NEXTEV Electric Vehicles
Shanghai-based NextEV CEO, tech billionaire, and founder of BitAuto, William Li committed to NextEV electric vehicles being better than Teslas. The company raised $500M of an expected $1Bln already, sporting shareholders such as Tencent, who is also invested in Future Mobility, Hillhouse Capital, who also invested in UBER, Sequoia Capital and Joy Capital. The company invested C¥3Bln in Nanjing High-Performance Motor Plant to produce 280,000 electric vehicles per year. The plant is expected to be operational in the second half of 2016. NextEv also signed a partnership with one of the largest Chinese auto companies, JAC Auto which will see them share technology, manufacturing, supply chain, marketing, and capital. NextEV has its roots in racing, founded in 2004 by the Chinese Minister of Sports with the intent to be a Chinese contender in A1 Grand Prix. The NextEV TCR team eventually ended up being one of the first teams to compete in Formula E, winning the driver’s title in the first season but came last in the second season. The exposure nonetheless is a good testing ground for technologies, gaining experience and marketing. The capital raised provided the company leverage to headhunt industry heavyweights such as Martin Leach, former CEO of Maserati and president of Ford Europe. NextEV, in essence, is a tech company, focussing much of its future development on autonomous vehicles, mobility, and connectivity for the Internet of Vehicles. In December 2016 NextEV launched it’s Electric Vehicle brand in London where the brand, named NIO, introduced its first EV supercar the NIO EP9. In an interview with the International Business Times, Martin Leach encapsulated what the company stands for. “I do think, though, that if normal car companies were the internet at 1.0, then Tesla is probably 2.0 and does some really good things like over-the-air software updates. But what we’re trying to be is 3.0,” |
NEXTEV Pure Electric Models
NEXTEV Electric Car Strategy in the news
2017 Week 11 World Premiere of NIO EVE, NextEV's vision car
Detractors of EV startups might claim press
releases for intentional models potentially available two to three
years down the line, such as the FF91, Lucid Air and lately the NIO EVE,
means nothing until they are brought to production. But hell man, isn’t
it just inspirational to see these companies trying to push the
envelope of imagination, technology, risk financing and the stale
products beautified by big auto’s marketing departments? It makes the
heart swell and brings tears to your eyes (at least mine). This week at
its world premiere event at the SXSW event in Austin Texas NextEV unveiled its vision for its Level 4 Automated NIO EVE for the USA market in 2020. The brain and heart behind the NIO EVE
are Nomi, the driver companion through autonomy and artificial
intelligence. NIO USA partnered with Mobileye, NVIDIA, and NXP to bring
its vision to life.
The release was not without its controversy as competitor; Faraday Future claims the design stole from its own FF91 released at the CES 2017 in Las Vegas earlier the year.
2017 Week 7 Formula E Season 3 Race 3
The 3rd event in the current series of the Formula-E electric vehicle street racing calendar held Buenos Aires Argentina ended yet again with a victorious Renault.eDams
team. The e.Dams driver, Swiss-born Sebastian Buemi clinched his 3rd
win of the series. The Brasilian Lucas Di Grassi’s 2nd position kept Audi’s ABT Schaeffler standings in the overall second position. The Chinese teams of Next EV and Techeeta were the only teams climbing the rankings, now lying 4th and 5th respectively. Newcomer Panasonic Jaguar has yet to score a single point in the 3rd season, with its drivers Evans and Carrol ending 18th and 19th.
2016 Week 47 NIO EP9 Record
On Monday the 21st of November NextEV’s new supercar, the NIO EP9,
broke the lap record for Electric Vehicles at the Nürburgring. The
previous record of 7:22:00 set in 2012 by the Mygale M12 SJ Ford
Ecoboost was convincingly broken by the EP9 in a time of 7:05:12.
Production of the 1360 horsepower NIO EP9 for the Chinese market is
scheduled for 2017. NextEV’s supercar accelerates from 0 to 60mph in 2.7
seconds and reaches a top speed of 194mph. Although impressive one must
remember that the Tesla Model S P100D is expected to accelerate in 2.4 seconds, the Rimac Concept S accelerates in 2.5 sec, the 1341hp Toroidion MW1, and Rimac Concept One also accelerates in 2.7 seconds with Atieva’s Edna (Lucid Motors) targeting the same acceleration. Watch the video here.
2016 Week 44 Dr. Martin Leach
On a sad note, Next EV announced
that Dr. Martin Leach passed away on 2 November 2016. Dr. Leach was
hired to spearhead the companies push in the Electric Vehicle sector.
Our condolences to his family, colleagues and the company.
2016 Week 41 USA Offices
NEXTEV officially opened its Silicon Valley offices this week. NextEV, a Chinese
company owned by the founder of the online car sales platform, Bitauto,
William Li is one of 18 companies allowed to test autonomous vehicles
on California’s public roads. The company expects to employ over 500 staff in its Northern Californian office.
Top 5 EV News Week 26 2020
Top 5 EV News Week 26 2020 | California pushes the world to electric trucks, Britain fast tracks 100% EV adoption, new EV models launched this week.
Top 5 EV News Week 25 2020
Top 5 EV News Week 25 2020: Bunch of new EVs launched this week. We look at the Lordstown Endurance electric pick-up to be launched later this week.
Top 5 EV News Stories Week 24 2020
Top 5 EV News Week 24 2020 | In this week’s newsletter, we look at EV incentives, a new EV start-up down under, coupled with the normal review of new models and announcements.