With only a few days to go before Nio unveils its first sedan on Nio Day, more and more information about the model is becoming available.

Now, images of what is said to be the car's patent are spreading among Chinese Internet users, and this is the first time we see the so-called Nio sedan patent image.

Earlier this week, Nio officially announced that it will launch its first flagship sedan on January 9.

While the car was widely expected to compete with the Tesla Model 3, most people's guesses may have been wrong.

On the Nio App, a user asked which class of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and other luxury cars the sedan would target, and Nio co-founder and president Qin Lihong responded: BMW7.

In addition, when Nio announced that the sedan would be released on January 9, it also provided a teaser image which showed the car equipped with LiDAR on the roof.

Some media reports suggest that this LiDAR will be provided by Huawei. Huawei last month announced vehicle-grade high-performance LiDAR products and solutions for the automotive industry, enabling the detection of pedestrians and vehicles in urban areas.

Compared to millimeter-wave radar and cameras, LiDAR has strong capabilities in target contour measurement, angle measurement, light stability, and general obstacle detection.

But we are skeptical of this speculation because when talking about LiDAR at Nio's used car business launch event held on January 3, Nio co-founder and president Qin Lihong said, "Our mission is to find a LiDAR that is better than Luminar's and earlier in mass production."

Huawei is obviously a late comer in the LiDAR field.

There are no more details about the sedan, and even its name has not yet been determined.

From the previous information, the new car will continue the family design of Nio in terms of appearance. Due to the coupe positioning, the new car has a more low-slung body and a sharper front end.

In addition, the rear of this model uses a large slider shape, and does not use frameless doors.

The sedan could also be the first to be powered by the 150kWh NCM811 nickel-cobalt-manganese battery pack.

The new 150kWh battery pack is the highest capacity pack in the world, a 50 percent increase over the 100kWh NCM811 NiCoMn pack.

The current energy density of the 100kWh battery is 180wh/kg, while the 150kWh is expected to be 258wh/kg, allowing Nio to increase the battery capacity while keeping the pack size unchanged.

In terms of range performance, the sedan with a lower wind resistance coefficient is expected to exceed 900 km under NEDC standards.

(Nio ET Preview concept car)