The L90, a three row SUV under Nio‘s sub-brand Onvo, has been selected for a police vehicle procurement project by the Provincial Public Security Bureau of China’s Sichuan province.
The information circulated on Chinese social media on Tuesday, after several automotive bloggers on Weibo shared images showing multiple Onvo vehicles bearing official authority branding.
According to the posts, the model’s selection was based on its safety performance and energy efficiency.
Earlier this month, the Onvo L90 achieved China’s highest five-star safety rating in the latest round of C-NCAP crash test evaluations, scoring 91.0% overall.
At the time of the model’s launch in late July, Nio’s founder and CEO William Li said the L90 had passed 62 crash tests that go well beyond industry requirements.
The Onvo L90 is not the first model from the Nio Group to be integrated in a police fleet in China, as units of the Nio ES6 and the Firefly EV have also been included in other cities.
Firefly EV
This Summer, Firefly’s debut model was adopted by China’s Urban Management Enforcement authorities, added to the fleet of the municipal authority of Anhui.
Nio‘s manufacturing footprint is located in Hefei, the capital city of the province.
The municipal authority is responsible for enforcing city regulations such as street vending, illegal construction, sanitation, and other local by-laws.
Nio ES6
Four years ago, Nio had also delivered eight Nio ES6 vehicles to the Laoshan District of city of Qingdao, in the Shandong province.
Because Nio is positioned as a premium brand, internet users questioned whether the vehicles complied with procurement procedures.
According to local media outlet Jimu News, the brand was chosen due to its battery swapping technology.
Citing a person familiar with the matter, the outlet noted that many departments pointed out that, by then, conventional EVs required up to 40 minutes to reach 80% charge, making them less suitable for high-frequency use, namely by public security agencies.
“We found after field research that vehicles supporting battery swap could solve this problem, so we chose Nio,” the source stated.
Onvo Limited Editions
The vehicles featured in the images have a black exterior paint, which is likely the ‘Mountain Black,’ one of the five body colors featured since the model’s debut five months ago.
Last month, the company unveiled a new black-themed limited edition for the L90 SUV, the ‘Black Knight’ Edition, capped at 999 units.
Two weeks later, a similar version was released for the debut L60, with 666 units available for purchase.
Recent special editions have been launched to boost demand for the family sub-brand, which has struggled over the past two months, following three consecutive months of Onvo L90 deliveries exceeding 10,000 units.
The model is facing increasing competition in the three-row segment, with the launch of the six-seat Tesla Model Y L in late August, which is positioned between the Onvo L90 and the more recent, premium Nio ES8.
Coconut 2.1.0
Onvo began rolling out on Monday the latest software update for its ‘Coconut’ operating system, available on both the L60 and L90 models.
The new update brings integrated urban navigation and parking assistance into Nio‘s unified end-to-end (E2E) City Pilot driver assistance.
In late October, the 2.0.6 update introduced a smarter in-car voice assistant, an improved driving experience, and a slightly increased range through software-based energy optimization.
