Nio's ET9 makes Germany's limousines look like tractors

Sat, 30 May 2026 12:05:20 +1000

A Chinese carmaker just out-engineered the people who invented the prestige limousine.

The Nio ET9 is the proof. Watch what its suspension does to a broken road, then watch a BMW or an Audi attempt the same. One glides. The others crash about like farm equipment.

▶ Watch on YouTube

Nio pitches the ET9 as an executive flagship and the cabin earns it: four seats, reclining rear thrones, a fridge and screens everywhere. Nio reckons the ride is “comparable to cruising in a business jet”. On this evidence that is not the usual launch-day hyperbole.

The trick is the chassis

The headline act is the SkyRide chassis and its fully active suspension. Most luxury cars react to a bump after they have already hit it. The ET9 reads the road and counters each wheel independently, in real time. Nio says the system responds inside a millisecond and cuts cabin motion by around 75%.

The party trick at launch was a five-tier champagne tower balanced on the bonnet while the car rolled over speed bumps. Not a drop spilled.

One honest footnote for the engineers: the active suspension hardware comes from American firm ClearMotion, not Nio itself. But Nio integrated it, ordered three million units and got it into a shipping car first. The Germans had the same option on the table and blinked.

And the numbers are not shy

Underneath sits a fully 900-volt architecture, a swappable 100 kWh battery and 650 km of CLTC range. Dual motors put out 520 kW (697 hp) and 700 Nm. It is the first production car to ship with steer-by-wire, and rear-wheel steering tucks 5.3 metres of liftback into city corners. It even runs Nio’s own 5-nanometre chip, the NX9031. They built the silicon too.

The bit that should worry Stuttgart and Munich

It lists at 788,000 yuan in China, roughly A$165,000. That is much less than S-Class money for a car that, on this evidence, rides better than an S-Class.

For decades the German three sold ride quality as the one thing you simply could not buy anywhere else. The ET9 says you can, and it does it on Chinese batteries, a Chinese chip and a suspension the Germans passed on.

The great leap forward this is not. It is something more dangerous for the incumbents: a smooth, relentless progression. And it is only the first lap.

Rambling Rows

Nio's ET9 makes Germany's limousines look like tractors

The trick is the chassis

And the numbers are not shy

The bit that should worry Stuttgart and Munich

Sources