A Nio executive suggested that the company’s production of its best selling model ES8 could reach 20,000 units in December.
The EV maker began deliveries of the three row SUV last September, with deliveries planned to achieve 10,000 units for the full month of November.
“For November, we hope the ES8 delivery target can reach 10,000 units, making it the fastest-produced car in Nio‘s history,” the company’s Marketing Vice-President Kang Kai said over the weekend.
The 10,000-unit production target was first mentioned by co-founder and President Lihong Qin last week.
By then, the executive also noted that there was a 50% chance that the EV maker could produce over 15,000 ES8 units in December — a target that was set during the annual ‘Nio Day’ event in September.
However, Kang Kai was more ambitious — according to him, “for December, we hope production can reach 20,000 units.”
The executive, formerly Nio‘s head of sales for Shanghai, was reassigned in 2023 to a new department focused on communicating the company’s vehicle lineup and key technologies, according to a 36Kr report.
This move was part of a broader set of actions Nio took to strengthen sales after a weak second quarter in 2023.
The report also noted that this new department operated under Nio‘s product experience team, then led by Ted Li.
Deliveries
Nio sold out its 2025 production run of 40,000 ES8 vehicles within minutes of CEO William Li opening orders and announcing final pricing on stage.
Although the company hasn’t released exact figures, demand is estimated to have exceeded 100,000 orders based on projected delivery timelines, which reached a waiting period of 24 to 26 weeks.
Over the last few weeks, and according to Nio‘s website for the Chinese market, the model has a delivery waiting time of 22 to 23 weeks.
Currently placed orders are planned to be delivered by the end of April 2026 — five months from now.
The EV maker recently announced the delivery of the 10,000th ES8, just 41 days after its launch.
Q4 Delivery Target Cut
Up until now, Nio planned to deliver 150,000 vehicles across its three brands in the fourth quarter — a guidance that was trimmed as it announced its latest earnings results on Tuesday.
Nio expects to deliver between 120,000 and 125,000 electric vehicles between October and December.
Back then, the management had already reduced the goal, as it started including the Firefly sales in the 150,000 goal — previously, the 150,000-unit guidance was only applied to the Nio and Onvo brands.
Given that the EV maker delivered a record 40,397 vehicles across its three brands in October, meeting the previous target would have required the company to average over 54,801 vehicles per month in November and December.
Under the new guidance, Nio now expects to deliver between 39,801 and 44,801 vehicles per month on average.
Production Ramp-up
The new goal would still represent a new quarterly high for the company, and a jump of 60 to 72% year over year.
Deliveries in the final months of the year are expected to be mostly driven by not only the Nio ES8 but also the Onvo L90, as the company focuses production on its three-row models.
Next year, William Li said, the company will launch “three new large SUV models,” while the launch of new sedans remains out of the EV maker’s roadmap.
