Last week, William Li accompanied several foreigners on a tour of a battery swap station, sparking a new round of rumors that Nio and Mercedes-Benz had entered into a partnership.
(Image credit: CnEVPost)
Nio (NYSE: NIO) once again denied after new rumors of it partnering with Mercedes-Benz sparked widespread discussion.
"It's false information," a Nio spokesperson told CnEVPost when asked about the recently surfaced rumors of a partnership between the company and Mercedes-Benz.
On August 4, videos circulating in several WeChat groups as well as on Weibo showed Nio founder, chairman and CEO William Li accompanying several foreigners on a tour of a battery swap station.
At the time, some people speculated that the foreigners might be from Mercedes-Benz, reigniting the discussion about Nio's potential cooperation with the German automaker.
Also on August 4, a Chinse forum user left a comment saying that it had been confirmed that Nio's battery swap platform would be opened up to Mercedes-Benz and that the Chinese EV company would gain a new profit model.
The videos, and the forum user's comment, sparked a new round of discussion, especially considering that late last month Volkswagen and Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV), and Audi and SAIC, entered into partnerships, respectively.
This isn't the first time Nio has denied its partnership with Mercedes-Benz.
Since late May, an image of Mercedes CEO Ola Källenius meeting at a Nio House with people including Nio's Li has been circulating regularly on social media. It is not clear when the image was taken, and many are curious as to what exactly they talked about.
On June 13, a screenshot appeared in several WeChat groups with text claiming that Mercedes-Benz would be using Nio's battery swap network and would be building its next-generation models based on Nio's standards.
The image mimicked the style of the Nio App page as well as the company's statement, though the publisher of the statement did not exist among Nio App users.
Nio's legal department later left a comment on a Weibo post that shared the image saying that the statement in the image was a forgery.
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