Chinese EV maker Nio entered Europe through Norway in 2021 intending to rival the region’s premium marques.
Five years on, Nio‘s Swedish website lists a single car configuration while its German site returns vehicles for two of the four models it advertises. In the Netherlands, eight configurations are listed and none is available to order immediately.
The company has been clearing 2023 and 2024 inventory across Europe since early last year. What has changed is how little remains, with the models planned to replace them still unconfirmed.
Next year, the brand founded in 2014 and led by William Li will be launching ramped versions of its older models in China, including the recently spotted station wagon — which several automotive bloggers linked to the new ET5 Touring.
Between 2021 and late 2022, Nio expanded to Norway, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden via a direct model
Denmark has since switched to an indirect business model with the nomination of a local distributor.
Supply
EV exclusively reported in May that Nio told European owners that no model updates would arrive until late 2027 and no new swap stations would be built.
Every vehicle on sale in Europe is a 2023 or 2024 build on the NT 2.0 platform.
In-house-developed chips were introduced on the third-generation platform, allowing the company to increase its vehicle margin and reduce dependency on suppliers such as Nvidia.
Nio refreshed its Chinese lineup in the first half of 2025 and launched the third-generation ES8 there last September, none of which has been announced for Europe.
The company has run clearance promotions on European stock since the first quarter, including 0% financing and price cuts of up to 37%.
Configurator/ Stock
Across Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, the configurator displays models and starting prices but carries no build or order function.
Each routes visitors to an inventory page.
Germany’s does so through a single call-to-action labelled ‘Bestandsfahrzeuge’, and Norway’s leads directly to inventory.
The Dutch and Swedish configurators open on an EL8 model page, which in the Dutch case leads on to the EL8 listings.
Norway, which sits outside the bloc and its 30.7% combined duty on Nio vehicles, lists 106 configurations, every one marked available. The three EU markets list fifteen between them, and only the six in Germany are described as available now.
Each listing shows one configuration and one price.
Nio does not state how many physical vehicles a listing represents, so the counts below are of configurations offered, not cars held in stock.
Germany
As of Sunday, the German inventory page lists four models and returns configurations for two.
Selecting the ET5 or the ET5 Touring produces nothing.
The EL6 returns four configurations at 57,950 euros ($67,700), 60,200 euros ($70,300), 60,950 euros ($71,200) and 61,000 euros ($71,300). The EL8 returns two Executive configurations at 92,100 euros ($107,600) and 100,600 euros ($117,500).
All six listings are marked “Schnell verfügbar” — quickly available. All four EL6 listings carry a note stating the model is available as a short-term registration of up to 24 hours at a lower price. Neither EL8 does.
A banner advertises the ET5, ET5 Touring and EL6 on those terms. Two of the three return nothing.
The configurator quotes the ET5 Touring from 47,500 euros ($55,500) including 19% VAT and excluding the battery. A separate banner advertises an EV incentive in the country of up to 6,000 euros ($7,010).
The Netherlands
The Dutch page still lists six models — the ET7, EL7, ET5, EL6, EL8 and ET5 Touring — two more than Germany.
The ET5 sedan, the ET7 and the EL7 return nothing, indicating that stock has been sold. The page returns eight configurations in total.
Three are EL8 Executives at 90,170 euros ($105,350), 90,670 euros ($105,940) and 91,670 euros ($107,100), each quoting 493 kilometres of WLTP range.
Three are EL6s — 60,400 euros ($70,600) twice on the Standard Range battery, and 61,650 euros ($72,000) on the Long Range.
Two are ET5 Tourings, at 59,580 euros ($69,600) and 57,900 euros ($67,700).
Every listing is marked “Binnenkort beschikbaar” — available soon. None is described as available now.
Battery subscriptions are listed at 289 euros ($338) a month on Long Range cars and 169 euros ($197) on Standard Range, the same figures as Germany.
A promotions panel invites buyers to discover stock deals on the ET5 and ET5 Touring — neither of which returns a car — and offers a personalised package combining a battery subscription discount, a purchase discount and financing terms, directing customers to contact a specialist.
Sweden
The Swedish page lists the same four models as Germany and returns a single configuration.
One EL8 appears, at 1,056,000 kronor, with a battery subscription of 2,999 kronor a month and a quoted WLTP range of 510 kilometres.
The listing is marked “Tillgängligt snart” — available soon. The ET5, ET5 Touring and EL6 return nothing, indicating that stock has been sold.
Norway
Norway is the exception on every measure.
The page returns 106 configurations across all four models, priced from 464,997 to 892,805 kroner, with battery subscriptions at 1,399 and 1,999 kroner a month.
Nineteen are EL8s, spanning 779,805 to 892,805 kroner ($83,950 to $96,120). Every listing is marked “Tilgjengelig” — available.
A promotions panel headed “Aktuelle kampanjer” asks whether the visitor is considering an ET5, EL6 or ET5 Touring and says the company has attractive offers on selected stock cars.
A second paragraph offers benefits on the battery subscription, financing, a purchase discount or a combination, assembled by an adviser on request.
The Dutch panel carries the same structure and wording. Norway’s sits above 106 available configurations, the Dutch above none.
Norway is not a member of the European Union and its imports are not subject to the 20.7% countervailing duty the bloc applies on top of a 10% standard tariff, a combined 30.7% that Nio has faced since October 2024.
Markets on Nio’s Own Site
Nio’s region selector offers nine destinations: Global, China, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Uzbekistan.
Denmark does not appear.
Nio relaunched there under the distributor Nic. Christiansen Group after abandoning direct sales, and the distributor markets it has added across Europe — among them Portugal, Belgium, Austria, Hungary and Greece — operate their own websites rather than pages on nio.com.
Europe is therefore represented on Nio’s own site by four markets, three of them in the European Union, holding fifteen configurations between them.
The Chinese Lineup
Nio’s Chinese website lists nine models: the ES8, ES9, ET5T, ET5, ES6, EC6, ET9, ET7 and EC7.
Four of those nine reach Europe under different names. The ES6 is sold as the EL6, the ES8 as the EL8 and the ET5T as the ET5 Touring.
The ES9, ET9, EC6 and EC7 have not been launched in Europe.
The ES7, sold in Europe as the EL7 and still listed on the Dutch site, no longer appears among the Chinese models with the five seat third-generation ES8 replacing as flagship five-seat SUV of the premium brand.
The Registration Record
Germany and the Netherlands are the two European Union markets publishing official monthly registration data, through the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) and the trade association BOVAG.
The KBA counts new vehicle registrations rather than retail sales.
The authority does not disclose how many units went to private or fleet customers as against manufacturer-registered demonstrators, showroom stock, press cars or courtesy vehicles, and publishes no model-level breakdown.
Nio registered three vehicles in Germany in July, against 47 a year earlier, a decline of 93.6%.
Across the first seven months the brand registered 18 German vehicles, down from 168, a fall of 89.3%. No month in 2026 has exceeded five. The full-year 2025 total was 325.
In the Netherlands, BOVAG data shows the Nio brand registered eight vehicles in the seven months to July, against 66 a year earlier, down 87.9%. April and May returned none at all.
Including the Firefly sub-brand, the group registered 47 Dutch vehicles against 73, down 35.6%, with Firefly accounting for 39 units, or 83.0% of the 2026 figure.
Nio Inc. registered 252 Dutch vehicles across 2025 — 199 Nio and 53 Firefly — of which 107, or 42.5% of the year, landed in December alone as buyers moved ahead of the benefit-in-kind change on January 1.
Between them, Germany and the Netherlands accounted for 26 Nio-brand registrations in the first seven months of 2026.
Norway publishes no equivalent official monthly series, and registrations there are tracked by the platform Elbilstatistikk.
Its figures, filtered to Nio Inc. and excluding unrelated makes matched by the search term, show 211 Norwegian registrations across both brands so far in 2026, of which 23 have come in August to the 23rd.
Firefly accounts for 89 of the 211, or 42.2%, leaving 122 for the Nio brand. The EL6 leads on 87, followed by the ET5 Touring on 17 and the EL8 on 12.
The ET5 registered four Norwegian vehicles this year, the ET7 one and the EL7 none.
Cumulatively since Nio entered Norway in 2021, Elbilstatistikk records 3,591 registrations across the group, led by 1,737 of the original ES8 and 753 EL6s. Seven were parallel imports.
Germany and the Netherlands together registered 26 Nio-brand vehicles over seven months.
The company said 105 cars would arrive in July. Twenty-one registered that month and 23 in August to the 23rd.
Replacement Product
Nio has no announced European product between now and late 2027.
The company refreshed its Chinese lineup in the first half of 2025 and launched the third-generation ES8 there last September. Neither has been announced for Europe, and its Chinese site now lists nine models against the four its German and Swedish filters offer.
Firefly, the group’s entry-level sub-brand, is sold in the Netherlands and Norway but not in Germany, and accounted for 39 of the group’s 47 Dutch registrations this year.
At the German brand’s 2026 run rate of under three registrations a month, the six configurations listed there represent a small number of months of supply even if each stands for more than one car. Sweden’s single listing is not marked available at all.
Nio’s Norwegian unit said in June that 105 cars built for that market would land in July, and the Norwegian page now returns 106 configurations.
Nio has not said what it will sell in Europe when the current stock is gone.
Nio’s Response
Nio has disputed the characterisation of its European position on the record.
Its Norwegian unit issued a statement on June 10 saying recent media coverage gave “an unnuanced picture” in which developments appeared more dramatic than the basis warranted, and that its European commitment was not being slowed but further developed.
“Europe is and remains a central part of Nio’s global commitment, and Norway is one of the markets where we have the strongest foundation,” said An Ho, general manager of Nio Norway, in remarks translated from Norwegian.
The statement argued that longer intervals between major launches are normal in established markets, and that reporting on future software and functionality in Europe rested largely on unconfirmed information. Ho said the company communicates when it has concrete plans and not before.
The release also announced a new battery swap station in the Oslo west and Bærum area, further development of the sales and distribution model, and the delivery of 105 cars built for the Norwegian market arriving in July.
Nio has announced no equivalent delivery for Germany, the Netherlands or Sweden.
The Norwegian release was not the first. In late March the same unit distributed a statement headed “Nio develops globally — Norway still the key market.” EV covered the June release at the time.
The Retail Footprint
Four European locations have closed in nine months: the Slagelse swap station in Denmark in November, a Berlin lobbying office, the Weiterstadt sales and service hub in mid-July and the Hamburg Nio House on July 20.
Manager Magazin reported in April that Nio was seeking subtenants for its four flagship German showrooms.
Munich Fashion Week’s website, where Nio is a sponsor, now describes the German network as three Nio Houses — Berlin, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf.
Every country general manager across the original European markets has left except one, after a market that sold six vehicles in the first two months of the year.
A Nio spokesperson told the South China Morning Post this month that the company “has no plans to retreat from Europe.”
