Nio, the electric vehicle manufacturer that’s been labeled “China’s Tesla”, has ambitions that far exceed its home market.
Company founder and CEO William Li revealed in an interview that Nio has plans to expand to Europe, but the main goal right now is to compete with German rivals in China.
Speaking with Autonews Europe, Li said the automaker has global ambitions.
“Yes. We want to be a global brand. We have almost 200 people in Munich, for example. But we are still a very young company and have limited resources,” the executive replied when asked if Europe appealed to Nio.
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“If we expand abroad, we should be profitable. That’s why we should be very careful when we expand outside of China because it’s very easy to enter a market, but very hard to survive and win,” he added.
Li also touched the subject of the ET Preview concept car unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show in April. Asked when the Tesla Model 3 rival will go into production, Li did not provide a timeline. “That was just to show the car’s styling. We will gather the feedback and then decide when and how to launch a sedan in that segment,” he explained.
Currently, Nio has two all-electric SUVs in its lineup, the ES8 and the newer ES6. Starting at around $75,000, the former competes with the Audi Q7, BMW X5 and Mercedes-Benz GLE in China, while the latter, priced from around $52,000, goes against the Audi Q5, BMW X3 and Mercedes-Benz GLC.
Li says Nio has a market share of more than 10 percent with the ES8 SUV in China and “that is just the beginning.” The company recently started delivering the smaller ES6 SUV which will help it increase sales further in the world’s largest car market.
