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William Li, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO Inc, returned to his alma mater Peking University on Thursday, speaking as an alumni representative at the commencement ceremony for the class of 2026. Li graduated from Peking University's sociology department in 1996 , making this year the 30th anniversary of his graduation.  In his speech, Li said he had encountered six major low points since graduation and chose to share three of them with students, framing each as a lesson in entrepreneurial judgment.  The first lesson: survive the first failure  The first setback came almost immediately after graduation. In April 1996, months before receiving his degree, Li and two classmates founded Nanji Technology , one of China’s early internet virtual-hosting service providers.  When his co-founders later left for further studies overseas, Li was left to keep the company running on his own. He recalled sleeping on a conference table after late-night showers and clearing away...

William Li, CEO of NIO, frames lightweighting as a core strategic challenge for NIO and the broader NEV industry . As electric vehicles become heavier due to larger batteries, longer-range ambitions, and added features, competitive advantage will depend on disciplined product trade-offs, advanced materials, and system-level engineering rather than simply increasing battery capacity William Li, Ceo of NIO, launched the updated Onvo L60 on June, 11 2026 As Chinese new energy vehicles become larger, heavier, and more feature-rich, lightweighting is emerging as a strategic engineering discipline rather than a cosmetic design choice . The challenge is to reduce mass without compromising safety, range, cost discipline, or user experience. Industry context: the weight challenge The Nio CEO's call for lightweighting comes as the Chinese auto industry faces a severe vehicle "obesity" crisis. China’s passenger-car market is facing a growing vehicle-weight problem. The average c...

On February 6th , the Chinese EV maker reached the historic milestone of completing its 100 millionth battery swap service. Standing at this milestone, William Li, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Nio, officially shared the company’s infrastructure plan s for its energy replenishment network in 2026 : these plans include constructing 1,000 new battery swap stations in 2026  Nio founder, chairman and Ceo William Li (center, holding phone) celebrates the company's 100 millionth battery swap services milestone with Nio owners, partners and his team On February 6th, NIO reached a historic milestone—cumulative battery swap services surpassed 100 million times. The journey from zero to 100 million swaps took 2,819 days. Standing at this milestone, William Li, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Nio, officially shared the company’s infrastructure plans for its energy replenishment network in 2026.  These plans include constructing 1,000 new battery swap stations in 2026 and i ncreasing the...

Nio‘s founder and Chief Executive Officer William Li declared that only two automakers globally remain exclusively focused on pure electric vehicle and Nio is one of them. “I estimate that globally, only two companies focus exclusively on pure electric vehicles, and Nio is one of them,” William   Li said during a speech at the 2025 China Automotive Entrepreneur Annual Conference in Beijing on December 6-7.  Li did not name the other company , but the description aligns with Tesla, whose Ceo Elon Musk has repeatedly rejected hybrids. Nio‘s first mass-produced vehicle — the ES8 SUV — rolled off the production line in Hefei, China, in 2018 . Seven years later, the company is expected to produce its 1 millionth unit in early 2026, having reached 949,457 cumulative deliveries by November 30.  Despite launching two additional brands in the past 18 months — Onvo for the mass market in May 2024 and Firefly for premium small EVs in December 2024 — Nio has never released any hyb...

At the media event following the pre-sale start of the third-generation Nio ES8 , William Li explained where the company saved the cost to be able to offer such aggressive pricing for its flagship SUV. Li also admitted that survival is the most important thing for the company at present  On August 21, Nio unveiled the all-new ES8. T he ES8 is Nio’s first mass-produced car , launched in 2018. It released its third generation, which starts pre-sale at 416,800 yuan ($58,050) for the 100 kWh battery version, which is 25% lower than the 518,000 yuan ($72,140) starting price of the previous generation ES8. The BaaS price (car without battery) is 308,800 yuan ($43,000). The new ES8 will launch in late September at Nio Day. The following day, Nio officially held a small-scale media group interview in Chengdu. William Li, Ceo of Nio, and Qin Lihong, President of Nio, attended the session. Representing the brand’s executive team, they responded to questions of high interest, such as t...