Chinese EV car maker Nio will float on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in a bid to raise new funding from the sale of shares.
The brand, formerly known as NextEV and closely associated with the Formula E team sharing this name, will use the funds to ramp up its model range, adding a second SUV, the ES6, which is due the first half next year, and then a saloon due in 2020.
Nio's product portfolio currently includes only the EP9 hypercar and the ES8 SUV. It has no plans to sell mass-market cars outside of China, but it does plan to launch one car per year.
Deliveries of the ES8 began in June, and as of the end of July, 481 cars had been delivered. Nio claims to have more than 17,000 reservations for the ES8 in total.
In the NYSE filing, Nio lauded its charging facilities, including a battery swap scheme, mobile charging truck service and pick-up and drop-off charging service.
The company posted net losses of £393 million across the first half of 2018, with sales revenues of £5.4m across the same period. Nio chiefs hope the figures will even out as it delivers more ES8s to customers, although rival electric brand Tesla has proven that achieving this is easier said than done.
Tesla also floated itself on the stock exchange, but has faced controversy in recent weeks with company CEO Elon Musk's announcement of his intention to make the company private once again.
With the funds raised by the flotation, Nio aims to also increase its manufacturing capacity to better fulfil orders, increase its nationwide charger network, currently at 214,000 points, and invest in research and development into new technology.
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