- Deliveries of Firefly cars will begin on April 29, with a BaaS battery rental purchase option available on August 1.
- Firefly's starting price is 19.49 percent lower than the pre-sales price, and is also lower than the BMW Mini and Mercedes-Benz Smart cars.
Nio's (NYSE: NIO) third brand, Firefly, has officially launched its first electric vehicle (EV) model to take on the BMW Mini and Mercedes-Benz Smart.
Firefly's first model, which shares the brand's name, starts at RMB 119,800 ($16, 410) including the battery pack in China, with deliveries set to begin on April 29.
The starting price is 19.49 percent, or RMB 29,000, lower than the model's pre-sales price of RMB 148,800 announced at Nio Day 2024 last December, demonstrating Nio's determination for the compact EV's success.
Firefly is positioned by Nio as a boutique small car and is offered in two options with starting prices of RMB 119,800 and RMB 125,800 respectively. The higher-priced variant has a more premium interior.
The price is lower than the official discounted starting price of RMB 149,800 for the all-electric Mini Cooper in China, and lower than the discounted starting price of RMB 149,900 for the Smart #1 currently in China.
Firefly, like other Nio Inc models, supports battery swap, which means it can be purchased with a BaaS (battery as a service) battery rental option that allows for a lower barrier to purchase.
Firefly didn't announce the BaaS program at today's launch event, and the brand's president, Daniel Jin, said it will be available starting August 1.
Under the BaaS program, consumers will be able to buy just the vehicle body and rent a battery pack, which is expected to lower the barrier to purchase by tens of thousands of yuan.
Nio's lowest-priced model under its main brand is the ET5 sedan, which starts at RMB 298,000 including the battery pack. It starts at RMB 228,000 under the BaaS program, with monthly battery rentals starting at RMB 728 yuan.
Nio Inc's other sub-brand Onvo's only current model, the L60 mid-sized SUV (sport utility vehicle), starts at RMB 206,900 including the battery pack. It starts at RMB 149,900 under the BaaS program, with monthly battery rentals starting at RMB 599.
Firefly's vehicles will be connected to Nio's next-generation, or fifth-generation, battery swap stations early next year. The stations Nio is building in China are the fourth-generation.
Nio will set up demonstration battery swap stations for Firefly's first model in cities with high user base in the early stages after the model's launch.
Firefly will share a sales channel with the Nio brand, unlike Onvo, which has a separate sales channel.
Yesterday, Firefly said the show cars are already available at more than 300 Nio stores in China. Test drives of the model became available today.
At the 2025 Shanghai auto show, which starts on April 23, Firefly will also share the 7A16 booth in Hall 7.1H with Nio-branded models, while Onvo's booth will be 6B03 in Hall 6.2H.
As a five-seat compact BEV, Firefly has length, width and heights of 4,003 mm, 1,781 mm and 1,557 mm, respectively, and a wheelbase of 2,615 mm.
Though Nio has repeatedly emphasized that the Firefly model will challenge the BMW Mini as well as Mercedes-Benz's Smart, it's close in size and shape to BYD's (HKG: 1211, OTCMKTS: BYDDY) Dolphin, and Volkswagen's ID.3.
The BYD Dolphin is currently available in China at a starting price of RMB 99,800 to RMB 125,800 and measures 4,280 mm in length.
Volkswagen's ID.3 is currently available in China at a discounted starting price of RMB 119,888 to RMB 136,888 and measures 4,261 mm in length.
Firefly is a compact car built for urban mobility, with the smallest turning radius in its class at 4.7 meters, Jin said at today's launch event.
Firefly does not use performance as a selling point and is powered by a rear motor with 105 kW of peak power and 200 Nm of peak torque. Neither its specification sheet nor today's event mentioned its acceleration performance.
The model comes standard with a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack with a capacity of 42.1 kWh and a CLTC range of 420 km. It consumes 10.9 kWh of electricity per 100 kilometers.
Firefly does not mention the supplier of the batteries, though a previous regulatory filing revealed the supplier to be Sunwoda. This is the first time that Sunwoda has been included in Nio's supplier list.
Firefly's cabin comes with voice assistant Lumo, similar to Nio's main brand Nomi, and Onvo's Xiaole. The model also introduces AI large models in the cabin to improve language understanding.
It has a frunk with a capacity of 92 L, which Jin said is the largest in its class. None of Nio Inc's other models except the ET9 have a frunk.
Firefly is strategically important for Nio Inc, especially given the EV maker's weak deliveries over the past few months, after the Onvo underperformed expectations.
Nio Inc delivered 15,039 vehicles in March, including 10,219 under the main Nio brand and 4,820 under Onvo.
The company delivered 42,094 vehicles in the first quarter, 27,313 for the Nio main brand and 14,781 for Onvo.
Nio Inc is aiming to double sales this year compared to 2024, implying a full-year target of about 440,000 vehicles.
Firefly is a model aimed at the global market and has already been tested in several overseas markets.
When the Firefly project was set up, Nio's team visited more than 40 cities in 17 countries, including China, and spent more than two months in Europe, Tina Wang, Firefly's head of product experience, said last month.
Firefly hopes to win users over with better materials and greater security, Wang said.
Nio originally planned to launch Firefly in Europe first, but higher tariffs forced it to change its strategy.
Firefly would launch in Europe in the first half of 2025, William Li, Nio's founder, chairman, and CEO, said on December 22, 2024, in a Q&A with media outlets including CnEVPost.
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