Nio Is Down to One Service Hub Left in Germany

Building a good, appealing car doesn’t guarantee success on its own, and Nio is solid proof of that. Nio will close its sales and service hub in Cologne by the end of September, the second of its three German hubs to shut this month. A second hub in Weiterstadt, near Frankfurt, is set to close on the same date, after which Munich will be the only Nio hub left standing anywhere in Germany. The closures land a week after founder and CEO William Li toured Europe and insisted to reporters that the changes to Nio’s operating model in the region don’t amount to an exit from Europe. I covered Nio’s situation on the continent in detail in my piece Nio Is Dead in Europe, so you can check out that article for a deeper dive into the matter.

What Nio Told Customers

Nio sent near identical closure notices to affected users on July 23 for both hubs. The Cologne message pointed to current conditions in the automotive market and framed the closure as part of optimising the company’s European business, directing owners to the One-Click-Service function in Nio’s app to book repairs through a network of independent workshops instead.

A Nio representative replying to owners in the app’s community section described the closures as a planned optimisation and told one owner directly that the company wasn’t retreating from either Europe or Germany.

Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority, the KBA, recorded a single Nio registration in the country in August. That brought Nio’s total for the first eight months of 2026 to just 19 vehicles, down 90.1% from 191 over the same period last year.

Nio fired its German country chief in March after monthly sales fell to a single unit, and hasn’t replaced him. Former chief David Sultzer, who left the role in 2024, posted on LinkedIn warning that new EV brands were failing in Germany by prioritising premium positioning over basics like service coverage and residual value. A financial filing completed in January showed Nio’s negative equity in its German business had grown from around €22.3 million to nearly €80.4 million within a single year.

A Year of Retreat

The Cologne and Weiterstadt closures cap a year of retrenchment. Nio closed its Hamburg showroom in July, the first closure of one of its flagship Nio Houses anywhere in the world, and the deputy head of Nio Germany left the same month to join Xpeng. German business magazine Manager Magazin reported in April that Nio was seeking subtenants for its four remaining flagship showrooms, in Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Hamburg.

In February, Nio split its European management into six departments and shifted sales toward local distributors in every market except Norway. In May, it told European owners not to expect any model updates before late 2027, or any new battery swap stations. Nio’s Onvo brand, originally meant to bring cheaper family focused models to the region, has had its European launch pushed back to 2028 or 2029.

Not a Global Problem

The collapse is specific to Germany, and to Europe more broadly. It doesn’t reflect how Nio is doing as a company globally. Nio delivered 262,893 vehicles through August, up 57.9% year over year, and has reported two consecutive quarters of adjusted net profit. Even the small pockets of activity left in Europe lean on Nio’s cheaper sub brand rather than the main marque: across eight European markets combined, Nio managed just 77 registrations in a recent month, most of them propped up by Firefly, the budget focused brand Nio launched to try a different approach in Europe. Li closed his European trip with a LinkedIn post arguing Nio shouldn’t chase growth just for the sake of it, framing the company’s approach around supporting owners for as long as they keep the car.

That commitment will now be tested with a single hub covering the whole of Germany. I’ve written before about which Chinese brands are actually managing to stay in Europe and which have quietly failed despite competitive pricing, and Nio’s pattern here, premium positioning, thin sales, a shrinking physical network, matches most of the brands that didn’t make it.

Featured Image: Nio