Vehicle makers should play a more important role in achieving industry-wide carbon neutrality, and Nio is now working with supply chain partners to develop carbon reduction strategies, according to William Li, the company's founder, chairman and CEO.

Li made the comments at the 2021 World New Energy Vehicle Conference on September 16 in southern China's Hainan Province.

He said Nio is involved in building a world-class smart electric vehicle industry cluster in Hefei, with the main purpose of achieving low-carbon and sustainable development.

Li believes that as the penetration of new energy vehicles increases, automotive companies should play a more important role in achieving a carbon-neutral process across the industry chain.

He also mentioned that by the end of August, the cumulative deliveries of Nio's three mass-production models exceeded 130,000 units. However, the company's deliveries in August were reduced due to a shortage of chip supply.

Data released by Nio earlier this month showed that it delivered 5,880 vehicles in August, up 48 percent year-on-year and down about 26 percent from July, due to the severe impact of the Covid-19 on its supply chain.

Of the August deliveries, Nio's highest-priced ES8 SUV delivered 1,738 units, up from 1,702 in July.

Its other two SUV models - ES6 and EC6 - delivered 2,342 and 1,800 units respectively. In comparison, these two models delivered 3,669 and 2,560 units respectively in July.