Nio Firefly News

Electric car brand Nio hit a milestone this week, swapping 146,649 batteries in a single day, highlighting the ease of use and popularity of the new technology which could be the answer to long EV charging times. Battery swapping has been touted as a solution to one of the biggest problems facing electric cars - lengthy charging times. Chinese carmaker Nio has become the latest brand to embrace the tech, seeing it as the future of quickly having EV motorists back on the road with a full battery.Nio’s record happened in China on one of the country's busiest days, February 15, which is the start of the Spring Festival and Lunar New Year holidays.This time of year in China traditionally sees millions of people make their annual pilgrimages home to see families to celebrate, which explains why Nio has seen the huge uptick in battery swaps as people presumably head off on long journeys.Nio’s battery swap achievement follows the brand carrying out its 100 millionth battery swap on February 6 proving the tech has plenty of supporters choosing battery swapping over charging.Battery swapping technology is exactly as it sounds. An empty battery is replaced with a fully charged one. Of course the electric car must be designed to accommodate a replaceable battery, as is the case with some Nio models.Nio has a network of 3700 battery swap stations in China which can remove and replace a battery in three minutes with owners often renting batteries with the opportunity to upgrade to larger capacity units if wanted. Charging a battery on the other hand can take (on average) about 30 minutes using a fast charger.Nio isn’t the only manufacturer that has seen the huge potential and benefits of battery swapping. European auto giant Stellantis invested heavily in trialling battery swapping  before it scrapped much of its EV plans.Nio recently confirmed its plans to launch in Australia in 2026 and bring its Firefly small hatchback to battle the BYD Dolphin, MG4 and Mazda 2.The Firefly doesn’t have battery swap capacity, instead coming with a 42kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate battery delivering a range of up to 330km (WLPT) and a one–80 percent charge time of 29 minutes.Battery swapping in Australia is currently in the very early stages of development and it's unlikely carmakers will bring vehicles here with swappable batteries until sufficient infrastructure is in place to service them.

Chinese maker Nio is inching closer to launching its breakthrough EV Down Under.

Another cheap and cheerful Chinese electric car is headed our way.The Nio Firefly has been approved for sale in Australia by the federal regulator, which paves the way for the mini EV to land on our roads in the coming months.The Nio Firefly is a small hatchback measuring about four metres long, 1780mm wide and 1560mm high. This makes it slightly smaller than the BYD Dolphin and MG4 and a similar size to a Mazda2.It has cute retro styling reminiscent of the short-lived Honda e.The approval documents show two variants will be offered in Australia.Power comes from a single electric motor that makes 105kW and 200Nm, which is fed by a circa-42kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery that provides a driving range of up to 330km via the benchmark WLTP test cycle.Its uses 14.5kWh/100km and offers 100kW DC charging for a 10 - 80 per cent charge in 29 minutes as well as either 7.0kW or 11kW AC charging with a vehicle-to-load (V2L) feature.The Firefly is also compatible with Nio’s battery swap technology. This allows owners to simply swap the battery when it has run low instead of recharging it. Nio claims this can take about five minutes, which is similar to refilling a petrol or diesel vehicle.No such battery swap stations currently exist in Australia, though.There is no word on how much it will cost or where and how it will be sold, with no news on a distributor or dealer network.In China it is priced the equivalent of about $32,000, which puts it on target to land here at less than $40,000.The writing was on the wall for the Firefly's local arrival when Nio announced it planned to expand to Europe and fellow right-hand drive markets Singapore and the UK.The right-hand drive version of the brand-new hatchback is expected to launch in October of 2025, according to overseas reports. This likely includes Australia now as the sale approval usually happens several months before cars land in showrooms.Homologation details published by the federal government hint that the Nio operation will be factory-backed with approval holders and contact details attributed to the head office in Shanghai, China.So this points to Nio following a similar route to brands such as Chery and Geely and launch via multi-franchise dealerships in capital cities.CarsGuide has contacted Nio's global operations for more Australian details, and will update the story with its response.