In September, when many mobile phone companies intensively released blockbuster products, NiO, which launched its first mobile phone across the border, "bucked the trend and broke through", quickly became the focus of market attention.

Recently, at the "NIO IN 2023 NIO Innovation and Technology Day" held in Shanghai, NIO's first mobile Phone NIO Phone was officially listed, and Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO as a "game-breaker", responded to external concerns at the press conference: "We're not trying to turn phones into our main business, but to make cars better to use and make the user experience better."
"China Business News" reporter noted that in addition to the mobile phone with high attention from the outside world, NIO also announced the full stack of intelligent electric vehicle technology for the first time on September 21, covering 12 key technology areas such as chips and on-board intelligent hardware, battery systems, and intelligent driving.
"In the era of smart electric vehicles, if you do not do a low-level forward development, it is difficult to obtain real and lasting competitiveness." At the same time, Li Bin stressed that NIO maintains an investment of about 3 billion yuan every quarter, "this scale is within the range we can afford, and it is also the basic guarantee for participating in the increasingly fierce competition of intelligent electric vehicles in the next stage."
Traffic machine hardware and software gap
"One of the most asked questions recently is: Why does NIO make phones?" At the "NIO IN 2023 NIO Innovation and Technology Day", Li Bin said in response, "It is not because mobile phone companies are building cars, nor because NIO cars do not make money now, to rely on mobile phone profits." In his view, "NIO users need a mobile phone that seamlessly connects with NIO, and we want to make a mobile phone that makes NIO products better."
So, what is the performance level of this mobile phone with high attention from the outside world?
"To build a phone, you must build a flagship phone." Li Bin said so at the scene. The relevant information shows that the NIO Phone standard is the flagship, the chip uses Qualcomm's second generation Snapdragon 8 leading version, in addition, NIO Phone also uses flagship storage, the highest option is 16GB+1T memory and storage combination.
"We have Dolby Panoramic sound, IP68 water resistance, and all the features you'd expect from a high-end Phone." Not only that, Li Bin said at the scene at the same time, "high-end flagship mobile phones should have the configuration, we have NIO Phone."
In the view of the industry, in addition to the hardware level, the most concerned place of NIO Phone is undoubtedly its connectivity function without separation from NIO.
"Truly car-centric mobile phone design and development." In Li Bin's view, NIO owners have NIO Phone after the car key "really can not use, we now many users have not much car keys, they use mobile phones to replace, but NIO Phone because the car end is seamless to the bottom, so its bottom experience should be far more than other brands of mobile phones, but also far more than the traditional car keys."
The information provided by NIO shows that NIO Phone is based on NIO Link NIO Panorama interconnection technology to integrate mobile phones and smart electric vehicles. Equipped with UWB ultra-wideband technology, it can completely replace the car key and support no electrolytic lock within 48 hours.
Not only that, Li Bin said: "We are the first car control button in the world." It further explains that regardless of the application environment, NIO Phone users can access all the functions related to controlling the car with one click.
Relevant information shows that there is a NIO Link car control key on the left side of the NIO Phone body, which is the first NIO Link car control key, and 30 driver interconnection functions are one-click direct access, such as quick viewing of vehicle status and parking position, convenient completion of vehicle unlocking, window lifting, trunk opening, remote adjustment of air conditioning, etc. Even in the case of no network, the phone can be unlocked, open the trunk, flashing lights and whistles, vehicle calling, remote control parking and other functions.
"As a flagship mobile Phone designed for NIO owners, NIO Phone can bring a new car-centric mobile Internet experience, it breaks through the software and hardware gap between the car and the phone, sharing device computing power, and fully meet the expectations and needs of NIO users for a flagship mobile phone." Nio said so.
Layout technology according to business full stack
"Nio has a good reputation for service in the entire industry, but I have not been so convinced about this." IN the "NIO IN 2023 NIO Innovation and Technology Day", Li Bin admitted shortly after the opening, "our service is not so good, but compared with most peers, our determination in this aspect is a little bigger." In its view, in addition to good reputation of service, Weilai's investment in technology research and development is also worthy of attention.
"In fact, since we founded this company in 2015, the founding team has set a goal for themselves to be a company with leading research and development capabilities and technical capabilities in the world." Li Bin shared, "We set a goal for ourselves, we don't do reverse engineering, we need to do forward development."
In Li Bin's view: "In the past, China's auto industry did more to dismantle other people's cars, and did more reverse engineering, which can be understood at such a historical stage." However, in the era of smart electric vehicles, it is difficult to achieve real and lasting competitiveness without a positive development at the bottom.
Behind the above statements made by Li Bin, the layout and progress of NIO in the field of technology research and development has also been widely concerned by the industry.
Relevant information shows that NIO began to carry out research and development layout in the world in 2015, and it has laid out global research and development teams in Silicon Valley, Munich, the United Kingdom and other places. Li Bin revealed at the scene: "Today NIO has our research and development team in 13 cities in 6 countries around the world."
"So far, NIO has 11,000 research and development colleagues worldwide, and we will basically maintain such a scale and improve efficiency on the basis of such a research and development scale." At the same time, Li Bin said that NIO has currently obtained and applied for 7,300 patents in the world, and continues to grow.
Under the continuous research and development investment for many years, NIO's loss is also quite popular with the outside world, and on the "NIO IN 2023 NIO Innovation and Technology Day", Li Bin did not avoid the problem.
"Global research and development capabilities must also need continuous investment, we all know that NIO does have losses, but I prefer to regard this loss as an investment, on the one hand is research and development investment, on the other hand is infrastructure investment." Li Bin also said that the current research and development investment of NIO is to basically maintain more than 20% of the revenue per quarter.
The concern of the outside world is that in the case of continuous heavy warehouse technology research and development, what is the technical strength of Weilai?
On September 21, NIO smart electric vehicle technology full stack was announced for the first time. It is reported that the full stack of NIO technology includes 12 key technology areas such as chips and on-board intelligent hardware and battery systems, which will meet the needs of NIO's research and development of nine major elements in three dimensions: intelligent, electric, automotive, products, services, communities, multi-brands, multi-platforms, and multi-regions.
It can be found that in the 12 key technology areas released, there are many highlights, such as NIO's first chip - LiDAR main control chip "Yang Jian" will be mass produced, and Tianshu SkyOS is the first intelligent electric vehicle full-domain operating system developed by car companies in the automotive industry and released.
"The layout of the technology full stack is definitely determined by the business layout." In Li Bin's view, NIO pays attention to the interests of users, the user experience of the whole life cycle, the efficiency of the global system, and the continuous leading of innovation at the level of research and development investment, and adheres to long-term doctrine. At the same time, it also said that NIO is not leading the industry in every field, but our capabilities continue to grow and improve.