Update: The May deliveries are out, revealing 6,155 units were sold.

Nio will publish its monthly report on Thursday, June 1, usually around 6 pm China time, and we bring you the estimated data about their May sales. The data are calculated based on weekly insurance data, forecasted data where registrations have not been published, and soft data like a discussion with Nio store staff.

Nio registered 1,100 EVs in China in the first week of May (Week 18 of 2023). In W19, it was 1200, W20 1,400, and W21 1,600 units. It makes 5,300 registered cars in the first four weeks of May. Keep in mind these numbers are rounded by Li Auto.

So the unknown variable is only the last three days of May. Using the econometric forecast model, we get that Nio would sell 880 cars in these three days. However, we need to remember that ES6 sales might explode, and then the 880 forecasts would be invalid.

So we talked to some of our friends who work in Nio showrooms in China, and it seems there won’t be any excess, and ES6 deliveries will take off continuously. W21 registrations also confirm that assumption. W21 is May 22 – 28, and Nio ES6 started delivery on May 24. So if sales growth were explosive, it would be visible on weekly insurance registrations. But W21 numbers are only 1,600, which is consistent with the trend of previous May weeks (W20: 1,400, W19: 1,200, W18: 1,100).

CarNewsChina’s estimate for May sales thus is ~6,200 EVs for Nio.

Let’s mention the possible black swans:

• Nio shipped a significant batch of cars to Europe, which was not registered in China but will count toward monthly sales.
• An excessive amount of ES6 was sold in May’s last three days.

After Nio posts the data, we will add our error rate to our following estimations so there can be seen a pattern in the long term.