Nio sounds alarm over counterfeit NOMI: cheap gadget can turn dangerous in a crash
D.Novikov / 32CARS
Fake NOMI assistants sold online may break loose in a collision or block airbag deployment, Nio says. The company has filed civil and administrative complaints.
Nio has launched a crackdown on counterfeit copies of NOMI, the in-car voice assistant that has become one of the signature touches inside the brand’s electric vehicles. The company says the fakes are sold online, look almost identical to the original, but never pass automotive testing and can be unsafe.
The main risk isn’t that the knock-off responds to commands a little worse. According to Nio, these devices may fail to withstand high temperatures, electromagnetic interference, vibration, hard braking or impact. In a crash, a poorly secured accessory can break loose, shatter and scatter across the cabin. Nio has called such items “bullets inside the cabin”.
There is a second risk — installation. If a fake NOMI sits in the airbag deployment zone or is mounted without regard for the car’s structure, it can interfere with proper airbag deployment. For the driver, that turns a harmless-looking gadget into a problem no routine check of the infotainment system or voice commands will reveal.
Nio also accuses sellers not only of copying NOMI’s exterior, but of borrowing its interface, conversation logic and visual reactions. In the company’s view, those builds lack any real safety architecture, may run with delays or respond incorrectly to commands, adding load on the driver.
The original NOMI was first introduced in 2017, and later gained AI capabilities through NOMI GPT. Now that in-car assistants have become part of the brand’s image, the counterfeits hit on two fronts: intellectual property and safety credibility.
Nio has already gathered and notarised evidence, and filed civil and administrative complaints against companies in Zhejiang, Guangzhou and Shanghai. For owners of Chinese EVs imported through parallel channels, the case is just as telling: a cheap marketplace accessory can turn out to be not a decoration, but an extra object inside the impact zone.
In modern cars even a cabin gadget no longer lives apart from safety. If it sits in front of the driver or passenger, what matters isn’t just the screen, the animation and the voice, but the material, the mount, the testing and how the object will behave the moment a crash happens.
