A Li Xiang One hybrid SUV will be on display at the 18th Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition at the China Import and Export Fair Complex on November 23, 2020 in China.
Li Zhihao | Visual China Group | Getty Images
BEIJING – As 2021 kicks off, a drop in deliveries in January puts Chinese carmaker Li Auto in third place behind its starting rivals Nio and Xpeng.
Li Auto, listed on Nasdaq, said late Monday, Eastern Time, that it delivered 5,379 Li One SUVs in January. That’s down from 6,126 in December and less than Nio’s 7,225 and Xpeng’s 6,015 deliveries for January.
Li Auto has also announced that it will set up a new research and development center in Shanghai for autonomous driving and other technologies related to electric vehicles.
Shares of Li Auto fell the most below their competitors in US trading on Tuesday, down 5.7% versus losses of about 4.6% for Xpeng and 2.1% for Nio. Tesla shares were up 3.9%.
Competition for high-end electric SUVs intensified in January when Tesla announced that it would soon begin shipping its China-made Model Y at a price close to Nio and Li Auto cars. Tesla delivered 180,570 electric cars worldwide in the last three months of 2020 alone.
The Li One SUV is Li Auto’s first and only model so far. It was the best-selling high-end electric SUV in 2020 and even made it to the top 10 high-end SUVs overall, along with Nio, according to China’s Passenger Car Association.
Morgan Stanley analysts said the Li One SUV stands out for its fuel tank that can recharge the battery and increase the driving range by 620 kilometers (385 miles) to a total of 800 kilometers.
One of the main concerns of Chinese consumers about buying an electric car is whether the battery will run out too quickly, without a charging station nearby or long charging times.
Deliveries of 5,379 Li One SUVs in January were still quadrupled from the same period a year ago, and the total number of deliveries is more than 38,900 since the vehicle’s launch in December 2019, Li Auto said.
That is less than half of the more than 82,800 vehicles that Nio had delivered cumulatively at the end of January. Nio has three SUV models on the market and plans to deliver a sedan next year.