“NIO EC6 comes standard with the AQUILA super-sensing system. It has 33 high-performance sensing hardware, including 1 ultra-long-range high-precision lidar, 7 8-megapixel high-definition cameras, 4 3-megapixel high-sensitivity surround-view cameras… …”
Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai, spoke at the EC6 press conference. The two NIO car owners who played the leading roles responded directly with six words:
“What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
“Why did Brother Bin run away to Lilliput?”
But for media like me and people who follow Weilai, Li Bin’s “Guankou” is too familiar. In fact, since the types, quantities and even performance parameters of components used in the smart cockpit and smart driving of the NT2.0 platform are basically the same, Li Bin will say the above lines at almost every new car launch conference. And this time the “official complaint” has basically “made it clear”: there is nothing you don’t know about EC6.
In fact, for the new generation of EC6, Weilai released it in almost the most “lightweight” form in history: a 15-minute video recording “live broadcast”. Throughout the video, the C position was given to two users and one Fellow (a sales consultant within the NIO system). Even the final product price is announced by the latter, not Li Bin.
When the styling, interior, battery life and even performance parameters are no longer new, the release of a car will inevitably seem a bit boring. But from the perspective of the author, a veteran owner of the previous generation EC6, there is still a lot to say about this first domestic electric coupe SUV that has been replaced three years after its launch.
Compared with the old model, what are the advantages of the new generation EC6?
Before starting the article, there is one thing I need to say. As an automotive media person, the author has a particular preference for coupe SUVs. Because on the one hand it has the comfort and ride height of an SUV, it has better adaptability to complex terrain environments. On the other hand, coupe SUVs have different shapes and body postures than other SUVs, which are very attractive and personalized labels.
The latter, in particular, determines to a large extent whether the coupe SUV can achieve great sales. After all, compared with cars, the performance indicators of SUVs are not that high of priority when users buy cars. Now that you have chosen a coupe SUV, the key is whether it looks good and is “combat” enough.
From this perspective, the new generation EC6 does have a lot of improvements compared to the old model.
First look at the front part. Overall, there is still not much difference between the front faces of the new generation EC6 and ES6. But unlike the old car which is almost “completely identical”, the new car uses an exclusive split structure “Double Dash” daytime running lights, making the difference relatively more conspicuous. According to NIO, the new design adopts a 3D three-dimensional exposed design to enhance the sense of movement and suspension of the lamp unit.
At the same time, NIO added an aerodynamic channel that leads directly to the front wheel for the headlights of the new car. This not only helps to “bring out” the stagnant airflow at the front wheels, but also helps dissipate heat from the front brake discs. Of course, NIO’s design in this area is relatively restrained. If you don’t squat down and put your eyes in front of the headlights, you won’t be able to spot this detail.
Second is the side, which is also the essence of a coupe SUV. You know, the previous generation EC6 is actually Weilai’s fast and low-cost “modification” solution based on ES6. Apart from the differences in styling, the two cars are exactly the same in terms of body dimensions. This time around, NIO emphasized its “individually developed” status for EC6. In other words, this car, like the EC7, is a “newly developed” model by Weilai, which brings about two subtle changes between the new and old cars.
First, the duck tail on the old EC6 has been chopped off in the new car. We can observe from the roof curve of the old car that it does not “slip down” smoothly from the top of the car to the back. In order to ensure the headroom of the second-row passengers, the fastback curve of the old EC6 actually starts from a position close to the C-pillar. This is likely to be directly related to the fact that the EC6 is modified based on the ES6 body, which can be regarded as a compromise.
2022 NIO EC6
The new generation of Weilai EC6
It can be observed on the new car that the roof of the entire car slips from the front driver’s roof position all the way to the rear. This makes the lines of the entire vehicle very smooth, and the length of the vehicle body has also been visually extended. Similar design ideas can also be seen on the BMW X4.
On this basis, NIO has equipped the new generation EC6 with an active lifting tail similar to the principle on the EC7 as standard. This rear wing adopts a two-stage lifting design. When the vehicle speed exceeds 80 km/h, the rear wing will automatically rise to the drag reduction position. When the vehicle speed increases to 170 km/h, the rear wing will further increase to the top speed gear.
However, if you set the rear wing to manual mode, you can keep the rear wing open after the vehicle is powered on. This adds a significant highlight to the smooth and slightly monotonous curve at the rear of the vehicle.
Of course, NIO’s styling adjustments are not without their shortcomings.
When sitting in the second row, the author clearly felt that the roof space was lower than that of my own car. Combined with being too busy recently and not having time to get a haircut, the roof of the car has rubbed against the author’s hair. However, for users of coupe SUVs, the headroom in the second row is not so urgent. What’s more, if the height of the rear passenger is less than 180 centimeters, the space of EC6 is enough to take into account the needs of the family.
The second is the feeling of power of the new car compared to the old car. As we all know, in addition to having more personality than ordinary SUVs, coupe SUVs also have a powerful appearance that is another factor that needs to be highlighted. The consistent operation of automobile companies in this regard is to make the vehicle have a more stable footplate visually. The specific method is to make the wheel arch, that is, the “shoulder” of the vehicle more prominent in shape, and align with the outline of the window. Create a larger visual angle.
For example, we can often see similar shapes in cats. When a tiger is ready to attack its prey, its two hind legs will often curl up under its body and exert force secretly, so that it can launch a fatal blow at any time.
On the new generation EC6, Weilai works much harder than the old car. You can see how obvious the curved surface of the vehicle changes from the color change caused by light reflection in the photo.
Of course, as a new car based on NIO’s NT2.0 platform, NIO’s detailed changes in the new generation EC6 are not limited to styling. Compared with the old car, the total motor power of the new car is 40kW greater, which shortens the 0 to 100 km/h acceleration time of the new generation EC6 by 0.2 seconds. At the same time, the vehicle, like other NT2.0 platforms, is equipped with NIO’s self-developed ICC intelligent chassis domain controller + CDC dynamic suspension damping control system to achieve continuous improvement in the vehicle’s subsequent driving performance.
In addition, because the angle of the rear seats is adjusted more comfortably, the space in the depth direction of the trunk of the new car is compressed compared with the old car. But in the vertical direction, it is the same as the ES6, with additional hidden storage space arranged under the trunk cover. Finally, under the rear wing of the vehicle, NIO installed an Easter egg similar to the one on the ET5T trunk beam – “Blue Sky’s Coming” to the new car.
In the author’s opinion, the several new cars released by Weilai in the past three months should be said to have their own division of labor. Among them, the ET5T’s responsibility is to make up for the shortcomings of the ET5 in rear space and practicality, and provide users with new options for B-class cars; the new ES6 aims to succeed its predecessor and become the new sales leader; in contrast , for Weilai, the new EC6 is truly expected to become a new car with a personalized label.
After all, its unique coupe-SUV positioning is still one of the few players in the current Chinese auto market. And its starting price of 358,000 yuan makes this car accessible to most potential Weilai users.
After the cards are played, let’s do a review for Wei
Since the beginning of 2021, Weilai has successively completed the launch and delivery of new vehicles on the NT2.0 platform. Among them, ET7, ES7, ET5, EC7 and ET5T are brand-new models, while ES8, ES6 and EC6 are cross-platform replacements of old cars. Finally, after the launch of EC6, Weilai accumulated 8 pure electric models on sale, surpassing all new car-making forces and even most traditional car brands in terms of number.
First of all, Weilai launched an impact on the higher-end market above 400,000 yuan, but the results were not entirely what it expected. At the beginning of 2021, Weilai released the first new car on the NT2.0 platform-ET7 at the NIO Day in Chengdu. As a C-class luxury sedan that has rarely been involved in Chinese car brands before, ET7 is the first to implement high-end technology configurations such as lidar, 4 Orin chips with more than 1,000 TOPS computing power, and Qualcomm 8155 cockpit chips as standard equipment. This is not only the first of its kind in the Chinese market, but also a leading one globally.
However, the ET7, which was delivered more than a year after its launch, did not achieve the sales success as expected. In fact, due to the epidemic in Shanghai, where NIO’s R&D headquarters is located, in the first half of 2022 when ET7 was delivered, strict epidemic prevention policies prevented many NIO engineers from arriving at the Hefei factory to work. This not only caused the production of ET7 to be delayed, but also affected the quality control of new cars.
Since then, NIO has successively launched the medium and large pure electric SUV ES7 and the medium and large pure electric coupe SUV EC7. But neither car achieved sustained sales. In fact, in recent months, the combined monthly sales of these three vehicles have been less than 2,000 units, and their influence in the entire new energy vehicle market is really negligible.
In NIO’s plan, ET7, ES7, EC7 and ES8 together form NIO’s high-end product line. However, these high-end models with standard air suspension, higher-power motors and all-aluminum bodies have not achieved stable monthly sales of more than a thousand, except for the ES8.
However, the same problem is not unique to Weilai. Mercedes-Benz’s newly launched high-end models such as EQE and EQE SUV still have not achieved the best sales as expected. It can be seen that unless pure electric vehicles can achieve “Germany and Israel” in size like the ES8, it will be difficult to be widely recognized by consumers.
Secondly, in order to cope with the fierce price war in the current automobile market, NIO adjusted the number of SKUs and product prices as early as the definition of the NT2.0 model product. Take the new EC6 as an example. Compared with the old EC6 I bought, although the starting price of this car seems to be similar, the actual configuration is much higher.
Among them, the new EC6 comes standard with a series of configurations such as the queen’s co-pilot, front seat ventilation + massage, and HUD head-up display system. The high-end assisted driving NOP+ adopts a subscription model and is free for the first two years. To sum up, it seems that users only need to choose an artificial intelligence assistant Nomi to pick up the car and go home.
When the author buys a car in 2021, these configurations on the old EC6 will need to be optional. At that time, the author also spent extra money to choose air suspension. In the end, even if the battery rental plan was adopted (the car price was reduced by 80,000 yuan when buying the car, and the battery rental fee was 980 yuan per month), the final price of the author’s new car was as high as 370,000 yuan. In contrast, if you buy a new EC6 with a battery for 370,000 yuan now, you still have room to spare.
In fact, the same thing happened to the new generation ES6 released this year. All in all, compared with the old cars on the NT1.0 platform, NIO’s new cars on the NT2.0 platform have essentially made standard configurations those parts that originally required optional equipment, thereby achieving a price reduction. This not only reduces the number of SKUs of new cars, but also maintains the same starting price, allowing NIO to maintain its “no price reduction” flag.
In the end, NIO ultimately relied on entry-level models in the high-end market, allowing the brand’s sales to reach the 20,000-unit mark this year. According to data from Chedi.com, Weilai achieved sales of more than 15,000 vehicles in August this year with the help of its ES6, ET5 and ET5T vehicles. This achievement clearly exceeded the performance of BMW and Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles in China.
So what Weilai has to do next is to deliver the EC6 car as soon as possible, and then realize the “5566” product matrix. With the arrival of the last quarter of this year, Weilai, which has completed the delivery of all NT2.0 products, needs to prove itself with more stable high sales results.
Write at the end:
At present, NIO seems to have emerged from the quagmire of sluggish sales in the first half of this year. But in Li Bin’s mouth, the company’s problems are still obvious.
In the talk show “Cheng Yao”, Li Bin revealed that he believed that NIO did not do well in selling multiple cars at the same time this year. Especially for products such as EC7 and ES7, NIO’s R&D investment has not yielded satisfactory results.
As the author mentioned at the beginning of the article, Weilai has become one of the few companies in the world to have so many electric vehicle products. Therefore, after all the cards have been played, NIO still needs to continue to do a good job in product marketing, user operations, and iteration of product experience. Only in this way can Weilai continue to achieve stable sales and continue to lead the high-end market of electric vehicles in China.