Two SUVs Now Carry Nio: ES8 and ES9 Made Up 83% of Brand Deliveries in July

Nio's July sales came down to two large premium SUVs. Between them the ES8 and ES9 delivered 16,603 vehicles. Set against the 20,008 the main Nio brand sold, that is 83%; set against the group's 35,934 across every brand, 46%. The figures come from the China Passenger Car Association.

The ES8 climbed back over ten thousand, at 10,288, up 14.7% from 8,969 in June. The recovery came from the five-seat version, which was launched on 9 July with deliveries starting the next day and released demand that had been building beforehand. It starts at 382,800 yuan with the battery included, 5.9% below the three-row car, or 274,800 yuan under Nio's battery subscription.

The ES9 went the other way, delivering 6,315 against 8,595 in June, a fall of 26.5%. That reads worse than it is: the executive flagship only launched on 27 May at 498,000 yuan, reached its 20,000th delivery on 8 August after 73 days, and buyers of higher-specification cars are still waiting 13 to 14 weeks.

That table is the real story. The ES6 was once Nio's volume model and delivered 875 cars, down 28% on June; the ET7 was its technology flagship and delivered five. Not one of the seven older models reached 2,000 units, against 16,603 from the two new SUVs.

One small discrepancy is worth noting for anyone reconciling the numbers: Nio had already published an ES8 figure of 10,286 on Weibo, two units below the registration data.