Nio Inc. (; stylized as NIO) is a Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Shanghai. Founded in 2014, it adopted its current name in 2016. The company primarily designs and sells electric vehicles, including sedans and SUVs, but has expanded into other products and services, such as chip development, Smartphones, and power solutions.
In 2018, Nio filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
Nio operates 3,989 battery swapping stations globally, with the majority being located in China (as of July 2026). The company has performed over 119 million swaps. The company develops semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicle technologies and has participated in Formula E racing since 2014. In 2024, it launched the Onvo and Firefly brands to serve the mass-market segment.
Overview Nio launched its brand on 21 November 2016 at the Saatchi Gallery in London. Investors included Tencent, Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Lenovo, and TPG Capital. The company also unveiled its first model, the Nio EP9 sports car, on the same day.
A month earlier, in October 2016, the company received an autonomous vehicle testing permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and began testing on public roads under the state’s Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program. It stated plans to develop vehicles with Level 3 and Level 4 autonomy.
In May 2018, Nio opened its first battery-swap station in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen, Guangdong, called the Power Swap Station. It initially served the ES8 model only.
The company filed for an initial public offering worth about US$1.8 billion on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2018.
By 2020, Nio faced major financial difficulties, and its share price had fallen 62% since the IPO. The Hefei city government acquired a 25% stake and helped the company secure loans from six local banks to strengthen its battery, engine, and control-system supply chains. In April 2020, Nio raised about US$1 billion from Chinese investors and transferred its main assets to a new subsidiary, Nio China, headquartered in Hefei. Vehicle production increased by 81% over the following year, and the company's valuation rose to about US$100 billion.
In August 2020, Nio introduced its Battery as a Service (BaaS) program and created a joint battery-asset company with Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), Hubei Science Technology Investment Group, and a subsidiary of Guotai Junan International Holdings. Each partner contributed CN¥200 million (about US$32 million) for a 25% share. The service lowered the purchase price of Nio vehicles by roughly 25%.
In May 2021, the company began its European expansion, announcing plans to start deliveries to Norway by September that year. In the third quarter of 2021, it delivered 24,439 ES8, ES6, and EC6 vehicles, an increase of about 100% year-on-year. Nio also announced plans to expand to 25 countries and regions by 2025.
In August 2023, Nio Capital led the Series A financing of Mavel, a supplier of electric-drive systems. The same month, Nio was chosen to supply electric cars for taxi services in Oslo.
On 14 December 2023, founder and CEO William Li announced that Nio would launch a new brand for the family-car market to compete in lower price segments. The brand was planned to include three models and target the 200,000 yuan (≈€25,000) range.
Later that month, the company obtained full production qualification for automobiles and announced the purchase of JAC factories that manufacture Nio vehicles, for 3.2 billion yuan. The transaction ended JAC's role as Nio's original-equipment manufacturer.
Vehicles
Currently (as of 2026) Nio ET5 Nio EC6 Nio ES6 Nio EC7 Nio ES7 Nio ET7 Nio ES8 Nio ET9 Nio ES9
Nio brand
Nio's first car, the Nio EP9 electric sports car, was unveiled on 21 November 2016, the same day the brand was launched. The company introduced the ES8, a seven-seat electric SUV, in December 2017 and began deliveries in June 2018. The ES6, a five-seat SUV, followed in December 2018 with deliveries starting in June 2019. In December 2019, Nio unveiled the EC6, a five-seat coupé-SUV, with deliveries beginning in September 2020. The ET7 sedan debuted in January 2021, and the smaller ET5 sedan was revealed at Nio Day in December 2021.
As of 2024, Nio has revealed two concept cars: the Eve at SXSW 2017 and the ET Preview at Auto Shanghai 2019.
Onvo brand
In May 2024, Nio introduced a mass-market brand, Onvo (). The brand was developed under the internal codename "Alps" until the name was announced in March 2024. The name Onvo stands for "On Voyage," while the Chinese name means "joyful path," expressing family togetherness. The brand was initially led by Alan Ai, a senior vice president of Nio, who was replaced by Shen Fei in April 2025 after the brand missed early sales targets.
Onvo's first model, the Onvo L60, began deliveries in September 2024. The L60 targets the Tesla Model Y and was directly compared with it at launch. Nio CEO William Li stated that Onvo vehicles are expected to be sold in export markets.
Firefly brand
In December 2024, Nio announced another new brand, Firefly (), developed from its internal codename of the same name. It is positioned as Nio's electric small-car brand. Firefly's first model was launched in April 2025 in China and in August 2025 in Europe. Nio described it as a competitor to Smart and Mini small cars.
Battery swapping
Nio operates an automated network of battery swapping stations that allow vehicle owners to replace or upgrade their battery packs in under five minutes. The service supports both permanent upgrades and temporary rentals and forms part of the company's wider energy system.
Network development The first phase of Nio's swap network was completed in November 2018, with 18 stations installed at 14 sites along the G4 Beijing–Hong Kong and Macau Expressway, linking Beijing with the Pearl River Delta. A second phase, completed in January 2019, added eight stations along the G2 Beijing–Shanghai Expressway.
By March 2021, Nio had completed its two-millionth battery swap in Suzhou and operated 193 swap stations, 134 supercharging stations, and 327 destination stations across China. In December 2021, the company reached its goal of 700 stations ahead of schedule, after performing more than 5.3 million swaps.
By December 2022, Nio had built 1,305 stations across all provincial regions in China. The stations provided an average of 40,000 swaps per day and had completed a total of 15 million swaps. The company opened its first European swap station in Norway in 2022, and by August 2023, seven were operating in Germany. By February 2026, the network had completed 100 million swaps.
Technology and station design Nio's second-generation stations use automated systems that park and exchange the battery while the driver remains inside the vehicle. Later versions integrate energy storage and grid-interaction functions for highway service areas.
Partnerships and expansion Between late 2023 and early 2024, Nio signed cooperation agreements with Changan Automobile, Geely Holding, JAC Group, and Chery Automobile covering battery swapping standards, station technology, and network expansion. In March 2024, Nio Power also partnered with Zhongan Energy of Anhui Province to advance battery standards, charging technologies, and network construction.
Battery specifications To ensure compatibility between vehicle models, all swap-compatible batteries share standardized external dimensions.
Nio's original 70 kWh NMC pack was replaced in 2021 by a 75 kWh dual-chemistry NMC/LFP design. It combined the higher energy density and cold-weather performance of NMC cells with the safety and longer lifespan of LFP cells. In 2024, the 75 kWh pack was updated to an all-LFP, module-less design supporting 170 kW DC fast charging.
In mid-2024, Nio began receiving deliveries from WeLion of its 150 kWh semi-solid-state NMC pack, with an energy density of 360 Wh/kg. The pack weighs about 20 kg more than the 100 kWh liquid pack and was initially available only for short-term rental through swap stations.
+ Swap-compatible battery packs Battery capacity Year Supplier Chemistry Weight Length Width Height Peak Voltage CapacityGrossUsable 70 kWh — 2018 CATL NMC 90 kW 350 V 200 Ah 75 kWh 73.5 kWh 2021 NMC–LFP mix — — 140 kW 386 V 195 Ah 2024 LFP — — 170 kW 367 V 205 Ah 100 kWh 90.0 kWh 2019 NMC — — 127 kW 358 V 280 Ah 2022 CALB — — 102 kWh—2025CATL———600 kW~925 V 150 kWh — 2024 WeLion NMC semi-SSB — — — 337 V 446 Ah Onvo 60.6 kWh 59.0 kWh 2024 FinDreams LFP — — — 150 kW 685 V — 85.1 kWh — 2024 CALB NMC — — 250 kW 792 V —
Technologies
Nomi AI
Nomi is Nio's in-car digital assistant integrated into the dashboard. The company describes it as the world's first AI assistant available in a production vehicle.
The Nomi Mate 2.0 has a circular AMOLED display with an animated, human-like avatar that rotates and blinks to look toward passengers. The system uses artificial intelligence to learn driver habits and can automatically adjust seat position, steering wheel height, and cabin temperature. Drivers can also give Nomi voice commands to open windows, change the temperature, or take in-car photos displayed on the infotainment screen.
Nio Pilot Nio Pilot is the company's SAE Level 2 semi-autonomous driving system that provides driver-assistance functions. It debuted with the ES8 model. Over-the-air software updates in 2018 and 2019 added features such as lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, automatic emergency braking, highway pilot (Nio Navigate on Pilot, NNOP), traffic jam assistance, and automatic lane changes.
The system uses twenty-three sensors, including a trifocal front camera, five radars, twelve ultrasonic sensors, and a driver-monitoring camera. Nio was among the first automakers to release a production car using the Mobileye EyeQ4 vision processor.
In August 2021, a 31-year-old driver died when his Nio ES8 struck a stationary construction vehicle. The self-driving system was still in beta testing and was not designed to detect static obstacles. The vehicle manual stated that drivers must take control near construction zones. The driver's family later alleged that Nio could have altered or withheld vehicle data stored on its servers.
Aquila (Nio Autonomous Driving) In November 2019, Nio announced a partnership with Mobileye to create a consumer car called Aquila, using Mobileye's SAE Level 4 automated driving system. The company planned to launch the model by 2022.
Aquila comprises 33 sensors, including 11 high-resolution cameras, a lidar scanner, five radar units, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and two positioning systems: one using short-range communication (V2X) and one using high-accuracy mapping (ADMS).
The system first appeared in the ET7 sedan. Nio began delivering the model in the first quarter of 2022.
Autonomous driving chips
Adam Nio introduced the Adam autonomous driving computer with the ET7 in 2021, and deliveries began in early 2022. Adam uses four Nvidia Drive Orin processors that together provide 1,016 tera-operations per second (TOPS), a standard measure of computing performance for driver-assistance systems.
Adam is standard equipment on all Nio vehicles built on the NT 2.0 platform.
Shenji NX9031 Nio announced the Shenji NX9031, an autonomous driving chip, at Nio Day 2023. The company said the chip was produced in July 2024, marking completion of its design phase ("tape-out").