Yesterday on 19th April, Firefly officially put its first car on sale in China. The car and brand were only revealed in December last year and the first deliveries will start later this month, on 29th April.

Firefly is a sub-brand of the larger Nio parent company and its first model also goes by the same name. Pricing in China starts at RMB 119,800, which works out to be only £12,371 when converted. There is a more premium model available priced at RMB 125,800 or £13,000, which has a slightly more luxurious interior, mainly swapping cloth seats for leather as well as heated and ventilated front seats.

Nio, which is well known for its battery swapping technology - so it has also brought this same idea to the Firefly brand. It can be purchased with a BaaS (battery as a service) battery rental option which also brings the outright price down slightly, but this is coming in August later this year.

As for battery swapping, the Firefly won't be compatible with the current fourth-generation Nio battery swapping stations, instead requiring the company's fifth generation units. These are due to land in early 2026.

As for the battery itself, it comes with a 42.1kWh LFP unit and has a CLTC rated range of 420km. The company is yet to reveal the WLTP range.

Inside, the whole design language is centred around the pill shape and the three circles, which shows up pretty much everywhere, even on the infotainment  software. For that screen, we get a 13.2-inch unit, with its own custom software instead of re-using an existing Nio design. There is also a 6-inch drivers display attached to the steering column.

As for international launch, we're still not 100% sure when this is happening. At the launch of the Firefly back in December, the Nio CEO said that it would launch in Europe in the first half of 2025.