Exclusive report from ChinaEVHome: Since NIO announced a new purchase incentive on April 3rd—offering five years of zero-interest financing and five years of free battery swaps—its main brand has seen a sharp uptick in sales.
According to authoritative sources, during the traditional Chinese Qingming Festival holiday (April 4th to April 6th), NIO’s main brand secured nearly 5,000 orders. This upward momentum in sales continued into the following workweek, with over 1,400 orders placed on April 8th alone.
Previously, rumors circulated on Chinese social media suggesting that NIO performed well in terms of confirmed large orders during the week of March 31 to April 6. Notably, this achievement came despite a generally sluggish order performance across the automotive industry during the same period.
The day before yesterday, KOC @电动兄弟—who maintains a close relationship with NIO—posted on Weibo, saying he had heard that NIO’s main brand received over 1,400 orders on April 8, a regular working day in China. He remarked, “That came a bit unexpectedly.”
This morning, we reached out to relevant departments within NIO to verify the information and received a confirmation. Authoritative sources also disclosed to ChinaEVHome that during the traditional Qingming Festival holiday (April 4 to April 6), NIO’s main brand secured nearly 5,000 orders. As these orders continue to accumulate, NIO’s latest promotional campaign has already begun to impact the sales performance of its competitors, including Li Auto, Zeekr, and XPeng.
According to detailed information obtained by ChinaEVHome, NIO’s current promotional offer consists of two parts.
The first part includes existing incentives, such as:
- A discount of up to RMB 6,000 on display vehicles
- A “preferred vehicle” discount (limited to the ET5, ET5T, ES6, and EC6), which applies to comfort-related optional features—such as vehicle color or interior configurations—offered at cost price, with a maximum discount of up to RMB 9,000
- A Hefei-exclusive battery swap subsidy of RMB 6,000
- Three years of free NOP+ (Navigation on Pilot Plus)
- Local trade-in and new car purchase subsidies of around RMB 15,000
The second part is the newly introduced offer. A NIO store manager we interviewed summarized it into four selectable combinations, from which consumers can choose one:
- Five years of zero-interest financing + five years of free battery swaps
- Five years of zero-interest financing + RMB 20,000 in optional feature credits
- Five years of free battery swaps + RMB 20,000 in optional feature credits
- RMB 20,000 + RMB 20,000 in optional feature credits
The manager added that if a customer selects a vehicle that has already been produced and is in stock, the RMB 20,000 optional feature credit can be directly used as a cash discount. Therefore, if a buyer chooses the fourth option and selects an in-stock vehicle, they could receive up to RMB 40,000 off the purchase price.
Based on the above information, some Chinese media outlets have conducted calculations and compiled the data into a comparison table. According to these calculations, the entry-level ET5 and ET5T models can be priced as low as RMB 121,000 when opting for NIO’s Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) subscription plan.
However, does such a promotional strategy risk reducing the vehicle’s gross profit margin?
A representative from NIO’s headquarters told ChinaEVHome that, compared with previous promotional campaigns, the new incentives have minimal impact on per-vehicle profitability. The only truly new element is the “five years of free battery swapping” benefit.
ChinaEVHome has learned that this benefit is structured as 48 battery swap vouchers per year—totaling 240 over five years—bound to the buyer’s account. It’s only available to customers who lock in their order by April 30. Each voucher has a defined value, though the exact cost structure was not publicly disclosed. For context, in June 2023, NIO discontinued its policy of offering 4 or 6 free battery swaps annually (depending on whether the buyer chose a home charging solution) along with a RMB 30,000 price cut across all models.
The NIO representative emphasized that the success of this campaign is not solely due to the incentives themselves, but also because the company has learned from past marketing experiences—this time offering clearer, more flexible, and easier-to-understand options for consumers. In their words: “Free battery swapping is back for a limited time.”
Moreover, this is essentially an inventory clearance effort tied to a generational product transition. As such, it not only encourages existing users to make recommendations, but it also has limited long-term impact on the brand’s premium positioning.
Currently, during the Qingming Festival holiday, top-performing regional offices reported 70–80 orders per day per office, while weekday orders have stabilized around 30–40 per day. With order volume continuing to grow, NIO is now adjusting its production planning to fulfill demand generated by this limited-time offer as quickly as possible.
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