Photo: NIUTRON
We first told you about NIUTRON on December 28. Yinan Li, a founder of NIU, thought that four wheels are better than two and decided to create his own car brand. We must say it was fast: the startup presented its first vehicle on January 12. Called NV, it is an SUV that will be sold as a BEV (battery electric vehicle) and a PHEV (plug-in hybrid vehicle).
The first thing that strikes us is the NV’s front end. We have already presented the Jetour T-X and the Haval Cool Dog here as legitimate copycats of the Ford Bronco. The NV is no exception and uses some of the American off-roader design elements. With that many Chinese car companies getting inspiration from the Bronco, we wonder why Ford still does not sell the real deal there.
Despite not presenting a very original design – especially one that is not so focused on energy efficiency – NIUTRON gave the NV more attributes to make it an attractive machine. The first one is the possibility to choose between a BEV (battery electric vehicle) or an EREV (extended-range electric vehicle), which some would prefer to simply call PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle).
Both are created over a versatile platform called Gemini. Curiously, that’s also the codename for the future affordable NIO and how ONE (Our Next Energy) has called the battery pack it developed to make a Model S have a 752-mile (1,210.2-kilometer) range on a single charge.
The second element to make the NV attractive is its size. The SUV is 4.92 meters (193.7 inches) long, 1.95 m (76.8 in) wide, 1.75 m (68.9 in) tall, and has a wheelbase of 2.90 m (114.2 in). NIUTRON states the NV can go from 0 to 100 kph (62 mph) in 5.9 seconds and that it is a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Sadly, NIUTRON did not reveal how big the NV battery packs are, possibly because deliveries will only start in September. The company will begin small-scale trial production in March at its Changzhou factory, still under construction. It will accept orders for the car by the middle of the year. The pictures reveal that the EREV's battery pack is quite big, which should give it reasonable all-electric range.
The most important aspect for a newcomer to attract customer attention is to offer value for money. So far, NIUTRON has not disclosed how much it plans to charge for the NV. From what we have seen so far, either the startup has a killer price or is still holding back what will make it a competitive new brand. We’ll wait for any of these possibilities.
Despite not presenting a very original design – especially one that is not so focused on energy efficiency – NIUTRON gave the NV more attributes to make it an attractive machine. The first one is the possibility to choose between a BEV (battery electric vehicle) or an EREV (extended-range electric vehicle), which some would prefer to simply call PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle).
Both are created over a versatile platform called Gemini. Curiously, that’s also the codename for the future affordable NIO and how ONE (Our Next Energy) has called the battery pack it developed to make a Model S have a 752-mile (1,210.2-kilometer) range on a single charge.
The second element to make the NV attractive is its size. The SUV is 4.92 meters (193.7 inches) long, 1.95 m (76.8 in) wide, 1.75 m (68.9 in) tall, and has a wheelbase of 2.90 m (114.2 in). NIUTRON states the NV can go from 0 to 100 kph (62 mph) in 5.9 seconds and that it is a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Sadly, NIUTRON did not reveal how big the NV battery packs are, possibly because deliveries will only start in September. The company will begin small-scale trial production in March at its Changzhou factory, still under construction. It will accept orders for the car by the middle of the year. The pictures reveal that the EREV's battery pack is quite big, which should give it reasonable all-electric range.
The most important aspect for a newcomer to attract customer attention is to offer value for money. So far, NIUTRON has not disclosed how much it plans to charge for the NV. From what we have seen so far, either the startup has a killer price or is still holding back what will make it a competitive new brand. We’ll wait for any of these possibilities.
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