Data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) showed on Tuesday that the EV maker Nio delivered fewer than 100 units of its flagship sedan for the second consecutive month.
Officially launched at last year’s annual event in Guangzhou, deliveries of the flagship sedan began across China in late March.
Shortly after the launch event, Deutsche Bank analyst Wang Bin said the firm expected Nio to sell “approximately 1,500 units per month.”
“We appreciate the ET9 sedan’s elegant design and advanced technologies, and estimate it will sell approximately 1,500 units per month,” Bin’s wrote last December.
After selling 810 units in April, deliveries fell month over month in May, June and July.
The company delivered 92 units of its flagship ET9 sedan in August, a slight 8.2% increase from July’s 85 units — when registrations of the model plunged 72.3% from 305 vehicles in June.
The Shanghai-based EV maker commenced deliveries of its flagship ET9 sedan in China on March 29, its most advanced and highest-priced model to date.
As of the end of August, 2,065 ET9s had been delivered in China.
In the last three days of March, the brand delivered 89 units of the sedan.
In its first full month in the market, 810 ET9s were handed over by Nio — the highest monthly figures year to date.
Since then, deliveries have successively tumbled month over month, reaching their lowest figures in July.
The ET9 is available through Nio‘s battery-as-a-service (BaaS) programme, which lowers the starting price to 660,000 yuan ($92,000) for customers leasing the battery separately.
With the battery included, the four-seat sedan is priced at 788,000 yuan ($109,800) — more than twice the starting price of the ES6 SUV, Nio‘s best-selling model, which begins at 338,000 yuan ($47,100).
Launched at Nio’s annual event in December, the ET9 sold out its 999-unit First Edition within 12 hours.
The version was priced at 818,000 yuan ($114,000).
The sedan features what Nio calls its most advanced suite of technologies to date, including its Shenji NX9031 autonomous driving chip.
It features a steer-by-wire system, a next-generation digital cockpit, and a high-end audio setup, plus an integrated hydraulic fully active suspension.
Although the model is not yet available in Europe, Nio displayed the ET9 in its Munich showroom earlier this week amid the IAA Munich Auto Show, which is currently taking place in the German city.
The company hosted a media event together with its partner and supplier ClearMotion — a Nio Capital–backed startup that develops active suspension technology for both Nio and Porsche.
In mid-July, Nio filed for a new version of the flagship sedan, the ET9 Horizon Edition — which adopts a two-tone body scheme and a brand-new wheel design.
However, the new version has not yet been launched — it is planned to be launched later this year, according to Nio‘s VP of Product, Ted Li.
The brand is officially launching the third-gen SUV ES8 at the ‘Nio Day’ event on September 20 in Hangzhou.
In the first week of September, the Nio Group sold 6,300 vehicles across its three brands, from which 2,530 were Nio vehicles.
Earlier on Wednesday, Nio US-listed shares plunged 0ver 10% on the pre-market trading session, after the EV maker announced an offering of up to 181,818,190 shares.
The company said the proceeds of the new offering will be used for R&D, to expand the battery swap network and to “further strengthen its balance sheet.”
