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Chinese electric carmaker NIO has filed for a $1.8 billion initial public offering in the United States as the burgeoning company seeks to compete with US rival Tesla. NIO is one of dozens of new automakers to crop up in China as policymakers in Beijing push an all-electric future for the world's largest auto market.
American, Japanese and European auto giants dominate sales of combustion engine vehicles in China, but homegrown firms unencumbered by the billions sunk into refining gasoline engines are in the driver's seat when it comes to electric cars.
While Tesla chief Elon Musk is in talks with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and other investors to take his company private, NIO filed papers at the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to go public.
But the upstart Chinese automaker faces a long road ahead for its proposed float of up to $1.8 billion on the New York Stock Exchange. The company had delivered only 481 of its first mass production electric SUV model the ES8 by the end of July, with reservations and deposits in place for an additional 17,000.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @02:11AM (1 child)
One of the articles on this company said they burned through $500 million in the first half of 2018, so that cool $1.8 billion they want to raise might carry them to the end of 2019? Making cars is really expensive and that is probably not much of a down payment on a real factory (not the toy factory they are running currently that can do ~100 cars/month.)
My prediction - While the battery electric car market is getting crowded now, it's going to thin out pretty quickly in a few years, some consolidation but a lot of outright failures/bankruptcies too. There just aren't that many buyers for premium priced cars/SUVs to support all the startups and existing car companies.
Where is the SN "tickler file option" so this story and comment can re-appear in the queue in 3 years--to check the quality of the prediction?
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Thursday August 16 2018, @04:54AM
There is none and there probably won't ever be. If you don't obsessively check the site daily for years, I would just keep a text file on your computer with a list of these as you encounter them. Maybe set up a Google News alert or something to track the Chinese company.
If you have a detailed and concrete case for how the "tickler file" could/should work, I would either write it up in a journal entry or submit it as a feature request here [github.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]