NIO Inc. (NYSE:NIO) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

William Li: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Thank you for your question, Nick. Regarding the dynamic and the fluid market situation, we understand it’s important for us to control the risks and to keep as a stable and sound business operations. For the ALPS brand, basically, the project is moving forward according to our plan. For the production site, we believe the current production capacity is sufficient to support the needs of new brand and ALPS brand. So, it means that in terms of production facilities and the capacities, there is no need for big CapEx investments. In the market front, we — starting from this year, we should have sufficient Power Swap stations to support both brands to share the Power Swap stations. Previously, we mentioned that probably for the go-to-market of ALPS brand, we do need to make some investments in terms of CapEx and OpEx. But we would like to control the pace of the go-to-market cadence to make sure we can have much faster movement and the cadence and have a much agile mode to operate the go-to-market of that ALPS brand.

So, this can help us to save the resources and the capital. In terms of the cash management, of course, as a publicly listed company, we need to be very prudent in terms of the cash management. For the financing channels, we do have different channels in terms of the RMB and U.S. dollar capital markets. So for us, we think cash is not going to be a big issue for the company. But at the same time, we still need to make a refined management of our cash and also the working capital of the company.

Nick Lai: [Foreign Language] My second question is really simple, really about the product mix, yes. Is new product ES6 is going to account a meaningful portion of the volume? And how should we think about the contribution from these four major models? And how should we think about the product mix going forward? Thanks.

Stanley Qu: Hi, Nick. Regarding the volume percentage of ET5, ET5 Touring, ES6 and EC6, I think, from a long-run, the percentage will be 80% around. Yes, but from — and from the long run as I mentioned earlier, this year, I think with all NT2.0 product launched, our gross profit margin can recover to 15%. And long-term, considering the cost advantage brought by the in-house technology and capability and also the innovative supply chain developments, the NT2.0 product gross profit margin target will be still be 20% from a long-run. Yes, thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Paul Gong from UBS. Please go ahead.

Paul Gong: So, my first question is regarding the dual-motor sales front. It seems that a few recent new models all share a similarity with strong start, but after a few months, subsequent declines. Does our ES6 also face such kind of challenges or how should we avoid this happening again?

William Li: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Thank you, Paul, for your question. Last year, we launched three products: ET7, ES7 and ET5. To be honest, in terms of the recent performance of these three products, including the second quarter, we understand the market performance of these three products is lagging behind of our expectations. If we look at the factors that affecting the performance of these three products, just like I mentioned before, last year, the users purchased those three products, they have more user rights and benefits, and they can enjoy the national subsidies. But this year, for the users purchasing these three products, apple-to-apple comparison, the cost increase is around RMB10,000 to RMB20,000. So, at the same time, if we look at the macro environment, we can see the market competition is also getting intensified.