On January 29, the first batch of production line verification prototypes of NIO's fifth mass production model ET5 were officially rolled off the production line in Hefei, and the new car will start a comprehensive test and verification work, mainly to complete the three major tasks of optimizing the production line process, verifying the functional integrity of the vehicle, and verifying the attributes and performance of the vehicle. According to the plan, the new car will start delivery in the third quarter of this year.
Previously, the first production line body-in-white body of WEILAI ET5 has been successfully rolled off the production line. Engineers will identify potential problems in the production process, make continuous optimizations and improvements, and impose stricter requirements on parts and manufacturing processes. Through the small batch trial production of vehicle samples, the assembly process of the production line is gradually adjusted to the best state, laying a solid foundation for the mass production of ET5.
At the 2021 NIO Day held at the end of last year, WEILAI officially released its second sedan ET5, with a starting price of 328,000 yuan for the new car and 386,000 yuan for the top version.
In terms of appearance design, the styling design of WEILAI ET5 is more dynamic than that of ET7, and the whole vehicle adopts a coupe-style slipback design, and the beautiful waistline of the body is full of power, and it well retains the sense of luxury that this level of model should have. In addition, the ET5 is available in up to 9 exterior coatings.
In terms of technology configuration, the new car is equipped with a watchtower ultra-long-range high-precision lidar and high-definition camera layout, coupled with full-body surround view camera, millimeter wave radar, ultrasonic sensors and other hardware to achieve NIO NAD automatic driving technology.
In terms of power, the ET5 series is equipped with NIO's new generation electric drive system, the standard front and rear motors have a comprehensive power of 360kW, equipped with a 75kWh battery pack model CLTC with a range of 500-550km, and a 100kWh battery pack model CLTC with a range of 640-700km.
A direct competitor to the NIO ET5 is bound to lock in the Tesla Model 3, a benchmark model of this class. Although the ET5 is priced higher than the Model 3, after choosing the rental battery (BaaS) plan, it only sells for 258,000 yuan, which is almost the same as the Model 3. In addition, the NIO ET5 is more luxurious in design and has a larger body size, which is believed to attract some potential buyers of model 3.