NIO Onvo L90 electric SUV (Source: Onvo) NIO (NYSE: NIO) delivered 29,356 vehicles across its three brands in April 2026, a 22.8% increase year-over-year. The result pushes NIO’s cumulative deliveries past the 1.1 million mark. The growth rate, however, represents a significant deceleration from Q1 2026, when NIO posted a 98.3% year-over-year surge across 83,465 deliveries — and March alone hit 35,486 units with 136% growth. April breakdown by brand The NIO premium brand accounted for 19,024 of April’s deliveries, ONVO contributed 5,352 units, and Firefly added 4,980. All three sub-brands saw sequential declines from their March figures of 22,490, 6,877, and 6,119 respectively. Year-to-date, NIO has delivered 112,821 vehicles, up 71.0% compared to the same period in 2025. If the company sustains this pace for the rest of the year, it would comfortably surpass its 2025 full-year total of 326,028 deliveries. Advertisement - scroll for more content The company also hit a notable milestone in April: the All-New ES8 reached 100,000 cumulative deliveries within 215 days of its launch, setting a record for premium vehicles priced above RMB 400,000 (~$55,000) in China. New models aim to reignite momentum NIO is betting on two new launches to drive the next leg of growth. On April 9, the company opened pre-sales for its flagship ES9 executive SUV, priced from RMB 528,000 (~$77,000) with the battery or RMB 420,000 (~$61,000) under NIO’s Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) rental model. Deliveries are expected to begin June 1. Then on April 28, ONVO launched pre-sales for the L80, a large five-seat SUV starting at RMB 245,800 (~$36,000). The L80 undercuts Tesla’s Model Y in China by roughly RMB 17,700 and boasts 605 km of CLTC range. NIO CEO William Li has acknowledged that Q2 will face pressure, but has pointed to the ES9 and L80 as key volume drivers for the second half of 2026. How NIO compares to Chinese EV rivals in April NIO’s 22.8% year-over-year growth actually stands out against an increasingly difficult competitive landscape in China. BYD sold 321,123 new energy vehicles in April but posted its eighth consecutive month of year-over-year declines, down 15.5%. XPeng delivered 31,011 vehicles, down 11.5% year-over-year despite a 13% sequential improvement from March. Li Auto was essentially flat at 34,085 deliveries. The broader China EV market is experiencing a hangover from aggressive promotions and price wars throughout 2025, making year-over-year comparisons tougher across the board. NIO’s positive growth in this context is worth noting, though the deceleration from triple-digit Q1 growth to 22.8% in April signals that the easy gains are behind it. NIO’s multi-brand strategy — premium NIO, family-oriented ONVO, and compact Firefly — remains its core differentiator. But ONVO and Firefly both struggled in April, with ONVO dropping 22% sequentially and Firefly falling 19% from March. NIO’s battery swap infrastructure, which hit a record of nearly 176,000 swaps in a single day earlier this year, continues to be a unique advantage in the Chinese market. Electrek’s Take NIO’s April numbers tell two stories at once. The year-over-year growth is real — 22.8% in a market where BYD, XPeng, and Li Auto are all posting flat or declining numbers is a genuine achievement. And crossing the 1.1 million cumulative delivery mark puts NIO firmly in the established player category. But the sequential drop from March is hard to ignore. Going from 35,486 to 29,356 — a 17% month-over-month decline — suggests the momentum from Q1 hasn’t fully carried forward. ONVO and Firefly, the two sub-brands that are supposed to drive volume growth, both lost ground. The real test comes in the second half of 2026. The ES9 targets the premium executive segment where margins are higher, and the ONVO L80’s aggressive pricing directly challenges Tesla’s Model Y dominance in China. If both models deliver on their pre-sale momentum, NIO could re-accelerate in Q3 and Q4 the way it did in late 2025. But NIO has been promising a volume breakthrough for years now — and at some point, the company needs to start closing the gap on profitability, not just deliveries. Stay up to date with the latest content by subscribing to Electrek on Google News. You’re reading Electrek— experts who break news about Tesla, electric vehicles, and green energy, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow Electrek on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our YouTube channel for the latest reviews.
