Nio Inc. has cut the starting price of its entry-level model Firefly in Norway by about 17%, the second such reduction in under a year, while leaving the same model untouched in the other European markets.
Norway, Nio Inc.‘s first market outside China, is exempt from the European Union tariffs imposed in October 2024 that forced the Firefly‘s launch across the rest of the continent to be adjusted.
The campaign sets the price of the sub-brand’s debut model at 231,900 kroner, or about $23,660, and runs until September 30, according to the brand’s Norwegian website.
The figure lands roughly 17% below the 279,900 kroner at which the model launched in Norway last August, and within 2,000 kroner of the 229,900 kroner Nio charged during a “Pre-Christmas Offer” that cut the price 17.9% last November.
The offer was first reported by X user and EV content creator William Jarbeaux on Monday.
The Netherlands Pays More
In the Netherlands, the Firefly‘s other launch market, no cut was running as of Monday, with the car listed from €29,900 on the brand’s Dutch configurator, rising to €32,500 for the Comfort trim.
At current exchange rates the Norwegian campaign price works out to roughly €19,800, about a third below the Dutch starting figure.
Dutch buyers have seen discounts before, with Nio trimming €5,000 from the First Edition over a Black Friday window late last year, but the structural gap between the two markets has persisted.
Norway sits outside the bloc and levies none of the tariffs Brussels imposed on China-built electric cars in 2024, while the Netherlands, as an EU member, applies them on top of the standard 10% import duty.
The duties raise the landed cost of the Firefly in the Netherlands and leave Nio less room to price aggressively, a squeeze that has pushed several Chinese brands toward markets beyond the EU’s reach.
Norway also cut its value-added-tax exemption threshold for electric cars to 300,000 kroner from 500,000 on January 1, and at 231,900 kroner the campaign keeps the Firefly inside that break.
A Car That Sells on Price
The repeated cutting reflects a pattern in the registration data, where Firefly volume rises and falls with the size of the discount.
The sub-brand registered a record 46 units in Norway in December, its strongest month, as the pre-Christmas cut cleared inventory.
Registrations then collapsed to zero the following month, part of the group’s weakest Norwegian result in three years in January, after the offer expired and the tax change took effect.
The next surge came in May, when Firefly reached 28 units on the back of a 0.99% financing campaign launched in April.
For its full launch year, the model registered 69 vehicles in Norway from its August 14 debut, against a target Nio had already cut to about 200 from 500.
Firefly Carries the Volume
The discounting concentrates on the model that now drives Nio‘s Norwegian sales.
Firefly accounted for 28 of the group’s 43 registrations in May and 27 of 44 in June, outselling the premium Nio brand for two straight months after trailing it earlier in the year.
The premium line, priced well above the VAT threshold, does not share the tax break, and its registrations fell to 17 in June from 22 a year earlier.
Nio has confirmed a batch of 105 vehicles produced for the Norwegian market is due to arrive this month, though the company did not disclose the brand split.
With the premium line in Europe being sold largely from 2023 and 2024 model-year stock, and the Firefly both the volume driver and the subject of the discount, the incoming batch is likely weighted toward the sub-brand.
The Firefly is a compact electric car with a 41.2 kilowatt-hour lithium-iron-phosphate battery and a 330-kilometer WLTP range, sold with the battery included because it cannot use Nio‘s swap stations in Europe.
Deliveries began in both Norway and the Netherlands in August 2025, and reception in each market was slow through the opening months.
Norway the Stronghold
Norway has become Nio‘s largest European market by volume this year, overtaking Germany, which is why the discounting is concentrated there.
The group registered 44 vehicles in the country in June, a fifth straight month of sequential growth, and 161 across the first half.
The figures remain modest against the 1,500 units its country chief targeted for 2025, a goal missed by about 65%, and against the roughly 280-unit pace the group is now running.
The cutting also fits a message Nio has repeated through the spring, that its European commitment is being refined rather than slowed, a case laid out in a June 10 statement from its Norwegian unit.
An Ho, managing director of Nio Norway, said in that statement that “Norway is a market where we see that the model works well.”
Elsewhere on the continent the picture stays thin, with Nio registering only 74 vehicles across its European markets in May and German registrations falling 88% in the first half.
Wider Push
The Norwegian campaign runs as Nio presses the Firefly into more markets.
Beyond Norway and the Netherlands, the sub-brand has reached Austria, Portugal, Greece and Denmark, and the company has outlined plans for 17 markets globally across the Americas, Europe and Southeast Asia.
The United Kingdom and Thailand are slated for this year and right-hand-drive deliveries already under way in Singapore and Macau.
The marque delivered 6,946 vehicles globally in June, its strongest month of the year, though the overwhelming majority of those sales were in China rather than Europe.
Whether the twice-cut Firefly can hold its pace once the campaign expires at the end of September will show how much of Norway’s demand survives without a discount, for a group whose broader results, including a second-quarter delivery miss, leave little room for a stalled European push.
