Nio, a Chinese electric vehicle company, has filed for a $1.8 billion IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. Prior to the IPO plans, Nio has raised a total of $2.1 billion in funding. Some of Nio’s existing investors include Baidu, Tencent Holdings, Temasek Holdings, and Sequoia Capital China.
Since founding, Nio unveiled two vehicles known as the EP9 supercar and the ES8. The EP9 supercar is a concept racer car that broke the electric vehicle speed record last year. And the ES8 is available for consumers to purchase at a price of 448,000 RMB (approximately $64,000-$66,000).
Photo: Jengtingchen
The ES8 became available for purchase last year and it started shipping in June 2018. According to TechCrunch, Nio fulfilled 481 orders of the ES8 and the company said that 17,000 customers pre-ordered the vehicle.
As of the end of June, Nio reported revenue of $6.9 million on a total loss of $502 million for 2018 as of this week. And last year, Nio saw a loss of $759 million with no revenue and about $400 million spent on research and development.
Nio also distinguishes itself by opening Nio Houses. Nio Houses are living spaces for Nio users and their friends. The company opened its first Nio House in Beijing in a 32,000 square foot space with two floors and seven main areas.
Rather than setting up charging stations, Nio supports battery swapping stations. And there are a number of charging trucks that can reach users who are running low on battery. Nio said that its vehicles will become compatible with the national electric vehicle charging network running across China.
Nio is planning to invest $650 million in building its own manufacturing plant in Shanghai. Even though orders currently take 6-9 months to fulfill, the company could deliver orders to customers within 28 days of purchase after the plant is built.
Launched in 2014 under the name NextCar, Nio was originally founded by entrepreneur Bin Li. Li is also known for founding Bitauto Holdings, a provider of Internet content and marketing services for the automotive industry in China. Bitauto Holdings is also a public company with a market cap of $1.42 billion.
It is unknown when Nio will expand to the U.S. As of right now, the company still has a lot of room for growth in China. For example, the sales of EV vehicles in China grew from 21,800 in 2013 to 740,900 units last year despite the governments scaling back of subsidies becoming available for earlier ownership of EVs. Interestingly, former Cisco Systems chief technology and strategy officer Padmasree Warrior is the head of Nio’s business in the U.S.
