NIO Burned 100B Yuan In 8 Years, June Is The Verdict & Lotus Just Quit Pure EV After 8 Years

**Obi** (0:04)
If you want to be a part of the conversation before it happens here on YouTube, click that link in the description to join the free Courtside Financial Discord. Before we get into today's stories, guys, I want to share something that I've been working on for quite some time. I wrote a book, it's called Dial Tone, A Modern Salesman's Story. Again, it's a novel for anyone who's quietly wondering if there's more.
The ebook is available right now for pre-order on Amazon. The hard copy is going to release on June 12th. Link is in the description. Now, let's get into today's video. Topics I want to talk about today. NIO burned 100 billion yuan over eight years. June is the month that we find out if it was worth every penny. NIO needs 43,000 to 48,000 deliveries this month to hit Q2 guidance, and the ES9 and the L80. Those are the answer. Chinese cars are getting bigger because the entire industry is chasing flagship profits, but most brands are just bystanders. Lotus just walked back eight years of all-electric commitment and went back to hybrid, and Trump just confirmed that Iran agreed on nuclear weapons. Hormuz could reopen this month. It's Wednesday, it's June 3rd. Let's get into it. I'm Obi. This is Courtside Financial. Let me give you the headline that Chinese financial media is asking right now because it's a fair question and this channel tries to answer things honestly. NIO has burned through approximately 100 billion yuan. That's about $14.6 billion over eight years since William Li founded the company in 2014
That's eight years of losses, eight years of skeptics saying that the company wouldn't survive, eight years of William Li pledging his personal shares, going to Hefei with his hat in his hand, embedding everything on a vision that most of the world pretty much thought was crazy. Is it finally stable? Here's the math. NIO delivered 29,356 in April and 37,705 in May, 67,061 total in the first two months of Q2.
To hit its Q2 guidance of 110,000 to 115,000 vehicles, it needs between 42,939 and 47,939 deliveries in June. That's a significant jump. It would be NIO's best month ever by a wide margin, blowing the past December 2025's 48,135 record if they hit the top of that rank. So can they do it? Here's why the answer is yes. The ES9 has over 50,000 pre-orders and only started deliveries May 27th. June is the first full month of ES9 production. The updated Onvo L60 launched at the Shenzhen Auto Show and deliveries begin June 11th. That's a brand new volume driver entering the market this month. NIO will open its first batch of Gen 5 battery swap stations in mid to late June with mass deployment starting in Q3. That's an infrastructure catalyst that makes the swap network even more attractive to buyers in real time. And critically, NIO's short interest just hit a 32 month low. The bears are covering. When short sellers start leaving an account, it's a meaningful signal that the skeptics are running out of conviction.
100 billion yuan burned over 8 years. June is when the story either justifies every single dollar that NIO spent or forces a harder conversation. The setup has never been better. The pressure has never been higher. Guys, this is the month. Now, here's the market dynamics story from the Chinese internet that puts the ES9 and the entire premium EV pushed into perfect context. A major analysis published this week asked a fascinating question. Why are Chinese cars getting bigger and bigger? The average length of a Chinese passenger vehicle has increased dramatically over the past five years. Nearly every major brand has launched a flagship large SUV or MPV in the past 18 months. The ES9, Huawei's M9, Xiaomi's YU7 GT, Leap Motor's D-Series, the Buick Century, BYD's Yang Wang, on and on. The answer is simple and also uncomfortable. The margins at the affordable end of the market have been destroyed by the price war. Selling a 150,000 yuan car in China right now is either a money losing proposition or a razor thin margin exercise. The only place margins still exist is above 300,000 yuan, where the buyer is less price sensitive and more brand conscious. So every automaker that can is pushing up market, launching a flagship, telling a premium story, trying to sell a car above 400,000 yuan to a buyer who values experience over spreadsheets. But here's the critical insight the article makes, and this is the most important thing for your NIO portfolio.
Most of them are just bystanders. Analysis argues that only a handful of brands have the authentic premium identity to actually convert buyers at that price point. You can't manufacture a premium story in 18 months. It takes years of investment, and service, and community, and brand experience, and consistent quality.