February deliveries by China’s newest electric vehicle firms revealed a market under short-term pressure and strategic reorientation. A nine-day Lunar New Year holiday and the fading impact of a purchase-tax stimulus left overall sales muted, producing a split picture: Leapmotor, Li Auto and NIO clustered back around the 20,000-a-month mark, while Xpeng’s volumes halved year‑on‑year.
Leapmotor led the cohort in February with 28,067 vehicles delivered, a 10.99% increase from a year earlier and enough to return it to the top of the “new carmaker” rankings. The company said its B-platform has approached 200,000 cumulative sales and highlighted strong demand for models such as the Lafa5, which passed 20,000 units in three months, and the B10, which has now exceeded 100,000 units sold.
Li Auto reported 26,421 deliveries in February, essentially flat year‑on‑year, though its January–February tally slipped about 3.7% from last year to 54,089 units. Li is using its charging infrastructure as a strategic asset: during the holiday it ran more than 4,000 proprietary ultra‑fast charging stations that logged over 1.45 million charging sessions and delivered more than 42 million kWh of energy. The company also confirmed a planned Q2 launch of the new Li L9 and L9 Livis, reinforcing its emphasis on range‑extender and energy‑service differentiation.
NIO posted 20,797 deliveries in February, up 57.7% year‑on‑year, with the NIO brand alone delivering 15,159 vehicles. The ES8 SUV remains a key growth driver — the maker has completed its 70,000th ES8 delivery — and NIO moved swiftly to sustain momentum with purchase‑tax subsidies and long‑tenor, low‑interest financing packages. Yet NIO’s fledgling LeDao brand lagged badly, falling more than 26% in February, prompting the company to layer additional incentives on that line.
Xpeng was the clear laggard in February, delivering just 15,256 vehicles — roughly half the volume from a year earlier — leaving it at the bottom of the new‑entrant ranking for a third consecutive month. The company is accelerating overseas moves to offset domestic weakness: the G6 debuted in the U.K. in February and the P7+ has begun large‑scale overseas shipments. Chairman He Xiaopeng also used the post‑holiday restart to chart an ambitious, high‑tech strategy for 2026 that ranges from humanoid robots and flying cars to Robotaxi pilots.
The near‑term softness is not only seasonal. The auto market is navigating the withdrawal of some tax incentives and a broader cooling in consumer demand that follows pandemic rebound spending. More consequentially, the competition among new entrants is shifting away from pure volume contests toward battles over charging networks, software and AI capabilities, financing offers and international expansion. Those are capital‑intensive arenas that test unit economics and margins in ways pure hardware competition did not.
For international observers and investors, the February results are a reminder that China’s EV landscape is maturing. Firms that can turn charging infrastructure, software ecosystems and differentiated energy strategies into durable moats will be better positioned for a global push; those that cannot may be forced into deeper discounting, partnerships or consolidation. Expect more volatility in monthly deliveries, heavy marketing and financing activity in the near term, and a longer strategic race defined less by who sells the most cars today and more by who builds the most resilient ecosystem for tomorrow.