CarBrandLogos archive · NIO · 2016

NIOEP9

A six-off electric track car built to make people take a startup seriously.

Photo: Jengtingchen · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in NIO history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the NIO EP9, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

NIO had not sold a single road car when it revealed this one. That was rather the point. The company put its Formula E engineering group together with RML in Britain and built a carbon-tubbed track machine with four motors, one at each wheel, each with its own single-ratio gearbox, drawing somewhere close to a megawatt in total.

NIO EP9 · Lunghaiu Wandloa 12 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Design and engineering

It went straight after lap records. Runs at the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 2016 and again in 2017 made it the fastest electric car yet timed there, and it set electric marks at Circuit of the Americas and Paul Ricard as well. The batteries were designed to be swapped rather than charged between sessions, a preview of the approach NIO would build its road-car business around.

NIO EP9 rear · Jengtingchen · CC BY-SA 4.0

In production

Only six were completed. It was never a product in any normal sense, and the price attached to the handful offered to customers reflected that. What it bought the company was a reputation: for a few years, the answer to what a Chinese electric startup could actually build was this car.

NIO EP9, Oslo · Premeditated · CC BY-SA 4.0

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

2016–2019

Designer

David Hilton

Body

2-door coupé

Technical specification

The EP9, in detail.

Production: 2016–2019 (6 produced total planned 10 more); EP9: 6 produced
Class: Track day car; Sports car (S)
Body style: 2-door coupé
Layout: individual-wheel drive
Transmission: 4 individual single-ratio transmissions (one gearbox at each wheel)
Designer: David Hilton, Ben Payne, Andrew Sheffield
Manufacturer: Nio; NextEV Nio Formula E Team; RML Group