Nio‘s ES9 model can now be delivered four to six weeks after an order is locked, down from as long as 17 weeks after its launch in May, as the order backlog for the brand’s executive SUV shortens.
The exact number of ES9 delivered in October will be disclosed over the following days when China’s Passenger Car Association (CPCA) reports last month’s figures with model breakdown.
The EV maker’s online configurator in China showed on Monday that the top-of-the-range Horizon Special Edition, priced at 628,000 yuan ($94,500), could be picked up four to six weeks after an order is locked. The Executive Signature, at 558,000 yuan ($83,900), showed four to five weeks.
The entry Executive Luxury, at 498,000 yuan ($74,900), showed three to four weeks, the same wait it has displayed in every check since launch. The waits were identical for both of the ES9’s six-seat cabin layouts.
The shorter queue comes as the ES9 passed 3,000 deliveries in Shanghai, home to Nio’s global headquarters, the company said on Monday.
Nio said the ES9 has led sales of vehicles priced above 500,000 yuan ($75,200) in Shanghai for four straight months. The city was the first in China where ES9 deliveries passed 1,000, on July 5, according to an earlier Nio statement.
The ES9 Queue
The wait for the two top versions has been falling since early June, when it stood at 16 to 17 weeks. It eased to 15 to 16 weeks in early July, 13 to 14 weeks in early August and 11 to 12 weeks in mid-September.
The decline has since accelerated. The Horizon Special Edition showed 9 to 10 weeks on October 1, and both top versions showed 8 to 9 weeks on October 12. Monday’s reading approximately halved that in three weeks.
The gap between the top versions and the entry model has nearly closed. The two higher trims carry Nio’s Tianxing fully active suspension, which the Executive Luxury does without, and that suspension had been the main constraint on supply.
Founder and CEO William Li told analysts on September 1 that demand was strongest “especially for the Horizon edition and the Signature Edition.” He said buyers placing orders would “need to wait for three months or nearly four months to pick up a new car.” Two months later, the configurator suggests about a month.
Five Months of Sales
The ES9 has been a strong seller for a car priced around 500,000 yuan. It sold 7,706 units at retail in China in September, up 19.0% from August and its second-best month after June’s 8,595, according to China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) data.
Nio launched the ES9 on May 27 and began deliveries the next day. The model sold 3,108 units in the last four days of May. Sales then fell 27% in July to 6,311 before edging up to 6,474 in August.
That brings the ES9’s retail total in China to 32,194 through September, including 20,491 in the third quarter.
Nio handed over the 10,000th ES9 on June 26 and the 20,000th on August 8. It handed over the 30,000th on September 23 in Suzhou, 119 days after deliveries began by the company’s count. The first 10,000 took about 30 days, the second 43 and the third 46.
The ES9 accounted for 36.2% of the Nio brand’s 21,277 retail sales in China in September and 20.7% of the 37,231 recorded across Nio Inc.’s Nio, Onvo and Firefly brands. Together with the ES8, which sold 10,539 units, the two large SUVs made up 85.8% of the Nio brand’s retail sales.
The October Test
October will be the first month in which the ES9’s sales reflect a largely cleared queue, and the brand-level figures are weaker. The Nio brand delivered 18,125 vehicles in October, the company said on Sunday, down 15.0% from 21,318 in September and its lowest monthly total since February.
Deliveries were still up 6% from 17,143 a year earlier, the smallest year-on-year gain of 2026 apart from April’s 1% decline.
Nio does not break out ES9 deliveries in its monthly release. CPCA’s model-level data for October is due in mid-November. The Nio brand had delivered more than 20,000 vehicles in every month from May to September, the ES9’s first five months on sale.
When the backlog runs out, monthly sales track new orders more closely. “I think July we were still consuming some pre-orders,” Li said on the September 1 call. He said the ES9 had cleared its last pre-orders in July and that new orders grew in August.
Nio has never published ES9 order or backlog figures. The slowdown matters for Nio Inc.’s fourth-quarter goal. Li told analysts in September the company was targeting an average of more than 40,000 deliveries a month in the quarter, and October’s 34,246 left it about 5,750 short of that pace.
Deutsche Bank has forecast 56,000 ES9 sales in 2026, which would require about 7,900 a month from October to December. The model has reached that pace only in June.
Bank of China International expected volume to settle at 3,000 to 4,000 a month once the backlog cleared. The ES9 has stayed well above that range in every full month so far.
Who Is Buying
Nio has said the ES9 is winning customers from other brands. It said 70% of the first 10,000 buyers were new to Nio, and Li said in September that about three quarters of orders came from users of other brands.
The ES9 is built on Nio’s 900-volt platform and pairs a 520-kilowatt dual-motor drivetrain with a 102-kilowatt-hour battery, rated at up to 620 kilometers (385 miles) on China’s CLTC test cycle. Li pitched it at launch as an alternative to the multi-purpose vehicles favored by Chinese families. “Six people and 13 suitcases, no problem — every seat is an MVP. Forget about MPVs,” he said.
The model has also lifted Nio’s pricing. The Nio brand’s average selling price rose after the ES9’s launch, and management has said the ES8 and ES9 both carry vehicle margins above 20%. The ES9 generated over $600 million in revenue in June alone.
Goldman Sachs cited the model when it upgraded Nio in July. “This is supported by the company’s successful turnaround with the launch of new ES8/ES9 together with leading brand power,” analyst Tina Hou wrote, according to Price Target, EV‘s sister publication that archives Wall Street analyst research on the EV, AI and semiconductor industries.
Beyond China
Sales outside mainland China remain negligible. CPCA data show Nio exported four ES9s in July and five in August, nine in total, and the company has announced no plan to launch the model in Europe or the Americas.
The ES9 is already being delivered in Macao. Li handed over ES9s to three customers at Nio’s center in Macao on October 11, alongside former basketball star Yao Ming, whom Nio calls the ES9’s Chief Experience Officer.
Further afield, the ES9 has gone on sale in Armenia, its first known market outside China and Macao. Nio’s dealer in Yerevan, N-Motors, lists three versions from 35.8 million dram ($99,400) to 44.6 million dram ($123,900), about a third more than in China.
In China, the ES9 is priced from 498,000 yuan to 628,000 yuan, or 390,000 yuan ($58,700) to 520,000 yuan ($78,200) under Nio’s battery-rental plan. Each version was cut by 30,000 yuan ($4,500) from its April pre-sale price at launch.
