Tagged: eV

NIO CFO says confident of meeting this year’s sales target

That will be achieved through new models, expanding the company's charging and battery swap network, and unlocking technology, the CFO said.  |  NIO US | NIO HK | NIO SG

An NIO (NYSE: NIO) executive re-emphasized the electric vehicle (EV) maker's confidence that it will meet its goal of doubling sales this year, at a time when the Chinese auto industry has been weak overall so far this year.

"We are very confident to achieve our sales target in 2023," NIO CFO Steven Feng said in an interview with Bloomberg TV today.

That will be achieved through new models, expanding the company's charging and battery swap network, and unlocking self-driving technology, Feng said.

NIO delivered a total of 122,486 vehicles in 2022, up 34 percent from 91,429 vehicles in 2021.

William Li, the company's founder, chairman and CEO, said during a March 1 analyst call after NIO reported its fourth-quarter earnings that the company aims to see sales double this year compared with last year.

"Our team is very confident in that," Li said at the time.

If raw material prices fall in line with current trends, and without considering the investment in innovative businesses, NIO could still be profitable in the fourth quarter of this year, Li said earlier.

Feng mentioned in the interview with Bloomberg TV today that the company is "confident" of breaking even at the group level next year.

Strong revenue growth and tighter expenses are key to improving profitability, he said.

Feng also mentioned the ongoing price war in the auto industry in the interview, saying it showed there were too many carmakers in China.

"We expect the industry to go through some profound consolidation," Feng said."It's almost consensus that China now has too many automakers, but we have no plan to buy anyone."

NIO's shares traded in Hong Kong surged in early trading today, rising more than 7 percent to HK$74.25 at press time, bringing its gains over the past two days to about 17 percent.

Sales performance in China's auto market has been weak overall so far this year, with cumulative retail sales of all passenger vehicles from January to February at 2.68 million units, down 19.8 percent year-on-year, according to data released earlier this month by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Retail sales of NEVs in China in the first two months were 770,000 units, up 23.31 percent year-on-year.

China's auto market remained weak heading into March, and the ongoing price war has brought disruptions to the sector.

In terms of insurance registrations, China's passenger car sales for the month were 630,000 units as of March 19, down 2.53 percent year-on-year, according to data monitored by CnEVPost.

Among them, insurance registrations of NEVs for the month were 220,000 units, up 12.34 percent year-on-year.

China NEV insurance registrations for week ending Mar 19: BYD 38,414, Tesla 18,712, NIO 1,775

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BYD to use Nvidia Orin chips in its next-gen EV models

and are already using Nvidia DRIVE Orin chips in their smart driving systems, with NIO even having its third-generation battery swap stations equipped with two of the chips.  |  BYDDY.US | HK

(Image credit: Nvidia)

BYD (OTCMKTS: BYDDY) will use Nvidia's DRIVE Orin chips in its next-generation models, making it the latest Chinese new energy vehicle (NEV) maker to use the US chip giant's smart-driving chips.

Nvidia is enhancing its partnership with BYD, which will use the DRIVE Orin system-on-chip (SoC) across the multiple models of its next-generation Dynasty and Ocean series vehicles, according to a press release from the US chip giant yesterday.

Nvidia and BYD share the belief that future cars will be programmable, evolving from being based on many embedded controllers to high-performance centralized computers -- with functionalities delivered and enhanced through software updates over the life of the car, the release said.

Nvidia's press release provided no further details on BYD's plans to use the DRIVE Orin chips. BYD's product matrix includes the Dynasty and Ocean series, with dozens of models.

Several Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers are already using Nvidia's DRIVE Orin chips to power the vehicles' assisted driving systems.

All of NIO's (NYSE: NIO) models based on the latest NT 2.0 platform come standard with the NIO Adam supercomputer, which is built on four DRIVE Orin chips and has more than 1,000 TOPS of computing power.

Orin is the world's highest-performance, most advanced processor for vehicles and robots, offering up to 254 TOPS to handle a large number of applications and deep neural networks running simultaneously in autonomous vehicles and robots, Nvidia said following the launch of NIO ET5 in late 2021.

In addition to using the DRIVE Orin chip in vehicles, NIO is equipping the third-generation battery swap station with 2 Nvidia Orin chips for a total computing power of 508 TOPS.

Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) also uses two Nvidia Orin X chips in its AD Max smart driving system, and its AD Pro system uses the Journey 5 chips from local Chinese supplier Horizon Robotics.

Back to BYD, the NEV maker announced on March 23 last year that it had entered into a partnership with Nvidia on smart driving technology to equip some of its NEVs with the Nvidia DRIVE Hyperion platform for smart driving and smart parking of vehicles starting in the first half of 2023.

BYD's NEVs will use the Nvidia DRIVE Orin chip as a centralized computing and AI engine for autonomous driving and smart cockpit features, according to the company's press release at the time.

On January 4 of this year, BYD announced that it was working with Nvidia to bring Nvidia GeForce NOW cloud gaming streaming to its vehicles.

BYD is the largest NEV maker in China, selling 1,863,494 NEVs in 2022, up 208.64 percent year-on-year.

The company sold 193,655 NEVs in February, up 27.96 percent from 151,341 units in January and 119.36 percent from 88,283 units a year earlier, data it released earlier in the month showed.

BYD working with Nvidia to bring GeForce NOW cloud gaming to its vehicles

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BYD to use Nvidia Orin chips in its next-gen EV models

and are already using Nvidia DRIVE Orin chips in their smart driving systems, with NIO even having its third-generation battery swap stations equipped with two of the chips.  |  BYDDY.US | HK

(Image credit: Nvidia)

BYD (OTCMKTS: BYDDY) will use Nvidia's DRIVE Orin chips in its next-generation models, making it the latest Chinese new energy vehicle (NEV) maker to use the US chip giant's smart-driving chips.

Nvidia is enhancing its partnership with BYD, which will use the DRIVE Orin system-on-chip (SoC) across the multiple models of its next-generation Dynasty and Ocean series vehicles, according to a press release from the US chip giant yesterday.

Nvidia and BYD share the belief that future cars will be programmable, evolving from being based on many embedded controllers to high-performance centralized computers -- with functionalities delivered and enhanced through software updates over the life of the car, the release said.

Nvidia's press release provided no further details on BYD's plans to use the DRIVE Orin chips. BYD's product matrix includes the Dynasty and Ocean series, with dozens of models.

Several Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers are already using Nvidia's DRIVE Orin chips to power the vehicles' assisted driving systems.

All of NIO's (NYSE: NIO) models based on the latest NT 2.0 platform come standard with the NIO Adam supercomputer, which is built on four DRIVE Orin chips and has more than 1,000 TOPS of computing power.

Orin is the world's highest-performance, most advanced processor for vehicles and robots, offering up to 254 TOPS to handle a large number of applications and deep neural networks running simultaneously in autonomous vehicles and robots, Nvidia said following the launch of NIO ET5 in late 2021.

In addition to using the DRIVE Orin chip in vehicles, NIO is equipping the third-generation battery swap station with 2 Nvidia Orin chips for a total computing power of 508 TOPS.

Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) also uses two Nvidia Orin X chips in its AD Max smart driving system, and its AD Pro system uses the Journey 5 chips from local Chinese supplier Horizon Robotics.

Back to BYD, the NEV maker announced on March 23 last year that it had entered into a partnership with Nvidia on smart driving technology to equip some of its NEVs with the Nvidia DRIVE Hyperion platform for smart driving and smart parking of vehicles starting in the first half of 2023.

BYD's NEVs will use the Nvidia DRIVE Orin chip as a centralized computing and AI engine for autonomous driving and smart cockpit features, according to the company's press release at the time.

On January 4 of this year, BYD announced that it was working with Nvidia to bring Nvidia GeForce NOW cloud gaming streaming to its vehicles.

BYD is the largest NEV maker in China, selling 1,863,494 NEVs in 2022, up 208.64 percent year-on-year.

The company sold 193,655 NEVs in February, up 27.96 percent from 151,341 units in January and 119.36 percent from 88,283 units a year earlier, data it released earlier in the month showed.

BYD working with Nvidia to bring GeForce NOW cloud gaming to its vehicles

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BYD reportedly reduces shifts at two EV plants

has asked some workers at its Xi'an plant to work only four days a week and shifts at its Shenzhen plant have been reduced from three shifts a day to two shifts a day, according to a report from Reuters.  |  BYDDY.US | BYD HK

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

BYD (OTCMKTS: BYDDY), China's largest new energy vehicle (NEV) maker, has reduced shifts at two plants, a new report said, as consumer demand for EVs weakens.

BYD has asked some workers at its Xi'an plant, its largest manufacturing hub, to work only four days a week, with the plant running two eight-hour shifts a day, Reuters said in a report today, citing an internal memo and three people familiar with the matter.

BYD also reduced shifts at its Shenzhen plant, which makes the Han sedan, from three shifts a day to two shifts a day, according to the report.

BYD did not give a reason for the reduction in shifts in the memo, the Reuters report said. One of the people said BYD is scaling back production in the face of weak industry-wide demand in China since the beginning of the year, according to the report.

It was not possible to determine how long BYD's shift reductions will last and whether its other three assembly plants in China are being affected by the change in production schedules, the report noted.

BYD has been growing rapidly and taking market share in China. But it has also been slowing production since the beginning of this year, when sales across the industry began to slow and China ended its state subsidy program for NEVs, the report said.

The NEV maker sold 193,655 units in February, up 27.96 percent from 151,341 units in January and up 119.36 percent from 88,283 units a year earlier, data it released on March 1 showed.

After 's sharp price cut in China in early January, several NEV makers followed suit. During the month, traditional fuel car makers began offering significant official discounts, bringing about a widespread price war.

On March 9, BYD also began offering discounts on Song Plus as well as Seal models, as the price war intensifies.

Analysts believe aggressive discounts have created some demand as other automakers have followed Tesla into what has become a price war for market share, but inventories have been rising across the industry, the Reuters report today noted.

At the end of February, China's passenger car inventory stood at 3.41 million units, up 2.4 percent from 3.33 million units in January, according to data released last week by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

China's fuel vehicle market was slower to stabilize in February, leading to higher inventories at manufacturers and dealers at the end of February, the CPCA said.

BYD offers discounts for Song and Seal as China's auto price war intensifies

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Kia EV5 electric SUV concept taps solar panels, swivel seats

Kia EV5 conceptKia just revealed the 2024 EV9 electric SUV in production-ready form, but the automaker on Monday revealed a smaller electric SUV concept. Called the EV5, the concept previews a "production model destined initially for Chinese market later this year," according to Kia. Note the use of the word "initially," which hints that the EV5 is coming to...

Panic selling of lithium carbonate just won’t stop

Lithium carbonate prices continue to decline, leading to a heavy wait-and-see mood among downstream customers, who are reluctant to place large orders.

 

The price of lithium carbonate has dropped by half from five months ago, with panic selling not stopping.

Battery-grade lithium carbonate prices in China fell RMB 12,500 per ton ($1,818 per ton) today, bringing the average price down to RMB 300,000 per ton, according to Mysteel.

Industrial-grade lithium carbonate also fell by RMB 12,500 per ton today, leaving the average price at RMB 260,000 per ton.

Compared to yesterday's average prices, battery grade lithium carbonate and industrial grade lithium carbonate fell by 4 percent and 4.59 percent respectively, the new biggest drop of the year.

The price of battery-grade lithium carbonate has fallen 49 percent compared to RMB 590,000 per ton on November 21 last year, and the drop this year is about 40 percent.

Lithium carbonate is still being sold off at an accelerated pace, a report in local media Yicai today quoted an unnamed industry source as saying.

The continued decline in lithium carbonate prices has led downstream customers to shy away from placing large orders, with a heavy wait-and-see mood, the source said.

On March 20, a company in northwest China's Qinghai province dropped its sell offer for battery-grade lithium carbonate to RMB 280,000 per ton, and some local battery-grade lithium carbonate ex-factory prices dropped to RMB 250,000 per ton, the report noted.

As lithium prices continue to fall in China, some analysts previously said the drop will not last long as imports become more attractive.

Overseas lithium products have seen a significant premium, which could support prices for lithium products in China, said CITIC Securities in a March 7 research note.

Notably, Yicai's report today said there have been withdrawals of lithium carbonate orders in overseas markets, which has further pushed down the price of lithium carbonate.

A month ago, it was reported that was pushing a lithium rebate program to car companies, with some cells to be settled at RMB 200,000 per ton of lithium carbonate.

CATL acknowledged the plan on March 9, but did not mention the base prices.

CATL's lithium sharing plan was not motivated by a price reduction, but rather that the company already owns some mineral resources and does not want to reap windfall profits, the company said.

CATL's proposed price benchmark of RMB 200,000 per ton for lithium carbonate has further lowered market expectations for the price, accelerating the panicked drop in lithium carbonate prices, Yicai's report today quoted several industry sources as saying.

($1= RMB 6.8742)

Lithium prices see biggest drop this year in China as decline accelerates

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