NIOtime #2 | NIO Space, Power Facilities Expansion, Analyst Upgrade
Technical, media, and community news from the NIO app. This week highlights the stock chart update, high demand vs supply sweet dilemma, and exciting development news spotted on the NIO APP.
Greetings,
First of all, thank you for subscribing to this newsletter, and hope you are doing great this week. This is our second issue of NIOtime weekly highlights. This week we are excited to share the good news all over the media stream, social media, and NIO app. Thus, we have summarized them in a list below for your pleasure reading over the relaxing weekend. Let’s first get started with a technical chart.
Technical Chart
From last week's technical chart analysis, we predicted that NIO would likely perform sideways with the market.
There is high likely that NIO would perform sideways next week and may attempt to hit the resistance point unless there are surprising news announced from NIO.
Here NIO swung between US$18.72 and US$ 16.51 throughout the week and closed the week at US$ 17.97. At the volume level, the average volume was relatively low compared to a few weeks ago and this kept stock entering a consolidation period. This is a typical cycle for a stock market in which the stock is moving sideways until some big news or catalysts create the upward momentum or vice versa. We shall expect this trend to continue for a few weeks before the release of September vehicle delivery news.
From a long term perspective, there remains nothing changed on the fundamental of NIO - strong car demand from customers, catching up production capability, and close bond within the NIO community. From this week’s highlight, NIO is occupied with exciting news ranging from high vehicle demand sweet problem, power facilities expansion, policy support from local government and etc.
This Week’s Top Nine Highlights
NIO's EC6 Arrived in Stores at 10 cities in China
High Demand on EC6 Order Caused a Heavy Backlog
Central China's Hefei City to Partner with NIO to Promote the Construction of Battery Swap Facilities
NIO-led Battery Swap Model is about to Get Policy Boosts in China
Deutsche Bank initiated Buy, Price Target of 24
Proposed 2nd Gen ES6 L4 Electric SUV Design (Unconfirmed)
NIO Eve Concept Car for Autonomous Driving Network
Two Addition NIO Space Expansion
Two Addition NIO Battery Swap Station & Super Charger Station
News
NIO's EC6 Arrived in Stores at 10 Cities in China
NIO just announced that the NIO EC6 has been shipped to NIO Spaces in 10 cities across China this month, and the potential car owners can visit these locations to find more about this new vehicle. The ten selected cities are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Hefei, and Wenzhou. There have been customers sharing their testing and user experiences on EC6 at these facilities. (Source: NIO App)
High Demand on EC6 Order Caused a Heavy Backlog
The recent NIO ad posted on Weibo indicated that if customers want to get hands-on a new car by China's National Day, they need to buy it as soon as possible, as there are only 50 spots left for production this month. The poster is meant to give customers the impression that the NIO is in high demand that outstripping the supply, as the month of September has only just begun and NIO has already accumulated a large number of orders. The user’s post on social media further signals the high demand of NIO EC6 which the latest delivery estimate for EC6 is by December, about 8 weeks lead time from the order lockdown period at earlier October. (Source: cnTechPost & social media)
However, in our opinion, this leads to a rather good demand fulfillment problem for NIO whether its production capacity is able to catch up with the high demand. Noted in last month's earnings conference, Mr. Li Bin acknowledged that the increasing demand for their lines of vehicles and commented that their production capacity is able to push the limit to 5000 vehicles per month starting September. The September vehicle delivery number would give us a hint about the NIO’s production capacity.
Central China's Hefei City to Partner with NIO to Promote the Construction of Battery Swap Facilities
The city of Hefei in Central China's Anhui province plans to build battery swap facilities in partnership with NIO and plans to add 40 new battery swap facilities in 2020 and 2021, according to local media Anhui News. (Source: cnTechPost)
In our opinion, this is a good sign to NIO as the local government is willing to boost and promote battery swap facilities - an essential part of the electric vehicle ecosystem in China. The growth in the expansion of battery swap facilities as well as other power charging options is what we want to see in upcoming years as this will help to eliminate future potential users on the battery power depletion anxiety and thus lead to worry-less adoption to the electric vehicles.
NIO-led Battery Swap Model is about to get policy boosts in China
The NIO-led battery swap model is about to get policy boosts as the Shanghai Securities News reported that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is encouraging companies to develop a battery swap model based on usage scenarios. According to the report, the MIIT will also encourage local governments to formulate relevant policies to promote the development of the battery swap industry in the form of pilot programs to support and encourage companies to develop and manufacture products based on battery swap models. (Source: cnTechPost)
Similar to previous news, the policy support from local governments indicates a good sign to NIO as it participated in the standardization process of the battery swap model in the country. With more local government’s adoption to battery swap standards, this would indirectly benefit NIO by promoting the usage of NIO’s led Battery Swap Model across the future car manufacturers that want to adopt this battery swap model onto their lines of vehicles.
Deutsche Bank initiated Buy, Price Target of USD$24
Following last week's analyst rating upgrade from Credit Suisse, this week we have Deutsche Bank initiated a Buy for NIO stock with a price target of USD$24. There is a potential 33% upside to this target based on the current NIO stock price. From our observation, the stock analyst rating has not reflected on the stock movement due to general market weakness lately.
Proposed 2nd Gen ES6 L4 Electric SUV Design (Unconfirmed)
We spotted on social media where a user posted a proposed 2nd Gen ES6 SUV Design (Unconfirmed). To us, the 2nd Gen ES6 design concept is futuristic yet modern. One catch is this proposed design is going to adopt the L4 level of autonomous driving technology which is exciting if this L4 autonomous driving level is achieved by the partnership of NIO and Mobileye. From the previous announcement from Mobileye, they aim to launch their global robotaxi network as soon as 2022. (Source: Social Media)
NIO Eve Concept Car for Autonomous Driving Network
In this issue, we would like to recap the NIO Eve Concept Car for the future autonomous driving network. NIO, an innovator in its vehicle design, never disappoints its fans, once again hopping to the next disruptive trend of the next multi-billion dollar market - the robotaxi network. This is the vision for an autonomous car of the future where creates a living space that caters to your needs and moods. To learn what makes EVE so remarkable, hover over the link of the official website. (Source: NIO Website)
153rd & 154th NIO Space Expansion in Shaoxing and Jinkou.
This week there are two new openings for NIO Space launching in Shaoxing city and Jinkou, Wuhan. As usual, the design of NIO Space is stylish and located at the heart of cities. (Source: NIO App)
146th,147th NIO Battery Swap Station & 53rd, 54th Supercharger Station
This week we continue to observe two NIO Battery Swap Stations and two Super Charger Stations are put in operation in Taizhou and Binzhou (Source: NIO app). The continuous development of battery swap and supercharger stations is the foundation of large scale adoption of NIO BaaS model in China. The focus on power charging facilities is costly yet essential to the future of EV in China. This is analogous to the early adoption of Internal Combustion Engines nationwide with the widely built gas stations nationwide.
From recent comments made by Mr. Li Bin, he foresees 1,000 battery swap stations built in China in three years timespan and anticipates the rapid launch of the second generation of battery swap stations next year. In order to catch up with the target number, starting next year, it makes sense that the launching speed of the 2nd gen battery swap station is at least one built station per day, up to 365 stations per year. The growing number of battery swap networks would serve as another growth indicator for NIO in long term.
Summary
We hope you enjoy reading the essence we bring to you this week. In summary, we would end this issue with three takeaways
High Demand vs Supply Sweet Dilemma: This will place NIO to test Mr. Li Bin’s promise on its production capability, up to 5,000 per month. Let’s anticipate NIO September vehicle delivery.
Policy & Facilities Support from local governments and national policy: This accelerates NIO in leading the rapid adoption of electric vehicles and the foundation of charging facilities in the nation.
Continuous Expansion on Power Charging Facilities and Marketing Houses: This ensures NIO can match the immediate needs of increasing demands power charging needs that arise from the expanding growth of its user base.
It’s NIO time, Blue Sky Coming. Cheers all and have a wonderful weekend!