Electric-car start-up Nio – which is believed to be considering an Australian launch – is preparing to take the wraps off a wagon version of its Tesla Model 3 rival.
Chinese electric-car start-up Nio is set to beat German car giants BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi in the race to bring a battery-powered luxury station wagon to showrooms – offering up to 1000km of claimed driving range.
A wagon version of the Nio ET5 sedan – the company’s challenger for the Tesla Model 3 – has emerged in registry filings by the Chinese Ministry for Industry and Information Technology.
Set to be unveiled at the Shanghai motor show next month, and go on sale in China in June, the Nio ET5 wagon is planned to be offered in a number of European markets, including Denmark, Germany, Holland and Norway, by the end of 2023.
Nio has not announced plans to sell cars in Australia, however it has hinted at a possible local launch by 2025 – and its vehicles will be built in right-hand drive for sale in the UK.
MORE: China’s Nio electric car brand set for Australia by 2025
The new electric wagon – which arrives months before rivals from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi or Volvo – builds on the ET5 sedan with a new-look rear end aimed at boosting space and versatility.
The ET5 wagon shares the sedan’s front-end look through to the front doors – but adopts a longer roofline, new rear doors and a heavily-angled tailgate housing a full-width tail lamp.
At 4790mm in length, 1960mm in width and 1499mm in height, the new electric Nio model is 77mm longer, 113mm wider and 59mm higher than the petrol-powered BMW 3 Series wagon.
It also rides on a wheelbase that is 37mm longer than that of its German rival, at 2888mm.
Elements within the leading edge of the roof package a lidar sensor, 11 cameras, five millimetre-wave radars and 12 ultrasonic sensors that power Nio’s semi-autonomous driving technology.
Power for the ET5 wagon is expected to mirror that of the ET5 sedan with dual electric motors and all-wheel drive.
In the ET5 sedan, the front and rear electric motors deliver 150kW and 210kW respectively, for overall system outputs of 358kW and up to 700Nm.
As with its four-door sibling, three battery capacities are planned, including 75kWh, 100kWh and 150kWh units – the latter using next-generation semi-solid-state cell technology to be made available later this year.
Claimed driving ranges in lenient lab testing is put at 435km, 580km and 1000km respectively.
As well as offering DC charging at up to 150kW, the ET5 wagon will also offer BAAS (battery as a service) functionality, allowing owners to skip the queue for recharging by swapping the battery for a different, fully-charged one at a growing number of Nio ‘Power Swap’ stations.
While the Nio ET5 wagon arrives a few months before a larger rival from Audi – and years before any similarly-sized electric wagons from BMW or Mercedes-Benz – it is not the first luxury electric wagon on sale, and arrives two years after Porsche’s Taycan Cross Turismo.
The post China’s Nio planning electric BMW 3 Series wagon rival appeared first on Drive.
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