ChinaLi Auto delivered 37,679 vehicles in August, up 32.1% year on year and 23.7% on July. It ends three consecutive months of decline and is the company’s fastest year-on-year growth in two years. Cumulative deliveries since the brand started selling cars reached 1,801,834.
The year to date is still behind
January to August comes to 261,619 cars, 0.6% fewer than the same eight months last year. A single strong month has not closed that gap, and the quarter is not secured either. Li Auto guided to 95,000-100,000 deliveries for the third quarter; July and August together produced 68,147, so September has to deliver between 26,853 and 31,853 to land inside the range. The lower end is below August. The upper end is not.
What September brings
The month carries four events the company has scheduled. A refreshed Li MEGA, its flagship MPV, launched on 2 September with changes to the interior, the cabin electronics and the driving dynamics. The Li i9, a battery-electric flagship family SUV, follows in mid-September. It joins the Li i6 in a battery-electric line-up that is still small next to the range-extender models the company was built on. Li Auto also begins rolling out its MACH VLA driver-assistance software to cars running Thor and Orin-X computing hardware, and holds a launch event in Dubai to open sales in the Middle East.
Four months of falling deliveries and one month at 37,679 point in opposite directions. September is where the two readings are settled.
