Nio founder and CEO Officer William Li praised Tesla‘s thruster-equipped Roadster on Friday, conceding that “this one we really don’t have” in a self-deprecating nod to a boast about Tesla that Chinese social media users had dug up within hours of the car’s debut.
“So impressive! This one we really don’t have,” Li wrote on Weibo, adding a laughing-through-tears emoji and “thumbs up to Tesla 👍” while reposting a video from Tesla’s demo event.
Li’s post came shortly after XPeng‘s founder and CEO He Xiaopeng, also praised Tesla’s new model despite warning of the missed approval of the “certification process, including the Type Certification.”
Tesla showed the second-generation Roadster at SpaceX‘s test site in McGregor, Texas, where it drove upside down on a ramp, flipped in mid-air and jumped over a lineup of Tesla vehicles, with Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk saying production would begin in 2028.
The Line That Came Back
Li’s wording plays on a remark that Chinese media attribute to a 2018 session at Tencent University, where Li addressed the idea of Nio benchmarking itself against Tesla, though the original recording could not be independently located.
At the time, Nio was preparing to deliver its first car, the ES8 SUV, and Tesla had yet to deliver the Model 3 in China.
“Whatever Tesla has, I have, and I can do it all, and what I have, it can’t do,” Li said in the version circulated on Friday by Chinese outlets, which also quoted him as calling the comparison “essentially a question of mindset” and saying there was no need to spend time convincing people who did not trust him.
“Whatever Tesla can do, I can do, what I can do, Tesla doesn’t have,” read one comment under a Tesla clip that had drawn more than 1,900 likes.
Li’s phrase “this one we really don’t have” also echoes a catchphrase from a 2009 Spring Festival Gala comedy sketch, as several commenters under his post pointed out.
“Brother Bin, Xiao Shenyang says this one we can have,” one user wrote, naming the comedian who delivered the original lines.
XPeng’s Different Answer
He, whose flying-car affiliate Aridge has been waiting years for aviation approval, called the Roadster “a very cool flying car of another form” in his own Weibo post, but said “no one can get around flight certification.”
Nio has never announced any decision into a possible flying-car program.
Tesla’s thruster-equipped Rocket version is a single-seat car that the company describes as “Invite Only” and “Not approved for public road use.”
Tesla Opens China Reservations
Tesla China’s website has opened reservations only for the base Performance version, a two-seater that it says can be driven on public roads, with a fully refundable deposit of 332,000 yuan ($49,500).
The page says whether the car can ultimately be offered in a buyer’s region depends on the laws and regulations in force at the time.
In the US, Tesla is taking reservations of $50,000 for the Performance version and $250,000 for the Thrust version, and Tesla’s shares rose in premarket trading on Friday.
However, in the first minutes of Friday’s session, the stock gave up most of those gains and was trading less than 1% higher.
“On one side are the fridge, color TV, big sofa and assisted driving I use every day, on the other is America’s unbeatable FSD plus a Roadster that can fly all over the place at a launch event,” racing driver and car blogger Chen Zhen wrote in a post that drew more than 1,400 likes.
Li’s Running Tesla Benchmark
Li has measured Nio against Tesla since before the company delivered its first car.
In June, after the relaunch of the L60 SUV from Nio’s mass-market brand Onvo, Li said Tesla’s assisted driving was “industry-leading in all respects” and that Tesla had “things worth learning from,” according to Chinese tech site Kuai Keji.
He said he had not yet tried the latest version of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software but would “definitely” do so once it was released, the outlet reported.
The L60 itself was pitched at the Model Y, unveiled in May 2024 at a pre-sale price 30,000 yuan ($4,500) below the Tesla’s starting price at the time, and Onvo’s chief then called it the top alternative to the Model Y in China, as its sales record shows.
Nio Inc. delivered 37,408 vehicles in September, up 7.7% from a year earlier, and 109,178 in the third quarter, within its guidance.
The Nio brand delivered 21,318 of those September vehicles, up 55.3%, while Firefly posted a record 7,327.
Li wrote on Weibo earlier this week that the new ES8 sold 10,539 units at retail in September, keeping the top spot among models priced around 400,000 yuan ($59,700), and that the ES9 led China’s market for battery-electric cars priced around 500,000 yuan ($74,600) for a fourth straight month.
