On my most up-to-date journey to China, I had the pleasure of visiting NIU’s manufacturing unit and showroom to see the wide selection of electrical mopeds, scooters, e-bikes, and extra produced by one of many world’s main good electrical mobility firms. As an electrical mobility journalist and fanatic (and as an proprietor of my very own NIU e-moped since 2020), it was a once-in-a-lifetime probability to peek backstage and see the place the magic occurs.
And now after such an eye-opening go to, I’m much more excited to share that have with you!
My go to included a full day at NIU’s manufacturing unit, beginning within the showroom to see a variety of the corporate’s merchandise. NIU primarily has two important markets: the native Chinese language market and all over the place else on this planet.
China is the corporate’s largest market, not solely due to the home-field benefit however as a result of no different place on this planet has jumped into electrical mopeds and scooters with each toes like China has.
To get a way of the breadth of NIU’s autos, and to see deep contained in the manufacturing ground, try my video tour under. Or hold studying for the written model of my journey!
Strolling by means of the showroom revealed that actuality firsthand, with so many fashions I’d by no means seen earlier than. Because it seems, as wide-ranging because the worldwide lineup we’ve come to know is, NIU’s home lineup is even wider!
Due to native rules that encourage individuals to commute by e-bike, the mopeds are true mopeds, as in they’ve precise pedals. I doubt many individuals use the pedals, however you’ll discover these cute little pedals on a lot of the fashions. Many are single-seaters, however you’ll additionally see loads of pillion seats as rack add-ons. These are fashionable with dad and mom who carry their kids on the again for varsity drop-offs.
Many of those home scooters use lead acid batteries, that are more cost effective for budget-minded riders, however I realized one thing new about these batteries.
Whereas we regularly consider lead acid batteries as older know-how, NIU has introduced loads of its know-how for battery monitoring and BMSs (battery administration programs) from its lithium battery fashions over to its lead acid battery fashions.
This implies the batteries are smarter, higher protected, last more, and customarily present higher efficiency than what many people are used to from older-style lead acid batteries.
Along with the numerous home market fashions, NIU additionally has loads of bigger fashions with increased efficiency, many meant for the worldwide market, starting from their seated electrical scooters to fully-fledged electrical bikes.
The corporate even has a brand new electrical dust bike, full-size electrical bicycles, and standing electrical scooters, although these are primarily designed for the European and North American markets.
As a particular deal with, I even bought to see the only real NIU TQi nonetheless remaining. It was a leaning, lined, three-wheeler idea that by no means fairly made it to manufacturing – maybe as a casualty of the pandemic years that shook up the trade. However with a bit of luck, it could possibly be eclipsed by a brand new four-wheeled idea that the corporate appears fairly gung-ho about.
Like several self-respecting automobile maker, NIU performs all of its personal R&D, growing its merchandise and testing their parts to make sure they’ll meet the demanding specs required by long-life on-road autos.
The R&D heart I explored had every little thing from underwater button-mashing machines (in case you need to know in case your hazard lights button might be pressed tens of 1000’s of occasions whereas your scooter is submerged in a tank of water) to fast temperature-changing machines and UV growing older apparatuses.
Full-size take a look at benches vigorously shake scooters and mopeds with weight plates connected to them, simulating the burden of a rider and the violence of real-world commuting on less-than-perfect roads. If one thing goes to interrupt, that is the take a look at that may let you know. It seems to be fairly aggresive and makes me really feel so much higher concerning the scooter that I journey practically daily on the freeway.
From there, we moved to the sprawling manufacturing unit ground. The method begins with the inspection space, the place orange-clad workers undergo all of the incoming parts to carry out high quality inspections and make sure the subcontractors are producing the parts correctly to NIU’s specs.
The partitions are lined with detailed pictures and diagrams reminding the staff of what to maintain an eye fixed out for, typically with examples of what would disqualify a element from progressing to the meeting traces.
Similar to the parts that checked all of the bins, we handed alongside to the meeting line space too. We started within the pre-assembly space. Right here, hanging racks are pre-loaded with varied parts that might be wanted at varied levels of moped meeting. These racks are carried off on a flying conveyor system after which lowered down subsequent to staff on the meeting traces on the appropriate level for every element’s meeting stage.
I needed to take the non-flying route, strolling from the pre-assembly space to one of many many meeting traces. Right here I bought to see these racks dropping down as workers plucked off key switches, handlebars, wiring harnesses, physique panels, fenders, and different elements like they had been consuming at a revolving sushi conveyor belt restaurant. It was actually neat to see how every half landed in the fitting spot of the meeting line on the proper time, like an engineering ballet all coming collectively.
As rolling chassis had been slowly moved down the meeting line, they had been remodeled in a matter of minutes from naked tubular frames to shiny, sleek-looking electrical mopeds. If you happen to walked too rapidly down the road, you’d have missed main steps fully. That’s how briskly the ballet comes collectively because the expert workers work collectively like a well-oiled machine.
Every meeting line noticed a distinct mannequin of moped rolling down the ending ramp in direction of a ready group of inspectors. The inspection checkpoint is manned by high quality verification workers who run by means of a many-point guidelines in a well-lit tunnel to seek out imperfections or meeting errors.
As soon as the bikes go these checks, they transfer on to the driving take a look at, the place nonetheless extra workers take a scorching lap across the manufacturing unit earlier than handing the moped off to the subsequent stage. Some scooters even undergo water testing with a rain simulator, although it looks like that is a part of the R&D verification stage – not one thing that will get carried out on each scooter. And based mostly on how effectively my very own NIU has held up after I’ve needed to go away it out in pouring rain on occasion, these rain assessments on the manufacturing unit that assist NIU’s engineers guarantee good water safety appear to be working!
From right here, the mopeds are rolled off to the warehouse, the place they’re organized by mannequin and ready for vans that can both ship them to outlets and sellers across the nation or be prepped for worldwide prospects who distribute them all around the world.
However only one meeting space wouldn’t be sufficient to get a real sense of the dimensions at NIU, particularly because the firm makes so many distinctive merchandise. Subsequent, we headed to the standing electrical scooter meeting space. These smaller rides have shorter meeting traces because of the commonly extra easy design and decreased variety of parts.
The take a look at space appears to be a bit extra assorted although, together with sections of rocks and gravel in addition to ramps and bumpers. The testing takes place proper subsequent to the meeting space, with a customized take a look at monitor proper there on the manufacturing unit ground.
As soon as the scooters go their inspection station and fly by means of the take a look at monitor, they’re despatched off for packaging. As a result of these are largely constructed for export, the scooters are individually packaged as an alternative of being bulk-loaded onto vans. The packaging line prepares every scooter, folds it, surrounds it in protecting foam, and seals its field. Whenever you purchase a NIU scooter on-line, these are the final fingers to the touch it earlier than yours whenever you pop open the field.
Equally, I additionally noticed how the packaging is carried out for the NIU XQi3 electrical dust bike. Since this mannequin can be designed for export, these are individually packaged as effectively. However as an alternative of a easy cardboard field, they get a metal body for higher safety of the heavy bikes. The fashions I noticed had been being packaged for the Canadian supplier who might be receiving them across the time that this text is being revealed.
After getting the possibility to tour many various areas of the manufacturing ground, we visited the test-riding space of the complicated. Right here, a group of riders performs long-term testing of various fashions. Whereas each NIU product will get a cursory journey earlier than its remaining inspection sheet might be accomplished, the corporate ensures that a number of of every mannequin bear long-term testing with tens of 1000’s of precise highway kilometers. There are NIU workers whose job is solely to journey all day and search for points. It’s that form of testing that actually reveals something that could possibly be a hidden systematic situation, the sorts of issues that wouldn’t present up on a five-minute end-of-line take a look at journey.
Whereas I wasn’t going to be doing wherever close to that stage of driving, I nonetheless bought a partial expertise by attending to borrow a number of of these autos for my very own quick take a look at rides. From cute little low-power electrical mopeds to the highest-power and quickest fashions within the firm’s lineup, I spent the subsequent hour or two throwing my leg over (or by means of) all of them. This was additionally my first probability to journey the RQi electrical bike, which is an actual, honest-to-goodness electrical bike. It received’t practically throw you off like a Zero or Energica (RIP), however it has some enjoyable energy that I’m not used to getting out of normally tamer NIU mopeds.
The identical could possibly be stated for the XQi3 electrical dust bike, which is a significant improve over one thing like a Sur Ron. In reality, the bike is even street-legal as an electrical bike in North America, the place it may be registered for on-road use, too! And with its excessive torque letting me pop the entrance wheel up even unintentionally, that is undoubtedly a mannequin which you could have some severe enjoyable with nearly wherever.
As an added deal with, on the finish of the day, they let me discover the engineering space upstairs, although I needed to be specifically key-swiped into these flooring.
I wasn’t allowed to movie or take images within the engineering space. There have been dozens upon dozens of take a look at mule scooters and bikes scattered all through the flooring, most with a group of engineers huddled round them with diagnostic instruments and armfuls of scooter parts. The entire place had an actual “senior design mission” really feel to it that I keep in mind vividly from engineering college.
I additionally famous what regarded like just a few fashions that had fairly clearly been lined by black sheets earlier than I used to be invited in. Regardless of my questions, the NIU group was valiantly tight-lipped about these. It definitely makes me marvel what could possibly be coming subsequent. Based mostly on the high-energy feeling of the engineering division, like standing in the midst of a beehive with hyper-focused employee bees all buzzing round you, the engineering group appears exhausting at work on some fascinating new fashions for the subsequent few years.
The entire expertise was eye-opening from a number of angles. As somebody who has ridden an NIU electrical moped for years, typically as my spouse and I’s each day driver, I by no means knew how a lot went into its design and manufacturing. I at all times felt good about it from the buyer facet, however now I do know simply how a lot effort goes into the protection and longevity facet of the design, which is all of the extra comforting.
On the identical time, I gained perception into the manufacturing unit that I wouldn’t have ever identified. Whereas the repetitive work of an meeting line might be not essentially the most thrilling job ever, most of the workers appeared to really be having enjoyable. I’d typically see them chatting and laughing collectively whereas assembling totally different parts. There might have been a language barrier, however some issues are common. I’ve labored sufficient service and labor jobs to know what bantering along with your coworkers seems to be like, and laughter doesn’t even have an accent.
So for me, the expertise was illuminating and informative, opening a window right into a world I by no means get to see. For many of us, our expertise with the micromobility merchandise we journey every day begins at buy. However the story actually begins a lot earlier, with years of design work culminating in lots of expert fingers bringing these concepts and supplies to life within the type of one thing that helps us navigate our world. It’s a reminder that each scooter, bike, or board carries not simply its rider, however the work and imaginative and prescient of numerous individuals who made it potential.
