Nio revealed on Sunday that it had prepared more than 20,000 units of the new Onvo L90 SUV for immediate ordering at launch — the first time the company has disclosed an approximate figure for initial availability.
The information was shared on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform, by Nio’s official Jinan Huashan regional account, which also noted that “the overwhelming enthusiasm has exceeded our expectations, causing multiple backend system crashes.”
“Dear customers, please don’t worry,” the comment read. “We have prepared over 20,000 units for the first batch of confirmed orders, but the overwhelming enthusiasm has exceeded our expectations, causing multiple backend system crashes.
“We kindly ask everyone to be patient and wait,” the Nio account added.
The disclosure is the most concrete indication to date of the scale of Onvo’s production readiness for the three-row electric SUV positioned to challenge the upcoming Tesla Model YL and Li Auto’s i8 in the six-seat EV segment.
As done in previous new model launches, the company did not disclose how many orders it received.
As of Monday, estimated waiting times for all three trims of the L90 remained unchanged at four to six weeks. Deliveries of the seven-seat version are scheduled to begin in late September.
“Many families across the country already drove their new L90s home, and lots of users continuously popped into our stores to test-drive and place orders!” the company’s founder and CEO wrote on X this Monday.
“To better fulfill the demand, we’ve added 400 more test-drive vehicles, so there’re now 1,000 for the test drive and 500+ on display at over 400 Onvo stores and booths nationwide,” Li added.
Last week, the Nio Beijing Club, a user group of the EV maker, said that all L90 showroom vehicles had been locked for purchase in less than three hours after the configurator opened.
While Onvo did not confirm the number of units in that batch, a X user attending the launch event in Hangzhou, ‘Cnevhome’, reported that approximately 10,000 vehicles were available at launch.
Onvo said earlier that it had made around 600 test drive vehicles available before launch and has since increased the fleet to 1,000 vehicles, distributed across more than 400 stores and showrooms in China.
The L90 from 265,800 yuan ($36,940) with an 85-kWh battery, or 179,800 yuan ($24,980) under Nio’s battery-as-a-service program — which adds a monthly rental fee of 899 yuan ($125).
Last week, and before the launch event, Nio‘s chief said delivering over 7,000 L90 units in the first month was a target that “seems achievable.”
The comment came in response to speculation in a WeChat group about whether Onvo could exceed the early delivery pace of Xiaomi’s SU7, which became one of the most successful EV launches in China earlier this year.
Last Friday, Macquarie upgraded its rating on Nio, saying the model is the “most competitive offering” to date with delivery expectations at between 8,000 and 12,000 units per month, addressing what it described as Nio’s core problem of insufficient volume.
The analyst added that the L90 appears to offer greater value than Li Auto’s L8, while undercutting it by 17% on entry price. Li Auto’s six-seat SUV was launched earlier in the week in Beijing.
Citi expects monthly deliveries of 8,000 to 9,000 units.
The company expects Onvo to reach monthly deliveries of 25,000 units in the fourth quarter, helping support Nio’s reiterated goal of reaching break-even in the final quarter of the year.
