Nio electric car plummets from third floor parking lot, claiming two lives

A shocking accident has claimed two lives after an electric vehicle plunged three storeys from a multi-level parking lot in China.

Two people were killed in a sickening accident in China after an electric vehicle fell three storeys from a parking lot in Shanghai.

On Thursday, electric vehicle company Nio confirmed via Chinese social media giant Weibo that one staff member and an employee of a partner company died in the incident, which occurred at the Shanghai Innovation Park, where the firm is based.

Both individuals were inside the test vehicle at the time of the crash and could not be saved.

“After the incident we immediately began to work with the public security department to find the cause of the accident,” Nio said in a statement.

It added that the company was “very sad” about the tragedy and that it was assisting the victims’ families, but that “according to analysis of the on-site situation, we can preliminarily confirm that it’s an accident (not due to vehicle-related reasons).”

The company is currently assisting police with an investigation into the crash.

Meanwhile, the incident has gone viral in China, with Nio’s post attracting tens of millions of views while other videos have been circulating online showing frantic rescue attempts to save the workers from the wreckage.

BBC News’ China correspondent Stephen McDonnell shared a video of the wrecked vehicle, saying it had “somehow smashed out of a building and came crashing down from a great height”.

Terrible story of two test drivers at #China’s electrical vehicle manufacturer NIO being killed when a car somehow smashed out of a building and came crashing down from a great height. pic.twitter.com/4ZNI2t7LqZ

— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) June 23, 2022

Nio was founded by entrepreneur William Li in 2014, and has become a successful electric vehicle start-up with bases in Shanghai, London and Silicon Valley in the US.

However, it’s not the first tragedy to strike the company, with a Chinese man killed in a Nio vehicle after changing to the car’s semi-autonomous Navigate on Pilot driving feature in 2021.