The upcoming Chinese New Year holiday is February 10-17 and will cause significant disruptions to production and deliveries in the automotive industry, making it harder to accurately predict delivery wait times.
(Image credit: CnEVPost)
The vehicle configurator in Nio‘s (NYSE: NIO) mobile app has stopped showing delivery wait times as the Chinese New Year holiday approaches.
The electric vehicle (EV) maker is currently delivering the ES8, ES7, ES6, EC7, EC6, ET7, ET5, and ET5 Touring, the first five of which are SUVs and the last three are sedans.
The configurator for all eight models stops displaying the waiting time today, and replaces it with the text “New Year purchase privileges available”.
Prior to today, wait times were 4-5 weeks for the ES7 and ET7, and 2-3 weeks for all other models.
The upcoming Chinese New Year holiday, which runs from February 10-17, will cause significant disruptions to production and deliveries in the auto industry, making it more difficult to accurately predict delivery lead times.
In addition, the month in which the Lunar New Year falls is usually the low point of the year for Chinese auto sales.
Nio announced on January 17 that it would begin deliveries of its 2024 models in early March and start offering discounts on current models.
The company didn’t mention the exact amount of the offer, and its mobile app doesn’t show that information either.
Local media outlet Red Star News cited Nio’s sales staff on January 17 as saying that the offers ranged from RMB 24,000 ($3,340) to RMB 40,000, with no specific cutoff time until the 2023 models are sold out.
Nio, like its major local peers, saw January deliveries slip from the previous month due to seasonal factors at the start of the year.
The company delivered 10,055 vehicles in January, up 18.21 percent from 8,506 a year ago but down 44.18 percent from 18,012 in December, according to figures it announced on February 1.
The deliveries included 6,307 SUVs and 3,748 sedans, Nio said, without mentioning delivery figures for specific models.
Nio unveiled its executive flagship sedan, the ET9, on Nio Day 2023 on December 23, 2023, and began its pre-sales, with deliveries set to begin in the first quarter of 2025.
(Screenshots of the Nio App on February 2, 2024.)
($1 = RMB 7.1802)
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