Nio Brings In Yao Ming For ES9 Push <\/p>\n
Nio on Wednesday said it has appointed Yao Ming as the chief experience officer for the ES9, marking one of the company\u2019s biggest celebrity partnerships in recent years. The automaker said Yao\u2019s influence extends beyond basketball and called him a symbol of \u201cChinese height\u201d and a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures, citing his global career and public image, CnEVPost\u00a0noted.<\/p>\n
The former Houston Rockets superstar became the first international player selected first overall in the NBA Draft and later emerged as an eight-time NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer. The announcement came hours before the ES9\u2019s official launch event scheduled for Wednesday evening in Beijing.<\/p>\n
ES9 Anchors Nio\u2019s Premium Market Strategy <\/p>\n
The ES9 represents one of Nio\u2019s most important vehicle launches in recent years as the company attempts to boost its position in China\u2019s premium SUV segment amid ongoing pricing pressure and softer consumer demand across the broader auto market. The executive SUV entered pre-sales in April with a starting price of 528,000 yuan ($77,800), including the battery pack.<\/p>\n
Nio is currently offering limited-time incentives, allowing buyers to use a 5,000 yuan deposit to offset 10,000 yuan from the final vehicle purchase price.Customers will be able to formally lock in orders after Wednesday night\u2019s launch event, at which point the promotional offer expires.<\/p>\n
CEO William Li recently said that Nio expects deliveries in May and June to improve steadily, driven largely by the ES9 launch alongside the recently introduced Onvo L80. Nio has\u00a0apparently already built an initial 6,000-unit ES9 inventory ahead of the launch, with vehicles reportedly arriving at showrooms across China in preparation for rapid deliveries.<\/p>\n
Nio AI Driving Tech Takes Center Stage <\/p>\n
Nio is heavily hyping up the ES9\u2019s tech stack as part of its launch campaign. The SUV is the first vehicle equipped with the latest version of Nio World Model, or NWM, the company\u2019s updated smart-driving assistance platform.<\/p>\n
Story Continues <\/p>\n
According to Nio, the new system eliminates the traditional \u201csampled trajectory\u201d method commonly used in driver-assistance software and instead allows the system to directly control steering, braking and acceleration inputs. The company said that the approach improves driving smoothness and control precision.<\/p>\n
Nio also said that the platform uses a three-layer training framework that combines a world model, supervised fine-tuning and closed-loop reinforcement learning. The software additionally includes overhead road-sign recognition without relying on high-definition maps, improving lane-selection accuracy in more complex road environments.<\/p>\n
The ES9 is also equipped with Nio\u2019s in-house developed 5-nanometer Shenji NX9031 driver-assistance chip and the company\u2019s SkyRide active suspension system.<\/p>\n
Nio Refocuses On China Growth <\/p>\n
The ES9 launch also comes as Nio pivots back toward domestic growth, while slowing the pace of its overseas expansion strategy. Li recently said that the company would become more cautious about overseas investments and rely more heavily on local distribution partnerships outside China.<\/p>\n
Nio has already begun shifting away from direct sales operations in several European markets, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, as part of a broader move toward a lighter operating structure. Instead, the EV maker now sees larger growth opportunities within China itself, particularly across lower-tier regional markets.<\/p>\n
The pivot comes after Nio\u2019s financial performance has recently improved. The company reported its second straight quarter of non-GAAP profitability in the first quarter of 2026, with revenue surging 112% from the previous year to 25.53 billion yuan and adjusted operating profit hitting 66.8 million yuan. Nio attributed much of the improvement to strong demand for higher-margin premium SUVs, particularly the ES8 lineup.<\/p>\n
How Do Retail Traders Feel About NIO? <\/p>\n
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for NIO was \u2018extremely bullish\u2019 amid a 176% jump in 24-hour message volumes.<\/p>\n
NIO sentiment and message volume as of May 27 | Source: Stocktwits <\/p>\n
One user\u00a0said<\/a>, \u201cYao Ming is the best basketball player in china. Nio is the best ev player in china too. Perfect match\u201d<\/p>\n Another user\u00a0said<\/a>, \u201c$NIO You can’t lose if you buy and hold at these bargain prices. The institutes are doing it, and they are the ones causing the good pricing.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S.-listed shares of Nio have risen 38% over the past year.<\/p>\n For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.<\/p>\n Read Next:\u00a0DXYZ, VCX, NASA Stocks Rocket As FTSE Clears Fast Lane For SpaceX IPO \u2014 Retail Shrugs Off Destiny Tech100\u2019s $1B Share Sale\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Deepti Sri has no position in any of the stocks mentioned in this article. StockTwits’ news team content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. For more, see our editorial policy<\/a>. This article was originally published on StockTwits<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The EV maker appointed NBA legend Yao Ming as its chief experience officer for its new ES9 flagship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,254181,8223,459,198237,254179,254180,82,208409,53452],"class_list":["post-696850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chief-experience-officer","tag-houston-rockets","tag-nba","tag-nio","tag-nio-refocuses","tag-nio-world-model","tag-sports","tag-william-li","tag-yao-ming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}