Nio has been at the brink before. Can the EV maker rally again?

Is Nio Inc., the Chinese electric car company that has already had one near-death experience, edging toward the brink again?

Having being rescued by a local municipal government in China and loyal fans three years ago after it lost more than 70 percent of its market capitalization following a New York initial public offering, the Shanghai-based company once more finds itself trapped in a cycle of dismal sales, low profitability and aggressive competition.

A just-in-time share sale to CYVN Holdings LLC, an investment entity controlled by the government of Abu Dhabi, announced in late June may get Nio off the immediate hook. But the injection of $738.5 million cash might only last a few months considering that Nio went through around 8 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) in the quarter that ended in March, when accounting for movement in short- and long-term borrowing.

While senior executives earlier claimed to be “very confident” of reaching a target to double sales to 250,000 EVs this year, Nio only managed to deliver 54,561 cars in the first half — just over 20 percent of its annual goal. It also missed its annual target for 2022.

Nio founder and CEO William Li said during an analysts’ call last month that the company had been forced to delay investment in fixed assets, postpone some R&D plans and take a more cautious approach to overseas expansion. He was addressing the market after Nio reported a wider-than-estimated first-quarter loss of 4.74 billion yuan.

Gross margins for that period dropped to 1.5 percent. Nio has had to push back its break-even point, which is clearly worrying investors considering they’ve sent the company’s U.S.-listed shares down almost 50 percent over the past 12 months.

The rhetoric from Nio has also been changing.

In April, just before the big Shanghai auto show, Nio pledged to intensify expansion in Europe and stay out of the price war in China started by Tesla Inc. Ultimately, it decided to cut service benefits for customers starting from mid-June and lowered the purchase price of some models by making several standardized benefits like free battery swapping optional.

Although jumping on the discount bandwagon may help boost sales in the short term, analysts are concerned about the long-term impact. The price cuts could make Nio’s new sub-brand Alps, which targets mass market customers and is expected to launch next year, less differentiated from its Nio flagship brand, which is higher-end, they say.

Nio now faces “a dilemma between its brand positioning and profitability,” CMB International Global Markets Ltd. analysts wrote in a June note, which simultaneously downgraded the automaker to hold from buy. 

While it tries to cut costs, Nio is also facing the seemingly at-odds task of intensively pushing updated versions of its models into the market. Within the space of a month, Nio unveiled a revamped model of its top-selling ES6 sport utility vehicle and a new wagon variant of its ET5 electric sedan.

Extra versions may spur sales, but China’s new-energy vehicle market has now transitioned from over-crowed to somewhat more concentrated, with much bigger players like BYD Co. and Tesla consolidating their power.

One pillar of support for Nio in its infancy, and a large factor in helping the company survive the last time it found itself in dire straits, is its loyal fan base. Since its early days, Nio has cultivated an aura of clubbiness around its cars, building Nio Houses for customers and holding gala dinners and events where they can mingle and socialize.

But as its customer base has expanded, that feeling of belonging has diluted. Some customers have been a little miffed by Nio’s price cuts, believing they cheapen the brand.

Investors — and the people buying Nio’s cars — must hope the company has learned from its past travails. Yet Nio still has ambitious plans, like building 1,000 battery swap stations this year in China alone.

At an estimated cost of around $140,000 each, even with cash and cash equivalents of $5.5 billion as of March 31, that’s quickly looking like another outlay Nio can ill afford.

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