Up-and-Coming Chinese Automakers Report February Delivery Volume

Several up-and-coming Chinese automakers released reports on their recent sales performance on Tuesday. In February, electric vehicle (EV) maker NIO Inc. delivered 6,131 new cars, up 9.9% year-on-year. Li Auto delivered 8,414 Li ONEs last month, up 265.8% year-on-year. Finally, XPeng Motors sold 6,225 vehicles in February, up 180% year-on-year.

Many other EV brands in the country have also showed strength of late. NETA Auto, for instance, delivered 7,117 new cars in February, only lower than that of Li Auto, for a year-on-year increase of 255%. In the same period, the delivery volume of Leapmotor increased by 447% year-on-year to 3,435 vehicles. Geely-backed Zeekr delivered 2,916 ZEEKR 001 models in February.

In January this year, XPeng Motors delivered 12,922 vehicles, later seeing a quite obvious decline in February. According to the firm, the fall was mainly due to the technical transformation of its Zhaoqing Production Base during the Chinese Spring Festival period, lasting from the end of January to the beginning of February 2022.

Ma Lin, Senior Director of Communication and Director of Public Relations for NIO Inc., said that the company’s sales volume was mainly due to a “factory lock-out during the Spring Festival holidays.” It also produced prototype cars, exhibition cars and test cars, such as the NIO ET7, in February. The delivery of the ET7 will begin on March 28.

Compared with NIO, XPeng and Li Auto‘s preference towards the middle- and high-end market, NETA Auto, who focuses on “building cars for the people,” has also developed rapidly. In terms of performance, 3,044 NETA U Pro models and 4,073 NETA V series models were delivered by the firm in February, an increase of 103% year-on-year. The prices of these two models are concentrated around roughly 100,000 yuan ($15,841). According to Zhang Yong, CEO of NETA Auto, the good quality with affordable price of its cars mainly led to the sharp increase in sales volume.

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NETA Auto, Leapmotor and WM Motor, which were previously lagging behind, began to seek breakthroughs. NETA Auto’s NETA S will be delivered in 2022, and the new car is equipped with suspension and LiDAR, taking aim at competing models such as the XPeng P7 and BYD Han series. The WM Motor M7 is planned to be delivered this year, which will be equipped with three LiDAR sensors. Not long ago, the Leapmotor C01 model was announced, which has a 3-second 0-100km acceleration and a battery life of 700km. These two cars will challenge the high-end car market together with the NETA S.