The estimated delivery waiting time for the third-generation Nio ES8 has been shortened to less than a month, the model’s configurator page showed on Monday.
Shorter wait times and a slower rate of milestone growth suggest demand for the company’s best-selling model may have plateaued.
When the model launched in late September, wait times reached 24–26 weeks — nearly half a year.
By mid-January, that figure had fallen to 13–14 weeks (just over 3 months), and by February 11, to 8–9 weeks.
In the two weeks that followed, the window was cut roughly in half again, dropping to 6–7 weeks, then 4–5 weeks in the first week of March.
Customers ordering today can expect delivery in about 3—4 weeks.
Delivery waiting times have been shortening steadily as the production ramp up of the past few months and decreasing demand for the model led the brand to shorten the timeline.
Calculations in late September showed that Nio needed to deliver roughly 4,000 units per week (about 571 units per day) to clear the backlog in six months.
At that rate, the initial 100,000 orders would be fulfilled by late February or early March.
Updates have been posted weekly, except during February, when a production slowdown over the Chinese New Year holiday caused the waiting time to shorten by just one week over a 14-day-period instead.
Delivery Numbers
The EV maker delivered the 70,000th ES8 on February 27, about 30 days after the company reached the 60,000-unit milestone.
The gap between milestones has doubled, considering that it took the company about 14 days to go from 50,000 to 60,000 ES8 deliveries.
Besides the holiday production disruption in February, Nio announced late last month that it was facing a supply chain issue due to a shortage of audio signal processing chips.
Affected vehicles began shipping with a temporary workaround on March 2.
Nio delivered 11,260 ES8 vehicles in China last month, totaling 71,260 since the first unit was handed over on September 21, 2025.
Nio‘s third factory, where the ES8 is produced, manufactured 43,668 units of the model in 2025, exceeding the company’s target by nearly 3,700 vehicles.
Last year’s figures showed that Nio could produce roughly 20,000–25,000 ES8s per month at the maximum capacity.
Demand Questions
The 22,258 deliveries in December made the Nio ES8 China’s best-selling SUV in the 400,000 yuan ($58,200) segment by single-month volume.
The shrinking wait time raises questions about whether ES8 demand is stabilizing after the initial launch frenzy.
Some ES8 reservation holders may be canceling orders while switching to the larger and more luxurious ES9, set to be unveiled on April 9 — which could explain part of the shortened wait time.
The pattern would mirror what happened with other models — such as the flagship sedan ET9 or the Onvo L90.
A few hours after Nio reported its February global delivery figures, the company announced several new offers as it aims to increase demand for its models in China.
For ES8 buyers, Nio is offering a 10,000 yuan ($1,500) purchase tax subsidy and 7-year low-interest financing, along with 5 years of free NOP+ (Navigate on Pilot Plus) usage.
Profitability and Margins
Nio is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter earnings results on Tuesday.
Investors are anticipating good news after the company confirmed last month that it has achieved its first profitable quarter ever.
The margin level of its best-selling model is considered a key factor in that achievement, with co-founder and President Qin Lihong reaffirming in late January that the new ES8 has a gross margin of 20%.
“The ES8’s gross margin is 20%,” Nio’s co-founder stated, adding that “the average selling price on the showroom floor is over 400,000 yuan [$57,900].”
According to the figures provided by Lihong, Nio generates 80,000 yuan ($11,470) in gross profit per ES8 sold — which indicates that the company has made over 5.7 billion yuan ($824.7 million) with its sales alone.
In the latest earnings report, covering July through September, Nio disclosed a 14.7% vehicle margin.
The figures, considering all models sold, were up 1.3 percentage points year over year and by 3 percentage points when compared to the previous quarter.
