Nio sued a vlogger in May and claimed RMB 5 million from him. The blogger was refused delivery when he was trying to buy an ES6 in July.

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

Nio (NYSE: NIO) refused to deliver a vehicle after discovering that the buyer was the vlogger it is suing. This sparked widespread discussion on Chinese social media in the past weekend.

On August 4, vlogger Gu Yubo posted a video on his Douyin account @小牛说车 (literally, Xiaoniu talks about cars) saying he sued Nio after the electric vehicle (EV) maker refused to deliver the vehicle to him, even though he paid the full purchase price for a new ES6 in July.

Gu paid an RMB 5,000 ($700) deposit to order the new ES6 on July 4 and paid the full purchase price of RMB 338,000 on July 12, according to the video he posted.

Nio invoiced him for the purchase on July 14 and told him the vehicle could be delivered on July 15, according to the video. However, upon his arrival at the delivery center, he was told that Nio could not deliver the vehicle to him, according to the video.

Gu said he has sued Nio in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, demanding that the EV maker deliver the vehicle, pay compensation of RMB 1 million yuan, and publicly apologize to him for at least 10 days.

On August 5, Nio's legal department said in a Weibo statement that the company had terminated the car purchase agreement and refused to sell Nio-branded vehicles to Gu in light of his verbal abuse, slander and attacks on Nio and its users.

Nio refunded the entire amount, and paid double the deposit for the vehicle involved within the agreement on the day of the termination, according to the statement.

"Nio is a user enterprise and remains open to criticism and suggestions from every consumer, but does not accept any unwarranted and allegedly illegal abuse and attacks on Nio users," the statement said.

Notably, this is not Nio's first encounter with Gu.

On May 8, Nio opened accounts dedicated to its legal department on Weibo as well as Douyin, and on May 15, the account said in its first statement posted on Weibo that Nio had sued Gu.

Since April 6, Gu had been posting more than a dozen short videos on his @小牛说车 account, using insulting and vulgar language, attacking Nio and Nio users, according to the May 15 statement.

Nio launched a lawsuit against Gu for the infringement, demanding that he remove the videos, publicly apologize and pay RMB 5 million in damages, the statement said.

Nio's sales team in Xuzhou was initially unaware of Gu's identity, according to information shared by several Weibo bloggers. They reported the situation to the headquarters team on July 14 after discovering through ID information that Gu was the person Nio was suing.

On July 15, Nio's Xuzhou team told Gu at the delivery center that they could not deliver the vehicle to him and would refund and pay default payments, which Gu disputed.

($1 = RMB 7.1708)

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