NIO’s Vehicle Factory Suspends Production Due to Pandemic, Deliveries Affected

According to a report by 36Kr on November 1, due to COVID-19 pandemic prevention requirements, two factories in Hefei, Anhui Province of NIO, a leading Chinese new energy automobile manufacturer, have stopped production recently. As a result, delivery of its models will be delayed. NIO has not yet responded to the news.

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Some people familiar with the matter told 36Kr that NIO‘s production has been facing challenges since mid-October. In order to cope with pandemic prevention measures, the JAC-NIO F1 plant originally planned to be closed for 3 to 5 days. With most auto parts in stock, the firm can still produce some vehicles. However, as the closure was extended, overall production and delivery was greatly affected. During the previous closure, vehicles in the factory could not be shipped out. Other people close to NIO have said that Neo Park, the automobile industrial park of NIO in Hefei, was under closed control recently, and the vehicle production line of the JAC-NIO F2 plant has also been suspended.

A delivery report released by NIO on November 1 also mentioned the supply chain problem. The company went on to state that “vehicle production and delivery were constrained by operation challenges in our plants as well as supply chain volatilities due to the COVID-19 situations in certain regions in China.”

At present, all of NIO‘s production is located in Hefei, among which the F1 plant manufactures most models, including several large SUVs (among them the ES8, ES6 and EC6), the company’s flagship sedan ET7 listed in January 2021, and the medium and large-sized SUV ES7 listed in June this year. After the production line is upgraded, the annual production capacity of F1 plant will be able to reach up to 300,000 vehicles. The F2 plant mainly produces the newly listed sedan ET5. The overall planned production capacity of this factory is as high as 1 million vehicles, but it hasn’t reached that  capacity just yet.

The closure of plants and the intermittent shutdowns have significantly reduced the delivery efficiency of NIO. Many customers who have place orders and not yet received their car said that the cars they ordered were originally planned to be delivered in October, but by the end of October, the production had not started and some were even noticed that the delivery time would be delayed until November. However, according to the latest feedback from some car owners in the past two days, the production of NIO plants has not been fully stopped and some new vehicles have already begun production. By the end of October, the transportation of new vehicles is also accelerating.

According to the latest delivery data, in the past month, NIO delivered 10,059 vehicles in October 2022, representing an increase of 174.3% year-over-year and a decrease of 12.8% month-over-month. The deliveries consisted of 5,979 premium smart electric SUVs including 2,814 ES7s, and 4,080 premium smart electric sedans including 3,050 ET7s and 1,030 ET5s. Cumulative deliveries of NIO vehicles reached 259,563 as of October 31, 2022.