While 20 percent of European consumers still want to buy and own vehicles, Nio is still early in its operating model and wants to reach the other 80 percent first, Li said.

According to Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of Nio, the company's vehicle rental price is about the same as Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, which is reasonable because Nio also provides some supporting services, which other brands cannot do.

Qin also mentioned that there are not many electric vehicles on the road in Europe, and they are far less visible than in China.

There are many charging service providers in Europe who are seriously pushing forward the charging network, but currently even within cities, it is still slow charging facilities that dominate, and Nio can see a lot of opportunities in optimizing the charging experience, according to Qin.

In addition to explaining the thinking behind Nio's European strategy, Li also mentioned that the company's sub-brand, codenamed ALPS, will enter the European market.

Instead of using the codename ALPS, Nio initially used Everest and Himalaya, Li said, adding that he thought the latter two were too high and too cold, so he chose ALPS, a relatively mild mountain range, as the project name.