Nio's Firefly to produce 120,000 EVS annually

Chinese EV maker Nio is preparing to launch two sub-brands over the next 12 months which are seen as crucial for the company's long term success.

The first one named Onvo is around the corner with the brand launch event planned for "early to mid-May" as confirmed by the Founder and CEO William Li.

The second sub-brand is codenamed Firefly and will focus in smaller and cheaper models around $27,000 (200,000 yuan) that will still be able to access Nio's battery swap technology in 2025. In late Jan, Nio co-founder and president Lihong Qin enhanced the European market as a target for the more affordable brand.

According to official documents shared on Weibo, the factory responsible for producing Firefly vehicles is planned to have an annual output of 120,000 body structural parts. Construction is set to commence in Jun of this year, with completion and operation expected by Dec.

The timeline mentioned in these filings is according to recent comments by Nio founder and co-founder that targeted the arrival of Firefly's first model to 2025.

On Sat, Nio's founder and CEO William Li highlighted the intense competition in the world's largest automotive market and praised Tesla's progress in the country at the 27th Harvard China Forum.

As reported exclusively by EV earlier this week, Nio is set to introduce the 2024 facelift for its flagship sedan ET7 on Apr 16. NIO's Group Vice President for Europe, Hui Zhang, hinted at the upcoming launch on the Chinese platform WeChat, revealing the new silhouette with the message "4.16 Brand new ET7, let's "7" together".