The Nio App has stopped showing wait times for the EC6, potentially making way for a replacement model that will likely be called the EC7 that may be launched on Nio Day.
(Vehicle information displayed in Nio App on December 13. From left to right, ES8, ES6, EC6.)
The vehicle wait information displayed on the Nio (NYSE: NIO) App shows some interesting changes, hinting that ET5 capacity is continuing to increase and that the EC6 facelift is expected to be launched at the end of this month.
Consumers who currently order the Nio ET5 can expect delivery 12-14 weeks after locking in their order, the latest information from the Nio App monitored by CnEVPost shows.
This is one week shorter than the previous 13-15 weeks. While this change may not seem like much, it is significant for Nio, which is currently struggling to ramp up ET5 production capacity.
Nio currently sells six models in China, including three models based on the NT 1.0 platform -- ES8, ES6 and EC6 -- and three models based on the NT 2.0 platform -- ES7, ET7, and ET5.
ET5 was launched on Nio Day 2021 last December, and the first delivery was on September 30 this year.
On September 16, Nio started to show the wait times for all its models, ET5 was then 21-23 weeks or about 5-6 months.
The Nio App stopped showing the ET5 wait time on October 21 and resumed that information on December 2, when it showed a wait time of 13-15 weeks.
While the ET5 wait time has been shortened, the ET7 wait time has been slightly extended.
The Nio App now shows an expected delivery date for the ET7 of 2-3 weeks after consumers lock in their orders, compared to "about 2 weeks" previously.
The wait time for Nio's another NT 2.0 platform-based model, the ES7, remains unchanged at 4-6 weeks.
A small change in one of Nio's NT 1.0-based models seems more interesting.
The Nio App stopped showing the wait time for the Nio EC6 today, and the wait time for the ES6 remains at about 2 weeks. The wait time for the ES8 is still not shown.
(Vehicle information displayed in Nio App on December 13.)
The Nio App stopped showing the wait time for the ES8 on November 23, and the recent information implies that this move by Nio was part of its effort to start phasing the model out.
On December 10, William Li, Nio founder, chairman, and CEO, said Nio will launch two models at Nio Day 2022. The event will be held on December 24 in Hefei, where Nio's two factories are located.
On December 12, Nio co-founder and president Qin Lihong said in the end-of-the-year media communication that Nio will launch two models at Nio Day 2022, one of which is the ES8 based on NT 2.0 platform and the other is a very stylish new model.
This means that Nio App was making way for the new ES8 when it stopped showing the wait time for the model last month.
Now, Nio App has stopped showing the wait time for the EC6, perhaps for the same purpose, and the NT 2.0 version of that model is expected to be called the EC7.
On October 11, local media shared several spy photos of what is suspected to be the Nio EC7 on road test, a model that may come with an electric rear wing.
On October 26, three new spy photos supposedly of the Nio EC7 began to circulate. "I wonder if it will be (Nio's) prettiest model," wrote one blogger at the time.
(Nio EC7 spy photo)
(Nio EC6)
On November 10, Li said in a conference call following Nio's third-quarter earnings announcement that Nio would launch five models by the first half of next year and would have a total of eight available models by June.
Yesterday, Nio announced that its 300,000th production vehicle rolled off the production line. Qin said at yesterday's event that delivery of Nio's 300,000th vehicle is expected to be around January 1.
Considering that Nio's cumulative deliveries reached 273,741 units as of November 30, the latest information implies that the company is on track to reach about 26,000 deliveries in December.
