Xpeng predicts it will deliver fewer electric cars than Nio

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

New York-listed Xpeng announced overnight that it would likely deliver about 12,500 vehicles in the first quarter. This implies deliveries of 4,250 cars for March, based on the number of 6,015 in January and down to 2,223 in February.

Even considering the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February, these numbers fall short of Nio’s.

Last week, Nio was forecasting deliveries of 20,000 to 25,000 vehicles in the first quarter, which implies deliveries of at least 7,197 cars in March. The company only delivers SUVs at the moment and sells them at a higher price range than Xpeng cars.

While Nio plans to deliver a sedan to customers early next year, Xpeng launched its P7 sedan last year, which represented an increasing share of deliveries compared to its G3 SUV. Xpeng plans to launch another sedan later this year.

Li Auto, another Chinese electric car company listed in the United States, gave the lowest forecast of the three start-ups, from 10,500 to 11,500 deliveries in the first quarter.

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

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

• Xpeng’s shares have fallen nearly 4% overnight and have fallen more than 35% in the year so far.
• The rate fell 7.6% overnight and over 25% year-to-date.
• Li Auto’s shares have fallen 5% earlier in the week and have fallen 26% in the year so far.
• Tesla’s shares fell more than 5% in Monday’s session and have fallen 20% in the year so far.

While Nio, Tesla and other auto companies are racing to develop autonomous driving technology, Xpeng has started rolling out its autonomous driving software to some customers of the premium P7 sedan 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 cars delivered in February activated the latest autonomous driving software, management said in a conference call.

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

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