A group of Taoist priests appear to be holding an event in front of an Xpeng offline store, prompting many to question what they are doing.

As Nio's planned Hong Kong IPO raises eyebrows, a superstitious event at a dealership store of its local counterpart Xpeng Motors has drawn even higher attention.

A video widely circulated on Chinese social media today shows a group of Taoist priests seemingly holding an event in front of an Xpeng offline store, prompting many to question what they were doing.

It was the opening ceremony of a new store opened by one of Xpeng's dealers, and they brought in several Taoist priests to celebrate, a report in local media Caijing said today, citing unnamed Internet users.

The move quickly generated a lot of attention, as such superstitious events have become rare in Chinese cities.

The report cited Xpeng sources as saying it was an event held by one of the company's distributors in Kunming, Yunnan province, as it closed its old store before moving it to a new location.

The company apologized for the "inappropriate behavior of an individual store", which ran counter to Xpeng's "Born intelligent, always evolving" company philosophy and affected public order, the source said.

Xpeng has ordered the store to immediately suspend its business and remove it from its website, the person said, adding that Xpeng will strengthen the management of distributors' behavior in the future.