Nio gears up for European launch later in 2021 Car News

Fast-growing Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio remains on track for a European launch in the second half of this year – and it will soon make a decision on which models the region will get first.

Speaking exclusively to Autocar, the brand’s vice president for Europe, Hui Zhang, confirmed that he remains confident about its viability in Europe.

“We are convinced that in Europe the awareness of environmental protection and sustainability is much greater for the consumer than on any other continent in the world,” he said.

Nio is experiencing tremendous growth in its home market, where it achieved record sales every month in 2020, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, largely due to its predominantly digital “ O2O ” retail model ( online to offline) in the region. .

Zhang said, “Our Nio app has over 1.4 million downloads and over 200,000 daily active users. We had already done the basic work. We just needed to organize and activate things a little differently from the time before the pandemic. I’m not saying we benefited from the pandemic, but we could leverage the O2O business model during the period. “

It has not yet been confirmed whether the company will consider developing a dealer-run physical model in Europe.

Zhang said that Nio’s research shows that “two-thirds of customers in Europe will not buy a car until the test drive” and that although 88,000 cars have been sold through the retail application of Nio in China, “we are fully aware that the customer still has to touch, smell, see and test the car, especially in the European market”. Nio already has an operational presence in Europe, with an engineering center in Oxford and a global design center in Munich, and Zhang highlighted the brand’s continued promotion and press in Europe as a sign of its intention. continues to sell cars in the market.

However, it remains to be seen which of its four electric production cars will be the first to arrive. The closely related ES6 and ES8 SUVs have been on the market longer, but Zhang was keen to point out that the EC6, launched last year, is already the best-selling car in the SUV-coupe segment in China, even surpassing the BMW X4.

The ET7 sedan, with a solid-state battery promising over 600 miles of range and a host of advanced range features, has yet to go on sale in China, so it’s unlikely to arrive. immediately in Europe.

Zhang said, “We will very carefully consider which model is the best for the European market and which one will come here.”

The company’s most recent product unveiling was what it calls “the world’s first mass-produced battery exchange station.” Capable of swapping out 312 batteries per day, this is the latest development in Nio’s Battery as a Service (BAAS) system, which aims to improve the usability of electric vehicles and lower initial purchase prices.