Tesla’s Chinese rival Nio cuts price for new Onvo-branded car
Chinese electric car company Nio launched its lower-cost brand Onvo on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Shanghai, China.
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng
HEFEI, China — There’s yet another Chinese electric car aiming to undercut Tesla, with a steeper discount.
Onvo, the lower-priced brand launched by premium electric car company Nio, announced its first car, the L60 SUV, would start as low as 149,900 Chinese yuan ($21,210) when buying battery services via a monthly subscription, starting at 599 yuan. That’s the equivalent to just over $1,000 a year for “renting” the battery.
A model with the battery and the car starts at 206,900 yuan. Deliveries are set to begin Sept. 28.
Nio shares briefly rose by more than 3.5% in U.S. trading Thursday after the Onvo L60 launch.
The L60’s new price is even less than what the company announced previously. When Nio launched the Onvo brand in May, the company said the L60 would start selling at 219,900 yuan versus Tesla’s Model Y at 249,900 yuan.
Nio CEO William Li told CNBC in an exclusive interview Thursday that he hoped to launch Onvo in Europe as soon as next year, but he did not have a specific timeframe to share.
He said the lower-priced brand would help the company better reach a global market, due to growing tariffs and other challenges for the premium Nio brand to reach its target overseas markets of Europe and the U.S.
As for whether Onvo would cannibalize the Nio-branded sales, Li said the two brands are aimed at very different price segments. He noted how Nio’s deliveries have improved since the company announced its plans for Onvo.
China’s electric car industry has become fiercely competitive over the last few years, with Nio and other companies vying for part of Tesla’s market share.
Geely-backed Zeekr is set to launch its first midsize electric SUV, the Zeekr 7X, in China on Sept. 20, starting at 239,900 yuan.
Xpeng in late August announced its mass market brand Mona would begin sales of its M03 electric coupe in China. The basic version starts at 119,800 yuan, with a driving range of 515 kilometers (320 miles) and some parking assist features.
A version of the Mona M03 with the more advanced “Max” driver assist features and a driving range of 580 kilometers will sell for 155,800 yuan.
In comparison, Tesla’s cheapest car — the Model 3 — costs 231,900 yuan in China, after a price cut in April.
Chinese electric car companies have gradually expanded overseas, often starting with Europe. However, the European Union is nearing the end of a process that would increase tariffs on imported Chinese-made battery electric cars starting in early November. The bloc began an investigation into the Chinese EV makers’ use of subsidies last year.
Nio cooperated with the EU’s probe but was not sampled, meaning its cars would be subject to a 20.8% duty, as of a July announcement from the European Commission. That’s higher than the 19.9% tariffs slated for Geely cars, and 17.4% for BYD’s.
In the fourth quarter, Nio plans to start deliveries in the United Arab Emirates, Li told investors on an earnings call on Sept. 5.
“Because of the tariff in Europe now, selling or exporting cars from China to Europe becomes more expensive,” Li said, according to a FactSet transcript.
“So we will focus on the existing five European markets that we have already started. We also know that to establish NIO such a premium brand in the European market will also take a longer time, and we are very patient with that.”
“But in the meantime, it doesn’t mean that we have stopped our activities there,” Li said. “Earlier this year, we have just opened our NIO house in Amsterdam, and we are still installing and deploying our power swap stations in Europe.”
He expects the L60 to reach 10,000 monthly deliveries in December, and 20,000 vehicle deliveries a month next year. He anticipates 15% vehicle margin on the new Onvo-branded cars.
The brand aims to have more than 200 stores in China by the end of this year, and already opened more than 100 as of early September.
Li said on the earnings call that Onvo and Firefly, an even lower-priced brand set to begin deliveries next year, would look to release vehicles for the international market.
— CNBC’s Sonia Heng contributed to this report.
Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi speaks at the opening night of the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2024.
Rodin Eckenroth | Filmmagic | Getty Images
Intuit shares fell 6% in extended trading Thursday after the finance software maker issued a revenue forecast for the current quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates due to some sales being delayed.
Here’s how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: $2.50 adjusted vs. $2.35 expected
- Revenue: $3.28 billion vs. $3.14 billion
Revenue increased 10% year over year in the quarter, which ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Net income fell to $197 million, or 70 cents per share, from $241 million, or 85 cents per share, a year ago.
While results for the fiscal first quarter topped estimates, second-quarter guidance was light. Intuit said it anticipates a single-digit decline in revenue from the consumer segment because of promotional changes for the TurboTax desktop software in retail environments. While that will affect revenue timing, it won’t have any impact on the full 2025 fiscal year.
Intuit called for second-quarter earnings of $2.55 to $2.61 per share, with $3.81 billion to $3.85 billion in revenue. The consensus from LSEG was $3.20 per share and $3.87 billion in revenue.
For the full year, Intuit expects $19.16 to $19.36 in adjusted earnings per share on $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion in revenue. That implies revenue growth of between 12% and 13%. Analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $19.33 in adjusted earnings per share and $18.26 billion in revenue.
Revenue from Intuit’s global business solutions group came in at $2.5 billion in the first quarter. The figure was up 9% and in line with estimates, according to StreetAccount. Formerly known as the small business and self-employed segment, the group includes Mailchimp, QuickBooks, small business financing and merchant payment processing.
“We are seeing good progress serving mid-market customers in MailChimp, but are seeing higher churn from smaller customers,” Sandeep Aujla, Intuit’s finance chief, said on a conference call with analysts. “We are addressing this by making product enhancements and driving feature discoverability and adoption to improve first-time use and customer retention.”
Better outcomes are a few quarters away, Aujla said.
CreditKarma revenue came in at $524 million, above StreetAccount’s $430 million consensus.
At Thursday’s close, Intuit shares were up about 9% so far in 2024, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 25% in the same period.
On Tuesday Intuit shares slipped 5% after The Washington Post said President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” had discussed developing a mobile app for federal income tax filing. But a mobile app for submitting returns from Intuit is “already available to all Americans,” CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.
Goodarzi said on CNBC that he’s personally communicating with leaders of the incoming presidential administration.
On the earnings call, Goodarzi sounded optimistic about the economy.
“Our belief, which is not baked into our guidance, is that we will see an improved environment as we look ahead in 2025, particularly just with some of the things that I mentioned earlier around just interest rates, jobs, the regulatory environment,” he said. “These things have a real burden on businesses. And we believe that a better future is to come.”
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