On June 10 of this year, Tesla's stock price surpassed $1,000 for the first time, overtaking Toyota as the world's largest car company by market capitalization.
In recent months, the stock price of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Nio (NYSE: NIO) has continued to rise and is now worth about $30 billion, more than the combined market capitalization of Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) and Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV). So the question is, can Nio become China's most valuable car company by market cap?
On October 2, Nio and Li Auto announced September sales figures, and both set all-time highs for deliveries.
Nio delivered 4,708 units, while Li Auto delivered 3,504 units. Nio, in particular, delivered a record 12,206 vehicles in Q3, exceeding financial expectations.
Nio, which has maintained monthly sales of 3,000-4,000 units since April 2020, had a breakthrough in the traditional peak season with 4,708 units delivered, thanks to three models on sale: the ES8, ES6, and EC6 (deliveries began in September).
The following October, with the help of the EC6, getting deliveries past 5,000 units should be a no-brainer. The suspense is whether it will get to 6,000 units, or 7,000?
Nio's rising sales, overlaid with cash flow issues, have even increased Nio's stock price nearly 20 times in the past year.
Nio stock reached an all-time high of $22.59 on September 30, giving it a market capitalization of more than $30 billion.
Flash forward to October 2, 2019, and Nio stock hit an all-time low of $1.19, just one step away from the $1 threshold for delisting. At that time, Nio founder William Li Bin was called by the media the man in the worst situation in 2019.
With monthly sales of nearly 5,000 units and a stock price that has doubled nearly 20 times a year, William Li Bin, in 2020, is already the happiest man in the new car-making powerhouse.
Of course, the bottom line of happiness lies in the fact that William Li Bin, after 2020, has successively made Nio's cash reserves over 20 billion yuan through debt-to-equity swaps and equity financing, which is very different from the stretched cash flow before.
What's more, after layoffs, executives, and various cost-cutting in 2019, Nio finally turned gross profit positive in Q2 2020 and achieved a gross margin of 8.4%.
This gave Nio hope for profitability, with cash in reserve to further expand production and invest in technology development.
On August 14, 2020, a work card of former Momenta R&D Director Ren Shaoqing circulated on Chinese social media, confirming Ren Shaoqing's departure from Momenta, but also revealing that Nio was back to investing in core technology R&D when it had money again.
After all, Ren Shaoqing, who holds the title of Assistant Vice President, is not going to bring Nio's Nio Pilot core development out.
William Li Bin buy future moves, including the introduction of Ren Shaoqing as an assistant vice president, but has not yet announced his responsibilities. Insiders believe Ren Shaoqing is in charge of Nio Pilot.
Another is the joint CATL, Guotai Junan International, set up Wuhan Weineng, began to layout the battery replacement system.
Li Auto's way of buying the future is to introduce Wang Kai, who, with the halo of American automotive electronics supplier Visteon's global chief architect and director of automated driving, is expected to take up the position of CTO of Li Auto, with overall responsibility for smart car-related technologies. R&D and mass production work, including electrical and electronic architecture, smart cabin, autopilot, platform development, and Li OS real-time operating system.
The way Xpeng buys the future, surprisingly, is that during the Beijing Auto Show, on September 26, He Xiaopeng unveiled the Xpeng Heitech Traveller T1.
Xpeng Heitech and a company co-invested and held by He Xiaopeng and Xpeng, the T1 is an ultra-low-altitude aircraft and plans to launch a second-generation flying car in mid-2021.
In terms of buying the future, Nio is a two-legged stool, one leg is to reinvest in core technology development, and the second leg is to do something innovative in the business model - a battery replacement system.
Of course, the battery replacement thing is not new, previous attempts, including BAIC New Energy, have failed. In 2020, policy support for battery replacement will be restored, and Nio's insistence on the battery replacement model will come in the spring, and it will start to invest heavily.
Li Auto is the closest to investing against Tesla, but it still lacks chips, battery technology, etc. However, it remains to be seen whether Wang Kai will be able to take on this heavy responsibility, after all, Visteon's work experience is not convincing in the Li Auto CTO position.
Xpeng has launched a low-altitude vehicle, and I wonder if it will launch a rocket next, which in a way could be interpreted as emulating Musk's efforts to explore air travel and even space migration.
There's also the question of who will be the future No. 1 Chinese new energy market cap car company.
So far, the market capitalization of the leading Chinese new energy vehicle companies listed in the United States are as follows: Nio market capitalization of $29.3 billion, Li Auto market capitalization of $14 billion, and Xpeng market capitalization of $13.4 billion.
Nio's market capitalization is already more than the combined market capitalization of Li Auto and Xpeng.
However, when it comes to China's new energy vehicle market capitalization, we have to mention BYD, which is listed on A-shares and has a market capitalization of RMB 317.1 billion (about $46 billion), and Evergrande, which is listed on Hong Kong shares and has a market capitalization of HK$175.2 billion.
In terms of market capitalization, BYD's market capitalization is currently the largest among new energy vehicle companies.
BYD is closer to China's Tesla in terms of core competency composition, as BYD has battery business, IGBTs, etc., and its cumulative sales of new energy vehicles used to overwhelm Tesla until Tesla launched its best-selling Model 3, which overtook BYD in October 2019.
At the moment, Nio and BYD, maybe in the next period of time, to become China's new energy market value of the number one car company, or China Tesla, will launch a certain degree of competition.
Some are bullish on BYD for its deep technology accumulation and outstanding scale effects. Others like Nio, seeing it as an aggressive player and with a valuation closer to that of Tesla.
Only time will tell if Nio will become China's largest auto company by market cap.
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