Chinese brand’s European expansion relies on a crack team of engineers based in Oxfordshire
GREG KABLE
In a modest-looking workshop on an industrial estate in Oxfordshire, the foundation of Nio’s UK market aspirations is being laid.
Here in ‘Motorsport Valley’, a small team of engineers are working to provide the Chinese car maker’s future models with what its principal chief engineer, Danilo Teobaldi, describes as a “European flavour”.
Already active in Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, Nio has yet to officially launch in the UK. Its latest statement points to starting UK sales some time in 2025 as part of a further global expansion that includes right-hand-drive markets for the first time.
Still, Teobaldi is confident that when they do reach the UK, Nio models sold here will reflect the sort of dynamic qualities expected and demanded by buyers in a segment traditionally dominated by Audi, BMW, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz.
“We have very experienced and talented people working in Oxfordshire. It is not routine engineering, but what we call attribute integration – the way a car behaves when it is driven. We participate in hardware decisions from the beginning, so what sort of suspension is chosen for any given model, and refine that during the development cycle,” he says.
Teobaldi has a background in vehicle integration, a process he describes as combining mechanical and electric components together to form a harmonious driving character. The 50-year-old Italian was among the first engineers to be chosen by founder and CEO William Li to join Nio, becoming its director of advanced engineering at the brand’s inception in 2016.
Teobaldi started work at what is perhaps the most prominent of China’s electric vehicle start-ups following a nine-year stint as head of vehicle concepts at Italdesign in Italy and five years as head of vehicle architecture and advanced engineering with Qoros, a Chinese-based brand run in a cooperation between Chery and the Israeli government.
Shortly after his appointment, he established Nio’s Oxfordshire engineering centre as a satellite operation to support the company’s other vehicle development operations in Shanghai, Beijing, Hefei, Nanjing, Munich and San Jose.
Since then, each of Nio’s eight production models – including the ET5, ET5 Touring, EL6, ET7 and EL7 sold in five European countries – has benefited from
