XPeng Motors became the most popular new energy vehicle (NEV) startup in China with highest October deliveries, and Hozon surprised the industry as the runner-up with monthly deliveries outnumbering Li Auto and NIO, the other two U.S.-listed Chinese startups.

From a year-on-year change perspective, all startups ZXZC compiled, except NIO, had at least double-digit growth, but compared with the previous month, three startups delivered fewer vehicles. NIO’s October deliveries also had a sharp decrease of 65.5% month over month.

XPeng’s monthly deliveries have surpassed 10,000 for two consecutive months by October. Apart from February, XPeng’s monthly deliveries volume were all more than 5,000 vehicles. The P7 remained the main contributor while monthly sales of the G3 has kept growing since the delivery of the G3i, the mid-cycle facelift version of the G3, started in September.

Besides, the monthly deliveries of the P5 amounted to 437 vehicles last month. Since the sedan hit the market on Sept. 15, the automaker had delivered 681 P5s by the end of October.

Hozon, the parent company of NETA brand, ranked second among all local NEV startups. It is also the only one among the six which had seen continuous and stable month-on-month growth since February of this year, and October also marked the ninth consecutive month of delivery record.

Last month, Li Auto delivered 7,649 vehicles, only 52.8% of its monthly orders (14,500). The main challenge was still the automotive chip supply shortage, which made the automaker slow the delivery pace. By October, Li Auto was the only one among the three U.S.-listed NEV startups in China whose monthly deliveries had never achieved the milestone of 10,000 vehicles. But with only one model for sale, the achievement of 100,000 production milestone indicates that its product is very received.

By monthly deliveries, NIO’s ranking dropped from the first to the fifth in October, outsold also by WM Motor whose monthly deliveries had exceeded 5,000 vehicles for two consecutive months. The automaker attributed the substantial month-on-month decline to the production interruptions caused by the upgrading of its manufacturing base from the end of September to the middle of October. The production went back to normal at the end of October.

But NIO remained the winner in terms of the year-to-date deliveries of the first ten months this year, 3,520 vehicles more than the cumulative volume of XPeng. With only two months left for this year, it seems very difficult for those startups to realize annual sales of 100,000 in 2021.