NIO will have a lot of work to explain what happened on June 22 in its Shanghai headquarters. An electric sedan fell off from what people first claimed to be the fifth floor and apparently landed on its roof at around 5:20 PM on that day. There is very little information about what went wrong there and conflicting data about the vehicle involved.
While the pictures shared on Weibo suggest it is an electric sedan, The Paper said it was an electric SUV. Considering the vehicle is still using camouflage, it could be an ES7 if the Shanghainese newspaper is correct. However, the images suggest otherwise.
Checking the pictures, it seems that the sedan that jumped from NIO’s headquarters was not the ET5, as the tweet below suggests. CNEVPost said it was the ET7, which is the best guess so far based on some elements visible in the shots shared on Chinese social media.
The front grille in this vehicle presents two fins, exactly like that on the ET7. The ET5 only has one fin in its narrower front grille. The trunk lid is longer and follows the glass roof lines. On the ET5, the trunk lid invades the C-pillar extensions. Finally, the edge of the rear doors does not go down in a straight line towards the rear wheel wells like in the ET5. In the crashed electric sedan, they tilt to end ahead of these recesses, almost contouring them.
According to CNEVPost, there were two people in the ET7. Moneyball talks about a dead passerby and that there was no information about the health of the crashed EV driver. In an update, CNEVPost said the two people in the ET7 died: one in the resuscitation attempts and the other at the hospital. It also fell from the third floor, not the fifth.
With the gruesome outcome, there's yet another crucial piece of information missing: why this happened. NIO confirmed the crash and said that they were investigating what led to the incident. Telematics data and videos are now the only way to explain it. The ET7 started reaching its customers in China in April and will be the first vehicle delivered in Germany. The risk that the wreck was caused by a sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) episode may tarnish the EV’s reputation. NIO knows it must issue an honest and convincing explanation as soon as possible.
Checking the pictures, it seems that the sedan that jumped from NIO’s headquarters was not the ET5, as the tweet below suggests. CNEVPost said it was the ET7, which is the best guess so far based on some elements visible in the shots shared on Chinese social media.
The front grille in this vehicle presents two fins, exactly like that on the ET7. The ET5 only has one fin in its narrower front grille. The trunk lid is longer and follows the glass roof lines. On the ET5, the trunk lid invades the C-pillar extensions. Finally, the edge of the rear doors does not go down in a straight line towards the rear wheel wells like in the ET5. In the crashed electric sedan, they tilt to end ahead of these recesses, almost contouring them.
According to CNEVPost, there were two people in the ET7. Moneyball talks about a dead passerby and that there was no information about the health of the crashed EV driver. In an update, CNEVPost said the two people in the ET7 died: one in the resuscitation attempts and the other at the hospital. It also fell from the third floor, not the fifth.
With the gruesome outcome, there's yet another crucial piece of information missing: why this happened. NIO confirmed the crash and said that they were investigating what led to the incident. Telematics data and videos are now the only way to explain it. The ET7 started reaching its customers in China in April and will be the first vehicle delivered in Germany. The risk that the wreck was caused by a sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) episode may tarnish the EV’s reputation. NIO knows it must issue an honest and convincing explanation as soon as possible.
#NIO #ET5 testing vehicle losses control, falls off 3rd floor of a building in Jiading, 1 passer-by reportedly dead, driver condition unknown.
— Moneyball (@DKurac) June 23, 2022
(D1EV) pic.twitter.com/0pqHiSQWvJ