minutes, or owners can visit a Nio battery swapping station and be back on the road in three minutes. There’s an electric motor at each axle, offering a total power output of 697 horsepower, though Nio also hasn’t released any performance numbers or a total range figure.
As part of its SkyRide Intelligent Chassis System, the ET9 is Nio’s first car to have a hydraulic active suspension, rear-wheel steering and a steer-by-wire setup, making it the first car in the world with a fully driven-by-wire chassis. The company says even on bad roads the ET9 will have a ride that’s “as smooth as cruising in the atmosphere,” and the cabin has active noise cancellation. In total Nio says the ET9 has 17 world-first technologies and 525 patents filed.
There are up to three lidar sensors — a front-facing long-range unit at the roof and a wide-angle unit at each front fender — with a total of 31 different safety sensors throughout the car including a 4D millimeter-wave imaging radar that is unaffected by bad weather. Nio says the ET9 also has seven different safety redundancy systems, including braking, communication, computing, driving and power distribution.
The ET9 is now available to order in China, though deliveries won’t start until the beginning of 2025. It starts at the equivalent of around $120,000, much cheaper than the Maybach version of the S-Class. While you shouldn’t get your hopes up for the ET9 to be sold in the U.S., Nio wants its next-generation models to reach our shores.
