- The first owner of the ET9 is Fang Hongbo, chairman of Chinese home appliance giant Midea, whose vehicle was delivered personally by Nio's William Li.
- Li and Fang discussed how Chinese brands can enter the high-end market and break the dominance of foreign brands.
Nio (NYSE: NIO) has started delivering its executive flagship sedan, the ET9, its highest-priced model to date, putting its latest technologies, especially its in-house developed autonomous driving chip, into the hands of users.
The first owner of the ET9 is Fang Hongbo, or Paul Fang, the chairman and CEO of Chinese home appliance giant Midea Group, based in Foshan, Guangdong, who previously test drove the electric vehicle.
Nio founder, chairman and CEO William Li went to Foshan to personally deliver the vehicle to Fang, according to a short video shared by Li on Weibo today.
"I test drove it a few months ago and it impressed me," Fang said.
"Especially its sense of space, its cabin has a sense of a business jet, and it is also very intelligent," Fang said.
Li said on Weibo that he and Fang discussed how Chinese brands can enter the high-end market and break the dominance of foreign brands in the market.
They also talked about the topic of preventing employees from working inefficiently in terms of company management, according to Li.
Li did not mention the date on which he delivered the vehicle to Fang, but it seems to have been yesterday, when he said on Weibo that he took a flight from Shanghai to deliver ET9 to its first owner.
Nio said on Weibo later today that the deliveries of ET9 officially began on March 29, and the car saw deliveries in many cities in China.
Nio unveiled the ET9 and began accepting reservations at Nio Day 2023 in December 2023, attempting to enter the luxury executive sedan market dominated by foreign brands including Mercedes-Benz Maybach.
The ET9 was officially launched on Nio Day 2024 on December 21, 2024, with a starting price of RMB 788,000 yuan ($108,490) including the battery pack, making it Nio's most expensive model.
Like all other Nio models, the ET9 supports purchase in BaaS (battery as a service) mode, which makes the purchase threshold lower.
Under BaaS, the starting price of the ET9 is RMB 660,000 yuan, and the monthly battery rental fee is RMB 1,128 yuan.
The ET9 is the first model to be equipped with Nio's in-house developed Shenji NX9031 autonomous driving chip based on a 5 nm process.
Nio unveiled the chip at the Nio Day 2023 event, and announced at a technology day event on July 27, 2024, that the chip had seen successful tape-out.
Currently, Nio's main brand models come standard with four Nvidia Orin chips, and the total computing power of the smart driving system is 1,016 TOPS.
Its sub-brand Onvo's first model, the L60, uses one Nvidia Orin X chip with a computing power of 254 TOPS.
Nio has not announced the specific computing power of the Shenji NX9031 chip, but previously said that it is equivalent to four mainstream smart driving chips. It puts two Shenji NX9031 chips on the ET9.
Earlier last month, Li said that the Nio brand will launch the ET5, ET5 Touring, ES6, and EC6 facelifts this year, which will use the Shenji autonomous driving chip.
Compared with the four Nvidia Orin chips previously used in these models, using Shenji chips can bring cost savings of about RMB 10,000 for each car, Li said during an earnings call on March 21.
The SkyRide intelligent chassis system is also one of the biggest selling points of the ET9, which Nio said is the world's first integrated hydraulic full-active suspension.
The suspension system can achieve instantaneous adjustment of stiffness, damping and height, resulting in better ride comfort and higher safety, the company previously said.
Earlier this month, Nio shared a new video showing the ET9's wheels staying close to the road as it passes over a ramp at 80 kilometers per hour.
![[Video] Nio shows off ET9's safety in extreme scenarios as Chinese EV makers race for better tech](https://img.cnevpost.com/2025/02/21104506/2025022102450638.jpg)
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