The ET5 is four-wheel-drive as standard, being powered by two electric motors: a 201bhp induction motor at the front and a 282bhp permanent magnet motor at the rear.
Two different batteries are offered: a standard 75kWh pack and a larger 100kWh one, as tested here.
The maximum charging speed is 125kW, but the ET5, like all Nios, benefits from the company’s battery swapping technology, whereby you can swap your flat batteries for a fully charged one in as little as four minutes at a dedicated swap station.
A key part of the Nio story is this battery-swapping, and should the brand launch in the UK as expected, this will come here too. Part of Tesla‘s dominance in the EV market has been a superb proprietary charging network that no other car maker has come close to; Nio is set to be the first to seriously try.
The ET5 isn’t sledgehammer quick, instead it has a nice level of driveability, with as much power as you ever need when you need it. It’s as powerful a car as you need in the real world, and its one-pedal driving is also very well judged, with a good level of regenerative braking.
Powertrain refinement is perhaps the ET5’s strongest suit. It doesn’t have bags of character, nor do you ever feel particularly underwhelmed by it. A fellow journalist from Germany told me about a 560-mile drive from Germany to Denmark that he had just done in the ET5, and he marvelled at how refined it was.
However, the one thing that really irritated him was the constant beeping and banging from the autonomous driving functions, which is annoying enough on short drives, so I can’t imagine how irritating it would be over that distance. I feel his pain.