Electric car manufacturer Nio is working on a third brand that will produce the most affordable electric cars.
Nio has already confirmed work on a second mass market brand, now known as ALPS. From mid-2024, the brand plans to supply electric vehicles across China priced between 150,000 and 300,000 yuan ($22,000 and $44,000).
This third brand is currently known as Project Firefly and will produce even more affordable electric vehicles. In fact, its products will cost between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan, or about 15,000 to 30,000 US dollars. Like ALPS, Project Firefly is said to operate independently of Nio and have its own research teams.
Few details are known about the brand, including when it might launch and when its first models might start hitting the market.
That’s not the only thing Nio is working on. The company plans to enter the world of smartphones with its own product. While we’re more used to seeing smartphone makers like Huawei and Xiaomi enter the automotive space, the reverse is unusual.
Reports claim that the Nio phone will be designed to perfectly complement the car maker’s infotainment systems and will share a color palette with the cars. It is also known that, like many major phone manufacturers, Nio will release one flagship model each year, and that the device will cost less than the comparable iPhone.
The news comes shortly after Nio reported deliveries of 10,052 vehicles in July, prompting Morgan Stanley analyst Tim Xiao to speculate that the brand could deliver between 36,000 and 38,000 vehicles in the third quarter of 2022.
