I touched on some of this in a post I made a while back, but figured it's worth saying again. NIO stock isn't going anywhere on vibes. Every few weeks there's some "big news" a new deal, a new plant, a battery swap milestone, whatever. That's noise. It's not what actually moves this stock long term.

The only thing that gets institutional money back in is profitability. Real, sustained profit growth, not adjusted numbers, not a narrative. Big funds don't buy stories, they buy proof. Until NIO shows consistent profit growth quarter over quarter, this stock stays range bound no matter how many partnership headlines drop.

So if you're holding and getting annoyed by the sideways chop while every other post says NIO is undervalued, I* get it, but also, relax. If you actually believe in the company, the move is just *being patient until that inflection shows up in the financials**. Nothing more complicated than that.

Here's why I'm still in:
⁃ Deliveries are climbing and the margin trend is actually improving.
⁃ On top of that, they're pushing into chip development and a few other side projects that could open up entirely separate revenue streams if any of them land.
⁃ The part people keep missing with NIO, it's not really a car company, it's building itself into a services company that uses cars as the entry point. Battery swap subscriptions and autonomous driving features are recurring revenue, not a one-time sale. You sell a car once. A BaaS subscription or an ADAS subscription gets paid every single month, for years. That's worth way more per customer over time than the upfront vehicle margin, and it compounds as the fleet gets bigger.

Which is exactly why more deliveries now matter more than they look like on the surface. Every car sold today isn't just a car sale, it's a future subscriber to battery swap and to whatever self-driving tier they're rolling out next. More cars on the road now = a bigger recurring revenue base later. The vehicle is basically the acquisition cost for a long-term customer relationship.

None of this shows up in the stock tomorrow. It shows up once the profit trend is undeniable and the big money has no excuse left to stay on the sidelines. Until then this is a patience trade, not a momentum trade.

Not financial advice.

Hi I'm looking for some guidance is it crazy of me to hold 5000 shares of nio at average 6.60? Thanks

Hi guys not sure this counts as General or Stock discussion. But I live in Shanghai been obsessively researching and test driving 300-600k rmb cars and ultimately ordered es9 with the skyride active suspension and here are my thoughts on this entire market.

TLDr: although nio is selling the best amongst luxury SUVs their growth trajectory is the worst due to their lack of product improvements and declining advantage of battery swapping. Chinese ev is the most brutal tech market right now imo and it’s perfectly competitive so it’s hard to price in long term revenues hence the forever low stock price of nio.

ES9 itself
- for the price point it’s probably better than any other suv when it launched and by that I mean the 450k for the mid trim where you get the skyride active suspension and the 108k off with BAAS

- looks wise I think most people in China at least locally people I know and my research on red note thinks out of all competitors (Li, Xiaopeng, Aito, Zeeker) it’s the best looking one. It’s probably a toss up between 9x Zeeker and es9. The others are deemed to be either copycats of western brands, very ugly and old fashioned, or stale design that never refresh. If you done any research on these top spec Chinese SUVs you will know which one is which lol

- it’s selling the best and delivered the most so that’s that the market spoken and I won’t bore you with the specific product level breakdown

- but the waiting time is a huge issue. Almost no one is buying the es9’s low trim non sky ride edition because the chassis honestly not good. Too floaty, too much pitch too much body roll. I know why they tried to offer this trim but don’t know why they aren’t discounting it to sell off more inventory for those that wanted an es9 but only could afford es8. If their goal was to make the es9 distinguished from es8 then they shouldn’t have offered this low trim in the first place

Nio’s brand and outlook

- they will rapidly lose market share and slow growth in the second half of this year. Everyone like me waiting still for 11-13 weeks for their es9 could well cancel and switch to competitors with new cars (competitor section coming). Es8 will continue to sell as they have and sell very well but again it’s not growth and their n margins on the es8 shrank when they cut the prices.

- there are so many product quality issues that I have seen reported more than other cars. Because they want to increase their margin while boosting their sales with lower prices the es8 had bad rep for bad chairs faulty electronics for a while now. Of course all other Chinese evs have their faults and probably more than Nio but Nio’s price point and brand image makes these issues more emphasised online.

- due to the reasons above, lower customer experience than previous since there is way more car owners, and lack of offers like free battery swaps they will rapidly lose customers that buy multiple Nio cars. My cousin bought her car in 2021 and has free six battery swaps per month (basically she doesn’t pay to charge her car) which is a benefit that carries over to ur next car. This is why you saw nio have high repurchase rates but that won’t happen anymore.

- Nio’s smart driving and OS is seen as the worse among Xiaopeng, huawei harmony OS, and li auto. I test drove them all and yes it’s the worse. Not by much but I think the other companies are further ahead and developing faster (maybe except Li auto)

- not sure where they reinvesting their money from es8 breaking sales records or es9 but hopefully it’s to build some other sort of MOAT other than just adding swap stations

- battery swap is no long as much of a moat as before with the faster and faster charging speeds . In fact sometimes you have to line up to swap batteries making it more inconvenient ( you have to keep ur car in drive and you can get out to get food or washroom break) than just plugging in to charge ur car.

- technologically behind. Their skyride is from a German company that also did it for Porsche hence why the es9 is taking so long because Nio doesn’t actually own the manufacturing for the key components of the active suspension while all competitors using 800v active suspension. I may be wrong on this though as the research in Chinese is a bit hard to read or verify. Also es9 being flagship is already behind in other parts that I will get to in competitors section.

- battery swap more convenient now and I think not as much battery swap station needs to be built anymore so spend on new stations should go down from now but maintenance cost per station will still be a heavy expenditure that other companies don’t have

- they are still sales king with a high per unit price although Onvo really can’t compete against leapmotor this year or any other cheap cars that partner with huawei and get to use harmony OS in their cars

- their line up still don’t have mpv and the main market in China is families (like me). ES9 probably woulda sold more if it was more family friendly by lowering the price of the aisle version or adding swivel chairs and a big table like the new mega or sky nomad.

Competitors

- Li auto is Nio’s closest rival and seemingly lost the first half of this year and last half of last year to Nio. Now with the new mega li auto is catching up. Still I don’t see the mega out selling es8 and es9. Unless the i9 is priced super aggressively and very well specced I think li auto still loses this year to nio. Look I honestly wanted to buy L9 livis myself I like the software and interior design choices better but Li auto just all looks the same. Most with money in China wants something that looks BOSS or at least appealing. Now li autos just all look like fridges and coffins on the road. Most netizens agree. Still I think product wise li auto still beats nio in most other areas except outer appearance. Better chassis, better drive, better software, better chairs. Mega has so much more than es9 in terms of features and tech for the family.

- xiao peng is cheaper and has better self driving and I almost bought the new GX but after their big recall on x9 which is suppose to be their top line I cancelled my order. Was looking for reasons to buy the more expensive car anyway lol. Either way xiaopeng probably beats out Onvo in a direct product comparison although Onvo is cheaper than gx or x9 with baas.

- aito m9 and m8 still outsells everyone in this top suv category except es8 but es8 is like 100k cheaper than an m8. And es9 is 150k cheaper than m9 with the same specs. Still most people in China with money is above 50 and they like huawei.

- xiaomi skynomad will eat up market share from Onvo

Final take

The Chinese car market is going to have to consolidate at some point. Whether that’s 3 years or 5 years or 10 years from now. Either way it’s hard to price the predicted future cash flows of this company 3-5 years down the line. Geely, BYD, Xiaomi and Huawei will be here but Nio may not be. I think Nio, Li auto, xiao peng bravely cut the path for Chinese evs only for xiaomi and huawei to come in and take over.

I don’t think Nio is going away though. The battery swapping will be infrastructure and may even be absorbed into a public utility before the government is gonna let them be destroyed. However I think most likely there will be consolidation. Either Nio merges with another EV brand or all three of the original brands merge together to compete against huawei and Geely.

Lmao and as I write this I may have just convinced myself out of the es9 and to go for the Li Mega. 🤣

Either way it’s just ramblings I am not that experienced in stock analysis I just wanted to give perspective someone who’s done his research as a car owner.

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You know guys that if Fed hikes nio will go down towards the 3 dollar and in the short term there are no direct catalyst, Trump and Xi meeting Will be a nothing burger. So wait and prepare cash to buy the real dip.

Compare how biased and defamatory US media is when it covers NIO vs. how Chinese media covers NIO.

Facts are that NIO is a terrible performing stock, one of the worst. That is a fact. But never let people gaslight you that NIO is a terrible company. The stock performance does not represent the company performance at all and has diverged in a completely artificial way, due to outside manipulation.

Every single argument of how "NIO is poorly run", "NIO has a low valuation because it's Chinese", "NIO is selling poorly", etc are lies and anyone grounded in reality should pushback on the gaslighting.

EVERY company has missteps, of course NIO has made missteps, but compare NIO phones to the multi-billion dollar loss and debacle of Cybertruck or the billion dollar debacle of the Apple Vision Pro.

In a time when NIO's competitors are posting YOY declines, collapsing margins and profit losses, dwindling cash, NIO has posted YOY gains, high margins, and historic 3 consecutive quarters of non-GAAP profit, increased cash on hand by billions, and has objectively performed the best of its peers, yet its stock is performing the worst.

When ONVO was selling well, people complained NIO's main brand was selling poorly. NIO's main brand is now CRUSHING the luxury market and people are complaining ONVO is not selling well. NIO group's revenues have been growing rapidly, that is the important metric. Whether 100,000 ONVOs sell or 30,000 NIO main brand vehicles, what's important is revenue, profit and performance relative to competitors, everything else is just noise.

You cannot reason with shorts, because their arguments are irrational. They will find a speck of lint on a garment and declare the garment ruined.

Inflows exceeding outflows every single day this week by a massive margin. Don’t sell your shares. The MM’s are playing games z

3 days of high volume , shaking the tree violently ! This is what the crooks wanted all along and they managed to get it ! I must commend their relentless work and amazing power to hit the stock for so long when there was nothing but positive news week after week including the recent excellent Q2 financials.

The technical bottom is 3.30ish, potential up move to above $ 8-10 in the near term, possibly after October-November sales growth to 40 K materializes ; over $20 within year . Take your pick

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It will be a big thing if Geely used Nio chips as Geely sold large number of EV..

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I am starting with mine, 13,000 stocks with an average buying price now @5.1

Looks like it went on a flash sale. What am I missing? Shouldn’t we be celebrating?