The Nio Firefly, a Chinese rival for the Renault 5 and incoming Volkswagen ID 2, has been confirmed for Europe – and UK sales should soon follow.
The electric supermini was launched in China in April, offering a range of 260 miles (albeit on the lenient CLTC test cycle) and a single rear-mounted 141bhp motor for the equivalent of around £12,500.
Firefly was initially announced as a new brand, alongside Onvo, but the two were repositioned as sub-brands of Nio shortly after launch.
Nio sold some 3680 examples of the Firefly in May, its first full month on sale, and it played a key role in boosting the brand’s overall sales for the month by 13.1% year on year.
Although it has only been shown in left-hand-drive form so far, Nio president Qin Lihong said at the Shanghai motor show that the brand would launch a right-hand-drive variant for the UK by October.
Although Nio has yet to announce specific plans for a UK launch, having last year told Autocar that it was “continuing its preparations for entry”, Lihong’s comment suggests one is imminent.
Nio is currently in the process of a dramatic expansion across Europe, having pledged to enter 16 new global markets this year alone. It has now confirmed that seven of those will be European nations: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland and Romania.
In addition to the Firefly, Nio will launch the EL6 and EL8 SUVs, ET5 saloon and ET5 Touring estate in those markets.
It added that there will be “further news” for Europe in the coming weeks, suggesting an announcement could be inbound.
Notably, Automotive News Europe (ANE) reported in late 2024 that Nio was preparing to launch its Onvo L60, a coupé-like Tesla Model Y rival, in the UK this year.
Product planning boss Eric Yu told ANE that the UK’s lack of import tariffs on Chinese EVs was a key motivator; Nio's cars are currently subject to a 31% surcharge in the EU.
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This is the car Honda should be building.
Ah, China's Honda E or what the Honda E could've been if they'd made it a bit bigger to package a more viable battery size.
Not quite sure why we've not also added a tariff to Chinese cars yet???
Due to the fact we don't have a domestic 'mainstream' car company anymore since the demise of Rover. Vauxhall doesn't count due to the fact they are just rebadged Opels. All the rest (JLR, Aston Martin, Bentley & Rolls Royce, to name a few) are premium car companies that these new Chinese car companies are not in direct competiton with. I bet that, as soon as these companies push up market, which arguably they are already staring to do, the tariff situation will change no doubt.