Another Chinese startup just revealed another pointless electric supercar

Inside the NIO EP9, revealed today. It won’t come cheap. Photo credit: NIO.

If you want a new car right now, there aren’t many electric options available at a reasonable price. And electric car startups aren’t exactly helping this by launching totally unobtainable EV supercars. The latest to do this is China-based NextEV, which today showed off the insane NIO EP9, one of the quickest cars on the planet.

It comes 11 months after China-backed Faraday Future showed off an electric supercar concept that’ll probably never even go into production.

NextEV, which this evening showed off its rebranding as NIO at a launch event in London, hails the EP9 as the quickest electric car on Earth. Packing a brutal 1,340 hp, it has more than twice the power of the notably quick and pricey Tesla Model S P90D.

Photo credit: NIO.

Photo credit: NIO.

NextEV is planning a production run of just six models, reports AutoExpress today, each costing US$1.2 million.

The price tag: US$1.2 million.

The EP9, like Faraday’s vaporware concept, might be a stopgap before the company can build up its know-how and manufacturing capacity to build a more affordable sedan or SUV that you’ll actually be able to buy. But until then, this supercar is essentially pointless.

NextEV – or NIO, as we apparently should be calling it now – is the brainchild of Chinese tech entrepreneur William Li, who made his fortune with a car sales website. His startup has cash from Tencent, China’s biggest social media and gaming company.

The EP9 is the fastest electric car around the terrifying Nürburgring Nordschliefe track, said the company today. It posted a lap of 7:05, beating the EV record of 7:22, posted by the non-road-legal Toyota Motorsport EV P002.