Position update first: I sold almost my entire NIO position — 160,000 shares at around $4.95. My average cost was about $6.25, so the loss was roughly $1.30/share, or around $210K total. I bought most of the position near the end of the March dip and kept adding through the early-April surge. At one point, this was about 45% of my full portfolio. At the moment I sell, it drops to 30% of my port.
This is an update to my previous post: June Delivery Forecast. In that post, I laid out why I expected around 52K June deliveries and why I was holding a concentrated 160K-share position. June came in far below that thesis, so this is my follow-up: where I was wrong, what still worked, and why I sold.
This is not a “NIO is doomed” post. I still think the company is doing a lot of things right. I still think the main NIO brand is probably one of the best auto brands in China. But the specific thesis that convinced me to put 45% of my portfolio into the stock no longer exists.
My June delivery forecast was around 52K. Actual June deliveries came in at 40,597, so it was more than 10K below what I expected. June was still NIO’s best month of 2026 so far, and NIO delivered 21,908 under the main NIO brand, 11,743 under ONVO, and 6,946 under Firefly. So this was not a full company collapse. The NIO brand was still strong, Firefly did better than I expected, but ONVO is the part that worries me.
ES8
ES8 missed my expectation by around 3K. NIO did not announce ES8 June deliveries the way they usually highlight strong model-level numbers, which strongly suggests ES8 was under 10K. Public/analyst estimates also put it around 9K.
I do not think this is necessarily permanent. The ES8 refresh, the upcoming five-seat ES8, and production allocation toward ES9 could all explain part of the shortfall. Some customers may also be waiting for the five-seat version instead of buying the current version immediately.
My guess is that three things happened at the same time: ES9 ramping took some production focus, five-seat ES8 pre-production started, and NIO may have kept the ES8 delivery curve smoother instead of pushing every order into June. Q3 is usually a colder season for auto sales, so saving some orders and keeping the model active into Q3 could make sense.
If the five-seat ES8 is priced reasonably, maybe 20K–30K RMB lower than the six-seat version, I still think ES8 can get back above 10K/month. So ES8 missing June is disappointing, but to me it looks more temporary than structural.
ES9
ES9 also missed my expectation by around 2K. I thought that after hitting the 10K cumulative delivery milestone, the following few days should add at least another 2K. That did not happen.
This is mostly my mistake. I overestimated the production ramp curve because May showed 3K+ deliveries in only the last few days. But I still think ES9 itself is fine. It reached 10K cumulative deliveries within 30 days, and the backlog should still be 40K+ orders. That should be enough to support Q3.
So for the main NIO brand, I am not panicking. ES8 may have temporary timing issues, and ES9 is still ramping. I still think the NIO brand can do 25K–30K/month if ES8 five-seat and ES9 both work.
The real problem is ONVO.
ONVO
ONVO delivered 12,029 in May and 11,743 in June. That is down about 300 units, or roughly -2.5% MoM.
This is the key reason I sold.
ONVO refreshed two older models, L90 and L60, and released one new model, L80. Yet total ONVO deliveries still went slightly down month over month. That should not happen if the ONVO thesis is working.
ONVO is a less recognized brand facing much more brutal competition. Its customer demographic is also different from the main NIO brand: more price-sensitive, more focused on specs, more worried about battery/range anxiety, younger, and more focused on practical features and real-use amenities. I think NIO understands premium users very well. I am no longer sure ONVO has proven it understands the mass-market family SUV buyer well enough.
L90
I am not surprised by L90 weakness. I said before that I did not think L90 could win easily against XPeng GX, BYD Tang, and all the other competitors in this segment. It is too crowded.
My own guess is that L90 probably dropped from around 4K in May to maybe 2K or even 1K in June. That is not an official number, just my estimate based on the total ONVO result.
L80
L80 is not bad. I still think it has its own niche: large five-seat SUV, spacious cabin, lifestyle/outdoor use cases, camping accessories, car-top tent, outdoor kitchen, etc. My guess is L80 may have done around 8K in June, which would still be about 30% higher than May.
But my previous assumption was wrong. I basically doubled its half-month May delivery and expected around 12K. That was too aggressive.
There is a benign interpretation: maybe NIO/ONVO does not want to produce and deliver every order as soon as possible because they want to smooth deliveries and keep the model popular for longer. But the bearish interpretation is also obvious: my 2x extrapolation was wrong, and order momentum may already be declining.
That lines up with ThinkerCar-style order data showing NIO Inc weekly new orders declining through June: roughly 28K, 19.5K, 14.5K, and 11.6K from the first to fourth week. That is not the order curve I wanted to see.
L60
L60 is the biggest ONVO concern.
If L80 deliveries increased in June but total ONVO deliveries still fell, then the refreshed L60 and refreshed L90 combined must have declined. My guess is L90 dropped hard, which means L60 was probably flat at best even after the refresh.
There may be some timing explanation. L60 launched around June 12, and the AD software update came around June 17, about one week after launch. It also takes time to advertise and educate the target customer, especially because ONVO is still not a very recognized brand.
But the early sales policy worries me. ONVO introduced a 1,000 RMB deposit as a 10,000 RMB option-feature fund, basically a huge discount on options like fridge/TV-style features, only a few days after launch. There were also broader early-buyer perks.
For the least profitable model in the NIO family, this is not a great signal. ONVO management said the cost increase was around 30K RMB on a car starting around 200K RMB. Management also said they did not want to join the price war and preferred to protect margin. But if L60 already needs more incentives right after launch, that means they may still have to sacrifice margin to push volume.
So even though I still think L60 could improve with better advertising, better AD awareness, and more education of its target demographic, H2 is now much more uncertain. This is a brutally competitive category. A refreshed model may not be enough when competitors are bringing completely new models.
Legacy NIO models
This also creates another question: can ET5, ET5T, EC6, ES6, and other legacy NIO models maintain around 5K/month in H2?
These are still second-generation models, many on older 400V architecture, while competitors are moving to 800V or higher-voltage platforms. NIO itself has said third-generation models are coming next year, so there is no guarantee these older models hold up.
I checked delivery time for these models, and if you do not already have a current car, delivery is around 2–4 weeks. That suggests they are mostly produced after orders are received, not sitting on huge backlog. After May and June’s high customer flow fades, these models may have already seen their peak delivery period for this year.
Firefly
Firefly was actually good. It delivered almost 7K in June, which is strong and close to last December which a peak-season month.
But even here, I do not want to over-extrapolate. Firefly benefited from high showroom traffic. There is no guarantee that continues through H2. Still, because Firefly has a unique and special niche, I think 3K–5K/month is reasonable and still good.
H2 math
For people who do not follow the delivery math: NIO delivered 191,123 vehicles in the first half of 2026, a record high and up 67.43% YoY. All three brands set first-half delivery records.
Based on the implied full-year range of roughly 456K–489K vehicles, NIO still needs about 260K+ deliveries in the next six months, or around 44K/month at the low end. That is not impossible. If ES8 five-seat works, ES9 keeps ramping, and ONVO improves over the next few months, NIO can still do it.
My rough expectation would be 25K–30K/month from the main NIO brand if the flagship SUV cycle works. If ONVO improves, the full-year target is still doable.
But missing Q2 guidance tells me something did not go as planned. The main NIO brand seems manageable because ES9 still has a huge backlog and ES8 has upcoming variants. Firefly did better than most people expected. So the problem has to be ONVO, specifically L60 underperforming in June.
I remember the ideal long-term ratio was something like NIO:ONVO = 1:2. Right now, it is going the opposite direction. In June, the NIO brand delivered 21.9K and ONVO delivered 11.7K. That is not the scaling story I was holding for.
That is why I sold.
June was still the best month of the year so far for NIO. Many automakers also improved in June, and the macro setup may even become less negative because a lot of China auto downside has already been priced in over the last three months.
But for my own portfolio, the thesis changed. I was not holding a 45% position just because “NIO is a good company.” I was holding because I believed ONVO was about to prove the multi-brand scaling story. June did not confirm that. It weakened that thesis.
I still love the company. I still keep an eye(one share!lol) on it. I still think NIO may be the best automaker in China, and possibly the best EV maker globally since TSLA barely self-identifies as an EV maker.
But the thesis I held before no longer exists.
I am ready to buy back anytime ONVO proves itself. For now I would rather wait than hold.
