Skip to main content

NIO’s having a bad year that might get even worse

NIO’s having a bad year that might get even worse

/

More restructuring and potential spinoffs are on the way

Share this story

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

One year after becoming a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, Chinese EV startup NIO appears to be in dire straits. The company reported early Tuesday morning that it lost $479 million during the second quarter of 2019, and only generated $220 million in revenue, thanks to a major dip in sales of its flagship ES8 electric SUV.

What’s more, NIO had just $503 million in the bank at the end of June, which helps explain why the company borrowed $200 million from its chairman and CEO and Tencent (which is a major backer of the startup) earlier this month. And things may only get worse, as NIO says it will “pursue a leaner operation through additional restructuring and spinning off some non-core businesses by year end.”

That’s after the startup spent most of 2019 trimming fat as the Chinese economy (and, in particular, the country’s automotive market) retreated for the first time in years. So far this year NIO has: laid off at least 2,000 workers, closed an office in Silicon Valley, sold its Formula E racing team, abandoned a plan to build its own factory, and indefinitely delayed an upcoming sedan. NIO also had to recall nearly 5,000 ES8s because of a fire risk this past quarter, which cost the company $49 million, and two senior executives — including a co-founder — have retired in the last few weeks.

The silver lining for NIO is that the ES6, its smaller five-seater SUV is doing well in its first few months. NIO delivered 1,797 ES6 SUVs in August, up from 673 in July and 413 in June (the first month it started shipping). NIO sold just 146 ES8s in August, the SUV’s worst full month ever. So it will be up to the more affordable ES6 to carry the weight going forward.

As such, NIO says it expects to ship between 4,200 and 4,400 vehicles in the third quarter of 2019, which would represent an increase of between 18.2 and 23.8 percent over the second quarter. The company expects to be able to generate between $232 million and $242.2 million in revenue, and will almost certainly miss its original target of 40,000 deliveries in 2019.

That there’s even more restructuring on the way, though, raises the question of whether NIO will have enough cash to last through the end of 2019. Increasing ES6 sales will help bring in more revenue, but NIO is paying a state-owned contract manufacturer to assemble all of its cars, meaning margins are even tighter than they usually are in the automotive business. (That also makes it harder for the company to slash costs, hence the layoffs.)

“Both the NIO ES8 And ES6 are advanced technology, [and] visually attractive products,” Michael Dunne, who runs automotive consulting firm ZoZo Go, said in an email to The Verge. “But the brand is not well-established, not yet trusted, which is causing buyers to think twice. When sales are not there, cash gets tight, pressure builds and all hell break loose. NIO needs a steadfast investor base to weather the inevitable early year storms. Or else.”

NIO typically discusses its quarterly earnings reports on a conference call with investors, but the startup canceled its second-quarter call earlier this morning. The company’s director of North American communications said “the determination was that the report sufficiently covered the information we are required to disclose.”

NIO grew really fast, and had ambitions of competing with Tesla

NIO told The Verge in May that it planned to solve its problems by spending the rest of the year “optimizing management efficiency.”

“After four years of rapid growth, we’ve set up a global organization. However, fast development has also posed issues like repetitive functional departments, undefined work tasks, unclear work responsibilities, and insufficient work for certain people,” the company said at the time.