Pu Yang, Firefly’s head of marketing, said on June 25 that the brand’s vehicles have begun internal testing at the first batch of fifth-generation pioneer stations.
- Firefly has started battery swap beta testing at pioneer stations in six cities, paving the way for full access to Nio’s battery swap network.
- Firefly will release updates on its swap progress every month going forward.
Nio Inc’s (NYSE: NIO) compact EV brand Firefly has begun beta testing fifth-generation swap stations across several Chinese cities, marking a key step toward integrating the small car into Nio’s mature swap network.
Firefly brand marketing head Pu Yang said Thursday that the model has entered the first batch of fifth-generation pioneer stations for beta testing as of today, with the effort covering Shanghai, Beijing, Hefei, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Kunshan.
Many users had been closely tracking Firefly’s swap compatibility progress, eager to see the model join Nio’s system soon, Pu noted. He offered an explanation of why this round of testing is necessary.
The fifth-generation swap stations need to accommodate multiple Nio Inc models, and the wide gap in their specifications makes the matching and calibration work fairly difficult, Pu said.
The flagship SUV (sport utility vehicle) ES9 measures 5.3 meters in length, while the current Firefly EV is just 4.003 meters long. The two differ markedly in exterior dimensions, wheelbase layout and battery pack hardware specs.
Getting models of such different sizes to share the same swap mechanism requires extensive real-world calibration.
The core goal of this round of beta testing is to accumulate ample swap samples in real operating scenarios, with staff validating the stability and reliability of the entire process.
The technical team will continuously refine the software and mechanism logic based on real-world data, with the ultimate aim of bringing Firefly’s swap smoothness up to par with Nio’s existing models, Pu said.
Further broadening the compatibility of the fifth-gen swap stations helps improve the asset utilization of existing stations. It also builds up calibration experience for quickly onboarding Nio’s future models to the swap network.
Pu also signaled the cadence of business updates ahead. He said Firefly will release information on its swap progress to the public every month, starting today.
Firefly currently sells just one model, the Firefly EV, which starts at 119,800 yuan ($17,640) in China. It is the cheapest product under Nio Inc and targets young urban commuters.
Nio has previously said the large-scale roll-out of fifth-gen swap stations will officially begin in the third quarter of this year. Before that, Firefly models could not be supported by the fourth-generation swap stations due to their short wheelbase.
With the fifth-gen stations in service, Nio Inc will achieve its goal of having all three of its brands — the main Nio brand, sub-brand Onvo and Firefly — share the swap network.
The software update boosts the peak motor power of older Firefly EVs to 120 kW, aligning with the updated Firefly EV.
($1 = 6.7905 yuan)
