This is the first photo of the NIO ES6 electric SUV.
The five-seat NIO ES6 will debut in Q4, it will be positioned below the NIO
ES8. Price, after subsidies, will start around 200.000 yuan or US$ 30.300. The ES6
will have a range of 500 kilometers NEDC, according to an earlier statement by
NIO.
Power will come from a single electric motor with
326 hp (the ES8 uses a twin-motor setup). Design is recognizable as NIO, but
the ES6 is smaller, and looks quite different from the C-pillar onward to the
rear.
NIO doesn’t have its own factory or production
license. The ES6 will be manufactured by a joint venture between NIO and
state-owned Jianghuai Automotive Corporation (JAC). This joint venture also
makes the NIO ES8.
The joint venture is called Jianghuai-Weilai, with
Weilai being the Chinese name of NIO. Interestingly, this JAC is the very same
state-owned company that recently agreed a joint venture with Volkswagen to
develop and manufacture a series of cheap EVs for China. So just to recap: the supposedly
independent ‘new’ ‘startup’ is actually in bed with a very state-owned company
for its actual production.
