NIO tops Shanghai passenger car market in first quarter 2026

The Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker ranked as the top-selling brand in its home-city passenger car market in Q1 2026, founder, chairman and CEO William Li told employees during an April 16 internal meeting

The milestone places the brand ahead of BMW and Xiaomi in one of China's most fiercely contested auto markets. Shanghai has long been Tesla's Chinese heartland. The U.S. automaker's Lingang gigafactory produces the Model Y and Model 3 for both domestic and export customers, and Tesla had led the city's new-energy registrations for much of the past five years. 

The NIO ES8

German premium brands BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi have additionally dominated Shanghai's luxury segment, and Xiaomi's SU7 has surged up local sales charts since its 2024 debut. NIO’s founder, chairman and CEO William Li told employees during an April 16 internal meeting, that NIO's total Shanghai sales had exceeded BMW's for several consecutive months, counting both battery-electric and combustion models, and the company tracks an internal "NIO-BMW Index" to benchmark the gap. 

NIO also claimed the No. 1 passenger car position in its Anhui hometown of Hefei for the quarter — a dual-city milestone for a brand that shipped roughly 222,000 units globally in 2025. NIO Group's nationwide Q1 deliveries reached 83,465 vehicles, a 98.3% year-on-year jump that topped the upper end of the 80,000–83,000 guidance range by nearly 500 units. The core NIO brand accounted for 58,543 units, while family-oriented Onvo and compact Firefly contributed the balance. March alone posted 35,486 deliveries, up 136% year-on-year, with the NIO brand at 22,490, Onvo at 6,877 and Firefly at 6,119. 

NIO is targeting 456,000–489,000 deliveries for 2026, implying 40%–50% growth, and is aiming for full-year non-GAAP profitability after posting its first quarterly GAAP operating profit in Q4 2025. Q1 revenue growth is expected to significantly outpace delivery growth as higher-priced models take a larger share of the mix, William Li said.