Firefly EV First Drive: Nio’s Take on Little Luxe

MotorTrend

Can Chinese EV startup Nio’s cute compact Firefly defeat Mini when European tariffs are shaving its price advantage? And are Americans missing out?

Transcript

00:00I'm Frank Marcus and I'm here outside Shanghai China getting to know the NIO brand which just

00:12last night introduced its first compact car the Firefly. Now most Americans don't know anything

00:17about any of the Chinese brands so let me tell you that NIO started out in November 2014 and

00:23like any smart EV startup they started out making high profit margin executive type cars so this one

00:29though to avoid watering down the NIO brand they've started Firefly as a brand new brand one of the

00:36questions you might have is why should Americans care anything about Chinese cars they're not coming

00:40to the US anytime soon and my response to that would be that a lot of innovation in these NIO

00:46cars that we're seeing over here we hope will inspire similar things to come to the US so the

00:52Firefly is going to be the NIO of compact cars they're looking for a high design high feature

00:58content high functionality competitor for the mini and the smart cars over here right away you can

01:05see style wise they've got a very interesting front end here the vibe you get is a little bit like the

01:11Honda e although larger than that car and with the single headlights replaced with this sort of iPhone

01:18looking triple arrangement the size is is nice and compact uh it's rear wheel drive and the rear

01:25rear wheel drive allows the front wheels to be decoupled so they can turn very far this is a 31

01:30foot turning circle so easy to maneuver in tight urban areas which is the whole point of this car

01:37so one of my favorite features of the new Firefly EV is the ability for either front passenger to get in

01:43and out of the car from either side they've left all this area in here free so all i have to do is lift

01:48up the center armrest slide right over here and hop out the other side coming around to the side we have

01:57black mirror caps and a black roof to set off the colors of the car of which there are five a lot of

02:03them are quite bright like this one uh we've got the look of the flush door handles which are electric

02:08on the other neos but they're manual on these ones we've got a c-pillar that swoops up like this

02:14and wrapped all the way around to give you this uh hoop look that gives you a faster look to the

02:19fastback which uh is faked by this squared off black area which does give us enough room in the trunk

02:26for five carry-on bags in the back again we've got the the triple tail lights uh we've got the pill

02:32shaped oval here again and i like that the the button for the trunk is hidden up here in the wiper

02:38and that all of the fireflies will have a standard electric hatchback

02:54so i just discovered that this firefly ev which starts at 17 000 has a little massage function and

03:04cooling for the seat as well as heat i presume that's a very unexpected benefit of the car in

03:11this class this whole interior is is very upscale most cars at any kind of low price point like this

03:17would have a lot of black plastic uh but i do really love that firefly gives you four different color

03:27themes and two different seat themes so eight different choices for the interior uh and they're

03:34fun colors purple and green and really interesting stuff that like nobody is doing hardly we get we're

03:41lucky we get beige the home screen is very good looking uh and it allows a lot of uh different

03:49differentiation too this round part over here can show a very stylized clock with a second hand that goes

03:57around here like that it also has this gallery image here just sort of a fun interesting picture

04:04it'll give you a snapshot of the weather here and it'll tell you what mode you're in and even allow

04:09you to switch the mode there's a 14 speaker sound system that we were sampling earlier that has dolby atmos

04:17as well this car also gives you the option of three different levels of regenerative braking

04:26full one pedal driving and also automatic regen which some much higher end cars also feature and

04:35that's the type of thing where it will give you automatic regen if you're coming up behind someone

04:40who's stopping it'll bring you to a stop you don't have to use the pedal dynamically this is certainly

04:47no mini se it is softer suspended it's not as powerful as the mini evs this one has 141 horsepower

04:58and 148 pound-feet of torque they say is good for zero to 60 ish miles an hour and eight seconds or so

05:06perfectly ample what they do quote is a 3.1 second zero to 50 kilometers an hour uh time which is much

05:16more the type of work that this urban city car will be doing these seats are covered in an oecotex material

05:26which supposedly meets some sort of standard that europe has for things that are going to be up against

05:34a baby's skin so i never heard of that before but okay there's a a feather in their cap another one

05:43you know i said before one of the reasons for coming over here and evaluating these cars that are

05:50in all likelihood never coming to the u.s is to point out some of the neat things that they do that

05:56no one's really doing uh in the u.s some of that on this car has to do with the packaging it's a

06:03really efficiently packaged car very very short overhangs maximum wheelbase for the per length

06:10uh in this class uh and some of the ways they do that and still get the huge trunk that has room for

06:17five carry-on bags is the the rear motor but it's a six-in-one design which is not universal uh in the

06:27u.s that means it has the uh the motor the reduction drive the the differential and all that is

06:38concentric with the motor lucid does some of that but you know that's a hundred thousand dollar car

06:44and then it's also got the uh inverter and the dc dc converter and all of that stuff is packaged

06:51together and the whole thing is very low profile and they of course also still have a 92 liter big

07:00enough for a carry-on uh frunk up there which we looked at and it even includes a drain plug so you

07:07can fill the ice and have beverages up there if you want there are three driving modes normal eco

07:13and sport which only affect the steering feel and the accelerator response sporty is obviously the

07:22most aggressive and i found on the freeway driving in that mode you really had to be super careful with

07:31your pedal work or else it ended up feeling a little bit jerky which is fine that's quite often

07:37what sport is the weird thing was uh the normal mode still had quite a lot of that uh i found that

07:43eco was the most comfortable on the highway

07:49so is the new firefly ev a match for a mini or a smart car well i can tell you one thing for sure

07:57every inch of this car seems to be designed just like in the mini so from that standpoint it's spot

08:02on uh it's a little softer riding it's a little lower performing than a mini as befits the market

08:08here i will tell you too a few things that i really hope someone who sells cars in the u.s

08:13steals from this car and that's the really brilliant packaging the clever use of space everywhere the

08:19really tiny motor in the back that leaves a lot of room for everything else and the slide across

08:24front seat i think that's a brilliant idea so for the full story on neo's firefly ev and to learn

08:30about all the other cars we're driving here in china this week stop by motortrend.com

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