NIO's William Li Predicts Electric Vehicle Inflection Point as Company Launches Two New Models
NIO launched two new electric vehicles at its 2025 NIO Day event on September 20, with founder and CEO William Li declaring that an industry inflection point has arrived for pure electric large three-row SUVs. The Chinese electric vehicle maker unveiled the ET9 Horizon Special Edition and the all-new ES8, positioning them as flagship models to capitalize on what Li sees as the dawn of a "golden age" for pure electric vehicles.
Li predicted that 2025 marks a critical turning point where the benefits users gain from pure electric vehicles will begin to outweigh the inconvenience of charging infrastructure limitations. The executive said the new ES8 represents "the culmination of NIO's ten years of underlying technological innovation," incorporating advances across the company's technology stack.
The all-new ES8 will be priced at 406,800 yuan (US$56,000) for out right purchase or 298,800 yuan(US$ 41,000) under NIO's Battery-as-a-Service model, both representing 10,000 yuan reductions from pre-sale prices announced in August. Deliveries are scheduled to begin September 21.
iFlytek Chairman Liu Qingfeng became the first owner of the new ES8, highlighting the vehicle's appeal among technology industry leaders.
Enhanced Storage and AI Integration Drive Premium Positioning
The all-new ES8 targets premium family customers with enhanced storage capacity that exceeds rival models including NIO's own ONVO L90. The vehicle offers 777 liters of loading capacity when seating six passengers, including a 230-liter front trunk and 547-liter rear compartment with 132 liters of lower-level storage space.
Li emphasized the vehicle's comprehensive AI integration through NIO's "SkyOS" operating system, which unifies management across vehicle connectivity, control systems, autonomous driving, digital cockpit and mobile applications. The ES8 features a central computing platform combining NIO's self-developed Shenji NX9031 chip with Qualcomm's Snapdragon SA8295P processor.
The vehicle incorporates NIO's World Model (NWM) technology, which the company claims represents the industry's first mass-production autonomous driving system based on world model architecture. The ES8 also features the latest NOMI Mate 3.0 system with emotional intelligence capabilities across more than 3,000 vehicle control functions.
Infrastructure Investment Supports Market Expansion
NIO has built 8,246 charging and battery swap stations nationwide as of September 20, including 3,500 battery swap stations and 4,746 charging stations, ranking first in both categories industry-wide. The company operates over 1,000 highway battery swap stations connecting 550 cities across a network covering nine vertical and 11 horizontal routes plus 16 major urban clusters.
Li disclosed that NIO has invested over 18 billion yuan in charging and swapping infrastructure over the past decade, while spending more than 60 billion yuan on core intelligent electric vehicle technologies. The company has filed for over 9,900 related patents globally.
The infrastructure investment supports NIO's positioning as China's pioneer in pure electric large three-row SUVs, with the original ES8 launched in 2017. The new ES8 represents the first intelligent electric vehicle product to complete three generations of iteration, according to the company.
Li argued that pure electric large three-row SUV sales growth is significantly outpacing extended-range, plug-in hybrid and gasoline models as more manufacturers enter the segment, validating NIO's early focus on this market category.