Firefly, the entry-level brand of Nio Inc., will launch a 60 kWh battery pack on Friday, October 23, giving its only model a range of 560 km on China’s CLTC test cycle and new and existing owners the option to upgrade.
The pack uses CATL ternary lithium cells and gives the car 140 km more range than its current 42.1 kWh pack, which is rated at 420 km.
The date and range were disclosed at a Firefly user gathering in Zhengzhou on Friday. The brand held a ceremony for its 90,000th delivery at the same event, less than 18 months after its first handovers on April 29, 2025.
A Bigger Battery
Brand President Daniel Jin first gave the 60 kWh capacity and CATL as the supplier on September 5, saying the pack would be exactly the same size as the 42 kWh unit, with its bolts in the same positions.
That keeps the larger pack compatible with Nio’s swap stations and makes retrofits possible across the existing fleet.
“We can guarantee that the large battery will launch this year,” Jin said on September 22, without giving a date, a price or a range figure.
Jin had told owners in Quanzhou on August 7 that the pack would arrive by the Spring Festival at the latest, which falls on February 6, 2027.
The October 23 date and the 560 km figure are the first details beyond that, and put the launch more than three months ahead of that outer limit.
Firefly’s current pack uses lithium iron phosphate cells from Sunwoda and weighs 314 kg, according to the car’s regulatory filing with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
The new pack therefore changes both the chemistry and the cell supplier.
Ternary cells store more energy per kilogram than lithium iron phosphate, which is how the capacity rises by 43% without a larger case.
Range rises by a smaller 33%, from 420 km to 560 km.
Firefly has not said how the larger pack will be priced, either outright or under Nio’s battery-as-a-service rental plan, which costs 399 yuan ($60) a month for the current pack.
It has also not said whether upgrades will be permanent purchases, rentals or both, and the blogger’s post said only that existing owners would have the chance to upgrade once orders open.
The pack will give Firefly two battery sizes, as Nio’s other brands already offer.
Battery Swap Network
The upgrade path depends on Nio’s fifth-generation swap stations, the first that can take Firefly’s shorter body.
Firefly had no access to Nio’s swap network until August 7, when Nio opened its first fifth-generation stations in seven cities.
The brand passed 10,000 swaps in its first 39 days on the network.
By October 1, 75 fifth-generation stations in 50 cities across 20 provinces supported Firefly, Jin said on Weibo.
A Record September
Firefly delivered a record 7,327 vehicles in September, up 26.9% from a year earlier and 25.2% from August.
That beat the previous monthly high of 7,084, set in December 2025, and topped Jin’s internal target of 6,000 to 6,500 vehicles a month for only the second time after June.
Firefly accounted for 19.6% of Nio Inc.’s 37,408 deliveries in September, its highest monthly share since deliveries began, according to EV calculations from Nio’s monthly reports.
Its previous high was 17.2% in March 2026.
Nio’s main brand delivered 21,318 vehicles in the month and Onvo 8,763.
Firefly delivered 18,950 vehicles in the third quarter, up 51.8% from a year earlier and its best quarter of 2026, though below the 19,084 it delivered in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Its deliveries in the first nine months of 2026 rose 136.7% to 48,122, or 16% of the group’s 300,301.
That is above the 10% share of group sales that Nio Founder and Chief Executive Officer William Li has set as Firefly’s long-term goal, alongside 55% for Onvo and 35% for the Nio brand.
The Road to 100,000
Nio publishes Firefly’s deliveries only month by month and has never issued a cumulative figure for the brand.
The monthly totals add up to 87,536 vehicles by the end of September. The brand held its 80,000th delivery ceremony on September 5.
The ceremonies for the 80,000th and 90,000th cars came 41 days apart, the shortest gap between any of the brand’s 10,000-car celebrations.
Jin has set a goal of 100,000 cumulative deliveries by the end of 2026.
On the monthly figures, Firefly needs 12,464 more cars, or about 4,200 a month in the fourth quarter, against a third-quarter average of about 6,300.
One Model, More Variants
Nio has said it will keep Firefly as a single-model brand in 2027, with Li comparing the approach to the iPhone’s.
Instead of new models, the brand has relied on special editions and software updates, including the Aster 2.1.0 update it began pushing in China on October 14.
That update added in-car karaoke and an upgraded version of Lumo, the car’s voice assistant, according to the brand’s official Weibo account.
