While NIO, alongside other emerging brands like XPeng and Li Auto are widely considered as Chinese EV startups, the battery-swapping automaker was founded more than 10 years ago by William Li in November 2014.

NIO’s first car was the all-electric supercar EP9, which was never mass produced, but did demonstrate the new brand’s engineering capabilities in 2016.

Fast forward to June 2018, NIO started deliveries of its first all-electric SUV, the ES8 and has since brought to market 9 NIO models, as well as 2 sub-brand models from Onvo and Firefly.

Source: Onvo

On July 31, 2025, NIO officially launched the Onvo L90, the brand’s second model after the L60. The L90 is a flagship three-row all-electric SUV that can power swap and comes in either 6 or 7-seat variants.

Deliveries of the 6-seat Onvo L90 began the next day on August 1st across 44 cities in China, with the 7-seat version to follow in late September.

During a WeChat group chat with NIO users, CEO William Li addressed expectations surrounding the ONVO L90’s initial delivery figures.

A user referenced Xiaomi SU7’s 7,058 units delivered as the current benchmark for first-month deliveries (April 2024). William responded with “that target seems achievable.”

Per Morgan Stanley’s research note, NIO has secured between 30,000 and 35,000 pre-orders within four days of its pre-sale launch in early July.

NIO also reportedly pre-produced 10,000 Onvo L90 in anticipation of the initial launch demand.

Now, the question is whether NIO/Onvo can really deliver more than 7,000 units of the L90 in August 2025?

History of slow start

Looking at all previous new vehicle launches and their respective first month of delivery, the single best month came from the NIO ET5T with 1,339 units in June 2023.

Granted, deliveries of some models started late in the month like the Onvo L60, which began on September 28, 2024, leaving the company 2 days to deliver 832 units.

Onvo ramped up to 4,319 and 5,082 units the following two months and reached its best single month in December with 10,528 L60 delivered its buyers.

Despite topping 10,000, deliveries fell short from Onvo’s promise to delivering 20,000 monthly units by March 2025.

Can this time be different?

NIO’s management reportedly anticipated the launch demand with a pre-production of 10,000 L90 with some reports pointing to 20,000 units.

Per insurance registrations from July 28 to August 3, NIO delivered a total of 7,930 vehicles across its three brands.

Onvo alone accounted for 3,710 units, of which 1,980 units came from the new SUV model.

Given that deliveries of the L90 began on August 1st, almost 2,000 L90 made to customers in just 3 days, which already exceeded any previous delivery launch month.

William Li also announced that the Onvo L90 already became the third-best selling large SUV, just behind the AITO M9 and AITO M8.

Through that same period, Li Auto delivered 470 L8, 730 L9, and 190 i8 and 5,480 vehicles at the company level.