On the evening of December 8th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Announcement on Road Motor Vehicle Production Enterprises and Products" (Batch 378). In the "List of New Vehicle Production Enterprises to be Released" list of automobile production enterprises, NIO Automobile (09866. HK/NIO. US), which has been frequently rumored to have obtained independent production qualifications, and the joint venture between BMW and Great Wall, Beam Automobile, were both listed as "newly established pure electric passenger vehicle production enterprises".
At present, NIO Automobile and Jianghuai Automobile cooperate to produce vehicles using a contract manufacturing model. In the new car announcement of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the declared enterprises for NIO brand products are all Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co., Ltd. In addition, the tail labels of NIO products must be labeled with the words "Jianghuai Automobile".
Last week, NIO Automotive Technology (Anhui) Co., Ltd. appeared in the vehicle production enterprise credit information management system of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The legal representative is NIO President Qin Lihong, with a registered address at Building F, Hengchuang Intelligent Technology Park, No. 3963 Susong Road, Hefei Economic and Technological Development Zone, Anhui Province. The production address is No. 299 Baita Road, Hefei Economic and Technological Development Zone, Anhui Province, which is the location of NIO F2 factory. Some argue that this information indicates that NIO has obtained independent car manufacturing qualifications.
However, a notice from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on December 8th showed that the qualifications of NIO Automobile's new pure electric passenger vehicle production enterprise are still in the public disclosure stage and have not yet been officially approved.
However, the frequent actions of NIO cars recently have shown some clues. On December 5th, NIO announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it had signed a definitive agreement with Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co., Ltd. to acquire certain production equipment and assets. The agreement shows that NIO will acquire production equipment and assets from the first and second advanced manufacturing bases in Jianghuai, which are NIO's F1 and F2 factories responsible for the production of all NIO's products. At a recent financial report conference call, Li Bin, Chairman and CEO of NIO, stated that NIO's independent production of cars can reduce production costs by approximately 10%.