China’s Nio launches Onvo brand to challenge Tesla’s best-selling model

By Zoey Zhang and Miyoung Kim

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio on Wednesday launched the first vehicle in its new lower-priced brand Onvo which aims to compete with Tesla’s Model Y, the world’s best-selling EV.

Nio chief executive William Li introduced the Onvo L60 SUV in Shanghai, saying the company also aimed to take on Toyota Motor’s RAV4 by providing family cars that balanced customer experience and ownership costs.

The Onvo L60 is equipped with Nio’s self-developed 900-volt fast-charging system and has an average energy consumption of 12.1 kilowatt-hours (kwh) per 100 kilometers, slightly lower than Tesla’s Model Y, said Ai Tiecheng, president of the Onvo brand.

The Onvo cars will have access to more than 1,000 battery swapping stations and 25,000 public chargers belonging to Nio, Ai added.

Reuters reported last week that Nio has struck a deal to source batteries from BYD for the Onvo lineup, as it abandoned plans to produce batteries in-house as part of the efforts to reduce costs amid a bruising price war in China’s ultra-competitive EV market.

Nio, whose namesake lineup is priced from 298,900 yuan ($41,200), around 30% higher than the Model 3 in China, sold 45,673 EVs in the first four months of this year, accounting for 3% of China’s overall EV sales.

(Reporting by Zhang Yan and Miyoung Kim; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, Louise Heavens and Toby Chopra)