On Chinese social media, attention is focused on Mr. Li, who shares the same name as Nio's founder.
Li Auto is aiming to double its production this year compared to last year and also double its output value, said Li Bin, vice president of the automaker and general manager of the company's Changzhou production base.
"The Changzhou site is currently producing on double shifts, running at full capacity and seeing 560 vehicles off the line each day," Li said, according to an article published today by the Changzhou city government.
The article doesn't reveal much more about Li Auto, but it has been widely discussed on Chinese social media because Mr. Li (李斌、Li bin) shares the same name as the more well-known William Li (李斌、Li bin), the founder, chairman and CEO of Nio.
In fact, this comes as no surprise - after all, the Li surname is the most populous in China.
According to data from the seventh census released last year, China's total population exceeds 1.4 billion, of which 7.94 percent, or 95.3 million people, have the surname Li.
The percentage of people with the surname Wang is 7.41 percent, or 88.9 million people, ranking second. The percentage of people with the surname name Zhang is 7.07 percent, or 84.8 million people, ranking third.
Back to Li Auto, the company currently has a plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, with an annual capacity of 100,000 units under a single shift. It delivered 90,491 vehicles for the year 2021.
According to Li Auto's Li, producing 560 vehicles per day means an annual capacity of about 200,000 vehicles.
Li Auto officially started construction of its manufacturing base in Beijing's Shunyi District on October 16 last year and plans to start production by the end of 2023, which will achieve an annual capacity of 100,000 pure-play electric vehicles when it reaches production.
CnEVPost reported yesterday that a subsidiary of Li Auto has bought a 1.13 million square meter plot of land in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing for RMB 430 million ($67.6 million).
The site is even larger than Tesla's Giga Shanghai, which is 860,000 square meters and had a capacity of 450,000 units last year. Giga Shanghai is expected to top 1 million units a year in the next few years, Cailian said earlier this month, citing people familiar with the matter.
Li Auto had previously said it was aiming for 1.6 million units in sales by 2025, and the latest move seems to be setting the stage for aggressive capacity expansion.
Li Auto buys huge plot of land in Chongqing to prepare for aggressive capacity expansion
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