Chinese electric vehicle start-up Nio has debuted on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The IPO has raised USD1bn, but early trading has seen a bumpy price. The raised capital is considerably less than the company had hoped for a month ago when it was shooting for nearer USD2bn.
The electric vehicle firm is backed by Chinese tech firm Tencent. Reports suggest that volatile trading reflected bad news coming out of US rival Tesla, which is struggling to hit production targets on its new Model 3.
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The company is understood to have started mass production of its first car, the ES8 battery-powered SUV priced at CNY448,000 (US$65,000), at the end of last year after it was first unveiled at last year’s Shanghai Motor Show. By the end of July it had delivered 481 units, according to local reports.
Nio’s three largest shareholders are founder and CEO Li Bin, which has a 17.2% stake, Tencent with 15.2% holding and Hillhouse Capital with 7.5%.
Nio has been working with a number of automotive partners, including Chongqing Changan Automobile, Tencent Holdings and Germany’s Continental, and in December it announced a joint venture with GAC Motor to develop smart cars.
In its prospectus to the NYSE, Nio claims it generated revenues of CNY46m (USD6.7m) in the first half of 2018 while incurring a loss of CNY3.33bn.
