(Graphic by CnEVPost)

Nio delivered 41,956 units in the first half of this year, reaching 95.9 percent of last year's full-year deliveries.

Nio delivered 1,498 ES8s, 3,755 ES6s, and 2,830 EC6s in June.

Nio delivered 6,711 vehicles in May, up 95.3 percent from a year ago, but down 5.5 percent from April. The company's deliveries in April were also down 2 percent from the previous month.

That was seen at the time as being due to the chip shortage that has been plaguing the industry, but the company's top management gave a different reason.

Chinese media outlet eeo.com.cn last month quoted Nio co-founder and president Qin Lihong as saying that the main reason for Nio's small drop in sales in May compared with April was not the chip shortage, but the State Taxation Administration's (STA) change in the nation's auto invoice rules.

Qin said at the time that after the STA introduced the new rules, car companies needed some time to adapt, and this affected Nio's statistics on sales.

The previous auto invoicing rules could allow some companies or dealers to exploit loopholes, leading to the existence of false invoicing, so in May this year the STA made a complete upgrade, the main content of which includes requiring car companies to provide the car's factory frame number and certificate of conformity before invoicing, Qin said.

Car companies have an adjustment period for the new system, and this upgrade will have a bigger impact on companies like Nio that do direct sales, Qin said, adding that this is because Nio is on an order system, and the company has a very tight process from the time it receives an order and starts production to delivery.

The change delayed Nio's average delivery time by four days, Qin said. Excluding invoicing, Nio would have basically been able to go from order receipt to delivery in a little more than two weeks in May, he said.

When Nio announced its delivery figures on June 1, it had mentioned that its delivery in May had been briefly affected by supply chain fluctuations brought about by the chip and adjustments in the delivery chain.

Although the company did not give further details of the delivery chain adjustment at that time, it said that it would accelerate the delivery pace in June, and the delivery volume guidance for the second quarter remained unchanged at 21,000 to 22,000 units.

Qin said Nio deliveries would rise in June as the company had more than 10,000 orders waiting to be delivered.