NIO announced that its products will increase in price.
On April 10, NIO announced the price changes of various models through its official platform. According to the announcement, due to the impact of rising global raw material prices, from May 10, 2022, NIO will make appropriate adjustments to the prices of its products.
Among them, the starting price of ES8, ES6 and EC6 versions of the model is raised by 10,000 yuan, and the starting price of ET7 and ET5 remains unchanged. Select the battery rental service, the long-endurance battery pack (100kWh) rental service fee is adjusted to 1680 yuan / month, and the purchased car users are not affected by this adjustment. The battery pack is flexibly upgraded to a long-lasting battery pack on an annual basis, and the price is adjusted to 9800 yuan / year.
ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7 deposit or ET5 reservation deposit payment before May 9, 2022 (inclusive), the purchase price and battery rental service fee are not affected by this adjustment.
As of 14:42 Beijing time, NIO's Hong Kong stock price was HK$151.6, down 7.28%.
Previously, Li Bin, founder and chairman of Weilai, had responded to the views on the price increase of raw materials upstream of power batteries and the company's countermeasures. At that time, he said at the fourth quarter and annual financial report: "At present, Weilai has not raised prices, there is no current idea of price increases, and then it will be based on market conditions to see whether the pricing policy is adjusted." ”
On April 9, Li Bin posted on Weilai's official app, "A car is almost a part that cannot be produced, and recently it has encountered the epidemic in Shanghai and Jiangsu and other places, and many partners cannot supply goods and can only suspend production." This situation is not ours alone, many manufacturers have suspended production. We are as anxious as everyone else and hope that the epidemic will pass soon. ”
Li Bin said that the price increase was forced. He said that raw materials, especially battery raw materials, have risen too much this year, and there is no trend of decline in the near future, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, so the price of the company's products has to be raised.
The recent outbreak and recurrence of the epidemic in various places has had an impact on Shanghai-based Weilai.
On April 9, NIO released the "Explanation on Recent Production and Delivery". According to the content, "Since March, due to the epidemic, the company's supply chain partners in Jilin, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have stopped production one after another, and have not yet recovered." Affected by this, NIO's vehicle production has been suspended."
Due to the above reasons, many users' vehicles will be delayed in the near future. Weilai said that the company will work with supply chain partners to strive to resume production as soon as possible and deliver vehicles as soon as possible under the premise of meeting the requirements of epidemic prevention.
According to official information, NIO delivered a total of 9,985 smart electric vehicles in March 2022, an increase of 37.6% year-on-year. In the first quarter of 2022, NIO delivered a total of 25,768 smart electric vehicles, an increase of 28.5% year-on-year, and positive growth for eight consecutive quarters. By the end of March 2022, NIO had delivered a total of 192,838 smart electric vehicles.
Even after eight consecutive quarters of positive sales growth, in the first quarter of this year, NIO's total deliveries still lagged behind Ideal, Xiaopeng and Nezha, ranking fourth among domestic new car manufacturers.
Weilai said that at present, the Jianghuai Automobile Foundry is upgrading its production line, and the second factory located near Hefei Xinqiao Airport has basically completed the construction of the plant and equipment installation, and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of fiscal 2022, which is expected to bring 100,000 new annual production capacity. Deliveries of its smart electric flagship sedan, the ET7, began on March 28, with 163 units delivered as of March 31. According to the plan, NIO will release the 2022 ES8, ES6 and EC6 models equipped with the latest smart cockpit hardware in late May.
Ping An Securities pointed out that 2022 is a new year for NIO, and three new models will be launched throughout the year, and the first flagship sedan ET7 mass production car has been rolled off the production line at the JAC WEILAI plant. The second sedan, the ET5, will be put into production at NEOPark, NIO's second production site, and delivery is expected to start in September. The ES7 is positioned as a large 5-seat pure electric SUV, benchmarking the BMWX5, which is scheduled to be released in the second quarter, and the ES7 will be produced at the JAC Weilai plant. The three new models are based on NIO's latest NT2.0 platform, equipped with NIO's NAD automatic driving system, and the automatic driving hardware has reached the L4 level, with the goal of opening subscription services for some users in 4Q22.
According to the analysis of Ping An Securities, NIO's research and development expenses in 2021 will be 4.59 billion yuan (the company expects the annual research and development expenses of 5 billion yuan at the beginning of 2021), an increase of 84.6% year-on-year. The company's gross profit in 2021 can basically cover the annual sales and management expenses, and the continuous expansion of R & D investment is one of the important reasons for the company's loss. NIO plans to double its R&D expenses in 2022, and the scale of R&D personnel will reach 9,000 by the end of 2022. Ping An Securities expects NIO to break even in the fourth quarter of 2023 and is expected to be profitable in 2024.
Li Bin said in an interview that the core team of the new brand has been built, and the first batch of products has entered the key research and development stage. The Company plans to achieve the construction targets of 1,300 and 3,000 substation facilities by the end of fiscal year 2022 and 3,000 respectively by fiscal year 2025, and to add 100 sales stores in fiscal year 2022.