Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
At a media event in Amsterdam, Nio‘s founder and chief executive, William Li, announced on Thursday that the Shanghai-based electric vehicle manufacturer plans to enter the UK market “probably next year.”
Nio is set to open its largest showroom in Europe on Thursday, with founders William Li and Lihong Qin attending the event. The Nio House — as the Nio showrooms are known —, located in the center of Amsterdam, will serve as Nio’s flagship space in Europe, spanning seven floors.
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Steve Fowler, former editor of the UK automotive publication Auto Express, attended the media Q&A event and shared on the social media platform X that Nio‘s sub-brands, Onvo and Firefly— the latter being a temporary codename—are also prepared for right-hand drive markets.
His post, now deleted, stated:
“Nio boss William Li tells me that Nio will be in the UK “probably next year” and that Nio’s entry level Firefly project and Onvo brands are all engineered for right-hand drive and should be coming to the UK, too”.
On International Family Day, Nio officially unveiled its subbrand aimed at families. The subbrand is named Onvo and the pre-sale price of its first model, a mid-size family SUV, starts at 219,900 RMB, which is 30,000 RMB lower than the Tesla Model Y.
The second sub-brand of the Group is codenamed “Firefly” and will focus in smaller and cheaper models around $27,000 (200,000 yuan) which will be able to access Nio‘s battery swap technology.
An executive has confirmed earlier this month that the subbrand will arrive in the European market next year. On May 6, Reuters reported citing Nicolas Vincelot, Nio Group general manager for France, that the Group will unveil “a second smaller EV to be sold in Europe next year for less than $30,000”.
“Nio is currently working on the launch of new car brands, that would be less premium, still obviously 100% electric, and more suited for the European market needs,” Vincelot told Reuters during a France-China business forum held in Paris three weeks ago.
The company said this week that will report its financial results for the first quarter of 2024 on June 6, before the market opening.
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On Tuesday, the company reported that its unit “CHJ Limited” is participating in the Singapore Exchange (SGX) Securities Lending Program. A Nio spokesperson told EV that the move aims to “support the liquidity of NIO Inc.’s stock in the Singapore Exchange market” adding that the Lending Program is “a standardized service operated by SGX, through which hundreds of stocks are currently traded”.
Earlier in the day, Swedbank AB disclosed in a filing that it added 1,187,310 shares of electric vehicle startup Nio to its portfolio, valued at over $5.34 each by the end of the first quarter. With Tuesday’s closing price at $5.25 per share, the position is now valued at $6.23 million.
Last week, the Chinese conglomerate, Tencent Holdings, submitted a form to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), revealing the sale of 28,454,077 shares of Nio. As a result, Tencent now holds 95,657,938 shares in the company. This marks a 22.93 percent decrease from their previous filing in June 2023.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
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The post Nio to Enter UK “Probably Next Year”, Subbrands are Ready for RHD Markets first appeared on EV.