TapTechNews May 16th News, NIO officially launched its second brand, LeDao (ONVO), last night. NIO founder Li Bin stated that LeDao means 'happy family, good housekeeping,' and the brand is positioned in the home market.
NIO Chairman and CEO Li Bin said that the LeDao brand is aimed at home users, with prices overlapping with the ideal pure electric product, Ideal L6. He believes that LeDao and Ideal both target home users, with a similar price range, which is normal competition and a good thing for consumers, offering more choices. He also mentioned that Li Xiang is an early investor in NIO and both are comrades in building pure electric vehicles, warmly welcoming each other.
In addition, Li Bin also stated that currently, there are users who choose extended range, plug-in hybrids, and internal combustion engine vehicles, due to the incomplete infrastructure for charging and swapping electric vehicles. It requires industry collaboration to solve this issue and make using electric vehicles as convenient as using gasoline vehicles. NIO will strive to build more swapping stations and charging piles to ensure that users can confidently use pure electric vehicles.
In addition to the LeDao brand, NIO President Qin Lihong added that NIO's third brand will also be revealed soon, within a year. In response, Li Bin stated that the third brand does not mean cheap cars and will not have very low profit margins like some points of sale, but will provide a reasonable return. It will be similar to BMW's Mini and Mercedes' Smart, with slightly lower prices but not as low as seventy to eighty thousand dollars.
The LeDao L60 is now available for pre-order, starting at a pre-sale price of 219,900 yuan. For more details, refer to TapTechNews' previous reports. Regarding the positioning of the new car, LeDao Automotive President Ai Tiecheng stated that in this price range, family users are the most important, accounting for nearly 90% of the market. This natural selection is due to the systematic capabilities accumulated by NIO, making LeDao mature from the start, with the second best electric capacity in the industry.
He emphasized that the customer bases of the two brands are very different, with LeDao targeting a new customer base. LeDao is also actively establishing its distribution network. It is revealed that LeDao's sales channels will primarily be in business districts and car shops, with collaborations with partners, but will adhere to a direct sales model. At least a hundred outlets will be available when the LeDao L60 is launched; the service network will quickly expand to several hundred outlets.