- Nio management said orders for the Firefly were in line with expectations, and as before avoided talking about specific numbers.
- Firefly will focus on one car, just as the Mini did in its early days.
The management of Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO) aims for Firefly, the company's third brand, to contribute 10 percent of its sales, but emphasized that this could take some time.
"In the long run, we would like Firefly to reach about 10 percent of Nio Inc's total sales, as Mini accounts for about 10 percent of BMW's sales," William Li, Nio's founder, chairman and CEO, said yesterday.
Li mentioned the goal in an interview with local media in Shanghai yesterday, along with Firefly president Daniel Jin.
This comes a day after Firefly officially launched its first model under the same name as the brand, with a starting price in China of RMB 119,800 ($16,410) including the battery pack, and deliveries are set to begin on April 29.
"Firefly is positioned as a high-end small car, and we hope it will account for 10 percent of the company's total sales in the long run," Li said in the group interview.
Firefly is the newest brand under the Nio Inc umbrella and this is its first year, and reaching that goal will take a process, Li emphasized.
Nio Inc is targeting a doubling of deliveries in 2025 compared to 2024, the company's management previously mentioned. It delivered 221,970 vehicles last year, according to data compiled by CnEVPost.
Asked about market feedback, the company emphasized that Firefly, like the Nio brand, does not publish order data.
Overall, orders for Firefly were in line with expectations and relatively good, Jin said.
Neither Li nor Jin mentioned any capacity or sales targets for Firefly, which may be due in part to lessons learned from sister brand Onvo.
Onvo launched its first model, the L60, in September 2024, and Nio's management shared detailed monthly capacity targets in a similar media interview. The company then announced specific monthly delivery targets but failed to meet them, leading to the resignation of former Onvo president Alan AI.
Li said yesterday that Firefly will focus on one car first, as Mini did in its early days.
"As for how to build derivatives based on this car, that will have to be considered later when it makes money," Li said.
The Mini brand sold more than 200,000 units a year globally, so it could do with some derivatives, Li said.
"Our current goal is to get the base model right and build on that to make the car more interesting," he said.
The company will make more interesting things without requiring a large investment in R&D, such as modifying the car without altering the body glass or adding some interesting accessories, Li said.
Jin emphasized that Firefly will use the Mini as a value anchor and will also react to market conditions.
Firefly's pre-sales price at Nio Day 2024 last December was RMB 148,800, the same as the official discounted starting price of the all-electric Mini Cooper in China at the time.
Firefly's official price was lowered by RMB 29,000, or 19.49 percent, which Jin explained is due to the fact that the Chinese car market has gone through two relatively major price reshuffles in the past six months.
For the RMB 119,800 price tag, Nio management believes Firefly still has profit margins.
"I hope the RMB 119,800 pricing will make this car a new profit growth point," Jin said.
($1 = RMB 7.3003)
More on Nio
