Data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) showed that Nio Inc. — including the premium Nio brand and the sub-brands Onvo and Firefly — exported 88 vehicles from China in May.
The figure doubled from the 44 units shipped in April, which had marked the group’s lowest monthly export total since July 2025.
Firefly accounted for the bulk of the rebound, with 59 units shipped overseas — a month-over-month jump from just seven units in April — while the Nio brand contributed 24 vehicles and Onvo added five.
May’s result brings the Shanghai-based group’s cumulative exports for the first five months of 2026 to 403 vehicles — up from 315 through April and well above the 98 units shipped in the same January-to-April window a year ago, when only the Nio brand was being exported.
Nio‘s three manufacturing plants are located in Hefei, in China’s Anhui Province.
The group separately reported 37,705 global deliveries for May, a 62.3% year-over-year increase and the company’s best monthly result of 2026.
Across the group’s three brands, exports accounted for 0.23% of the 37,705 vehicles delivered in May — a ratio that has remained essentially flat throughout 2026.
Firefly posted the highest export share at 1.04%, with 59 of its 5,663 monthly deliveries shipped overseas, while the Nio brand exported 0.12% of its 20,013 units.
Onvo‘s five exported vehicles represented 0.04% of the sub-brand’s 12,029 deliveries — reflecting a lineup still almost entirely focused on the domestic Chinese market, where the L80 launch and refreshed L90 drove a 124.76% sequential surge in May.
The 403 vehicles exported through May represent just 0.27% of the 150,526 vehicles delivered globally during the same period.
Firefly Leads the Rebound
Firefly shipped 59 vehicles in May, up from seven in April and its highest monthly total since the 70 units exported in January.
The sub-brand’s exports have been volatile since its overseas shipments began in August 2025.
The peak came in December, when Firefly accounted for 389 of the group’s record 750 exports — more than half of the total.
Volumes then dropped sharply through the first quarter of 2026 as Chinese New Year disrupted production, with just 12 units shipped in February and 41 in March before collapsing to seven in April.
Through the first five months of 2026, Firefly has exported 189 vehicles — nearly matching the Nio brand’s 195 units and representing 46.9% of the group total.
The sub-brand debuted in Europe in mid-August 2025, starting with the Netherlands and Norway, and has since expanded to Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Portugal, and Luxembourg.
Right-hand-drive production began in November 2025, enabling Firefly‘s entry into Singapore and, more recently, Thailand.
Brand chief Daniel Jin told Nikkei in March that the sub-brand plans to launch in 20 to 30 countries this year, while acknowledging that early 2026 overseas sales had fallen “considerably.”
Founder and CEO William Li wrote in an internal letter earlier this year that Firefly serves as the group’s “pioneering brand for global market entry,” adding that the priority order overseas is “Firefly, Onvo, Nio” — the reverse of the domestic hierarchy.
Nio Brand
The premium Nio brand shipped 24 vehicles in May, down 27.3% from 33 in April.
The ES6 — marketed as the ‘EL6’ in overseas markets — remained the top-exported model with 10 units, followed by the ES8 and ET5 Touring station wagon with five units each.
Nio also shipped two ET5 sedans and two ET9 flagship sedans.
The brand’s five-month export total stands at 195 vehicles.
All ET9 registrations align with the company’s expansion into Uzbekistan, where the flagship sedan was offered from the start alongside the EL6, EL8, ET5, and ET5 Touring.
Notably, the vehicles being shipped overseas are not headed to Nio‘s established European markets.
As EV exclusively reported, Nio told its European operations during a customer event in the Netherlands that no model updates would arrive in Europe until late 2027.
Every vehicle currently offered across the brand’s 11 European markets — including Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark — remains a 2023 or 2024 model year built on the older NT 2.0 platform.
The 2025 and 2026 model-year refreshes launched in China have not reached European showrooms.
In a separate exclusive report, a source told EV that the brand’s European registration data has been distorted by its subscription model since the 2022 launch, meaning official figures have misrepresented Nio‘s actual commercial presence on the continent.
The exports tracked through CPCA data are instead flowing to newer markets such as Uzbekistan, Costa Rica, and Armenia — where the group entered this year through local distributor partnerships.
Nio entered Europe via Norway in October 2021 and expanded to Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark a year later.
The brand has since added markets through distributor partnerships in Belgium, Greece, Austria, Portugal, Hungary, and, most recently, Costa Rica — where all three of the group’s brands are sold from a single showroom opened on March 30.
Bulgaria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Cyprus are among the markets scheduled for this year.
Nio is in the process of transitioning its European operations away from a direct-sales model toward an asset-light distributor structure to lower costs and widen its footprint.
Onvo’s Slower Exports
Onvo shipped five vehicles from China in May — four L60 units and one L90, according to the CPCA data.
The figure is marginally higher than the four units exported in April but consistent with the brand’s low overseas volumes since shipments began in late 2025.
The sub-brand’s five-month total stands at 19 units, split between 11 L60s and eight L90s.
Onvo‘s overseas presence remains limited. Uzbekistan was the sub-brand’s first international market, where an authorized showroom in Tashkent opened in February through local distributor Abu Sahiy Motors.
The L60 and L90 are available there.
Onvo also launched in Armenia through dealer N-Motors in March alongside the Nio brand and is offered in Costa Rica as part of the group’s multi-brand showroom.
Founder and CEO William Li has said the brand will be introduced to European markets starting in 2027.
In the meantime, the brand’s primary focus is the domestic Chinese market, where it delivered 12,029 vehicles in May — driven by the launch of the L80 SUV and the refreshed 2026 L90.
Overseas Targets
Co-founder and President Qin Lihong said in March that the group aims to deliver “several thousand units” overseas this year while laying the groundwork for a “larger-scale expansion in the next two to three years.”
At the current pace of 403 units through five months — an average of roughly 81 vehicles per month — annualized exports would reach fewer than 1,000 vehicles, well below the stated ambition.
Li has set a goal for the group to operate across 40 countries and regions by year-end, up from approximately 20 at the close of 2025.
