NIO teases ET9 images and its FireFly brand logo ahead of launches at NIO Day 2024
We are just days away from Chinese EV automaker NIO’s annual NIO Day event, which has already promised some big reveals, including the long-teased ET9 and the first model under its new FireFly sub-brand. As an appetizer, NIO has shared the first un-camouflaged images of the ET9 and its official FireFly logo.
NIO remains a mainstay on Electrek‘s homepage because it always seems to be announcing something new and interesting. With its main marque well established and expanding globally, we’ve been following NIO’s rollout of two new sub-brands called Onvo and FireFly, the last twelve months especially.
While we get plenty of exciting news from the Chinese automaker throughout the annual calendar, no event is more likely to include landmark announcements than its annual NIO Day event, held every December. In the past, we’ve seen NIO unveil flagship sedans like the ET7, followed by the debut of the ET5 sedan a year later. NIO also shared plans to expand to new global markets by 2025.
The 2022 event included unveiling NIO’s ES8 and EC7 SUVs, pushing the automaker’s lineup to eight available EVs. For 2023, we learned NIO would unveil a new flagship model we speculated would be the ultra-luxe ET9.
That would be true. The ET9 debuted at a pre-sale price of RMB 800,000 ($109,810) – NIO’s most expensive model to date. It sits atop a 900V platform complete with an upgradeable wire-controlled chassis. It’s been nearly a year, however, and since then, we’ve only gotten camouflaged peeks at the NIO ET9 and its capabilities.
With a promise to officially launch the new ET9 at NIO Day later this week, the automaker has posted several images for the public as well as an official look at the logo that will be donned by its new line of affordable FireFly EVs.
NIO offers a clear look at ET9 before unveiling this week
Before we get all the juicy details about the ET9 and NIO’s plans for 2025 and beyond, the automaker offered its best look at its next flagship model yet. NIO posted several images (seen above) to its Weibo page with the following caption:
The high-tech executive flagship NIO ET9 will be officially launched on December 21st, NIO Day 2024. The original ‘flying body design’ creates a powerful aura of an epoch-making executive flagship with the flagship size. Elegant posture, presented with exquisite details. The debut is to lead innovation.
Following the upcoming launch, NIO expects ET9 deliveries to begin in China in Q1 of 2025. In addition to the sedan’s unique intelligent chassis system, the ET9 will be the first model equipped with NIO’s own 5 NM process-based “Shenji” autonomous driving chip, evolving from its current NT 2.0 platform that utilizes four NVIDIA Orin chips.
We will have to wait until this weekend to learn where ET9 pricing officially lands and how close that figure is to the presale price. In addition to the launch of the ET9, NIO has also promised to launch its new FireFly sub-brand and unveil its first model.
To date, we’ve only seen a camo’d image of the EV’s side profile, which appears to be a family-friendly compact, but we are certain to get a full look in a couple of days. Previously, NIO co-founder and president Qin Lihong has said that Firefly EV models will be priced between RMB 100,000 ($13,800) and RMB 200,000 ($27,500).
Furthermore, FireFly will join NIO’s Onvo brand on sale in China before expanding to Europe in 2025. During a recent interview with local media outlet 36kr, Firefly president Daniel Jinsaid the brand’s first model will be launched in China in the first half of 2025, followed by a launch in Europe likely a quarter later. We know the flagship model will share the same name as the FireFly brand itself, but not much else at this point.
Ahead of FireFly’s debut at NIO Day 2024, the automaker launched the sub-brand’s official app, which showcased its brand logo you can see below.:
NIO Day 2024 is scheduled for this Saturday, December 21, in Guangzhou, in the Guangdong province of China. Trust we will follow up with a full recap as we learn more.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Porsche plans to cut 1,900 jobs in Germany by 2029 as it struggles with slumping EV sales. The luxury sports car maker has already warned of lower profits this year. With plans to reduce its workforce, is Porsche sounding the alarm?
Porsche to cut jobs in Germany as EV sales lag
After announcing last week that it expects profit margins of around 10% to 12% this year, significantly lower than its long-term 20% target, Porsche said it would launch new internal combustion (ICE) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles in response.
The company warned that developing the new models and other battery-related projects would cost an extra 800 million euros ($830,000) in 2025.
It looks like the situation could be even worse than expected. Porsche said it would cut 1,900 jobs at two German plants by 2029 (via Bloomberg), blaming “challenging geopolitical and economic conditions.” The sites include Porsche’s Zuffenhausen and Weissach plants, where it aims to reduce around 15% of the workforce.
The job cuts are expected to be voluntary, including through early retirement and layoff packages. A job security agreement is still in effect for employees in Germany until 2030.
Porshe also plans to take a “restrictive approach” to hiring, hinting growth could be slower over the next few years.
Porsche’s global deliveries dropped 3% last year, driven by a sharp decline in China, one of its most profitable markets in recent years.
As domestic EV makers like BYD, XPeng, Li Auto, Geely, and others gain momentum with advanced new models, foreign automakers continue to get squeezed out of the market.
A report from Germany’s Handelsblatt suggested other Volkswagen-owned brands could follow Porsche’s lead by introducing more ICE and PHEV models. The Volkswagen Golf, T-Roc, Tiguan, and Audi A3 are potential candidates, but we reportedly won’t see them until after 2030.
In an email to Bloomberg, the company confirmed that “Volkswagen has not changed its plans to phase out the combustion engine in Europe by the early 2030s,” adding it will “react flexibly to possible market changes.”
Electrek’s Take
While Volkswagen, Porsche, and most leading global automakers have cited slowing demand for EVs, the numbers prove otherwise.
According to Rho Motion, 1.3 million electric vehicles were sold globally in January 2025. Although that’s down from the record 1.9 million in December due to typical seasonality, the market has grown 18% from January 2024.
While Porsche continues investing in outdated gas-powered vehicles, EV leaders like BYD are doubling down on software, AI, connectivity, smart driving features, and other tech that buyers are looking for.
BYD just launched 21 of its best-selling vehicles this week with its new “Gods Eye” smart driving system for free. Although BYD is best known for its affordable EVs, like the Seagull and Dolphin, it’s expanding into Porsche territory with several new luxury models under its Denza and Yangwang brands rolling out. And BYD is only one example. Several Chinese EV makers, such as XPeng and NIO, are also expanding, with new models arriving.
Can Porsche keep up? Or will it continue falling behind as the global market shifts to electric vehicles? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
President Donald Trump‘s steel and aluminum tariffs could slow data center growth by exacerbating the shortage of key components in the electric grid, according to a leading commodity analyst at Carlyle.
Big Tech missed Wall Street expectations for their cloud segments last week due in part to a shortage of transformers, said Jeff Currie, chief strategy officer of energy pathways at Carlyle.
Transformers are crucial pieces of equipment that ramp the voltage of electricity up and down, enabling its distribution from power plants to end customers such as data centers.
“What are transformers? They’re just big chunks of metal,” Currie told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “So if you put tariffs disrupting supply chains it just aggravates that situation.”
Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft missed revenue targets for their cloud segments in their most recent quarterly financial results, sending their stocks lower. Microsoft’s Azure cloud business has been struggling with supply shortages. Demand for Alphabet’s AI products is exceeding available capacity.
“We are in a tight supply-demand situation, working very hard to bring more capacity online,” Anat Ashkenazi, Alphabet’s chief financial officer, told investors on the company’s Feb. 4 earnings call.
The world’s largest transformer manufacturer, Hitachi Energy, warned late last year that the industry is overwhelmed with demand for the equipment.
“Ramping up capacity is definitely an issue. It’s not easy and it will probably not ramp up fast enough,” CEO Andreas Schierenbeck told The Financial Times in a Nov. 3 interview. Schierenbeck told the FT that utilities that need transformers would have to wait up to four years if they don’t already have one reserved.
Transformer capacity might need to more than double or triple through 2050 compared with 2021 levels to keep up with demand as infrastructure ages and the economy is electrified, according to a study published in March 2024 by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Trump’s aluminum tariffs could also disrupt the grid by bringing manufacturing of the energy-intensive metal back to the U.S., Currie said.
“If you think AI is power intensive, aluminum is a whole different world,” Currie said. “It is six times more power intensive than AI data centers. So bringing it onshore in an environment in which AI data centers are already expected to consume any excess power, this would be incredibly disruptive to power grids.”
“There is a reason it was outsourced to begin with,” said the analyst, who headed up commodities research at Goldman Sachs for decades. He is known for bold, and often bullish, calls on oil prices, including his predictions of a China-driven surge in the 2000s.
Tesla is being targeted by protests organized at its stores around the globe. The demonstrations planned for this Saturday appear to be a grassroots movement without a clear goal or leadership.
The protestors are calling it the “Tesla Takeover”.
The movement appears to have started on Bluesky, a social media platform that spun off of Twitter before Elon Musk bought it and turned it into X.
Several bigger accounts on Bluesky, including Anonymous, the infamous hacker group, have promoted the effort.
As stated in the post, the main goal appears to be protesting Elon Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and only owns 13% of the company, but he is seen as having complete control over the automaker.
Many people believe that it is warranted to target Tesla to protest Musk because he used his wealth from the company to acquire Twitter and finance Donald Trump’s campaign, which both resulted in what many see as a takeover of the US government by the wannabe technocrat.
Ralph Ballart, a long-time Tesla owner and Electrek reader, made us aware of the planned protests. He planned to attend the rally at his local Tesla store in California, and he shared his personal reason for wanting to boycott Tesla:
I have a 2015 Model S and the only reason I want Tesla sales to decline is to get Musk out as CEO and get someone like JB Straubel to replace him.
Straubel is a Tesla co-founder and long-time CTO who left in 2019 to found Redwood Materials. More recently, he joined Tesla’s board of directors.
Other than Anonymous, there doesn’t seem to be any organization behind the protests. People are promoting them locally to get activists at Tesla stores worldwide on Saturday at 11AM.
They are using the hashtag #TeslaTakeover, which is ironic because it used to be the name of a Tesla event organized by John Stringer, one of Musk’s biggest shills.
As we recently reported, Tesla stores around the world have been targets of vandals lately to protest against Musk.
However, in this case, it seems that the protesters are planning to stay civil and exercise their freedom of speech – encouraging people to boycott Tesla to send a message to Musk.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports10 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway