Nio Integrates Firefly Into Existing Stores, Shifting From Onvo Strategy

Nio Group is set to unveil its most affordable model to date on Saturday, April 19, under its newly launched sub-brand Firefly. The compact electric vehicle, also named Firefly, is aimed at rivalling BMW’s Mini and Smart — a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and Geely.

The new strategy for Firefly marks a departure from the approach Nio initially took with its second brand, Onvo. When the Onvo L60 debuted last year, the vehicle was showcased in dedicated standalone stores.

During a media trip to Shanghai in December, where EV was invited to attend Nio’s annual event “Nio Day,” it was clear that the company sought to distinguish its premium Nio brand from Onvo.

At the high-end ‘MixC’ shopping mall, one of Nio’s roughly ten Nio Houses in its hometown was located on one side of the complex, while a separate Onvo store — positioned near showrooms for Huawei’s Aito, Stellato and Luxeed, as well as the now-defunct Jidu — featured three Onvo L60 SUVs in a fully independent space.

Since then, Nio has accelerated cost-cutting measures, including staff reductions and department mergers. As part of the restructuring, it is now centralising its sales and service operations under the Nio Group umbrella.

In a LinkedIn post on Friday, Marius Holletzek, Nio’s director of brand experience design and strategy, showed three 3D renders saying Firefly will appear in “shop-in-shop” areas inside existing Nio showrooms, starting in China.

“A firefly needs a home, right? Soon our first firefly shop-in-shop areas will be open to the public — for now, only in China,” Holletzek wrote. “But this is just the beginning.”

He described the new displays as “a solid, thoughtful and modular structure that integrates our vivid brand elements,” framing what he called a “small, smart and truly surprising EV.”

Show cars of the Firefly model are already on display at more than 300 Nio stores across China, the company announced on its mobile app on Friday.

The brand’s official launch event will begin at 9:30 a.m. Beijing time on Saturday. Pre-orders for the vehicle, which was unveiled in December, have exceeded expectations, Jin said earlier this year, with more than half placed on the launch night alone.

A picture of a dedicated battery swap station for the low-cost EV line appeared recently on Chinese social media showing Nio employees running swap tests at the station. Firefly and CATL announced last month the company will use CATL’s ‘choco-swap’ network although details are still unknown.

The EV is already arriving at showrooms across the country ahead of its commercial release, though a timeline for European deliveries has not yet been confirmed.