For most car manufacturers, reaching the level of sophistication of Rolls-Royce is an unattainable goal. The prestige and quality of the British brand escapes almost all competitors, although some are capable of competing head to head in certain aspects. This is the case of the Chinese company Nio, which demonstrates in a video how the suspension of its cars can be on par with a Rolls-Royce.
One of the urban legends that surround Rolls-Royce has to do with the coin test that they claim their cars pass to demonstrate the quality of the suspension. It consists of placing a coin on the engine and then accelerating the car. If the circular piece maintains its original position and does not fall, it is a sign that the vehicle’s suspension is exceptionally soft and silent, just one of the characteristics that all models that leave the Rolls-Royce factory have.
Nio wanted to be more original than the century-old luxury brand founded by Charles Rolls and Henry Rollce in 1904 to demonstrate the quality of the Nio ET9 suspension. Instead of choosing a coin to perform the suspension test, he has decided to go a little further with the so-called waiter test that we can see below in this video.
The test consists of advancing a Nio ET9 over a surface full of bumps with the particularity that a tray with three levels – later, four – of full cava glasses has been previously placed on the hood of the car. At the end of the test, the cups remain intact, without falling or spilling a drop of liquid, confirming the success of the Nio ET9’s suspension and its ability to match the quality and refinements associated with a Rolls-Royce.
At the center of this technological leap is the SkyRide chassis system, billed as the world’s first fully active hydraulic suspension. This system has the capacity for transient adjustments of stiffness, damping and height, with the unique feature of independent control on all four wheels. This allows for six-way adjustment that makes the ET9 effortlessly navigate uneven roads.
Real-time processing of road imperfections by the active electric drive unit, together with the ability to adjust the height of the vehicle body by up to 40/-50 mm, ensures unparalleled comfort for passengers.
Nio has also demonstrated the effectiveness of its SkyRide suspension system in making life easier for drivers in adverse weather conditions. He illustrates this with the surprising example of how the car can get rid of accumulated snow on its own without having to resort to a scraper to remove the white element from the body of the vehicle. In the images you can see how, thanks to the vibrating chassis of the N9, the car is able to shake off much of the snow accumulated on the exterior of the vehicle.
The Nio N9 is considered one of the cars with the highest performance offered by the Chinese market. This electric supercar of generous dimensions (5.32 meters long and 2.02 meters wide) has been designed to compete head-to-head with models such as the Porsche Panarema, the Tesla Model S or the Mercedes EQS. Although it is not yet marketed on a large scale, the first units have already been delivered in China for a price equivalent to 104,400 euros.