Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Nio announced plans to sell cars in Norway, its first overseas destination. Nio is one of China’s most prominent EV start-ups and is considered a strong competitor to Tesla. Nio will start delivering its electric sport utility vehicle ES8 in Norway from September, while the sedan ET7 will be launched in 2022, said Nio CEO Li Bin at a press conference in Shanghai. Other Nio models will also enter Norway later. Nio has not set any sales target in Norway for the time being. Li said that Norway’s market is “neither too large nor too small”, which the company considered an appropriate choice for its first overseas sales. Moreover, Norway has EV-friendly policies. Nio plans to start selling cars in five European countries next year, and is also considering tackling the U.S. market. 

Nio is among a number of Chinese EV upstarts that are seeking to sell cars overseas. Last year, Chinese electric car maker Xpeng delivered a first batch of 100 G3 cars to Norway. In November, WM Auto signed a letter of intent with Uber to export its cars to Europe. Domestic carmakers rush to explore overseas markets as EV sales rise around the world, but some experts are still doubting whether Chinese brands could grab market share from prominent overseas EV brands like Tesla. “The competition faced by Nio and its domestic peers in overseas markets is fiercer than when Tesla started its global exploration, as the EV market was still a blue ocean then,” Zhang Xiang, Research Fellow at the Research Center of Automobile Industry Innovation under the North China University of Technology, told the Global Times. As Nio has not made profits yet, its exploration of overseas markets will be more challenging, and the time to become profitable will be prolonged. Nio reported a net loss of CNY350 million in the first quarter.

Nio CEO Li Bin said that given the current uncertainty in the world, it is harder for a Chinese car company to tap overseas markets than a few years ago, but it’s something that the company “needs to do” despite the difficulties. “There’s no reason why a Chinese car company can’t survive in overseas markets if it can survive in the world’s most competitive EV market – China. Our advantages are determination and patience,” Li said. Qin Lihong, President of Nio, told the Global Times that Nio has not conducted any customer surveys in Norway, but it recently invited some Europeans who live in Shanghai to test its vehicles, and their feedback was positive, the Global Times reports.