The central Chinese city of Hefei, where China is headquartered, today announced a plan to accelerate the development of the local new energy vehicle industry, providing the EV maker with a more favorable policy environment.

The plan says it will support JAC Motors, Nio, JAC Volkswagen, Ankai Automobile, Hefei Changan, Chery, and other automakers to strengthen their new energy vehicle supply chains.

It also says it will support their innovation in business models such as "separating body and battery" to improve the international competitiveness of their brands and cultivate industry leaders.

Hefei also supports power batteries, drive motors, BMS, LIDAR, high-precision maps, automatic driving, and other new energy vehicle parts and components enterprises to improve supply capacity.

The city will also improve the recycling system of power battery recovery, step-by-step utilization, and recycling, and establish and improve the power battery transportation and storage, maintenance, safety inspection, decommissioning and withdrawal, recycling, and other aspects of the management system.

Hefei's goal is that by 2025, the scale of the city's new energy vehicle industry will exceed RMB 100 billion, and its vehicle production capacity will reach 1 million units, making it an important new energy vehicle industrial base in China.

On April 29, Nio signed an agreement to invest in Nio China with strategic investors including Hefei Construction Investment Holding (Group) Company Limited, and reached an agreement with the Hefei Economic and Technological Development Zone to locate Nio China's headquarters.

On October 9, Nio announced the official opening of Nio China's headquarters in the Anhui Pilot Free Trade Zone.

William Li Bin, founder, chairman, and CEO of Nio, said at the time, "Nio China will strive to be conducive to Hefei's competition in the global new energy vehicle industry and the development of a world-class new energy vehicle industry cluster."