Nio ES6 Review

[Aveyro]

 

Overview

What is it?

 

A car you’ve probably never seen before, from a company you’ve never heard of - the ES6 is an electric SUV very much in the mould of the Audi e-Tron, Mercedes-Benz EQC, Jaguar I-Pace and Tesla Model X.

 

Its manufacturer, Nio, is a five-year-old Chinese startup. You might have heard of its somewhat successful Formula E team, or the EP9 hypercar that held the Nurburgring EV lap-record for two years (until VW smashed it with the I.D R). It employs 9,000 people – three times as many as Ferrari, but a fraction of, say, Tesla’s 45,000-strong workforce – and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. So it’s a thing.

 

Even though it has offices in Germany, the US and the UK, Nio (or Weilai - meaning ‘Blue Sky Coming’ in Mandarin) doesn’t sell cars outside of China. Not yet, anyway. The five-seat ES6 is its second model (not counting the EP9, which wasn’t road-legal and built in extremely limited numbers) after the seven-seat ES8, of which it’s sold more than 15,000 examples since sales began last year. The ES6, which shares a great deal with the ES8, went on sale in June 2019.

 

‘NEVs’ – ‘new energy vehicles’ – are big business in China. Nio is one of almost 500 NEV manufacturers registered there, but one of the tiny minority that’s actually built, sold and delivered some cars. Though overall car sales are falling, sales of NEVs in China are growing steadily. That said, the government has just slashed generous subsidies paid to manufacturers by as much as half, putting pressure on the industry.

 

The ES6 is available with either a 70 or 84kWh battery, giving up to a claimed 317 miles or so of range (on the wildly-optimistic NEDC cycle). The cheapest ES6 claims around 260 miles.

 

Driving

 

 

Despite extensive use of CFRP and aluminium in its construction, the ES6 is a heavy thing. Not much less than 2.5-tonnes, a lot of which is down to the battery. At least the weight is nice and low, so it doesn’t roll about too much. But you can feel that heft in the way the ES6 rides and steers.

 

This is a car that would need a bit of suspension tuning, should Nio ever attempt to sell it in Europe. There’s a softness to it that makes it comfy enough around town, but on the motorway and country roads introduces loose body control that sees it bounce its way along somewhat inelegantly. It’s never going to rival the Jaguar I-Pace for handling – the ES6 isn’t massively at home being hustled – but it could definitely do with a bit of tightening up. But hey, if softness is what the Chinese really want, you can’t blame Nio for obliging.

 

The powertrain is impressive though. All ES6s are all-wheel drive – cheaper ones get a permanent magnet motor on each axle, but cars like the one we tried get a better induction magnet motor at the back, improving performance and efficiency. In such cars, you’re looking at 536bhp, 0-62mph in 4.7 seconds and a top speed limited to 125mph.

 

It delivers those numbers with the characteristic punch of a big, expensive EV. Shrugging off its weight to deliver acceleration the uninitiated would no doubt find genuinely startling.

 

On the inside

 

 

Of course there are similarities between the ES6 and any Tesla. The door handles motor out of their housings to meet you, there’s no start button (just put your foot on the brake and select a gear) and there’s a whopping interior-dominating portrait touchscreen.

 

Said touchscreen uses Nio’s own software, which is impressively slick. As far as we can tell, anyway – at the moment it’s only available in Mandarin, which we can’t read. It responds to inputs quickly and the graphics are crystal-clear. The most other-worldly thing in here is the voice assistant, which Nio calls Nomi.

 

In principle it works like systems from Mercedes and BMW – only this time it has a FACE. A little swivelling head thing that sits on top of the dashboard, where in, say, a Porsche you’d find the stopwatch. It looks at you when you talk to it (which you can do from any of the car’s five seats) or if you don’t put your seatbelt on. And if you’re listening to music it starts shaking a set of virtual maracas.

 

All very odd, but rather amusing nonetheless. As for the voice control itself, our aforementioned lack of Chinese language skills renders us incapable of actually talking to Nomi. Seemed a bit hit and miss when native speakers were feeding it nav destinations, though.

 

The design and layout of the interior is interesting. Nio hasn’t done a Tesla and entirely deleted the centre tunnel (though no doubt it could have done). It’s quite high, in fact, so the driver and front passenger feel cocooned to a degree. There’s storage underneath, a wireless charger on top and a deep centre storage bin. Material quality feels broadly good – we were expecting something that felt built down to a price, but the ES6 isn’t like that at all.

 

It’s big, too. Very spacious wherever you’re sitting. A front passenger’s seat that slides right the way back and gets an extendable footrest is very comfortable indeed, and the driving position is bang on for a car of this size and type. We spent two whole days behind the wheel and didn’t feel fatigued in the slightest. Not from the car, anyway.

 

Owning

 

 

You can’t buy an ES6 because you don’t live in China. But for those that can, this is where things get really interesting.

 

See, buying a Nio is like buying into a club. It grants access to any ‘Nio House’ – the company’s dealers/clubhouses that can be found in shopping malls in many of China’s biggest cities. These spaces, which are a bit like a Tesla Store crossed with an Apple Store crossed with a Starbucks, contain a publicly-accessible bit where prospective owners can buy cars, and an invite-only section (often a whole floor) for existing owners and their friends/family. These bits contain a coffee shop, library, children’s play area and even rentable office space. Would Brits use them? No clue – but they seem to work in China. We visited a couple while we were there driving the ES6 and both seemed reasonably well attended.

 

Owning a Nio also gives you access to the company’s network of 123 power-swap stations – the only network of its kind anywhere in the world. Nio has lined three of China’s busiest expressways with these stations, and you’ll find some in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

 

Though manned 24-hours a day, the process is entirely automated. Once the Nio man has manoeuvred your car into place, he goes into a little room and prods some buttons. Your car is then shuffled into place and lifted into the air. Its battery is unscrewed and a new, fully-charged one fitted. The whole process takes less than ten minutes and costs the equivalent of around £20. Each station contains five batteries at any one time, and can service 70 cars a day.

 

Of course you can charge the car too – Nio’s app is so good at keeping track of public chargers, a lot of non-owners rely on it. Getting the ES6 from zero to 80 per cent takes a little under an hour on a fast DC charger. As well as the power-swap stations, Nio has a fleet of vans you can call upon for a quick charge.

 

Simply hail one from the app, and a chap will drive to wherever you are to deliver the EV equivalent of a splash and dash – 60 miles of range in ten minutes.

 

In its native China, the ES6 starts at 358,000 RMB, or around £42,000. Our top-spec Premier Edition ES6 is the equivalent of around £58,000. The cheapest Jaguar I-Pace, meanwhile, costs the equivalent of £73,000 in China, while the Tesla Model X is over £90,000.

 

Verdict

 

The Nio ES6 is a good car. In many respects it’s on par with competition from Europe – the interior is comfortable, spacious and feels well-made, the infotainment looks and feels slick and the powertrain is smooth, quiet and makes this 2,345kg car properly quick.

 

Another massive plus is the access to Nio’s battery-swap stations – something we wish someone had thought to implement in the UK. It’s not all good, though – the ES6 isn’t even slightly sporty, much like the EQC, the body control leaves much to be desired and for the most part it feels its substantial weight. But as a marker in the sand, only Nio’s second car, it’s an impressive bit of kit.

 

Now, the score. It’s a tricky one, this, because the Nio isn’t available here and therefore doesn’t have UK prices or specs. We’ve gone with a 6 because it’s a surprisingly good thing, if lacking in a few areas. Nio’s charging ecosystem might have earned it an extra point, but it’s still unproven and, again, only a thing in China. Should the ES6 ever materialise in Europe, we’d be only too happy to revisit our review and revise our score accordingly. But for now - we can’t say for certain whether it’s better or worse than the comparable Audi, Mercedes or Jaguar.