After spending much of 2022 in a production-related inferno of sorts amid China’s frequent COVID-mandated shutdowns, the proverbial stars finally appear to be aligning for NIO as it races ahead to replace the likes of BMW, Mercedes Benz, and Audi in the world’s second-largest economy.
Need to consider $LI Auto is a hybrid & BYD must be discounted for Plug-In Hybrids, too. Slow start for $TSLA expect price cuts take effect next week and thereafter. pic.twitter.com/QbzjSyJcLO — Marcel Münch 🇨🇳📉📈 (@_mm85) January 10, 2023 To wit, as per the data of insured vehicles released by China’s CPCA for the first week of January 2023, NIO earned 1.239 billion Yuan in revenue, just behind Li Auto and BYD. However, given the fact that Li Auto only manufactures hybrid vehicles and that 50 percent of weekly figures for BYD consisted of hybrid vehicles as well, NIO became the second-largest pure EV play in China at the start of 2023, based on the top-line metric. As a refresher, NIO currently has a theoretical production capacity of 600,000 units per annum, divided between its F1 and F2 (NeoPark) facilities that have been built in collaboration with JAC. NIO’s product portfolio consists of the ES8, a six-seater smart electric flagship SUV, the ES7 (or the EL7), a mid-large five-seater smart electric SUV, the ES6, a five-seater all-round smart electric SUV, the EC7, a five-seater smart electric flagship coupe SUV, the EC6, a five-seater smart electric coupe SUV, the ET7, a smart electric flagship sedan, and the ET5, a mid-size smart electric sedan. At its NIO Day event on the 24th of December 2022, the company unveiled two new models: the coupe SUV EC7 and the all-new ES8. Both models are based on NIO’s second-generation platform that features a 480-kW dual-motor AWD system, a SiC power module, AQUILA autonomous driving hardware, and a second-gen digital cockpit. The company plans to introduce five additional models by the summer of 2023. NIO delivered 122,486 EVs in 2022, registering a year-over-year increase of 34 percent. By the 31st of December 2022, NIO had installed 1,315 battery swap stations, allowing completely automated depleted battery replacement in under 3 minutes. By 2025, NIO hopes to deploy 4,000 such battery swap stations globally.
— Nenad Markovic (@NIONenad) January 10, 2023 Meanwhile, it appears that NIO is planning to launch its own smartwatch in the near future, as per a trademark application filed in China. This development comes as the company is already rumored to be working on a bespoke smartphone.
— Nenad Markovic (@NIONenad) January 10, 2023 Finally, with China easing most of its COVID-related restrictions in recent days, along with a phasing out of sorts of the country’s tech-related crackdown, as evidenced by the recent arrangement where Jack Ma has ceded control of Ant Group to win concessions for the besieged company, Wall Street is suddenly finding Chinese tech stocks quite attractive. This bodes well for the valuation prospects of NIO.
