Nio Inc.’s sub-brand Onvo has added the L60 SUV to the law enforcement fleet of the Laoshan District People’s Procuratorate in Qingdao, Shandong province, for official duty use.
The delivery was highlighted over the weekend by automotive blogger ‘不严肃的克拉拉’ on Weibo, who shared pictures of the vehicle parked outside the procuratore building.
The white Onvo L60 is fitted with emergency light bars and police markings. It is unclear how many vehicles were included in the fleet.
The Laoshan District is described as using the deployment to advance its adoption of new-energy vehicles within judicial and law-enforcement agencies, as well as to pilot Nio‘s Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) model — which separates vehicle and battery ownership — in a government setting.
A Return to Laoshan
In November 2021, Nio delivered eight ES6 SUVs to the Laoshan District of Qingdao for use by local public security authorities.
At the time, the decision drew attention on Chinese social media, with internet users questioning whether the procurement of a premium-brand vehicle complied with government purchasing procedures.
According to local media outlet Jimu News, citing a person familiar with the matter, the brand was chosen due to its battery-swapping technology.
The source noted that many departments had found conventional EVs required up to 40 minutes to reach 80% charge, making them less suitable for high-frequency use by public security agencies.
The same operational advantage — rapid energy replenishment through battery swapping rather than prolonged charging sessions — appears to have played a role in the L60’s selection by the procuratorate nearly five years later.
Nio operates the largest network of battery swap stations in China — including over 3,800 stations across the country.
The EV maker aims to add 3,000 stations to the network in the following two and a half years.
Government Fleet Presence
The Laoshan delivery is the latest in a series of government and law-enforcement integrations for vehicles across Nio‘s three-brand portfolio.
In late December 2025, the Onvo L90 — a three-row SUV and the brand’s second model — was selected for a police vehicle procurement project by the Provincial Public Security Bureau of Sichuan province.
The model’s selection was based on its safety performance and energy efficiency, according to posts by automotive bloggers on Weibo at the time.
In early January, Nio signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Hunan Provincial Police Association.
The deal covered vehicles from all three of the company’s brands — Nio, Onvo, and Firefly — and followed a signing ceremony held in Changsha.
Hunan is a province in south-central China with over 65 million inhabitants, making it one of the country’s ten most populous.
Prior to those deals, Firefly‘s debut model had already been adopted by China’s Urban Management Enforcement authorities in mid-2025, joining the fleet of the municipal authority of Anhui province.
Nio‘s manufacturing footprint is located in the capital city of Hefei.
Police Equipment Expo
Nio‘s push into government fleets was formalized in May 2025, when the company showcased models at the 12th China International Exhibition on Police Equipment — the only police equipment expo hosted by China’s Ministry of Public Security.
The Shanghai-based EV maker displayed the Nio ES6 SUV, the Onvo L60, and the Firefly debut model at the event, held at the Shougang Convention and Exhibition Center in Beijing.
It marked the first time Nio had participated in an international police equipment show and the first time battery swap-enabled models had appeared at such an exhibition.
At the time, Nio described the L60 as well-suited for police patrols due to its cost-effectiveness and 900-volt architecture, and said Firefly, with its compact body, was particularly suitable for urban patrol and community policing scenarios.
Policy Tailwinds
The government fleet integrations come against a backdrop of policy support for domestic new-energy vehicle adoption in the public sector.
In October 2024, China’s National Government Offices Administration published a directive stating that central government agencies and their affiliated organizations should take the lead in using domestically produced NEVs when equipping and updating their official vehicles.
China’s State Council issued a new regulation in late September 2025 — effective January 1, 2026 — stipulating that government departments should use locally produced vehicles and prioritize the use of NEVs when procuring official vehicles centrally.
Products manufactured or substantially processed within China are eligible for a 20% price evaluation advantage in competitive government procurement under the updated framework.
Nio has said it will further deepen its cooperation with government and police departments to promote the application of smart EVs in the public sector.
Lineup Refresh
The L60 currently serving in Laoshan is the existing version of Onvo‘s debut model, which launched in September 2024 as a direct competitor to the Tesla Model Y.
However, a refreshed version of the SUV is imminent.
Nio‘s founder and CEO William Li said on Sunday during a live-streamed event that Onvo will open pre-sales for the facelifted L60 at the end of May, with the official market launch scheduled for June.
The updated model will follow the two-trim structure already deployed across the rest of the Onvo lineup.
One variant will be equipped with LiDAR sensors and Nio‘s in-house Shenji NX9031 smart-driving chip, while another will use the Shenji chip without LiDAR.
The decision to add LiDAR to the L60 represents a reversal of the sub-brand’s original sensor strategy.
When Onvo launched in 2024, the L60 was marketed as a vision-only vehicle. Earlier this year, brand chief Fei Shen said that while the L90 would receive a LiDAR-equipped version, the L60 would continue to rely on a pure-vision solution.
That position changed in March, when a regulatory filing from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology revealed a LiDAR-equipped L60 variant for the first time.
The 2026 Onvo L90, which launched on April 21 and began deliveries last week, was the first model in the sub-brand to adopt the Shenji chip and LiDAR sensors.
The five-seat L80 is set to launch on May 15 and will also be available in both pure-vision and LiDAR configurations.
All models under the Nio main brand have featured roof-mounted LiDAR as standard equipment since the brand’s inception.
The extension of the sensor to Onvo‘s full lineup brings the sub-brand closer to the parent company’s approach to advanced driver assistance, at a time when Nio Group is concentrating resources in the second quarter to ensure the smooth launch of the Nio ES9 and Onvo L80.
