EXCLUSIVE: Worm Capital expects NIO to deliver 200,000+ vehicles in 2022

Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com

Worm Capital released on Monday, April 18, its new research presentation on Tesla. When talking about Tesla’s competition, the authors present a production estimate for the biggest EV makers, predicting 1.6 million vehicles for Tesla and over 200k for NIO. If the Chinese electric vehicle maker reach this result, it will represent a 130% – 140% annual growth from 2021, when the company delivered 91,429 units.

Among the other estimates, Worm Capital expects 780k vehicles produced by the Warren Buffett-backed BYD, 540k units for Stellantis Group, 530k for Volkswagen Group, and 300k for XPeng Motors. Check the 91-slides presentation here.

On April 1, NIO announced that delivered a total of 9,985 units in China during March 2022. After delivering 9,652 units in January and another 6,131 in February, the electric vehicle manufacturer had its best month since December reaching a total of 25,768 units in the first quarter of 2022. This was the first month that NIO deliveries also included NIO ET7 beside the already known ES8, ES6 and EC6 models.

The presentation enhances Tesla’s potential to achieve a 20 million vehicle production run-rate by year-end 2030 helped by the supply chain integrations: “Our multi-year research effort into Tesla’s manufacturing capabilities and supply chain integrations suggest that Tesla is more than 6 years ahead of any competitor. This lead is expanding.” — Worm Capital stated.

Worm Capital’s big stake on Tesla made the firm one of 2020’s best hedge fund performers, when it gained more than 270 percent. In 2021, however, Tesla’s stock has fallen, dragging down the firm, whose long-short equity strategy fell 15.18 percent during the first half of 2021 — Institutional Investor reported last July.

Earlier today, NIO announced on April 18 that has reached a total of 900 Battery Swap Stations in China. According to the company, NIO users have changed batteries more than 8,000,000 times saving users more than 8 million hours when compared the common 60kW DC piles on the market.

According to a job post published on LinkedIn, the electric vehicle maker NIO started last week looking for a Plant Manager in Europe. The company aims to produce Battery Swap Stations and Charging Piles in Europe to avoid exporting costs from China. The position is located in Budapest (Hungary) suggesting that the company could acquire/ buy a factory there during the next years and establish its European production centre in the country.

Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com