Shanghai-based NIO has filed a formal recall with China's State Administration for Market Regulation covering 246,229 ES8, ES6 and EC6 electric vehicles built between 16 March 2018 and 16 January 2023. The recall, logged under number S2026M0017I, responds to a software defect that can cause short-lived blackouts of the instrument cluster and central control screen under certain conditions.
When the displays go dark drivers lose access to essential information and functions including vehicle speed, fault alerts and heating/defogging controls, creating a clear safety risk while the car is in use. The blackout is temporary but unpredictable; its principal danger is depriving drivers of diagnostic cues or speed data at moments when they are needed.
NIO will remediate affected cars primarily via over‑the‑air software updates, pushing affected vehicles to Aspen 3.5.6, Alder 2.1.0 or later releases at no charge. Owners of cars that cannot receive an OTA patch will be contacted and asked to visit NIO service centres for manual updates; vehicles that have already been upgraded to the corrected software are exempt from additional action.
The recall underscores two accelerating trends in the electric-vehicle industry: the growing centrality of software to vehicle safety and the utility of OTA fixes. For NIO the episode is a mixed signal — evidence of both modern service capability and of lapses in pre‑release software validation — and it comes as the company competes for market share in China and abroad. Regulators are increasingly attentive to software-related faults in connected cars, and public confidence will hinge on how smoothly NIO executes the remediation and communicates with owners.