Unconsciously, it's time for another monthly delivery comparison. Will car companies sell better during "Golden September and Silver October"? This is a good question. Let's get started.

01 NIO

NIO delivered 20,976 new vehicles in October, exceeding 20,000 for six consecutive months, showing a strong momentum. From January to October 2024, NIO delivered a total of 170,257 new vehicles. As predicted earlier, if this trend continues or even improves in the next two months, NIO's sales for the year will reach around 200,000, setting a new sales record. NIO's second brand, Lido, has also started delivering its new L60 model, with 4,319 vehicles delivered in October, the first full month of delivery. To date, Lido has delivered a total of 5,151 new vehicles. Lido had planned to achieve a production capacity of 5,000 units in October, but there is still a slight gap. Will it be able to exceed 10,000 units in December? This remains to be seen.

Lido has many orders but the delivery speed is slow. With its launch on September 19th and October being the first full month of delivery, Lido has had ample time to ramp up production, but it has not even met the pre-set target of 5,000 units. Let's compare this with Xiaomi's SU7, which was launched on April 18th and sold over 7,000 units in its first month, 8,000 in the second month, and exceeded 10,000 in the third month. In October this year, sales even exceeded 20,000 units. Although it is Xiaomi's first foray into the automotive industry, its supply chain management is excellent. Strictly speaking, Lido is not a purely new force; standing on NIO's shoulders, it should perform better than Xiaomi.

It's not that I'm being strict with NIO and Lido; I've watched NIO grow to where it is today, step by step, and I hope it will do even better. NIO has suffered from slow production ramp-ups before. When the ET5 was first introduced, it had almost no competition in the market, but NIO struggled to increase production and deliver vehicles. As a result, by the time ET5 production caught up, the market was flooded with alternative models, and NIO missed out on a potential hit and sales. Nowadays, competition is fierce, and if NIO and Lido cannot quickly keep up the pace, L60 may face the same fate. So, NIO and Lido, let's step up the pace.

02 XPeng

XPeng delivered a record high of 23,917 new vehicles in October. This performance is largely attributed to the XPeng MONA M03. XPeng has indeed delivered, with sales exceeding 10,000 units in both September and October since its launch in September. So, take note, friends! Moreover, XPeng has another potential hit with the P7+, which has received over 30,000 pre-orders in just 48 minutes, a remarkable achievement.

Of course, this number is only for reference. Ultimately, there will be a 30%-50% attrition rate from pre-orders to final orders, and the final sales will depend on the configuration and pricing. The P7+ will be launched and delivered on November 7th. If the price is attractive and production capacity is not an issue, it seems possible to achieve monthly sales of 30,000 units in December.

Oh, by the way, here's some bad news: be cautious when using the M03's intelligent driving feature. A friend of mine, Xiao A, got into an accident while using it shortly after picking up the car last month.

03 Li Auto

Li Auto continues to perform stably, delivering 51,443 new vehicles in October. With five models on sale, it has been the sales champion among Chinese brands of new energy vehicles priced above 200,000 yuan for seven consecutive months. As of October 31, 2024, Li Auto has delivered a total of 393,255 vehicles in 2024, surpassing one million cumulative deliveries (1,026,619 vehicles). Li Auto's sales target for this year is 500,000 units, which means it needs to average over 53,000 deliveries per month in the next two months. This should not be a big problem for Li Auto.

The challenge lies in next year's pure electric vehicles. Li Auto previously postponed the launch of its pure electric vehicles due to inadequate supercharging facilities (and store displays). As of the end of October, Li Auto has put into use 1,004 supercharging stations with 4,910 charging piles nationwide. Li Auto's goal for this year is still 2,000 supercharging stations, meaning it needs to build another 1,000 stations in the next two months. This execution capability is truly impressive and worth learning from other companies. On October 23rd, Li Auto pushed the end-to-end new-generation intelligent driving technology architecture and VLM dual system to all users of AD Max platform models. As the user base expands, the data collected by Li Auto will increase exponentially, and we can look forward to the progress of its intelligent driving technology.

Here's some additional information: after reaching one million sales, Li Auto's next target is 3.5 million. Before that, let's take a look at Li Auto's current progress: Intelligent Driving Training Mileage: Li Auto's intelligent driving training mileage has reached 2.5 billion kilometers and is expected to exceed 3 billion kilometers by the end of this year. Training Computing Power: It has reached 5.39 EFlops and is expected to reach 8 EFlops by the end of the year, approaching the capacity of 30,000 A100 cards. User Base: Over one million

Li Auto's goals for 2030 are: Intelligent Driving Training Mileage: Over 10 billion kilometers. Training Computing Power: Over 50 EFLOPS. User Base: A fleet size of over 3.5 million vehicles. Therefore, in the next six years, Li Auto needs to increase its sales by about 2.5 million units. While Li Auto is surging ahead, NIO and XPeng should not lag behind.

04 Leap Motor

Unbeknownst to many, Leap Motor has grown into a force that cannot be ignored by competitors, even taking the lead. In October, Leap Motor delivered 38,177 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 109.7%, setting a new monthly delivery record. As a result, Leap Motor has become the second-largest seller among new forces. Leap Motor's success is mainly attributed to its pursuit of ultimate cost-effectiveness, offering products at prices comparable to those of competitors' models costing two to three times more. It's not an exaggeration to call Leap Motor the Xiaomi of the automotive industry. In October, Leap Motor also set a new record for orders, with over 42,000 orders in a single month, and over 10,000 orders for each of its C10, C11, and C16 models.

Leap Motor has officially broken free from the shackles of low-priced micro-cars and is gradually on the right track. Moreover, these are just Leap Motor's domestic sales. With the help of the Stellantis Group's channels, Leap Motor's globalization is also progressing rapidly. In May this year, Leap Motor and the Stellantis Group jointly established Leap Motor International. Currently, Leap Motor International has over 200 dealers in 13 European countries, with plans to reach 350 overseas sales channels by the end of 2024 and establish 500 dealers in Europe by the end of 2025. In addition, Leap Motor plans to expand its business to the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and South America starting from the fourth quarter of 2024. Leap Motor is currently on a roll. Regarding new models, the first model of the new B series, the Leap Motor B10, will make its domestic debut at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November and is expected to be launched next year.

05 Xiaomi

Considering Xiaomi's automotive attributes, I temporarily place Xiaomi in the category of new forces. Xiaomi's performance has been truly excellent. In October, Xiaomi delivered over 20,000 SU7 vehicles, marking the first time Xiaomi has exceeded 20,000 deliveries and possibly the fastest new force to achieve this milestone. It is expected that Xiaomi will complete 100,000 deliveries ahead of schedule in November.

If sales continue to exceed 20,000 units in December, achieving annual sales of 120,000 units this year will not be difficult.

I just checked Xiaomi's vehicle delivery time, and the soonest delivery is five months away. It seems that Xiaomi currently has a sufficient order backlog.

06 Nezha Auto

Nezha Auto has not yet announced its October sales figures.

Finally, let me share my thoughts. The competition among new forces has entered a new stage, focusing on sales, revenue, gross margin, profit, and technology (especially intelligent driving and intelligent cabins), which are more objective indicators of performance. Previously, the lifeline for survival was 10,000 units, but now it's at least 20,000 units. If a company has not yet achieved monthly sales of over 20,000 units, it's time to reflect on what went wrong and make adjustments as soon as possible. Next year, the lifeline may rise to 30,000 units, and the elimination round has already begun... The end.