It took Tesla Inc. about 15 years to rack up $5 billion in losses. The company some regarded as China’s Tesla did it in four.
And the bleeding continues.
Shanghai-based NIO Inc. is poised to report Tuesday that it lost another 2.6 billion yuan ($369 million) — around $4 million a day — during the second quarter, according to the average of two analysts’ estimates.
That would bring accumulated losses at the company, which is backed by technology giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., to about $5.7 billion since William Li founded the carmaker in 2014.
Bracing for Another Loss
NIO is projected to report another loss for the second quarter:
Cost overruns, weak sales, and major recalls have led NIO to plunge about 74% since its market value hit a record $11.9 billion about a year ago.
More broadly, the company’s reversal of fortune illustrates why concerns are mounting that China created an electric-vehicle bubble that may be about to burst.
“This year and the next, there’s going to be a lot of card-shuffling for these EV startups,” said Siyi Mi, an analyst at BloombergNEF. “Before, venture capital chased after them, but it’s not the case anymore.”
NIO’s U.S.-listed shares fell as much as 4.6% to $2.90 shortly after the open of regular trading Monday in New York.
Total EV sales in China, where half of the world’s electric cars are sold, fell for the first time in July after the government scaled back subsidies.
Deliveries dropped again in in August, raising doubts that one of the final respites of strength in China’s auto market — which has fallen 14 out of the past 15 months — is wavering.
Read rest at Boomberg
And those dead batteries are burnt in coal plants sprouting like mushrooms .
I had an (I thought) intelligent mech engineer tell me that the power system is already fully capable of handling a full conversion to electric vehicles. They said that they recharge at night when everyone is asleep and no infrastructure is required.
I guess you can just say anything you want as long as you are an “environmentalist” and no data or facts are required.
It is true that there is excess capacity at night but the power companies don’t shut down the large (read: Coal and Nuclear) base-load plants during that time. Instead they would shut down the gas-fired plants that are needed for peak demand because they can be brought up and shut down quickly–no steam systems to get up to pressure.