A video shared by Nio shows the ET9 letting the thick snow covering its body fall through significant body shaking.
(Image credit: Nio)
Nio (NYSE: NIO) has demonstrated the capabilities of its executive flagship sedan ET9’s SkyRide chassis system in a new video, as China marks the first working day after the Lunar New Year holiday.
At the start of the new year, the ET9 came out into the snow and ice to kick off winter testing, Nio said in a post on its WeChat account today.
A video shared by Nio shows the ET9, covered in thick snow, demonstrating technological capabilities not often seen in the automotive industry by shaking its body dramatically and letting the snow fall.
The ET9 is equipped with the SkyRide intelligent chassis system, the world’s first integrated hydraulic fully active suspension that enables transient adjustment of stiffness, damping and height, according to Nio.
The ET9’s four wheels can be controlled completely independently, allowing for six-way adjustment, Nio said.
The electric sedan’s body height supports lifting and lowering of up to +40/-50 mm, with adjustments taking just two seconds to complete, the company said.
This capability allows the ET9 to handle complex road conditions with ease and also allows passengers to get in and out of the car with minimal effort, Nio said.
The SkyRide system’s active electric drive unit processes and responds to information about road bumps in a thousandth of a second and adjusts the vehicle’s attitude in real time, Nio said.
Nio’s WeChat post didn’t mention the location of the test, though a company executive said it was conducted in Yakeshi, Inner Mongolia, in northern China.
Nio unveiled the ET9 at its Nio Day 2023 event on December 23, 2023, and began pre-sales with a price tag of 800,000 yuan ($111,210), with deliveries set to begin in the first quarter of 2025.
The ET9 is packed with a number of the latest technologies, with one of the highlights being the chassis system dubbed SkyRide, which centers on steer-by-wire (SBW), rear-wheel steering, and fully active suspension.
At the launch of the ET9, Nio founder, chairman, and CEO William Li showed a demonstration video featuring an ET9 prototype with a tower of four tiers of champagne placed at the front of the car going over speed bumps but the champagne not spilling.
On January 5, Nio shared a video showing an ET9 prototype’s two front wheels moving up and down in a shallow puddle of water at high frequencies, while two water-filled glasses placed on the hood remained stable.
($1 = RMB 7.1936)
Nio shows off ET9’s chassis system capabilities in new video
