(Bloomberg) -- Chinese electric car maker Nio Inc. started sales of its most expensive car as it seeks to double deliveries in 2025 and eventually become profitable.
The 10-year-old automaker officially launched the flagship ET9 battery-electric sedan at its annual customer event Saturday in Guangzhou. Priced from 788,000 yuan ($108,000), or 660,000 yuan if the owner opts to rent the battery, the executive four-seater is set to take on Porsche AG’s Panamera series and Mercedes-Benz Group AG’s luxury S range.
The ET9 will be able to drive 650 kilometers (404 miles) on one charge with a 100 KWh battery, and its high-voltage charging system will provide 225 kilometers of range in as little as five minutes. It will also come equipped with Nio’s intelligent driving system powered by chips that were developed in-house, 35 speakers, and features including extended legroom. Deliveries will start as soon as March.
Nio also unveiled a second sub-brand, Firefly, aimed at more budget-conscious drivers. Its only model in China, installed with nine airbags, will go up against BMW AG’s Mini or Mercedes’ Smart, with a pre-sale price starting from 148,800 yuan.
“Firefly can serve a wider group with Nio’s most innovative technologies,” founder and Chief Executive Officer William Li said at the event. “We are about to bring the best mini cars to global customers.”
Firefly follows the launch of the Onvo brand earlier this year, whose first model competes directly with Tesla Inc.’s Model Y sport utility vehicles.
At a media event in Shanghai last week, Li said he was determined to double annual sales next year to at least 440,000 vehicles. Apart from a modest increase in shipments of Nio’s mainline cars, Onvo is expected to reach average monthly sales of 20,000, while Firefly should add “several thousand” deliveries per month, Li said.
Once considered one of the brightest rising stars in China’s electric vehicle market, Nio has fallen short of sales targets and continues to post losses. It US-traded shares have slumped roughly 50% this year, more than peers Xpeng Inc. and Li Auto Inc.
Nio typically launches its major products and outlines strategy at “Nio Day” — a year-end gathering for corporate partners, customers and media. For the first event in 2017, the company paid for flights and luxury hotels for everyone who had ordered a vehicle in the year before production started. R&B star Bruno Mars headlined the 2018 event.
Nio had originally planed to launch Firefly simultaneously in China and Europe and the brand will now enter Europe in 2025, Li said. It has also been designed with a separate battery swapping system, which may allow a rapid deployment with smaller batteries, after Nio encountered challenges in building battery swap stations in Europe.
Meanwhile, the slow ramp-up of Onvo, which delivered only around 10,000 vehicles in its first three months, has concerned investors. Having missed its operational targets for three consecutive years, Nio has doubled down on improving its performance to meet already-delayed profitability goal in 2026.
“Profitability in 2026 is a baseline,” Li said. “It’s a task we can’t afford a miss.”
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