Industry dynamics

Li Auto to see capacity bottleneck resolved in Oct, CEO says

Publishtime:1970-01-01 08:00:00 Views:25

Li Auto's factory in Changzhou will be upgraded and revamped during the Chinese National Day holiday to support production expansion.

Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) has seen its weekly sales stop growing in the last few weeks despite leading its major local peers due to capacity constraints.

Li Auto's parts capacity bottleneck will be resolved in October, its founder, chairman and CEO Li Xiang said in a retweet of a Weibo post in which the company shared last week's insurance registration numbers.

The company's plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, will be upgraded and revamped during China's National Day holiday to support production expansion, he said.

October 1 is China's National Day, and this year's legal holiday runs from September 29 to October 6, with September 29 being the Mid-Autumn Festival. October 7 and October 8 will be work days, although they are weekends.

Li Auto's maximum capacity is 34,000 units per month in the third quarter, Li said.

He also explained why deliveries fluctuate from week to week, saying it includes two factors, one of which is adjustments between models, such as Li Auto's introduction of the new Pro version of the Li L9.

The other factor is that Li Auto vehicles continue to be privately exported overseas by some individuals, he said.

"All in all, (Li Auto) was delivering as many as it produced in the third quarter," Li said.

During the week of August 7 to August 13, Li Auto sold 7,200 units, data shared today by the company showed. This is the same figure as the previous week.

Between August 1 and August 13, Li Auto vehicles had 13,500 insurance registrations.

Li Auto delivered a record 34,134 vehicles in July, the second consecutive month over the 30,000-mark, data released by the company on August 1 showed.

For the week of July 24 to July 30, Li Auto sold 7,900 units, slightly higher than the previous week's 7,800, a Weibo post by the company on August 1 ahead of its July deliveries announcement showed.

In a retweet of Li Auto's Weibo on August 1, Li said that capacity is the only bottleneck the company is facing right now, and that it's without a solution this quarter.

China EV insurance registrations for week ending Aug 13: Tesla 14,000, Li Auto 7,200, Nio 3,300