Chinese company Nio introduces the Firefly brand to compete with the BMW Mini

GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – Nio unveiled a low-cost brand called Firefly on Saturday that it describes as a rival to BMW’s Mercedes Smart and Mini cars in the Chinese electric carmaker’s latest attempt to expand its customer base and boost sales.

CEO William Li announced the new brand at an annual company event in Guangzhou, and said pre-sales will begin immediately with prices starting at 148,800 yuan ($20,394).

Showing off three Firefly cars in lavender, lemon and beige, he said the car offers a tight turning radius of 4.7 meters and autonomous parking technology.

Customers can place their orders on the Firefly app, which said the cars will be officially launched in April.

“We’re building the Firefly to be smarter than Mini and more smart than Mini,” Lee said.

BMW’s small pure electric car also retails at a starting price of 148,800 yuan in China, while Mercedes’ smart car No. 1 starts at 154,900 yuan.

Local brands Firefly will compete with BYD’s Seal and Xpeng’s Mona.

Nio, one of China’s largest electric car companies by sales, is combating increasing price competition in China by launching cheaper models this year, after earlier in May unveiling another model dubbed “Onvo.”

Nio, which has pegged its European sales at hundreds of vehicles a year, originally planned the Firefly brand to boost its share in Europe, executives previously said.

It would have competed with Renault, Fiat, Peugeot from Stellantis and Mini from BMW in the European small car segment with an annual demand of 4 million cars.

But the European Commission in October imposed an additional tariff of more than 20% on Nio cars, including Firefly electric cars, exported from China to the region over the next five years. Analysts said this would greatly undermine the brand’s price competitiveness.

Lee did not provide details about Firefly’s sales plans during the event.

Nio aims to double its sales in 2025 and break even in 2026, but said this month that its sales growth was two years behind schedule.

Reuters reported in November that Nio was planning to launch its first range-extended hybrid model under the Firefly brand in 2026 for sales in overseas markets only.

($1 = 7.2961 Chinese yuan)

($1 = 7.2961 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Jason Neely)