[Xinhua News, May 17]Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Shanghai NIO Automobile Co., Ltd. (NIO) announced its new brand “Ledao” in Shanghai on the 15th and unveiled its first model, the electric SUV “Ledao L60.”

The pre-order price starts at 219,900 yuan (1 yuan = about 22 yen), and sales and delivery are expected to begin in September of this year. The maximum driving range is over 1,000 km, and the power consumption per 100 km is only 12.1 kilowatt-hours. The Rakudo brand car is expected to be produced at NIO’s smart factory in Hefei, Anhui Province, where the company’s 500,000th mass-produced car rolled off the line on the 9th of this month.

NIO currently has 11,000 engineers working in six countries around the world, and has invested more than 24 billion yuan in research and development. The development of the Rakuten L60 is being carried out under a global system that includes a team in mainland China, a design team in Munich, Germany, an engineering team in Oxford, England, and a smart team in Silicon Valley, USA, and is scheduled for sale in the global market. (c)Xinhua News/AFPBB News