Following BYD, NIO will also enter the Norwegian market, and Chinese electric vehicles will play the European beat

At the strategic conference held by NIO yesterday, CEO Li Bin announced that it would officially enter the Norwegian market, saying, "Norway is the first stop, and we will enter five European countries next year."

The first model NIO will sell in Norway will be the ES8, a smart electric flagship SUV, which will be delivered in September this year. The ET7, a smart electric flagship sedan, will enter the Norwegian market next year.

NIO will adopt a direct sales model in Norway and build a full set of after-sales network services. The first NIO Center will open in Oslo, the capital of Norway, in the third quarter of this year. In 2022, NIO will also open four NIO Spaces in Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim and Kristiansand in Norway.

In addition, NIO will also build comprehensive charging facilities in Norway. Four second-generation battery swap stations will be put into operation this year. In 2022, NIO expects to build battery swap stations in five cities in Norway.

Before NIO, BYD and Xiaopeng had already exported new energy vehicles to Norway. Why do Chinese new energy vehicle brands generally choose Norway as their first stop overseas?

The biggest reason is the market. Although Norway has a population of only 5 million, the total sales of electric vehicles have reached 433,609 to date, with more than 105,000 sold last year alone.

According to statistics from the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Council, in 2020, Norway's new energy vehicle market share reached 54.3%, making it the first country to exceed 50% in new energy vehicle purchases.

According to analysis, Norway's new energy vehicle market share will reach 65% in 2021, and the country also has an ambitious goal of achieving zero emissions for new cars by 2025, so there is ample potential in the Norwegian market waiting to be tapped.

Regarding the prospect of Chinese cars going overseas to Europe, Wang Binggang, director of the Technical Committee of the National Electric Passenger Vehicle Technology Innovation Alliance and leader of the National New Energy Vehicle Innovation Project Expert Group, said: "Our advantage is that we have now combined electrification with intelligence, and we should have reached the forefront internationally. The technical level of the car should be competitive, and the price should also be competitive. So if we compare it this way, I think that (Chinese cars) represented by Weilai and BYD are not worse than European cars."

Analysts pointed out that NIO chose ES8 as the "vanguard" to land in Norway, which means that they do not want to open up the market by selling in large quantities at low prices (ES8 is priced at 476,000 yuan in China), but aim to impact the mid-to-high-end market with excellent product quality and services.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.