Exclusive: NIO President Qin Lihong Says Daily Orders Topped 1,000 Over the Past Week

On April 12th, Beijing time, NIO President Qin Lihong made a surprise visit to Guangzhou. Accompanied by Wang Tai, the general manager of NIO Guangzhou regional company, he delivered new cars to several NIO ET9 owners at the NIO House in Guangyue Tiandi, Guangzhou. He also recorded an interview program with several high-end car owners, including Li Yuankang, the founder of the well-known catering company Tsui Wah Restaurant Group, who had come specially from Hong Kong.

After the owner interview, in a one-on-one conversation with Elliot, the editor-in-chief of Chinaevhome, Qin Lihong said that after the launch of the new promotional policy(For details, see here.) at the beginning of April, NIO has received an average of more than 1,000 orders per day in the past week. The sales situation is still very good. Of course, we can’t be complacent. After all, this is a special clearance behavior.

At the same time, Qin Lihong also specifically stated that this new promotional policy is still within the strict financial boundaries.

Later, a friend from the NIO Guangzhou store told chinaEVHome that compared to the sales policy in March, the discount magnitude of the new promotional policy in April has not increased. The key is to reorganize the consumer logic and offer more attractive promotional combinations, with no significant changes in sales costs. The two most critical points are: changing from giving 48 free-swap coupons in March to promoting 5 years of free swapping (actually giving 240 free-swap coupons, to be written off annually); and changing from giving 5 years of NOP in March to giving 3 years of NOP. Meanwhile, for inventory vehicles, the rights and interests can be cashed out.

“I think this month, the main NIO brand can get more than 20,000 orders, or deliver 20,000 vehicles,” a friend from the NIO Guangzhou store told chinaEVHome.

Qin Lihong also talked about the recent personnel changes, especially those related to the second brand, ONVO. He said that Shen Fei, the former NIO VP in charge of energy business, has been transferred to serve as the President of ONVO, in charge of sales and regional companies, which he described as a brilliant move. After reorganizing the organizational structure of ONVO, he also found that many of its previous marketing actions needed improvement.

For example, over the past year or so, ONVO has not had one-on-one communications with domestic media, “which is definitely not right.” Therefore, last Thursday, they specifically met with more than ten Shanghai-based media outlets to have a special communication about the development of ONVO.

NIO is currently at a critical stage of transitioning between product generations and launching new brands.

Among them, the large SUV L90 from its sub-brand ONVO will make its debut at the Shanghai Auto Show. Meanwhile, the first model from the third brand, Firefly, will officially launch on April 19, with an expected starting price of around RMB 128,800—approximately RMB 20,000 lower than its previously announced presale price.

As for NIO’s main brand, the 2025 models—namely the ET5, ET5T, ES6, and EC6—based on the NIO 2.5-generation platform, are about to be launched. In addition, a brand-new vehicle built on the 3.0 platform—likely a new six-seater version of the ES7—is also set to be unveiled soon.

Qin Lihong said that although there is a lot of discussion in public opinion about the organizational structure changes of NIO, and even the adjustment of the CBU(Cell Business Unit), and NIO itself has also undergone some changes, the core underlying things are still solid. He also expressed full confidence in the company’s future development.