As of November 2025, NIO’s filed and authorized patents exceed 9,900 across 12 technology fields, with cumulative R&D investment approaching 70 billion RMB. As competition in China’s new energy vehicle market shifts from a “race” over features and prices to deeper, underlying technology, NIO has presented a highly substantial report card for 2025. NIO SkyOS Looking back at the technological breakthroughs of 2025, NIO achieved significant new progress in the “new three core components” of smart cars. This includes intelligent driving chips, vehicle-wide operating systems, and intelligent chassis systems, all of which have now entered mass production and deployment in vehicles. Let’s review last year’s key technological achievements: China’s first self-developed, automotive-grade 5nm high-level intelligent driving chip—the NX9031 chip—entered mass production and deployment. The SkyOS vehicle-wide operating system entered full-scale mass production and deployment across all models. The SkyRide intelligent chassis system, which integrates fully active suspension, steer-by-wire, and rear-wheel steering, is holistically controlled by the SkyRide VMC motion management system. The first version of the NWM technical architecture entered mass production and delivery. NOMI Intelligence, the full-scenario emotional AI, underwent further evolution. NOMI Intelligence The true impact of these three major technologies lies in their deep synergy. The self-developed NX9031 chip and the SkyOS operating system achieve deep optimization at the underlying instruction set level, maximizing the unleashing of computing power. Acting as the central “hub,” SkyOS efficiently coordinates execution components like the SkyRide chassis, translating computational decisions into precise and smooth vehicle dynamics. This vertical integration of “chip + system + algorithms + execution” forms NIO’s deepest competitive moat. Furthermore, NIO has accomplished several “industry-firsts” in areas such as functional safety, a full-domain 900V architecture, and on-device large language models, earning numerous domestic and international awards and honors. Adhering to the full-stack, in-house R&D path not only enhances vehicle quality but also brings long-term cost optimization benefits for NIO. ES8 During the Q1 2025 earnings call, NIO’s management revealed that replacing the previously outsourced solution requiring four NVIDIA Orin-X chips with the self-developed NX9031 chip has reduced the hardware cost per vehicle by over 10,000 RMB. This is achieved while ensuring higher computing power and performance. Combined with factors like product transitions and the cost optimization from self-developed chips, NIO expects its brand’s vehicle gross margin to return to around 15% in Q2. Recently, in an internal letter, NIO’s CEO William Li stated that in 2026, NIO will continue to make resolute investments around the 12 core full-stack technologies for smart electric vehicles. Public information shows that as of November 2025, NIO’s total number of applied and granted patents exceeds 9,900, covering 12 major technological fields. Its cumulative R&D investment has approached 70 billion RMB.