The Chinese brand NIO plans to expand its presence in Europe in the coming years. For now, electric vehicles of this brand are sold only in Norway, but in the near future there are plans to enter the markets of the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany.
The seriousness of the latter plan is confirmed by an agreement with Shell’s network of service stations to co-establish a network of stations for rapid battery replacement. It seems that these ambitions led to the fact that in Germany, in a court in Munich, a lawsuit was filed against NIO by Audi. The German carmaker does not like the names of Chinese models.
Apart from the EP9 supercar, the NIO models include the ES8 and ES6 crossovers. According to the Germans, buyers can somehow confuse them with the Audi S6 and S8 models. And this is despite the fact that the German “eski” are sports petrol sedans, and the Chinese are electric crossovers.
Interestingly, Audi is not at all worried about the latest NIO ES7 crossover, although they also have the S7 model. Perhaps the lawsuit was filed before Germany learned of the appearance of a car with that name in China.
In any case, the worst thing that can happen to NIO in this process is that it has to change the names of its models, or at least the ones it will sell in Europe. However, this has never stopped Chinese car manufacturers.
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