FUTURE MODELS
NextEV moves into hyper mode
Chinese car maker has shown an electric hypercar that could suddenly get people excited about Chinese vehicles, writes Michael Taylor
It has four electric motors and a megawatt of power, which will be enough to hurl NextEV’s Nio EP9 hypercar to 100km/h in 2.7 seconds. Sadly, only six of them will ever be built. The rapid hypercar will be a technology leader for its Nio brand, which plans to launch a more accessible battery-electric car in China in 2017, before rolling it out globally in 2018. Record breaker Developed on the back of the Formula E programme of parent company NextEV, the Nio EP9 has already smashed the electric-car lap record at Nürburgring’s Nordschleife circuit, hacking it down from Toyota’s Radical-based TMH EV P001 time of seven minutes, 22 seconds to just 7:05.120 during an October assault. And that’s while avoiding the bumpy (but fast) route through the banking of the Karussell. That puts it just eight seconds off Porsche’s hybrid 918 Spyder’s time. It smashed the EV lap record at the French Paul Ricard circuit, cutting it from two minutes 40 seconds to 1:52.78. The EP9, which has a gearbox for...
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