Nio leans on customers to help create 'user-defined vehicles'

SCHÖNEFELD, Germany – Nio is focusing on offering a user-friendly driving experience backed by advanced technology solutions developed in Europe for local customers.

This comes as the Chinese electric vehicle maker opens a technology center here on the outskirts of Berlin, less than 30 km (19 miles) west of rival Tesla’s factory in Grünheide.

Nio views itself as a “user enterprise” rather an automaker. Likewise, instead of customers, it has users. Moreover, it makes “user-defined vehicles,” rather than software-defined vehicles (SDVs).

“We prefer to focus on aligning our development with user needs,” Nio Group Vice President Hui Zhang said at a press conference earlier this month at Nio’s European Smart Driving Technology Center.

In this way, user feedback drives Nio’s vehicle features and software development process.

Feedback is gathered at user workshops, at six Nio Houses in Europe (out of 123 Nio Houses, or dealerships, worldwide), sent from users’ smartphones and primarily within its range of vehicles via Nomi, its in-car voice assistance system.

Users determine Nio’s 'innovations'

This input is then delivered directly to Nio’s user advisory board.

“Users are the route for all of our innovations,” said Nio’s Mirko Reuter, who is senior director of autonomous driving in Europe. “We have a completely different approach – every vehicle has all of the technology inside by default,”

Shanghai-based Nio is a rival to Tesla, which supplies its Model Y midsize SUV to the European market from its plant near Berlin.

Chinese EV makers such as Nio and BYD hope to expand their presence in Europe, where they aim to sell cars at higher prices than in their crowded home market, where automakers are increasingly jostling for position via price cuts and other incentives. Tesla has already aggressively cut prices in China several times.

BYD boosted sales in Europe to 7,434 in the first quarter compared with 942 during the same period last year, led by the Atto 3 SUV, according to preliminary data from market researcher Dataforce. Meanwhile, Nio’s sales in the quarter rose 17 percent to 403 on strong sales of the EL6 SUV.

Improvements within months

All Nio user feedback is curated and collected within a database system.

So-called experience managers then plow through the comments. If feedback is repeated often enough to warrant change, Nio’s engineering team makes improvements within a few months.

“User feedback directly influences our roadmap,” Marco Kraus, Nio’s senior director digital cockpit in Europe, told Automotive News Europe.

User feedback normally translates into four to five complete software updates per year. However, in 2023, Nio completed 10 over-the-air software updates, 768 experience improvements, as well as a number of smaller updates and security and infotainment updates.

Currently, more than 90 percent of Nio’s functions are updatable. New Nio software or updates are delivered to the car via OTA updates.

From Europe for Europe

Mirko Reute, Nio’s senior director autonomous driving Europe, hopes that the opening of its new driving technology center will allow it to bolster its presence as a global premium brand, test software and focus on “developing tailor-made solutions,” which differ greatly from those in China.

In the future, Nio plans to carry out local engineering and technology development based on local user feedback with the idea of “cars from Europe for Europe.”

This is Nio’s first such facility outside of China. Last year, Nio opened its Berlin Innovation Center after opening a core design center in Bogenhausen, near Munich, in 2015.

Testing in Europe started in 2020 with the first Nio vehicles introduced in Europe as of 2021.

Nio touts technology

Nio develops both its hardware and software in-house.

In the coming years, Nio intends to “really focus on the core technology we have defined,” Reute said.

This includes an “almost state-of-the-art hardware package,” he continued, and advanced technology solutions in terms of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving, its supercomputing system Adam, and its Aquila sensor system with integrated lidar.

Each car has 33 Aquila sensors installed, providing a full overview of what is happening around a vehicle.

“We help Nio see smarter and farther and clearer with our lidar, offering almost 360-degree protection around a vehicle,” Junwei Bao, CEO of lidar maker Seyond, said at the Berlin press event.

Nio’s lidar can detect obstacles on the road, pedestrians, and other vehicles even at night, when raining and in adverse weather conditions.  

Lidar also enables a car to visualize the real-world environment when a driver approaches a parking lot and use highly automated parking to detect, for example, whether a parking spot is free and which one appeals, such as one offering more space.

Nio also distinguishes itself from its competitors thanks to its battery swap stations, which serve as an alternative to conventional charging stations. It takes three minutes to swap depleted batteries with a fully charged one without the driver having to get out of the car. Currently, Nio has 42 battery swap stations in Europe, including 14 in Germany.