Yesterday, the Belgian newspaper De Tijd reported that Nio was considering buying the Audi factory in Vorst/Forest. This morning in China, Nio founder and CEO William Li flatly denied the story.
Vorst/Forest is one of the 19 municipalities that make up the capital region of Brussels, Belgium. Audi has a factory there that produces the Q8 e-tron and employs 2,910 employees. Due to poor sales of the model, production is set to end next year, after which Audi appears set to close the plant.
According to the De Tijd article, a Nio delegation had visited the plant within the last few weeks and was possibly going to make a bid before a September 23 deadline. The main justification for this was that Nio, like other Chinese EV producers, is facing tariffs from the EU on imports from China. A number of Chinese producers have been actively looking into or are in the process of building plants in Europe to circumvent the regulations.
As mentioned in our article, the fact that the plant is being used to build an EV and that it is a premium EV makes the Belgian plant a better candidate than perhaps some other existing factories in Europe.
William Li, however, was quite prosaic when denying the story, saying, “Can we afford a factory that Audi can’t even afford?” This comment was probably greeted with a sigh of relief from many long-suffering Nio investors, given the company’s cash burn situation.
While having a factory in Europe could possibly give Nio a much-needed boost with its European sales that would be quite a gamble given the current low level. Li even went as far as saying such a purchase would be digging a hole for themselves.
Notably, Li said Nio is cautious about investing in fixed assets with the exception of battery swap stations.
Sources: Autohome, Fast Technology
