On the evening of November 21st, Weilai Auto held its first electric supercar EP9 at the Saatchi Gallery in London. The new English brand “NIO” was released in the form of live webcast and interactive session. New brand identity and brand new Slogan.

Speed: According to the officially announced parameters at the press conference, the NIO EP9 is equipped with 4 high-performance motors and 4 independent gearboxes, with a peak power output of 1,360 Ps (1000 kW·H) and an acceleration time of 100 km/h. It is 2.7 seconds, the acceleration time per hour of 200 kilometers is 7.1 seconds, and the acceleration time of 300 kilometers per hour is 15.9 seconds. Its top speed can reach 313 km / h, the data is quite amazing. I believe that the riders are familiar with the term Nürburgring North Ring. The EP9 scored 7 minutes and 05 seconds in New North, creating the world's fastest electric car lap, and equipped with a 750-horsepower V12 naturally aspirated engine. The Lamborghini LP750-4SV New North lap is 6 minutes and 59 seconds, and the Weilai EP9 is quite powerful.

Li Bin said at the press conference: "The ordinary electric sports car is weak in the mid-rear acceleration of 0-200km·h, and the power system of the NIO EP9 has a more powerful performance reserve, which is equivalent to the competitor Tesla P100D. Under climatic and temperature conditions, the lap time is 2 minutes faster!"

Battery: EP 9 provides a total of 54 kWh of electricity, a total of 2 battery cells, using indirect liquid cooling. The EP9's magazine-type replaceable battery system is fully charged in the fast charge mode for 45 minutes and has a cruising range of 427 kilometers.

For a super sports car, the three most important elements are: high-performance powertrain, scientific aerodynamic design and high-speed stable chassis structure. It is reported that the NIO EP9 was designed with aerodynamics in mind.

As can be seen from the picture, the design of the aerodynamic components is quite exaggerated and a large number of carbon fiber components are added.

The spoiler position of the front lip uses the largest area of ​​carbon fiber components in the world, and the spoiler has an automatic angle adjustment function. In a high-speed environment, it provides better heat dissipation and increases downforce and drag coefficient.

The air enters from the hollowed out position on both sides, exits the carbon fiber guide at the rear of the fender, and passes around the body to the rear. On the one hand, it can provide the rapid heat dissipation capability of the front carbon ceramic brake system, and on the other hand, it allows the air to dissipate more heat for the internal hardware.

The tail of the DRS adjustable spoiler control system automatically raises and lowers the angle according to the speed and environment. There are three modes available: off, low resistance and high downforce. In certain circumstances, the EP 9 can have a downforce of up to 24,000 N, which is twice that of an F1 car.

In addition, the interior of the cabin is also in line with the design concept of “Wei Lai has come”. Its instruments and rearview mirrors have been eliminated, but replaced with four full-liquid crystal display instruments and four in-car HD camera heads. At the press conference, when Li Bin interacted with Li Xiang, a co-investor in Beijing's live studio, Li Bin highlighted the liquid crystal display instrument located in the co-pilot. He said: "NIO EP9 not only considers the driver's feelings, but also adds a LCD instrument display to the first officer. This screen can display the heartbeat and pulse of the passengers in the passenger seat and upload them to the cloud in the form of digital packets. You can see the video clips and physiology performances of the co-pilot passengers on the ride on this display, which adds further fun."

The goal of Weilai Automobile has always been to make the Chinese version of Tesla. Why should we release a super-run that is so expensive? In fact, Tesla first adopted this approach, first doing super-running, and then "down-dimensional attack" to make the production car with lower performance requirements.

In the second half of 2014, Li Xiang and Li Bin hit it off and decided to establish Wei Lai. Li Xiang thought at the time that a complex product and service company like a car had only a new enterprise when technology (electric drive, car networking, autopilot, etc.) and business model (direct sales, e-commerce, finance, etc.) changed at the same time. Only have the opportunity to enter, and this time has come.

Li Xiang and Li Bin also discussed very early, to be a brand new electric car, there are only two paths:

The first is similar to Lexus and Tesla. It starts with the high-end and continues to explore, and then with the innovation of the business model, there is an opportunity. This is the path that Li Xiang originally thought of. It is also the reason why Li Xiang proposed to do super-running in 2014. Tesla’s first car was the roadster Roadster, and Lexus’s first car was the flagship LS. Wei La is very clear that this is the development path. Another path is the introduction of new species, similar to Apple's ability to add computers and digital cameras to traditional mobile phones and become smartphones.

EP9 is the second product of Weilai. It is a super-run that is led by President Martin. The goal is three big cars (Rafa, P1, 918). This super-run carries the concept of our technology, products and business model. EP9 is designed by our European design team and the production car released in 2017. It guarantees the unification of the family language and is definitely not a good performance sports car.

Li Xiang said that in fact, the development of electric vehicles is not easy. The battery capacity is not only related to mileage, but also related to voltage platform and output power. These complex factors are combined to make the overall thermal management more complicated. It is easy to build an electric car with a power of tens of kilowatts. It is more difficult to build an electric car with a power of more than 300 kilowatts. This is also why Tesla introduced the Model S in 2012, and the traditional car manufacturers will be able to achieve the level of Tesla's 2012 products in terms of mileage and electric drive performance from 2018 to 2020. The so-called minutes exceed Tesla, they all face themselves.

Li Xiang said: We only publicize the things we have done, this is the common philosophy of Li Bin and I are also the rules of the team.

The headquarters of Weilai Automobile is located at No. 20, Auto Innovation Port, Anting Town, Jiading District, Shanghai, and is across the river from the headquarters of SAIC. In the domestic automobile circle, the newly established Guanzhi Automobile also chose to face the street of Jaguar Land Rover at the Lujiazui International Gold Center in Shanghai. This choice of neighboring residence, in addition to choosing a good industrial package, To a certain extent, expressed the expectation of its own development.

Since entering 2015, Weilai Automobile has received the attention of Ma Huateng, Lei Jun, Liu Qiangdong, etc., and in June of that year, it received RMB 100 million from investors such as Gaochun Capital, Tencent, Jingdong, Yiche.com and Shunwei Capital. A round of financing.

This round of financing accelerated the construction speed of the Weilai Auto founding team. Subsequently, Li Bin was hired as a well-known executive of the car circle, Dr. MarTIn Leach, as the president of Weilai Automobile.

MarTIn Leach is a car-powered executive who can start a car at the age of 11 and become a professional player at the age of 14. He has won the European Cup and the third place in the World Karting Championship. He has also served as Ford Global R&D Director, European President, Mazda Global Managing Director, Maserati CE0, and Volvo Construction Equipment Group Vice Chairman.

After becoming the president of Wei Lai, MarTIn Leach worked with Li Bin to help Weilai Automobile recruit hundreds of employees in Beijing, Shanghai, Munich and London, including Danilo Teobaldi, former conceptual car director of the Italian Giugia Design Company, and former senior designer Juho of BMW. Suh and former Tesla senior project director John Thomas, former SAIC Group new energy division deputy general manager Huang Chendong, Qoros Auto Purchasing, human resources and government affairs executive director Zhou Xin, Qianzhi auto vehicle assembly executive director Mao Jie, etc. Talent.

In September 2015, after the entire company had hundreds of people, Weilai Automobile once again received a B round of 500 million US dollars financing, the investors are Sequoia Capital and Joy Capital.

In December 2015, former Cisco executive Padmasree Warrior, known as the Silicon Valley Queen, joined Weilai Automobile and became the CEO of Weilai Automotive North America. He will lead the San Jose R&D Center in the development of car networking, human-computer interaction and autonomous driving. .

It seems that this time is not bad money, of course, making a car is a bad thing, and burning money does not necessarily make things errands (think LeTV).

From the letter of public response from Le Yue, the person in charge of LeTV, he said that LeTV had invested heavily in the early stage and spent more than 10 billion of its own funds. According to the LeTV auto business plan rumored before, the total investment of LeTV is expected to reach 7.9 billion US dollars from 2016 to 2022. This means that in the next six years, LeTV will invest nearly 40 billion yuan, and such a large-scale investment will eventually make LeTV a little difficult, leading to this public opinion crisis. In fact, for Internet companies, money is important, but to build a car, technology and talent are also essential, so don't think about making cars so easy.

According to industry insiders, the capital of the Internet is not based on self-accumulation, but on the successful experience of the Internet, creating concepts and attracting social capital. This breaks the bottleneck of self-accumulation of capital and technology in the traditional automobile manufacturing industry. It is possible to design and manufacture products that are dazzling and integrate many advanced technologies in a short period of time, but in the key technologies of the core components battery and motor, It is also a weak link in Internet companies. In terms of the automobile's huge component integration capability, Internet companies have no experience and cannot compete with traditional car companies.

Indeed, many Internet-made cars claim to build cars, launching a concept car that looks invisible, the interior never sees, or even on the auto show stand, which can't really run. How does this kind of "PPT"-style car grow?

However, when many new car companies are moving further and further on the road of “PPT car making”, Weilai Automobile has applied electric energy technology to its electric formula car. As early as 2014, Wei Lai participated in the FE, and at the end of the first season of FE in 2015, the Weilai team unexpectedly won the first annual driver's championship in the history of the event. This year is the first consecutive season of the Weilai team. Participated in the event for three years.

In an interview with the media, MarTIn Leach said that during Formula E's first season, TCR's car used Wei's technology to integrate motors, inverters, battery packs and software systems, and "achieved high levels of energy efficiency management." This is the core technology of Weilai Electric Vehicle."

The reason why energy management is the core technology is mainly because it is different from the fuel car competition. Electric vehicles are particularly sensitive to the use of energy. Drivers need to consider the different driving styles for the consumption of electric energy. In addition to the test of the driver's own driving skills, the electric equation requires the car body and the team to have more considerations in the driving strategy. In the following second and third seasons, the TCR team also adopted the technology of the Weilai car in terms of motors, suspensions and lamp panels.

In addition, according to Weilai Auto officially, in just two years, they have established R&D, design, production and business in San Jose, USA, Munich, Germany, London, China, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Hefei, etc. The organization has more than 2,000 employees worldwide and is from nearly 40 countries and regions.

Just in April this year, Weilai announced that it has reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Jianghuai Automobile. The two sides will conduct comprehensive strategic cooperation in the field of electric vehicles, and the overall cooperation scale will reach 10 billion yuan. Then Weilai Automobile's total investment of 3 billion yuan in high-performance motor and electronic control system production base was completed in Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone. At the end of October, Wei said that they "the first electric drive assembly was off the assembly line in Nanjing." Then, in addition to its own research and development and production of electric drive systems, Weilai Automobile also produces its own motors, batteries and electronic controls. At present, both performance indicators and production scale, as well as technical standards, are leading in China. It is also leading in the world.

At present, Weilai Automobile has completed an important step from racing to super-running. Relying on relevant technology and brand reserves, Li Xiang said that in the future they will be committed to building civilian electric vehicles. The time of mass production is not far away, just in 2017. year.

Whether Weilai Auto can break the "PPT"-style car-building situation of Internet companies, we will wait and see!

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