Xpeng predicts it will deliver fewer electric cars than Nio

BEIJING – Chinese electric car manufacturer Xpeng predicts it will deliver far fewer cars in the first three months of the year than rival start-up Nio.

New York-listed Xpeng announced overnight that it would likely deliver some 12,500 vehicles in the first quarter. This means that 4,250 cars will be delivered by March, based on the figure of 6,015 in January, and will decrease to 2,223 in February.

Even when we factor in the weeklong New Year’s holiday in mid-February, those numbers lag those of Nio.

Last week, Nio forecast deliveries of 20,000 to 25,000 vehicles in the first quarter, meaning at least 7,197 cars will be delivered by March. The company currently only supplies SUVs and sells them in a higher price range than Xpeng’s cars.

While Nio plans to deliver a sedan to customers early next year, Xpeng launched its P7 sedan last year, which accounted for a growing share of deliveries over its G3 SUV. Xpeng plans to release another sedan later this year.

Li Auto, another US-listed Chinese electric car company, gave the lowest forecast of the three start-ups, with 10,500 to 11,500 deliveries for the first quarter.

Despite the attention of start-ups like Nio and Xpeng, older car makers Tesla and BYD are already selling electric cars on a much larger scale in China. In January alone, Tesla sold more than 14,500 China-made Model 3s and BYD sold more than 7,200 of its Han model, according to figures from the China Passenger Car Association released Tuesday.

After a surge in 2020, shares of US-listed electric car companies have fallen in the past two months amid the volatile start to the year in the US stock market.

• Shares of Xpeng are down nearly 4% overnight and are down more than 35% so far.
• Nio fell 7.6% overnight and is down more than 25% to date.
• Li Auto shares were down 5% every other week and are down 26% for the year so far.
• Tesla shares were down more than 5% during Monday’s session and are down 20% for the year so far.

As Nio, Tesla and other car companies race to develop self-driving technology, Xpeng began rolling out its autonomous driving software to a number of premium P7 sedan customers this year. The technology allows users to automate tasks such as changing lanes and entering and leaving highways.

About a fifth of the more than 20,100 P7 sedans shipped in February have the latest self-driving software activated, management said during an earnings call.

Xpeng reported that total revenue increased 43% from the third quarter to 2.85 billion yuan ($ 437 million) in the fourth quarter. The company expects sales in the first quarter to decline slightly to 2.6 billion yuan.

Net losses fell to 787.4 million yuan in the last three months of the year, from 1.15 billion yuan in the previous quarter.