Nio to add wagon variant to ET5 model family

The Chinese premium EV brand Nio will launch a station wagon version of the ET5 sedan in Europe by the end of this year, a source with knowledge of the matter has told Automotive News Europe.

The ET5 Touring, which would be a rival to the coming BMW i5 Touring, was spied on a photo shoot in Norway ahead of its official unveiling on June 15.

It has been designed with European customers in mind, Nio CEO William Li said.

“It’s a very beautiful car. It has a lot of interior space, including rear headroom,” he said on the sidelines of the Shanghai auto show in April.

The Nio wagon is 4790 mm long, 1960 mm wide and 1499 mm tall with a wheelbase of 2888 mm, according to filings made by Nio to China’s copyright authority.

Pricing is expected to be slightly higher than the ET5 sedan, which starts at 47,500 euros with a 75-kilowatt-hour battery subscription at 168 euros a month in Germany. The battery subscription gives access to Nio’s network of battery swap stations.

Wagons are a small but important segment in Europe. They had a market share of 7.4 percent in the first quarter of 2023, according to figures from Dataforce. By far their biggest market is Germany, where wagons accounted for double the European average share in the first three months at 14.5 percent. 

The Nio ET5 Touring’s drivetrain is expected to match that of the ET5 sedan, which has an output of 489 hp from a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive arrangement. Maximum range with the model's largest battery, a 100-kWh pack, is more than 590 km (367 miles) as measured on the WLTP cycle, Nio said.

Nio launched its brand globally in 2016 at an event in London but restricted sales initially to China. The brand entered Europe in 2021, starting in Norway before expanding last year to Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. The company is also gearing for a U.K. launch, which is expected to happen in 2024.