CATL Confirms Qilin Cells Inside Nio Firefly's New 60-kWh Pack

Nio’s compact Firefly hatchback has quietly become a showcase for CATL’s flagship battery line. The Chinese battery giant confirmed on Weibo that the newly launched 60-kWh pack uses its Qilin cells, pushing CLTC range to 560 km (348 miles) — up 140 km, or roughly a third, over the standard car.

The confirmation came a day after Firefly officially added the bigger pack to its lineup on October 23, 2026. Until now, the little EV ran on a 42-kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) unit from Sunwoda rated at 420 km CLTC.

Key Specs: 60 kWh Qilin pack · 560 km CLTC range · 42-kWh LFP standard pack · 420 km CLTC · From ¥136,800 with battery

Same Footprint, More Nickel

The chemistry shift is the real story here. Firefly’s new pack swaps LFP for nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) cells, which is where the extra energy density comes from. Crucially, the casing dimensions, mounting points and locking hardware are unchanged — the battery grows in capacity, not in size, and curb weight stays put.

That engineering choice matters because Firefly designed both packs around a shared standardized module layout. Existing owners aren’t locked out of the upgrade; the car simply takes a bigger battery during a swap rather than needing to be replaced.

What Owners Pay

Firefly laid out separate paths depending on how the car was originally bought:

• Outright buyers: ¥17,000 (around $2,530) for a permanent upgrade, available once 12 months have passed since the purchase invoice date.
• BaaS subscribers: a ¥3,000 upgrade service fee, with the monthly battery rental climbing to ¥599 from ¥399 for the 42-kWh version.
• New customers: ¥136,800 ($20,360) with the battery included, or ¥79,800 under BaaS.

CATL didn’t say which generation of Qilin is fitted, nor what charging rate the pack accepts. Qilin debuted in 2022, and a third generation arrived this April.

Swap Stations Do the Heavy Lifting

Charging specs may be beside the point. Like every Nio product, Firefly can refill through a battery swap that takes about three minutes — and the brand only gained access to Nio’s fifth-generation stations on August 7. Its shorter body and wheelbase had previously kept it out of the fourth-generation sites.

The CATL tie-up also runs deeper than one pack. In January the two companies signed a five-year agreement covering joint work on long-life batteries and swap-compatibility technology.

Firefly’s first model, which carries the brand’s name, landed in China in April 2025 to take on the Mini and Smart crowd. It’s been gaining ground: 90,000 cumulative deliveries as of October 16, including a record 7,327 units in September and 48,122 across the first nine months of the year.