Electric cars: Li Auto’s deliveries likely to disappoint in third quarter as supply chain constraints hinder production

The Chinese smart electric vehicle (EV) start-up expects its delivery volume to stay flat at between 27,000 and 29,000 cars

The estimate is much smaller than the consensus forecast of about 40,000 units

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Beijing-based Li Auto said it would hand over the keys to 27,000 to 29,000 cars between July and September. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 8:57pm, 15 Aug 2022

Chinese smart electric vehicle (EV) start-up Li Auto expects its delivery volume to stay flat in the third quarter of this year, falling short of market expectations as a broken supply chain continues to affect production.

The Beijing-based company said on Monday afternoon that it would hand over the keys to 27,000 to 29,000 cars between July and September, unchanged from the 28,687 vehicles in the previous quarter.

The estimate turned out to be much smaller than a consensus forecast of about 40,000 units, according to Chen Jinzhu, chief executive of Shanghai Mingliang Auto Service, a consultancy.

“It has secured thousands of orders for its new model L9, but it seems Li Auto has to overcome supply chain constraints to engineer higher growth of production and sales,” he said. “The company’s guidance for the third-quarter performance disappointed its investors.”

The 28,687 cars it delivered to customers between April and June represented a 9.6 per cent fall from a quarter earlier as the company fell victim to a citywide Covid-19 lockdown in Shanghai.

Thousands of automotive supply-chain vendors based in Shanghai and its neighbouring cities were forced to either halt operations or reduce production from April 1 to May 31 amid the stringent pandemic curbs, preventing carmakers from churning out enough vehicles to meet consumers’ demand.

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