Nio’s European expansion continues, with a wider range of models designed to look tasty enough for discerning folk used to the establishment. The new ET5 is designed to strike right at the heartland of the European legacy car makers, as well as offer enough of an alternative to the likes of Tesla for the brand to break through.
And, like other Nios, you can also make use of those Power Swap Stations but that does come with the utterly enormous caveat of needing to live in China, Norway or Germany to access ones that are already built. That said, Nio says it’s on track to build plenty more as its European expansion continues.
Jump in the driver’s seat and you’re greeted with a remarkably high driving position, however – as a tall driver, the seat felt as if it needed to drop another three inches or so to really get the best seating position. That said, the seats themselves are reasonably comfortable and have good adjustment elsewhere. Visibility good out of the front, but the saloon’s shallow rear window obscures things rearward.
Happily, quite a lot of those functions can be changed or activated by voice using Nio’s voice assistant, Nomi. The assistant has been developed in-house by Nio and gets regular over-the-air updates from HQ; most recently, Nio has integrated an AI GPT program from Microsoft to make it more conversational.
The steering is an interesting one. It’s very light, but feels very direct and alert at low speeds – almost like the power assistance has skulled a sleeve of Pro Plus tablets before you got in. But then it doesn’t really slacken off enough as the speedo’s numbers increase; on the motorway, it’s a little twitchy and doesn’t really settle enough for you as a driver to do the same.