BEIJING — Chinese language electrical automotive start-up Nio launched its first sedan on Saturday with self-driving expertise options that the corporate claims surpass that of Tesla.

Pre-subsidy costs for the et7 sedan begin at 448,000 yuan ($69,000) with a 70 kilowatt-per-hour battery pack. If clients select to pay for battery companies primarily based on a 980 yuan month-to-month subscription charge, the automobile prices 378,000 yuan.

Deliveries are set to start within the first quarter of 2022, firm founder and chairman William Li mentioned at a launch occasion in Chengdu, China. Pre-orders started Saturday.

Nio’s et7 sedan can work with the corporate’s new autonomous driving system that options digital camera decision of 8 megapixels — versus 1.2 megapixels for Tesla — and Nvidia processing chips that supply processing energy higher than that of seven Tesla full self-driving computer systems, Li claimed.

The autonomous driving system prices 680 yuan a month, Li mentioned.

Tesla’s China-made Mannequin Y is slated to start deliveries as early as April with a price ticket of 339,900 yuan, in response to the corporate’s web site as of Saturday.

The et7 claims a driving vary of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles). That is greater than the 706 kilometer-range of Xpeng‘s P7 sedan, which the corporate claimed final yr was probably the most for any electrical automotive in China.

Nio’s new sedan additionally encompasses a laminated all-glass roof, heated seats in each rows and 23 audio system, in response to the corporate.

Whereas different Chinese language electrical automobile corporations have seen sturdy demand for his or her just lately launched sedans, Nio solely has SUVs in the marketplace. The corporate showed off a sedan prototype at the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2019, however bumped into monetary difficulties later that yr.

After receiving roughly $1 billion from state-backed traders in early 2020, Nio’s New York-listed shares started to get better and closed the yr up nicely over 1,000%. The beginning-up plans to enter Europe as quickly because the second half of this yr.

For 2020, Nio mentioned deliveries more than doubled from a year in the past to 43,728 automobiles.

That made the automaker one of the best performer amongst different New York-listed Chinese language electrical automotive start-ups.

However Nio’s deliveries still fall short of BYD, a Chinese language automotive and battery firm backed by American billionaire Warren Buffett, and Elon Musk’s Tesla.