Nio offers smartphone to go with its EVs

The Chinese electric car manufacturer Nio now has its own smartphone. The Nio Phone not only replaces the classic car keys but also offers many control functions for the manufacturer's electric cars.

With its Nio Phone, the carmaker aims to enable interactions with its vehicles that are impossible with any other device via the Nio app. It is designed to make its electric cars “even smarter and more convenient to use,” Nio says.

For example, the Nio Phone has an action button that launches more than 30 of the car’s functions – such as climate control or seat massage. In addition, a “virtual phone” can be displayed as a mirror image of the smartphone display on the car’s touchscreen, where smartphone apps can be accessed directly. In addition, the computing power of the smartphone (the chip is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC) can be used for the car – Nio calls this “Central Computing Cluster (CCC).” And the device can still unlock Nio vehicles for 48 hours even if the battery is discharged.

Nio is less concerned with additional sales or revenue from the smartphone business, but rather with the possibility of increasing the attractiveness of its own EVs – by changing the way smartphones interact with the vehicle.

The Nio Phone will be offered in China in three variants at prices ranging from 6,499 to 7,499 yuan, currently equivalent to 836 to 964 euros – the differences are in the device’s RAM and main storage. It is an Android-based smartphone. Sales are scheduled to begin on 28 September. Nio wants to launch a new model every year in the future.

cnevpost.com, nio.com