William Li, founder, chairman, and CEO of Chinese electric carmaker Nio, recalled his woes at the end of 2019 in a recent interview with CCTV, saying it made sense for investors to choose not to bail out Nio at that time.

Li said he exhausted all possibilities to seek funding in the fourth quarter of 2019 and still failed to find it. "At that point, if any of that money had not arrived or had gone wrong, the company probably would make a headline the next day."

Li says at that time, it made sense from the perspective of a rational investor not to bail out Nio.

"We're already a public company that lost more than RMB 10 billion ($1.5 billion) in 2019. What if we lose another 10 billion yuan in 2020? How much money is enough to keep Nio alive? What's the point if we were just saved for a month or a quarter?"

Now Nio's share price has risen from the original $1.19 all-time low to $57 on Friday, and its value has reached $89 billion.

Nio today announced data showing that 7,225 units were delivered in January 2021, up 352.1 percent year-over-year and the highest single-month delivery number for the sixth consecutive month.

The delivery consisted of 1,660 units of the new Nio ES8, 2,720 units of the Nio ES6, and 2,845 units of the Nio EC6.

Nio shares rose 3.8% to $59.16 in pre-market Monday.

(Source: CCTV)