NIO Sales Popping — 44% Growth! – CleanTechnica

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NIO continues to grow. At the turn of the month, I focused on covering Xpeng because it had a flurry of news come in, and also boasted 5 months in a row of EV sales growth — both month over month and year over year! However, I didn’t get back to covering its most similar colleague, NIO. And, despite Xpeng’s strong recent growth, NIO still sold more vehicles in July.

While NIO can’t boast about a month-over-month increase in sales (it sold slightly more vehicles in June than July), it can boast about strong sales growth year over year. In July 2024, the company delivered 20,498 electric vehicles (the only kind of vehicles it produces, of course). That is just barely an increase over July 2023, when the company reached 20,462 vehicle deliveries, but  note that last year’s total was a 104% increase over July 2022. (Also, it is still a bit more than the 11,145 deliveries Xpeng was proud to announce.)

That June total included 11,964 “premium smart electric SUVs” and 8,534 “premium smart electric sedans.” Xpeng and NIO like to use the term “smart” for their EVs, setting them apart from the less technologically advanced EVs we saw legacy automakers produce for several years and putting them more on the level of a Tesla. That said, new EVs are generally “smart” these days no matter who is producing them, so I’m not real keen on that term. However, I do agree that NIO and Xpeng still produce smarter vehicles than … well, pretty much everyone. So, I understand why they want to use this term.

Back to the sales figures, NIO delivered 107,924 vehicles in the first 7 months of the year combined, which again is well ahead of Xpeng’s 63,173. Also, that total indicates a 44% (or 43.9%) increase over January–July of 2023. Impressive growth!

Overall, the strong year-over-year sales growth is a positive sign. Whether NIO is at the tail end of some massive growth and will stagnate a bit now, we’ll have to wait and see. The June sales result was a 98% increase year over year, but the total was 21,209, very similar to July’s total.

In the company’s news release about July deliveries, it added, “On July 27, 2024, NIO hosted ‘NIO IN 2024’, where it further refined and deepened its systematic approach to technological innovation in smart electric vehicles. At the event, NIO unveiled significant technological breakthroughs across various areas, including the 5nm intelligent driving chip, a full-domain vehicle operating system, AI-driven smart systems, the world model for assisted and intelligent driving, and connectivity technology. NIO is committed to research and development and has established comprehensive technology capabilities based on artificial intelligence, which continuously enhance the user experience and strengthen the Company’s competitive advantages.” That’s all exciting stuff, but there’s no mention of a new model to boost sales or a clear strategy to deal with Europe’s new tariffs on Chinese-produced electric vehicles. Those seem like the most important factors for hastening near-term growth. Well, those things and entering new markets, like Xpeng is doing.

I’ll just end with the note that while it’s interesting to compare NIO and Xpeng, I see them more as “partners in crime” (or partners in climate justice if we want to put a more positive and logical spin on the idiom) than competitors. They raise the markets, stimulate new EV demand, and grow EV sales and market share together. They both offer highly compelling electric vehicles that, in my opinion, aren’t actually matched by anyone else in the world (arguably, by Tesla, Zeekr, and BYD, but I’d still give the nod to Xpeng and NIO). I love seeing them both post double-digit and sometimes even triple-digit percentage growth headlines, so I hope they can keep that up. Doing so in back-to-back years is much more impressive than doing it for for a short time after boosting production capacity and model choices. Keep on keepin’ on, chaps!