Chinese EV Makers First Deliver Over 10,000 in a Month Despite Chip Shortage

BEIJING, October 1 (TMTPOST)— Two leading Chinese electric vehicle makers happened to release their delivery milestone the same day, despite the whole industry’s struggle with the extended global chip shortage.

On Friday morning, Xpeng Inc. said that it delivered 10,412 smart electric vehicles (EVs) in September with a year-over-year (YoY) increse of 199% and a 44% increase over a month, creating delivery record for five months in a row and making it the first emerging automobile manufacturer that records the monthly delivery of more than 10,000 vehicles. It also set a delivery record in the third quarter with 25,666 units, rising 199% from a year ago and 48% from the previous quarter. The lasts figure suggests the company had almost the shipment of the whole year of 2020 in only one quarter.

Later that day, NIO Inc. announced the highest ever monthly delivery of 10,628 units in September, representing a YoY growth of 125.7% and a nearly 81% rise from the last month. It delivered 24,439 vehicles in the quarter ended on September 30, about doubling delivery the same period last year and exceeding the higher end of its quarterly guidance.

The delivery milestone seems not so surprising in a red hot EV market that still curbed by the ongoing global semiconductor shortage, since Xpeng and NIO suffered from production shift and persistent supply chain disruptions respectively in August and they just clawed back in the next month.

Because of the auto-interior in short supply, NIO only recorded a delivery of 5,886 in August, about 3,000 units less than the volume it should have delivered if the supply chain kept intact. Taking account of the loss in August, NIO’s average monthly delivery in the past two months is similar to that in July. Suppliers in Nanjing have already turned normal in offering components and parts, but the supply of parts including EPS has not completely recovered from hit by pandemic lockdown in Malaysia, said Ma Lin, head of NIO’s corporate public relations.

Xpeng’s delivery was partly affected by a production transition in August, when the company transferred production of G3 SUV to G3i, the mid-cycle facelift version of G3 released in July, to its wholly-owned EV manufacturing base in Zhaoqing, a city in the North of Guangdong province. The company said G3i started delivery in September and a total of 2,656 G3 and G3i SUVs shipped in that month.

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