NIO’s Second Hefei Base to Introduce Second New Model in H2 2023

Qin Lihong, the president of Chinese EV maker NIO Inc., revealed on August 26 at the Chengdu Motor Show 2022 that the firm’s second advanced manufacturing base in Hefei will introduce the second new model as soon as the latter half of next year, and it is planned to be released on “NIO Day” at the end of this year.

As the company’s second production base, the Xinqiao Intelligent EV Industrial Park (NeoPark) project was launched in Hefei on April 29, 2021, covering a total area of 16,950 mu (1,130 hectares). It consists of an intelligent manufacturing area, an R&D living region and an ecological culture area. At present, the base’s planned production capacity is 300,000 units, and it is now producing NIO‘s ET5 models.

In May this year, the firm signed a cooperation agreement with Hefei’s economic and technological development zone regarding the NeoPark’s second phase project, including the whole vehicle and corresponding projects of core components. This project covers an area of 1,860 mu (124 hectares). According to the agreement, the firm’s brand-new middle-end and high-end intelligent EV products will be introduced to the park, which is planned to be completed and put into production in 2024. In addition, the cooperations include a project with an annual output of 40,000 tons of electronic copper foil, digital sales service headquarters of Volkswagen, the headquarters of Hefei JEE Power System Co., Ltd., and so on.

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The firm released July sales data on August 1. During the month, NIO delivered 10,052 new cars, up 26.7% year-on-year. From January to July 2022, the company delivered 60,879 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 22.0%. A total of 227,949 units have now been delivered by the firm.

The company said previously that test drives of the medium and large SUV ES7 models will be launched in various cities consecutively, while the delivery is expected to start on August 28. The ES7 was officially introduced to the market in June, with a price of 468,000-548,000 yuan ($68,187-$79,843). According to different configurations of 75kWh and 100kWh batteries, the models’ cruising ranges under CLTC conditions are about 485 km and 620 km respectively. In addition, the new car’s standard configuration features the firm’s Aquila system and Adam platform. Users can also subscribe to intelligent assisted driving (NAD) services on demand. The model also supports a battery-as-a-service (BaaS) plan.