Inside the NIO EP9, revealed today. It won’t come cheap. Photo credit: NIO.
If you want a new car right now, there aren’t many electric options available at a reasonable price. And electric car startups aren’t exactly helping this by launching totally unobtainable EV supercars. The latest to do this is China-based NextEV, which today showed off the insane NIO EP9, one of the quickest cars on the planet.
It comes 11 months after China-backed Faraday Future showed off an electric supercar concept that’ll probably never even go into production.
NextEV, which this evening showed off its rebranding as NIO at a launch event in London, hails the EP9 as the quickest electric car on Earth. Packing a brutal 1,340 hp, it has more than twice the power of the notably quick and pricey Tesla Model S P90D.
Photo credit: NIO.
Photo credit: NIO.
NextEV is planning a production run of just six models, reports AutoExpress today, each costing US$1.2 million.
The price tag: US$1.2 million.
The EP9, like Faraday’s vaporware concept, might be a stopgap before the company can build up its know-how and manufacturing capacity to build a more affordable sedan or SUV that you’ll actually be able to buy. But until then, this supercar is essentially pointless.
NextEV – or NIO, as we apparently should be calling it now – is the brainchild of Chinese tech entrepreneur William Li, who made his fortune with a car sales website. His startup has cash from Tencent, China’s biggest social media and gaming company. With its funding reserves, the startup is seeking to start work on a US$465 million factory in China, both for the nutty EP9 and for future, more affordable models. The firm – which races in the electric-only Formula E series – says it’s aiming at 280,000 vehicles per year in future, which would eventually put it on par with what BMW produces each 6 weeks.
For now, that’s a long way off. And as Faraday’s recent cash troubles attest, there’s a long and winding road ahead.
The EP9 is the fastest electric car around the terrifying Nürburgring Nordschliefe track, said the company today. It posted a lap of 7:05, beating the EV record of 7:22, posted by the non-road-legal Toyota Motorsport EV P002. Photo credit: NIO.
This post Another Chinese startup just revealed another pointless electric supercar appeared first on Tech in Asia.
from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/nextev-reveals-electric-supercar
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