Li Auto ONE
Courtesy of Li Auto
Chinese electric vehicle maker Li Auto posted a record month for deliveries in July. It’s another sign the semiconductor shortage constraining global auto production is fading. It’s also a sign demand for EVs in China continues to be white hot.
Li (ticker: LI) delivered 8,589 Li ONE SUVs in July. It’s the first time the company has cracked 8,000 in a month. The company delivered 5,858 vehicle a month during the second quarter of 2021. June was the previous delivery record, with 7,713 vehicles delivered.
“Driven by outstanding product features and performance, the 2021 Li ONE set an all-time high in monthly deliveries once again.” said cofounder Yanan Shen in the company’s news release. “By the end of this year, we will launch a series of major OTA upgrades to elevate our product offering to new heights.”
Most of the new EV offerings, including those from peers such as NIO (NIO) and Tesla (TSLA), are continually improved through software updates to vehicle functions and battery management.
It’s a big month and should be good news for Li stock. So far in 2021, Li shares are up about 16%, in line with comparable gains of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. But it’s been quite a ride for investors. Shares are up about 69% over the past three months.
Shares were weak from early in the year coming into May as investors worried about the global semiconductor shortage that was hurting automotive production. Li, for instance, delivered just 2,300 vehicles in February. It also delivered 4,323 vehicles in May, the month before deliveries ramped higher in June and July.
Li’s number also bodes well for peer XPeng (XPEV) and NIO, which will report deliveries in coming days. NIO, coming into July, has delivered almost 42,000 vehicles. XPeng has delivered 30,728 vehicles year-to-date, a little more than Li’s 30,154 vehicle deliveries coming into July. With July added in, Li’s year-to-date deliveries top 38,000 vehicles.
The Li July figure is also a positive for Tesla, but Tesla doesn’t report monthly deliveries by country or by month.
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