While many are excited, a new factor that could affect deliveries in recent days needs attention.
For Nio (NYSE: NIO), July may have been the sweetest month of the last two years: no significant supply chain issues were encountered, and the stock is up 52 percent so far this month.
With the ET5 Touring and the new ES8 both set to see their first full delivery month, and the new ES6 coming in for its second full delivery month, many are expecting that sweetness to continue, leading to record-high deliveries.
As one of the first Chinese EV companies to start voluntarily announcing monthly deliveries, Nio is expected to announce July's numbers on August 1. Before the official numbers were released, there was already a lot of speculation on Chinese social media and it sparked widespread discussion.
On the morning of July 30, @电车润哥, an automotive blogger with 270,000 followers on Weibo, said Nio's deliveries topped 20,000 units in July.
The blogger did not specify the source of the figure, and CnEVPost could not confirm its authenticity.
The screenshot of the Weibo post was shared to multiple WeChat groups, and we've seen many people also sharing about it on Twitter.
Subsequently, more discussions about Nio's deliveries in July appeared on Chinese social media, mostly about the anticipation of Nio's upcoming new achievement.
"A lot of people in the industry, from investors, to peers, to fans, and users are closely watching this data [Nio's deliveries] at the moment," @电动兄弟, an auto blogger and Nio owner with 36,000 followers on Weibo, wrote yesterday afternoon.
For a carmaker that produces high-end all-electric vehicles, the value of 20,000 deliveries is similar to the value of 30,000 deliveries of cars with a gas tank, he said, implicitly referring to Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI), which saw deliveries exceed the 30,000 mark for the first time in June.
If Nio's deliveries hadn't exceeded 20,000 in July, it would surely have been a new monthly high as well, the blogger cautiously added.
Early this morning, Nio's senior director of corporate communications, Ma Lin, retweeted @电动兄弟's Weibo post on his personal Weibo account with some interesting information.
"Orders, firm orders, locked-in orders, deliveries, insurance registrations, there is a difference between these five numbers. Nio discloses on the first day of the month the delivered vehicle numbers audited by an accounting firm and the insurance registrations differ from the delivery numbers due to the time difference," Ma wrote.
In July, Nio's second-generation models started to show the competitiveness they deserve, but it is not yet known how many will be delivered in the end due to factors including typhoon and heavy rains.
"Regardless of the number, Nio completely activated the premium pure EV market in July," Ma added.
Ma's Weibo post mentioned a factor to watch out for -- over the past few days, several Chinese cities, especially in the north, have been hit by torrential rains due to Typhoon Doksuri, which could affect logistics and lead to delays in deliveries.
On July 30, China's National Meteorological Center (NMC) issued three red rainstorm warnings -- the highest level of rainfall warnings -- starting at 6 am.
Today, at 6 am, the NMC issued another red rainstorm warning, expecting heavy to torrential rains from 8:00 am on July 31 to 8:00 am on August 1 over most of Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, and eastern Shanxi, with heavy rainstorms (100 to 220 millimeters) over parts of central Hebei and west-central Beijing.
Since July 29, heavy to torrential rains has occurred in south-central and eastern Hebei, most of Beijing, Tianjin, east-central Shanxi, most of Henan, west-central and northern Shandong, with heavy rainfall in parts of south-central Beijing, south-central and northeastern Hebei, northern Henan, eastern Shanxi, and western Shandong, and extraordinarily torrential rains in parts of south-central Hebei, southwestern Beijing, and northern Henan, according to the NMC.
Back to Nio, yesterday evening, several auto bloggers shared a poster on Weibo showing that Nio will be holding a user operations team meeting on August 1 from 0:00 am to 0:30 am to witness a new milestone for the company, which will be attended by Nio's founder, chairman, and CEO, William Li, as well as co-founder and president, Qin Lihong. CnEVPost could not confirm the poster's authenticity.
Nio vehicles had 4,700 insurance registrations in China during the week of July 17 to July 23, bringing the number to 12,700 from July 1 to July 23, according to figures shared by Li Auto last Tuesday.
For the Nio, historical data showed that its monthly deliveries and insurance registrations are not that far apart.
If Nio's deliveries in the last week of July are at the same level as the week before, it will have delivered more than 17,400 units in July, thus setting a new record high, even without taking into account the upward pulse that usually occurs at the end of the month.
Nio delivered 10,707 vehicles in June, up 74 percent from 6,155 in May. Its previous record for monthly deliveries was 15,815 in December last year.
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