JPMorgan on Tuesday upgraded Nio’s U.S.-listed shares to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ and added the stock to its ‘Positive Catalyst Watch’ list, citing several potential drivers into year-end.
The rating and price target upgrade come as Nio steps up hiring for manufacturing roles.
As reported earlier on Tuesday by EV, the company is recruiting more than 200 workers across its three factories in China, ahead of an expected new monthly delivery record in August and further growth in the fourth quarter.
In a new research note, the analyst Nick Lai lifted the price target to $8.00 from $4.80, implying an upside of about 31% from Monday’s closing price of $6.09.
The bank highlighted three events it expects to support the stock including Nio’s second-quarter earnings results scheduled to be reported next week, on September 2.
Additionally, JPMorgan cited the final purchase pricing of the third-generation ES8 SUV and the company’s annual Nio Day on September 20.
Earlier this week, the EV maker announced its annual event would be held in Hangzhou in “late September” without revealing a specific day.
Lai also mentioned the Guangzhou Auto Show as a catalyst. The event begins on November 21, where JPMorgan expects Nio to unveil its upcoming five-seat version of the L90, the Onvo L80.
JPMorgan projects Nio’s deliveries will rise 50% in 2025 and 47% in 2026.
Shares of the Shanghai-headquartered EV maker were up 4.6% in pre-market trading on Tuesday, helped by stronger weekly registration figures in China alongside the bank’s rating upgrade.
The price target increase marks JPMorgan’s second upward revision in less than two weeks.
On August 14, the bank raised its target to $4.80 from $4.10, citing higher delivery forecasts for 2026 and 2027.
Earlier this year, in February, JPMorgan had downgraded the stock to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’ and cut its target to $4.70 from $7.00, before trimming it further to $4.10 in the spring.
In the February note — in a note obtained by PriceTarget — the analyst said the firm expected Nio to deliver 334,000 vehicles this year. The figures would represent a 50% increase from 2024.
However, Nio delivered 135,167 vehicles in the first seven months of 2025 — only up 25.2% year over year.
Amid the launch of new and revamped models — such as Onvo’s L80/L90 and the Nio ES8 — the company needs to deliver nearly 305,000 vehicles between August 1 and December 31 to achieve its target.
JPMorgan’s case for improvement in the second half leans on product cadence of Onvo’s new SUVs.
Nio‘s management said in the previous earnings call that it aims for the three models — the L60, L80, and L90 — to reach 25,000 monthly deliveries in the final quarter of the year, which would amount to 75,000 Onvo vehicles for the quarter.
Adding the same target for the Nio brand, plus Firefly vehicles, which have no public sales target, would take total deliveries to over 150,000 units for the period.
The brand’s large L90 SUV was launched on July 31 and began deliveries on August 1 across more than 40 cities.
For August, and based on the latest weekly registrations figures released earlier this Tuesday, the model is on track to surpass 10,000 deliveries alone.
Additionally, as reported on Monday, orders for the L60 SUV have surged 30% this month to a record high, supporting Onvo’s chief’s statement that the L90 has also drawn attention to the brand’s other model.
The second quarter portfolio update showed this week that JPMorgan increased its stake in Nio during the second quarter, buying more than 4.4 million shares between April and June, taking its holdings to the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2022.
As reported earlier today, Nio has registered new trademarks for its in-car AI voice assistant ‘NOMI,’ expanding its potential use to humanoid robots.
