It is learned from Chinese media sources (Jiemian News, etc), on November 27, Li Bin, CEO of NIO, attended the opening ceremony of NIO Center in Songshan Lake, Dongguan, and had a brief communication and interaction with the attendees, answering questions on user experience, supply chain and production capacity, and mobile phone business progress on the spot.
NIO is solving the problem of slow ramp-up of production capacity
Li Bin answered the question of why NIO’s production capacity was frequently impacted by the pandemic and supply chain shortages. He said that NIO’s strategy is to use more abundant models to meet different market demands. Customers make personalized choices for models, and NIO is responsible for production according to orders. This strategy is in conflict with today’s complex supply chain situation, and it also determines that NIO will not concentrate the delivery of new cars in one phase, which will impact the monthly sales result.
Li Bin also said that NIO has dispatched dozens of employees to help partners solve the problem of ramping up production capacity. Previously, NIO was generally questioned by the outside world because of its relatively slow ramp-up of production capacity.
In order to ensure production capacity and reduce the impact of the pandemic, the NIO team has also made great efforts. Li Bin said that he went to the factory after the quarantine was lifted in early November, and more than 3,000 colleagues lived directly in the factory for close-production.
Why consumers choose NIO
Regarding the question of why consumers choose NIO, Li Bin said that for the potential user groups of the traditional luxury brand BBA, there is still a big gap between the above brands and NIO in terms of product, service and experience. Li Bin also said that among pure electric models priced over 400,000 yuan, 73 of the 100 users in China have chosen NIO.
MPV model
Although NIO’s business strategy tends to expand the coverage area of its models, when asked by the audience whether it will follow the current trend to launch electric MPV models, Li Bin gave a negative answer. He said that despite the requests from many users, NIO has no plan to produce MPVs for a relatively long time in the future, and NIO will put MPV models in a later time plan.
NIO mobile phone
Regarding the progress of NIO’s mobile phone business, which is more concerned by the outside world, Li Bin also answered on the spot. He said that NIO has set up mobile phone research and development teams in Shanghai and Shenzhen, and the overall research and development progress is relatively smooth. In addition, Li Bin also said that consumers who need to change their phones within the past year can wait for NIO mobile phones to be launched, especially Android users, and they can just change their phones directly at the launch time.
Li Bin said that NIO mobile phone will have more “smart gameplay” related to NIO cars, and said that this phone will be the mobile phone that best matches NIO vehicles.
Profit issue
As for the profit issue that the outside world is concerned about, Li Bin said that when the profit will be made has not yet been made public, he hopes to achieve breakeven in 2024.
Li Bin said that the pandemic and rising raw material prices have each caused NIO to lose several billions in gross profit, but it still invests heavily in research and development, hoping to increase sales and offset the research and development costs. At present, NIO’s single-quarter research and development investment has remained at more than 3 billion yuan, mainly in the fields of chips, mobile phones, sub-brands, and batteries.