Financial distress affected NIO’s European development plan. On November 5, NIO announced that it has reached a strategic cooperation with Mobileye, an Intel-owned autonomous driving technology company. Both parties will build L4 autonomous driving models based on NIO’s second-generation vehicle platform NP2. A few days ago, according to informatin, Zhang Hui, vice president of NIO Europe, revealed that NIO is conducting a new round of financing to meet future growth plans.
The NP2 platform is the key to the success of NIO. It is understood that the NP2 platform is mainly developed around the L4 level of autonomous driving technology. The core technology of the entire vehicle architecture is different from the first-generation platform NP1. Based on the development cycle of the NIO NP1 platform, the NP2 platform may be released around 2023-2024, which ultimately depends on NIO’s financing process.
The NIO ES8 and ES6 are both built on the NP1 platform, the third model will be launched in the second half of next year. After the launch of the NP2 platform, subsequent research and development costs will increase significantly, which is a major test for NIO, it is in a “fund shortage” now.
NIO Automobile was established in 2014 and was listed on the US stock in September 2018. The financial report shows that in the first half of 2019, NIO had a net loss of 5.966 billion yuan. Since 2016, NIO has accumulated losses of approximately 23.2 billion yuan. Due to financial constraints, NIO delayed the launch of NIO ET sedan. At the same time, in order to alleviate financial pressure, NIO has laid off employees many times since 2019, and it is expected that 1,200 jobs will be laid off globally.
Zhang Hui said that NIO will still have ambitions to expand into the British and European markets if funding can be found. Customers here have both money and environmental awareness. Currently, NIO is studying the sales strategy and strives to make preparations before the release of the NP2 platform.
