More and more competition in the EV sedan segment with the NIO ET5, for example, challenging the VW ID.7, the IONIQ 6, the Tesla Model 3, or the BMW i4. Here with Thomas on Autogef hl,
we'll find out all about this vehicle. Is it the most important car now? Everything in 4K, full screen, full length, let's go! Here with the front, really clean design, the headlamps, the daytime running light here is really, really slim integrated, and this color here is called Aerospace Blue. 4.79m or 189 inches is the length here of the ET5, so a mid-size sedan.
Nio ET5 length and wheels
Wheels 19 or 20-inch, these here are also bigger 20-inch, you can also get these contrasting brake calipers, and you can see this rather classic design shape here, the strong hip area in the rear, the light strip goes all the way across the vehicle, very consistent design language, top speed is 200 kilometers an hour or 125 miles an hour, and the acceleration figure here with the all-wheel drive model is 4 seconds to 100 kilometers or 62 miles an hour in that Sport Plus mode, so we have one electric motor in the rear and one in the front.
Top speed and acceleration figure
And turning indicators, well, in the front, looks quite fancy, doesn't it? In the rear, a very slim integration here, and it's actually quite wide, it's better than if you think about the tiny indicators of a Tesla Model 3, for example. By the way, every ET5 not only comes with a couple of cameras on the outside but also here with LiDAR, the laser sensor.
Colors
More colors next to our Aerospace Blue here, this is called Taxi, a sun-based yellow, or what about a brighter Stratosphere Blue? Finally, a Star Gray, that's quite fancy, isn't it?
Battery kWh sizes and recharging
As for the battery sizes, either 75 kilowatt hours or 100-kilowatt hours, for later, they also promise a semi-solid-state battery, which is even bigger. Recharging, well, that's the thing about this vehicle, so a peak of 140 or 125 kilowatt hours, depending on the size, that means 30 minutes from 10% to 80% state of charge for the small battery, even 40 minutes for the bigger battery here with DC charging.
They don't have an emphasis on quick recharging because they also have battery swap technology, and this works with separate battery swap stations. They have already a very huge infrastructure of that in China, that is working very well, customers at least say that, and they also want to establish that in Europe. It will be a big challenge if they can supply enough battery swap stations to make that system work.
Interior: key fob and doors
This is the key fob, it looks like, I don't know, maybe like a token you have, you know, somewhere, I don't know, what's reminding you about that? Then, here, you can see, when I open the doors, flush door handles, and they come towards you. Did you see that? Also, you know, really comes towards you automatically, like that, interesting. And the door closing sound...
Well, these are frameless, and they are just very rare frameless doors, which sound good, these do not. Then, inside the doors, we can see the integration of the ambient lighting, we'll soon all see it in the tunnel, soft-touch materials, looks like good build quality and very interesting materials are being used, here's some fabric.
Steering wheel and seats
Also, the steering wheel is a vegan interior, so no animals are being harmed for this interior, and you can get different colors, this is the gray one, you can also get beige, black, or more like, you know, like greenish note, or mint, they say. Let's get inside, and there's one thing that is kind of astonishing about this vehicle, and that is, actually, here, the front seat, and we know we've driven the EL7, or ES7, depending on the market, the name is called, or the bigger sedan, the ET7, and they were actually fine as for the seating position, but here, the ET5, it's a smaller model, but you can maybe already see it right here, for me, with 189 or 6'2", I mean, there is headroom left for this panoramic roof, but in the front, I feel like I'm in a tiny vehicle, and it's not that tiny, you know what I mean?
So, this is, to me, the key problem of this vehicle, if you are tall, you feel caged in here in the front, yeah, but besides that, the seat itself is not bad at all.
Cockpit and NOMI user interface
The interior cockpit overview consists of a 12.8 vertical screen and 10.2-inch digital instruments, and the basic layout of the vehicle, especially here on the interior, it does remind you of Tesla. Last time, we had some discussions with it, and people said, like, yeah, just because it's a vertical screen, it's not Tesla, but everyone who gets in this vehicle says, oh, that's like Tesla, and to me, this is a sign, you know, that they look towards Tesla, which is no wonder, because they went forward with electric vehicles, and then everyone else followed, and you have a lot of other manufacturers that have also copied the things, and here, it is well done.
All the materials, everything, how is, you know, the build quality on the interior, how it feels and looks, everything is very well done and organized. Personally, I like more physical buttons and also to adjust the steering wheel, for example, the separation column and the climate unit, but that counts for all manufacturers and all recent things we have seen. Futuristic controls of the window levers.
This is, by the way, up, and this is down. I would have made it maybe the other way around, and the door opens here. Digital instruments are clean, easy, and very good to read. Here, it says showroom mode. By the way, we take this car on the open road. Of course, there's the proper mode available. Middle console here. This is the mode for the drive mode selection while driving. Inductive charging pad.
Then, here, cup holders are somewhat adaptive, and this middle armrest here, you can actually fold to both sides, and there's more space underneath. Infotainment system. The climate unit is always here in the lower part. This is the home screen with the GPS. It's actually quite responsive and does a good job. Then, these are the controls, and the adjustment for the steering wheel is also, then, the same way as Tesla does it.
Rear seats
Rear seating area, let's try. So, the legroom is actually fine, but I can't move my feet under the seat properly. It needs to be higher, but that's a problem because it's already that high for the front driver. Yeah, so that's not ideal, indeed, and also here is the angle of my legs. Headroom does work with this panoramic roof, so overall, it works for five tall adults more or less, but not ideal, indeed, and this panoramic roof here, by the way, is a fixed one, also without a cover.
Trunk/boot
Trunk or boot, 390 liters. You see here a separate sedan opening. The width here is a meter or 40 inches, so good dimension, indeed, and the length is also about a meter or 40 inches. You're just, of course, always limited in height in this concept here with 50 centimeters or 20 inches. Comparable to the Ioniq 6, I would say, the ID.7, for example, has the advantage that it has this fastback opening, which just opens wider. The Model 3, of course, is more or less the same here as well, but it has a little bit more space for depth. Is there a frunk? Actually, no.
Driving Nio ET5
Nio ET5, this mid-size sedan, and we start here with some city traffic because this will also be a quite frequent use case. Well, it feels like a small vehicle, indeed, but not only on the positive side because here in the front, as told you in the interior part as well, I feel like driving a tiny vehicle. I mean, I feel like I'm almost sitting on the hood because the seat doesn't go lower.
So, for tall drivers, not ideal there in the bigger sedan brother model, the ET7, I definitely felt more at home. You know, I can already set the cruise control in this inner city motorway, so to speak, and then also here the lane is being kept, you can see here, pretty smooth. So, the assistance systems so far work very well, indeed.
We also have a blind spot monitor. You can see that the side mirror is flashing. So, everything is covered as for that. Let's also think about this vehicle. You buy it and have some options, and then everything is immediately covered, basically. The steering feel is actually quite good. So, I have a feeling about everything. I have deactivated a lot of the assistance systems already, like, you know, like the beeping and Nomi and stuff. But still, even if you deactivate some stuff, this car is always beeping, blinking, blim, blim, blim, somewhere.
So, yeah, I can just recommend setting it up thoroughly once and trying to deactivate most of the stuff. This will help. Also, when you activate the cruise control, you can almost play music with that. Yeah, I think they have for the European market already drawn back some of the stuff. I think some work there still has to be done, but the overall hardware feeling of the vehicle is actually quite good.
I feel also from the layout, from the driving, and so on, yes, definitely a competitor to the Tesla Model 3. This one here, however, is more expensive than. We have the competitors of the Hyundai IONIQ 6, the VW ID.7, the BMW i4, maybe 2, and the thing is, size-wise, I feel it comes close to the Tesla Model 3, especially here in the front cockpit and so on. Seating comfort-wise, also, there I feel that especially the VW ID.7 is better for seating comfort, the IONIQ 6 a little bit more, and the BMW i4 actually is also better, a little bit in the seating comfort, but this one here, definitely good now as for the range.
Consumption and real-world range
We're driving the one with 100 kilowatt-hours battery, so the bigger battery that's available at this moment, and indeed, it is quite efficient. So, we could score so far on our test drives here today some 20 kilowatt-hours on 100 kilometers, and that leads to a real-world range in good temperatures as we have today, very mild temperatures of around 500 kilometers or 300 miles.
In winter times, it goes 400 kilometers or 250 miles, but overall, it's actually something you can very well live with. And here, once again, left and right, I have a very good feeling for the car. It feels kind of sporty, indeed. Because it's so tiny in the front, that feeling, it almost feels like you would be driving a small go-kart or something, you know, so a very interesting driving feeling. Here, check out this in the corner.
Yeah, it feels really planted, and at the same time, the suspension is actually more comfortable than in the Tesla Model 3. The VW ID.7 is also really good for the suspension. They also offer an adaptive suspension, so in that respect, also the ID.7 is better, I feel, but I think although we have the very heavy, big battery here, it feels surprisingly light. Yeah, when I exceed the speed limit, there's also this warning. There is a new regulation that when you have new vehicles now that you put the registration to, do the homologation, you have to have this speed warning by law, at least in the EU.
Yeah, that's something I really don't like about new cars that so many new regulations are there. On one hand, they can be helpful, on the other hand, they can just be annoying, even when exceed the speed by one kilometer or something, and then the question is, how do you integrate that? How often this beeping comes, how intensive, how loud it is, and so on, and here, it's still, in comparison to other vehicles I've experienced, quite annoying. You can deactivate these beeps, but the, regulation is that as soon as you restart the vehicle, it's on again.
AWD acceleration test
Then, let's go to Sport Plus mode and wait for that green traffic light because there's a speed camera, and maybe they take a nice shot of us. That was 0 to 60 kilometers an hour acceleration, well, 60 kilometers was the speed limit, so obviously, the speed camera also did not intervene. Yeah, sometimes, you have to take some risks, just for you, of course. Yeah, not risk as for safety, clear way here. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
So, the official figure is four seconds to one kilometer an hour or 60 to miles an hour in the Sport Plus mode, and the good thing is, there's a really transparent feature here. They tell you when you have which acceleration feature here in Sport mode, 5.9, in the Sport Plus mode, four seconds, and then, you know what to expect, actually. We have a lot of other electric vehicles that have Sport mode, and the throttle input changes, but then, the peak power stays the same, and you have the same acceleration when you pin it down, but here, obviously, they followed a different strategy. So, here in the Sport mode, it's really, really aggressive on the throttle.
Most of the time, you leave it in the Comfort mode, and you still have a lot of power then. As for the recuperation, it does decelerate, and then, the last bit, maybe, you do with your brakes. So, I wouldn't say it's not a one-pedal driving feeling as we know from Tesla, but maybe something in between Tesla and some other EV manufacturers. Stay focused.
Top-speed German Autobahn
Well, and more acceleration from 100 kilometers an hour 150. Now, it's slowing down. 180. Pretty quick. 190, and 200 top speed, 200 kilometers an hour, 125 miles an hour. Yeah, when we have German Autobahn, then, we need to show you this. It was fitting very well. It was also still quite silent indeed. So, noise insulation is really good. So, we were just driving the BMW 7 Series yesterday at an equal speed, and it wasn't too much more silent or something.
So, wow, I'm really surprised how silent this one is at really high speeds. Wow, I really don't have to raise my voice that much. That is well done. So, you really feel that the hardware of the vehicle is really, really good. Wow, pretty impressed by the high-speed performance. I mean, they're clearly not building the cars intentionally for high speed, and here, lane change. It also has quite a strong steering feel now. So, we hardly have that nowadays. Yeah, really surprised by how much feedback it delivers. It feels very planted also on the road, even at high speeds.
They say when you can make it on the German Autobahn, you can make it anywhere. Yeah, don't they say that about New York? Yeah, but I mean, of course, you know, as for vehicles and so on. That's why we also do the German motorway testing always, but that's really nice. Also, you have the lane change here like this at higher speeds.
It doesn't shake up or something. At the same time, the suspension is not uncomfortable. So, yeah, it's a very, very good driving behavior indeed, and the efficiency is also there. So, my biggest criticism point in driving remains the space here in the front for the driver. That's a critical thing, definitely. So, as a tall person, you don't feel so much at home than here in the front driver's seat. Here in the tunnel, by the way, we can see something of the ambient lighting right there.
It's a very nice integration, not too visible, but I think it's a subtle integration, and one thing we have experienced now noise-wise, stick with the point that the wind insulation and so on is really good, but at some point, we had some noise that was appearing when we were not filming on a camera, like noise from the middle console or something, and I think it was related to a higher speed driving as well, but it was appearing and then disappearing, and not sure what that was. Yeah, can't replicate it actually, but it was kind of annoying. So, definitely, we have to mention that.
Pricing is somewhat 60,000 euros for the 75kWh battery Price
and 70,000 euros for the 100kWh battery if you buy the battery. This is competitive pricing in the premium segment. The good thing for the customer is that options-wise, you don't have to pick so much. Everything is always included, basically. They also have the strategy that you lease the battery, then there's a lower entry price, but then you have a monthly lease, and then you can also use the battery swap. If you're more interested in the new brand, we also have the EL7 review and the bigger sedan brother, the ET7.
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