About a month before XPeng announced that it had reached 200,000 cumulative EV deliveries over the life of the company, NIO reached the same milestone. This is an important milestone that many expected the company to never achieve – after all, how many EV start-ups can survive and prosper? Just as many very serious industry analysts said for years that Tesla would collapse and burn and go bankrupt under the weight of its dreams, automotive industry experts also predicted that NIO would die a young death after failing to scale production not. Not so fast.
In May, NIO delivered 7,024 smart EVs, both on year and mom. ET7 deliveries reached 1,707, cumulative deliveries 204,936. Read more: https://t.co/ho4wdJ4vkX pic.twitter.com/cH3AM7PcBc
– NIO (@NIOGlobal) 1 June 2022
NIO introduced its first vehicle years before XPeng first introduced it, but the history is actually a bit more complicated than is generally understood. NIO launched the EP9 in 2016, but the EP9 is clearly not a mass market vehicle (it’s a luxury sports car). NIO launches its first some-mass-mark vehicle, the ES8 SUV, in mid-2018. XPeng launched its G3 crossover in December 2018, just six months later.
So, NIO’s ramp to 200,000 cumulative sales is actually very similar to XPeng’s ramp. But, as one person who responded to the news pointed out, NIO has not seen nearly the growth in sales lately that some of its Chinese competitors, including XPeng, have seen.
Wider picture: pic.twitter.com/PktwIuQFjf
– Captain Macheath (@MacheathK) 1 June 2022
However, one month does not tell the full story. NIO is based in Shanghai, which has recently been hit pretty hard by Covid-19 restrictions. We will take a closer look at the companies’ growth over time in future pieces, but keep in mind that not everything is always as it seems – context is the key. More context: the NIO ET5 is about to arrive, and as has always been the case in the automotive industry, a hot new vehicle or even just an update of a vehicle model could dampen sales of other company options . Let’s look again at NIO’s sales in the coming months.
OIL ET5
Three NIO ET5 smart electric vehicles.
Second, the big takeaway is that Chinese EV startups (or “smart electric vehicle” startups, as some of them prefer to call themselves) are shining bright and strong. They have indeed survived, and they are even expanding to Western car markets at this point – starting with Europe. How much will NIO and XPeng grow in the coming years? Who will find more buyers in Europe and the United States? We’ll see.
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