Tesla's China Rival Nio Posts Impressive 25% Delivery Growth In December

Whatever cash-strapped electric vehicle (EV) maker NIO is doing right now, it seems to be working in keeping its business alive.

The Chinese automobile company that was dubbed a "Tesla Killer" (one of the many) was almost about to kill itself, but recent sales numbers provided it with an elixir to keep operations afloat. The deliveries for December 2019 totaled 3,170 vehicles, and it's broken into 2,537 ES6s and 633 ES8s sold, Insideevs reported.

In November, sales for the ES6 was 2,067, and the ES8 was 461, denoting a total of 2,528 and marking the fifth straight month of continued delivery growth. The third-quarter results were already better than expected, earning the company a cool $242.5 million, which is a 22.5% increase from Q2 and a 21.5% quarter over quarter.

December's figures are an improvement to the sales of ES6s but recorded an 81% decline year-over-year for the ES8.

William Bin Li, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of NIO, expected that the total sales in Q4 are 8,000, and his company has exceeded its target with about 8,198.

"December marked the fifth consecutive month of increasing deliveries for NIO despite the continuous softness of the overall auto industry and in particular, the significant decline of the electric vehicle sales in the second half of 2019," said Li.

Li doesn't attribute NIO's recent results to beating competition through better quality, performance, and pricing for its products and services but also to its passionate, loyal, and supportive user base. Li said that the main driver for his company's new orders is from their customers who spoke greatly about their vehicles.

"With our product offerings further deepened and upgraded in 2020 though the all-new ES8, the 100-kWh battery pack and the upcoming EC6, a 5-seater smart premium electric coupe SUV, we expect our order momentum to continue going forward."

The EC6 was unveiled back in December and will compete with Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe and Tesla Inc.'s Model Y.

With sales for the struggling automaker continues to improve, news of a $150 million investment coming from Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. surfaced on Wednesday. However, no final agreement has been made, and GAC even denied the report and expressed uncertainty if an agreement will transpire, per Bloomberg.