Shanghai (ZXZC)- NIO Inc., the first Chinese EV startup that goes public on the New York Stock Exchange, saw its shares were up 19.17% closing at $17.84 on August 25 and its market value hit $21.131 billion, for the first time exceeding $20 billion.

The startup is starting to turn skeptics into believers after it was upgraded from “sell” to “neutral” by UBS.

According to a UBS note published on the same day, UBS raised NIO's price target to $16.30 from $1.00, representing a precipitous surge of 1,530%. The Swiss multinational investment bank said improving fundamentals at NIO have alleviated concerns around its balance sheet thanks to a successful capital raise in June.

(Photo source: NIO)

The high-profile startup launched last week the Battery as a Service (the “BaaS”) subscription model, which allows users to purchase electric vehicles and subscribe the usage of battery packs separately.

The innovative model will help lower the EV buying price for consumers. According to NIO, if users opt to purchase a NIO’s vehicle and subscribe to use the 70kWh battery pack under the BaaS model, they can buy the vehicle with a 70,000 yuan ($10,116) deduction off the original price and pay a monthly fee of 980 yuan ($142) for the battery pack. Meanwhile, the users will continue to enjoy the existing favorable policies such as vehicle purchase tax exemption and governmental cash handouts to NEVs.

NIO's second-quarter revenues skyrocketed 146.5% over the year-ago period to 3,718.9 million yuan ($537,949,670), which was higher than analysts' consensus estimate of $ 504 million.

NIO said its vehicle deliveries reached 10,331 units in this year's second quarter, including 8,068 ES6s and 2,263 ES8s, versus 3,553 vehicles delivered in the second quarter of 2019 and 3,838 vehicles delivered in the first quarter of 2020.