Mixed Results for New Forces' Annual Sales Achievement: Who Will Successfully Bridge 2025?

Since January 2025, the new energy market has been experiencing frequent good news, with individual automakers repeatedly setting new sales records and the penetration rate of the new energy market continuously breaking new highs. It can be said that the breakthroughs in new energy technology and costs in 2024 have laid a solid foundation for this year's new energy market, and this year, manufacturers have developed new understandings and judgments about the new energy market.

At the beginning of 2025, under the favorable momentum of new energy, various car manufacturers have nearly optimistic forecasts for their total sales in 2025. This includes emerging brands like Weilai, Xiaopeng, Li Auto, Xiaomi, Hongmeng Zhixing, and Leap Motor, all of which have ambitions to break into the sales ranks of mainstream automotive companies.

With one month of sales data yet to be released, the achievement rates of various new car-making forces are also receiving attention from the industry. The achievement rates of these new forces this year not only reflect the market performance of each automaker but also indicate whether their strategies and market perceptions are on track. This may also be helpful for their strategic adjustments in 2026.

Three major new forces have achieved their annual sales targets ahead of schedule.

Among the 6 mainstream emerging car companies in the market, 3 have already achieved their annual sales targets ahead of schedule, while the remaining 3 are far from meeting their sales goals set at the beginning of the year.

Three car companies have achieved their sales targets. Among them, Leapmotor set a target of 500,000 units at the beginning of the year and announced in mid-October that it had achieved its annual sales target. In the first 11 months of this year, Leapmotor's cumulative sales reached 536,000 units, achieving a completion rate of 107%. Given the trend of Leapmotor's monthly sales exceeding 70,000 units in the past two months, the company's cumulative annual sales may surpass 600,000 units this year.

At the beginning of the year, XPeng set a target of 380,000 units for the annual sales, and its cumulative sales have reached 392,000 units in the first 11 months, achieving a completion rate of 103%. Considering XPeng's monthly sales have been over 30,000 units in recent months, the total sales for this year are expected to be between 420,000 to 430,000 units. With this momentum, XPeng has the opportunity to surpass the 500,000 mark next year.

At the beginning of the year, Xiaomi Auto set a sales target of 350,000 vehicles. With over 100,000 orders for the Xiaomi SU7 and more than 200,000 orders for the Xiaomi YU7, Xiaomi Auto is expected to exceed its annual sales target. Based on its current monthly delivery rate of 46,000 vehicles, it is projected to deliver around 400,000 new cars by the end of the year. Achieving nearly 400,000 annual sales within two years from brand launch to new car sales, Xiaomi Auto has also broken multiple records for orders and deliveries among new force automotive companies.

Among the remaining three mainstream emerging forces, Li Auto sold a total of 362,100 new cars in the first 11 months, while its sales target at the beginning of the year was 700,000, achieving only 51.7% of the expected target with just one month remaining. Perhaps due to the illusion created by the cumulative sales surpassing 500,000 in 2024, Li Auto did not accurately estimate this year's car market trend, leading to an incorrect estimation of the sales target.

NIO's target for this year is set at 460,000 vehicles, with deliveries reaching 278,000 by November, a year-on-year increase of 45.6%, already surpassing the cumulative sales for the entire year of 2024. Although the achievement rate is only 60%, there are still many highlights in this year's overall performance.

Hongmeng Zhixing can be considered the most aggressive new force group of 2025. At the beginning of the year, it set a sales target of 1 million vehicles for the then "Four Realms." As of November, including Shangjie, the "Five Realms" have achieved total sales of 495,000 vehicles, with a target achievement rate of less than 50%.

NIO, Li Auto, and HarmonyOS Smart Mobility: Goals Not Achieved, but Situations Differ.

NIO, Li Auto, and Horizon Robotics are destined to fail to meet their sales targets this year, but the situations they currently face are entirely different.

Upon closer examination of the three car companies that did not meet their targets, NIO has the highest achievement rate among them. This was effectively achieved by leveraging the momentum of the Le Tao brand and the launch of the Firefly brand with the BaaS model to exchange price for volume.

In fact, if NIO had changed its market strategy earlier, it might have achieved its sales targets for this year. The difficulty lies in the fact that NIO, as a high-end and high-priced brand, has been besieged in a price war this year, especially as competitors in the same segment have generally reduced costs, cut prices, and increased features. Additionally, apart from battery swapping, NIO's products lack a technological moat and are highly replaceable, giving users more reasons not to choose NIO, which has led to its inability to effectively scale up to this day.

The timely rectification by the LeDao brand has reversed the deadlock faced by the NIO brand. However, from another perspective, LeDao's focus on the high-end, high cost-effectiveness market also means that the NIO brand no longer has the opportunity to lower its brand positioning. For NIO, whether to focus on LeDao's cost-effectiveness or to decisively lower the NIO brand may be the key to further increasing sales next year.

The Firefly brand is facing the same predicament as NIO. The demand in the A0-class market is primarily for low-cost, high-spec vehicles, emphasizing affordability in usage. Small, attractive, and relatively expensive models can only occupy a niche market, like products such as MINI and Jimny. Firefly is akin to NIO in the A0-class market, and with the introduction of Aion UT Super's battery-swapping models, it no longer has its last moat. If it continues to pursue a refined and sophisticated route, it may struggle to become NIO's main sales force.

Ideal's problem may be bigger than NIO's. With an achievement rate just over 50%, it indicates that Ideal has been overly optimistic about its projections for this year. As the sales champion of new forces in 2024 and the first new force car company to surpass annual sales of 500,000 vehicles, Ideal believes that there is still a significant market demand for extended-range models, and plans to launch pure electric models this year, which will further help boost sales.

The fact is, entering 2025, the changes in market demand combined with the technological updates and iterations of extended-range models have put Li Auto in a dilemma.

Firstly, high-end and high-priced products led by L9 and L8 are being besieged by the M series from AITO as well as high-end brands such as Zeekr and Leopard, resulting in increasingly limited market space. Secondly, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) has launched the Xiaoyao battery specifically for range-extended models, increasing the pure electric range of range-extended products to 400 km while also raising battery costs. After Li Auto adopted the Xiaoyao battery, the increased overall vehicle cost means a smaller margin for price reduction, losing its price advantage. Coupled with the faster pace of upgrades in new energy vehicles, the market dominance of the Li Auto L series has dramatically declined, naturally leading to a decrease in sales for Li Auto.

On the other hand, for pure electric models, Li Auto is still taking an unconventional route, and it will take time to gain market recognition. Fortunately, the Li Auto i6 has received impressive orders, giving Li Auto hope for a market turnaround in 2026. Therefore, in order to regain market share in 2026, both the updating of the L series and the further affordability of the i series are indispensable.

HarmonyOS Intelligent Driving is different from NIO and Li Auto. Although it has only achieved half of its sales expectations, the explosive power of "Five Realms" later on and the launch of "Three Domains" next year will bring more possibilities to HarmonyOS Intelligent Driving. However, we should focus more on the performance of "Five Realms" and "Three Domains" in 2026, as these 8 partner brands will also be included in the sales statistics of their respective car manufacturers. Huawei, as a technology supplier and sales network, is more like Bosch and third-party dealers. From this perspective, the overall sales statistics of HarmonyOS Intelligent Driving are not very meaningful.

It is worth mentioning that AITO, which currently performs the best in HarmonyOS intelligent driving, has achieved cumulative sales of 377,000 vehicles in the first 11 months, surpassing Li Auto. It is believed that next year, the sales of the AITO brand will see new breakthroughs.