Edison Yu's team believes that February's delivery decline reflects the seasonality of the Chinese New Year and that March is expected to see a strong rebound.

A number of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers released data yesterday showing that their February deliveries were down from January. In the view of Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu's team, this reflects the seasonality of the Chinese New Year, and March is expected to see a strong rebound across the board.

In a research note sent to investors Tuesday titled "Seasonal low point in rear view mirror," the team argued that EV makers they call the "Fab 5" -- Nio, Xpeng Motors, Li Auto, Zeekr, and Neta all had low sales in February due to seasonality, but were generally better than expected.

"We continue to expect a strong rebound in March across the board, supported by the accelerating consumer shift away from ICE to EV, " the team wrote.

Here are the February delivery figures of the five companies:

Nio delivered 6,131 vehicles, up 9.9 percent year-on-year and down 36.5 percent from January.

Xpeng delivered 6,225 vehicles, up 180 percent year-on-year and down 51.8 percent from January.

Li Auto delivered 8,414 vehicles, an increase of 265.8 percent year-on-year and a decrease of 31.4 percent from January.

Zeekr delivered 2,916 vehicles, a decrease of 17.4 percent from January.

Neta delivered 7,117 vehicles, up 255 percent year-on-year and down 35 percent from January.

In February, Li Auto led the pack with 8,414 deliveries, above Deutsche Bank's estimate of 7,500 vehicles, bringing cumulative deliveries to 144,770, the team noted.

Xpeng deliveries fell short of Deutsche Bank's estimate of 7,250 due to extra downtime and temporary lithium iron phosphate battery supply issues, the team said.

Xpeng upgraded its Zhaoqing plant during the Chinese New Year holiday, and Yu's team noted that after the upgrade the plant could run at 40 jobs per hour, or about 20,000 per month, an increase of 18 percent.

Nio deliveries were above Deutsche Bank's previous expectation of 5,500 units, and deliveries of the ES8 and EC6 were worse than the team had expected, while the ES6 did better.