Understanding freelander 8 site briefly used Nio ES8 body structure image before replacing it
- The body structure page on Freelander 8’s website once featured Nio ES8’s body-in-white structural diagram and rendering, which was swapped out about 1 hour later.
- The incident came less than a week after the pre-sales of the first model from the brand jointly owned by Chery and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).
The website of Freelander, the brand jointly owned by Chery (HKEX: 9973) and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), briefly used a body structure image of the Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO) ES8 on a promotional page, sparking widespread discussion in China.
Multiple auto bloggers found on the evening of August 18 that the page introducing Freelander 8’s body safety featured what appeared to be the ES8’s body-in-white structural diagram and rendering.
They then compared the image with the ES8 body-in-white image publicly available on Nio’s website, finding the two highly consistent in body structure, panel outlines, and the positions of details.
The front compartment in the image showed a layout typical of a battery electric model, while Freelander 8 is an extended-range model whose front compartment needs to accommodate a 1.5T range extender.
About 1 hour after the incident gained attention, Freelander 8’s website had replaced the image in question, and the page involved was blank for a time.
Neither Freelander nor Nio has issued a public statement on the matter.
The timing is sensitive. Freelander 8 went on pre-sales in China on August 14 in 5 versions, with the five-seat version starting at 339,900 yuan ($50,090) and the six-seat version starting at 349,900 yuan.
The brand said on August 16 that it received more than 10,000 pre-orders within 48 hours of the pre-sales launch. In China, such figures are typically based on refundable deposits.
Freelander 8 is positioned as a luxury, tech-focused all-terrain SUV (sport utility vehicle), measuring 5,118 millimeters in length with a wheelbase of 3,040 millimeters.
For powertrain, the vehicle has a dual-motor all-wheel-drive setup with combined output of 610 kW (818 hp), goes from 0 to 100 km/h in 4.6 seconds, and is built on an 800-volt high-voltage extended-range architecture.
Its battery comes from CATL (HKEX: 3750), with a capacity of 60.3 kWh, providing a CLTC all-electric range of 310 kilometers and a combined range of more than 1,000 kilometers.
Freelander was originally a classic model line under Jaguar Land Rover, and it was relaunched on March 31 this year as an independent brand focused on new energy vehicles (NEVs).
The ES8, whose images were “borrowed,” is currently the sales benchmark in China’s large SUV market. The third-generation ES8 is about to see cumulative deliveries reach 140,000 units, with 10,288 units delivered in July.
A survey this month by market research firm Land Roads showed that the ES8’s NPS (Net Promoter Score) reached 85.3, the highest among battery electric models in China.
($1 = 6.7854 yuan)
