A Nio Electric SUV Inc. ES6 at a battery exchange station inside a parking lot in Shanghai on March 1, 2021.
Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images
BEIJING – The launch of Chinese electric vehicles, Nio said on Tuesday that the global shortage of chips will force it to make fewer cars in the second quarter.
High demand for electronics amid the coronavirus pandemic and pressure from trade tensions between the US and China on the highly specialized semiconductor supply chain have contributed to a lag in chip manufacturing.
As a result, major automakers have had to cut production, with China-based Nio being the last to announce such reductions.
The company had increased production capacity in February to 10,000 vehicles a month, up from 7,500 earlier, founder William Li said in a quarterly profit call on Tuesday. But the shortage of chips and batteries means Nio will have to fall back to the 7,500 level in the second quarter, he said.
Nio predicts strong deliveries
Despite Tesla’s competition, Nio remained ahead of its initial rivals in terms of vehicle sales.
The company delivered 7,225 vehicles in January and 5,578 in February amid a week-long lunar New Year holiday. With a forecast of 20,000 to 25,000 deliveries in the first quarter, Nio predicts deliveries will increase to at least 7,197 vehicles in March.
In contrast, Xpeng said on Tuesday that it delivered 2,223 electric cars last month, while Li Auto expects to deliver less than 4,000 cars a month during the first quarter.
Li, founder of Nio, said that pre-orders for the et7 sedan unveiled in January have surpassed those of the company’s other models, but have declined to share specific figures. The et7 is the first consumer car not to use Nio’s SUV and is expected to start delivering next year.
He added that the company was on the right track with its plans to enter Europe later this year.
New York-listed Nio shares fell 4% in extended trading after reporting a fourth-quarter loss of 0.93 yuan (14 cents) per share. This is higher than the loss of 0.39 yuan per share predicted by analysts, according to FactSet.
The company attributed a quarterly increase of nearly 33% in net losses to 1.390 billion yuan ($ 212.8 million) in the last three months of 2020, mainly due to the depreciation of the US dollar.
Nio shares rose more than 1,000% last year after the difficult company received a capital injection of nearly $ 1 billion from state-backed investors and traders rallied on the stock exchange. along with an increase in Tesla shares.
Looking to the future, Nio expects total revenue of 7.388 billion yuan to 7.56 billion yuan in the first quarter, compared to 6.646 billion yuan in the fourth quarter.