Nio and Geely Holding Group have discussed jointly announcing a European battery-swap network plan next year, Nio Founder and CEO William Li said, an overseas dimension that appears nowhere in the documents the two companies published on their deal.
“Just now, colleagues from Geely were also asking whether next year, on the European side, we should get our European battery-swap network plan going and announce it together,” Li said in an interview with the Wu Xiaobo Channel, whose full version was released on Tuesday.
Li said Geely Holding Founder and Chairman Li Shufu was pressing him on the same point.
“I find Shufu is even more anxious than I am about how to get into global markets, how this swap network gets into global markets,” Li said. “Every time he sees me, he asks about it, asking when we are going to step up construction in Europe.”
The partnership is “of great significance” for Nio’s push into global markets, “including our battery-swap network,” Nio’s founder added, calling the tie-up with Geely “a very logical strategic choice.”
Nio’s own Norwegian unit said on Monday that the cooperation “has been announced for the Chinese market.”
“No plans for similar cooperation in Europe or Norway have been communicated so far,” it said in a release distributed through the Norwegian newswire NTB, under a heading that read “Limited to China for now.”
What the Filing Says
Nio’s announcement to the Hong Kong stock exchange, published as inside information on Monday, and its US press release of Monday describe the transaction without referring to any market outside China.
A Geely Holding subsidiary will contribute its battery-swap operator Yiyi Internet Technology plus 640 million yuan ($95.4 million) in cash for 30% of NIO Power, valuing the unit at about 16 billion yuan ($2.38 billion) after the investment.
Nio will separately take 10% of Haohan Energy, Geely’s charging business.
Li said after the signing that NIO Power would run a separate swap network for Geely’s Cao Cao ride-hailing fleet and future robotaxis, both in China.
The joint statement the two companies issued on Monday ties the partnership to the goals of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan for intelligent connected new energy vehicles and to China’s green and low-carbon transition.
Its current network figures are all for China, including Nio’s 4,126 swap stations and Haohan’s 2,500 charging stations in 232 Chinese cities.
Its target of 10,000 swap stations by 2030 would require a record yearly build rate.
Its only reference to Europe is in the “About NIO” boilerplate, which lists the region among the 24 countries and regions where Nio sells and services cars.
Geely Holding’s own release on its newsroom does not mention overseas markets.
The consumer-car part of the deal remains at the stage of “preliminary plans,” subject to “further discussions,” according to the filing.
A Network Nio Has Frozen
The comments run against the direction Nio has set for its European business.
Nio has opened two swap stations in Europe since the start of 2025 and closed one.
It opened its 60th European station, a second-generation unit in Sankt Augustin, Germany, in April 2025, and its 61st, in Hamburg, in September 2025.
In November 2025 it closed its only Danish station, in Slagelse, its first closure on the continent.
No new European station has been announced this year. Nio’s European Power Map plotted 59 swap stations when checked on Tuesday, although the same page puts the total at 61.
Chris Chen, who heads Nio’s Global Business department, told owners in the Netherlands in May that the company would build no new swap stations or charging infrastructure in the region, according to an attendee’s account.
Li told customers in Norway last November that Nio needed a European partner to hold its battery assets, which in Europe sit on its own balance sheet.
Li wrote on LinkedIn on September 18 that Nio would take a “more focused approach” to Europe and “will not pursue expansion for its own sake.”
A briefing Nio sent to media the same week pushed the European launch of its Onvo brand to 2028 or 2029.
Nio will also close its Cologne hub at the end of September, leaving one of its three German hubs open.
The networks Yiyi and Haohan have disclosed are in China.
Li did not say which Geely brands or which European markets a joint network would serve, or whether Geely would fund it.
Norway’s Unconfirmed Pledges
Nio’s Norwegian unit had pushed back against media coverage of its European business in a statement dated June 10, calling it “an unnuanced picture” and saying its commitment in the region “is not being slowed down, but further developed.”
As evidence, it listed a “new battery swap station in the Oslo west/Bærum area” and said a “new delivery of 105 cars produced for the Norwegian market” would arrive in July.
The statement gave no opening date for the station.
Nio has not announced its opening since, and none of the at least six releases its Norwegian unit has issued through NTB since September 1 mentions it.
Nio’s Power Map showed 19 swap stations in Norway when checked on Tuesday, none of them in Bærum or western Oslo, against the 20 the company said it operated in the country when it opened its Trondheim station in November 2024.
Nio has not confirmed that the 105 cars have arrived.
EV asked a Nio spokesperson on September 15 to confirm the batch’s arrival and had not received a reply by the time of publication.
Nio and Firefly registered 69 vehicles in Norway in September as of publication time, already more than in any full month this year, according to live registration tracker Elbilstatistikk.
That compares with 43 in May and 46 in June.
The September figure includes 10 units of the ET5 sedan, a model that had registered one car in Norway in the first half, which is consistent with new stock reaching the country but does not show whether it came from the batch.
A Nio spokesperson told the South China Morning Post in August that the company had “no plans to retreat from Europe,” the second such denial in three months.
Competition in Europe
CATL, which competes with Nio in battery swapping in China, plans to open a demonstration swap station in Paris in March 2027, a CATL executive told EV last week.
Geely Holding brands Volvo, Polestar, Zeekr, Lynk & Co and Smart already sell cars in Europe.
Nio’s US-listed shares closed 0.6% higher at $3.59 on Monday after the deal was announced, then fell about 5% to $3.40 on Tuesday afternoon after touching a 14-month low of $3.38.
