EV maker Nio established on Monday a new company named ‘Beijing Weileying Automobile Sales and Service Co., Ltd,’ according to the Chinese business data platform Tianyancha.
The company is wholly owned by the carmaker’s subsidiary ‘Nio Automobile Sales and Service Co., Ltd.’ and has a registered capital of 5 million yuan — equivalent to about $685,000.
The legal representative is Chen Tianyang who, according to his LinkedIn page, currently serves as Deputy General Manager in Beijing. The executive joined the Shanghai-based brand in mid-2017, when the company was preparing to launch its first ever production model — the ES8 SUV.
Prior to Nio, the executive worked for two and a half years at Tesla, where he joined in 2014 as a Product Specialist.
The company name “Weileying” appears to be a combination of the Chinese characters from Nio (蔚来), its first sub-brand Onvo (乐道), and Firefly (萤火虫), its second brand.
Taken together, the characters 蔚 (Wei), 乐 (Le), and 萤 (Ying) form “蔚乐萤” (Weileying), which phonetically resembles the Chinese phrase “为了赢”—meaning “for the win/ in order to win.”
According to the registration documents, the company’s business scope includes the sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs), sales of NEV electrical accessories, sales of battery swapping facilities for NEVs, operation of EV charging infrastructure, sales of charging piles, vehicle charging services, and battery sales.
Nio Group‘s founder and CEO William Li has recently denied a Reuters report which claimed the world’s largest battery maker CATL was in discussions to acquire a controlling stake in the ‘Nio Power’ unit — the EV maker’s arm focused on the battery swapping and charging network.
According to the local outlet Jiemian News, Li wrote in an owner’s group chat: “Don’t believe or spread rumors.” Nio Power chief left the unit on the first of April to lead the Group’s sub-brand Onvo. The Power arm is now led by Nio’s chief financial officer Stanley Qu.
As of the time of writing, Nio shares are trading 1.7% higher on Monday’s pre-market trading at $3.58. Year to date, the stock has dropped about 19.3%.
