Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio reported earlier this Monday a new record for global monthly deliveries in August, but the milestone was largely driven by its two mass-market sub-brands while the premium core marque logged another steep decline.
The Nio brand delivered 10,525 vehicles in August, down 47.8% from the 20,176 units sold a year earlier.
That fell 500 units short of Deutsche Bank’s forecast of about 11,000 units while the group’s total deliveries missed the bank’s consensus by less than a thousand vehicles.
The August figure marked the steepest year-on-year drop so far in 2025, extending a string of weak performances.
Deliveries have fallen sharply since April, when Nio posted its only monthly gain of the year with 19,269 units, up 23% from the prior year.
Since then, sales have contracted by 35% in May, 31% in June, 38% in July and now 48% in August.
By comparison, the group sold 21,017 vehicles in July, including 12,675 Nio units, 5,976 from Onvo and 2,366 Firefly models.
Onvo’s L90 SUV, which launched on July 31 and began deliveries the following day, has quickly become a growth engine.
The model was responsible for over 10,000 units in August, accounting for about one-third of group sales.
Nio founder and chief executive William Li said in June that the Nio and Onvo marques are each targeting around 25,000 monthly sales in the final quarter of the year, which would lift group deliveries to roughly 150,000 units excluding Firefly.
For the core Nio brand, that requires monthly deliveries would need to more than double from August levels, rising by about 14,500 units per month, or 137%, to meet the target.
Dealer feedback cited by Deutsche Bank suggested momentum may be building, with new order intake in August surging 120% month-on-month to an estimated 57,000 vehicles.
Orders included around 15,000 for Nio, 40,000 for Onvo and 2,000 for Firefly, according to the bank, as first reported by CnEVPost.
The weak August figures came just ahead of the official launch of Nio’s third-generation ES8, scheduled for the second half of September.
Deliveries of the flagship SUV will begin immediately after the unveiling across China, providing the brand with a critical opportunity to restore momentum in its premium lineup.
To shore up demand in the meantime, Nio introduced several measures in August.
On August 29, the company announced it will equip all of its models with a 100 kWh long-range battery pack as standard while keeping starting prices unchanged, effectively lowering costs for buyers.
Earlier in the year, Nio had refreshed four of its core-brand models without raising prices.
