A lengthy Lunar New Year holiday and a retreat in purchase-tax incentives pushed China’s new-energy vehicle challengers into a month of divergent fortunes in February. Leapmotor, Li Auto and NIO each returned to roughly the 20,000 monthly-delivery mark, while XPeng saw deliveries collapse by about half year‑on‑year, underscoring growing differentiation among the cohort.
Leapmotor led the pack in February with 28,067 deliveries, a 10.99% year‑on‑year rise and a two‑month cumulative tally of 60,126 vehicles. The company highlighted the performance of its B‑platform models—reporting nearly 200,000 cumulative sales across that architecture—and stressed strong take‑up for models such as the Lafa 5, B01 and B10, which have each hit significant volume milestones.
Li Auto delivered 26,421 vehicles in February, essentially flat year‑on‑year, though its January–February cumulative volume slipped to 54,089, down 3.7% versus a year earlier. The company framed its progress around an expanding energy network: more than 4,000 Li Auto super‑charging stations provided over 1.45 million charging sessions during the holiday, a figure the firm uses to argue that charging infrastructure is decisive in the success of a battery‑electric strategy. Li Auto also confirmed that new iterations of the L9 and the L9 Livis will arrive in the market in the second quarter.
NIO reported a sharp rebound, with total deliveries in February of 20,797 vehicles, up 57.7% year‑on‑year, and 15,159 units delivered under the core NIO brand. The ES8 continues to be a growth engine—NIO said it has now delivered 70,000 of the latest ES8—and the company rolled out fresh purchase incentives and long‑tenor low‑interest finance deals to sustain momentum. NIO’s lower‑tier Le Dao sub‑brand, by contrast, declined by more than 26% in February, prompting further retail incentives and tax‑subsidy guarantees.
XPeng, which has occupied the bottom of the new‑entrant sales ranking for two consecutive months, delivered just 15,256 vehicles in February, a roughly 50% drop from a year earlier. In response, the company is accelerating overseas expansion—launching the new G6 in the U.K. and shipping the updated P7+ internationally—and doubled down on a pivot toward high‑ambition technology plays. Founder He Xiaopeng urged staff to make XPeng the first mass‑producer across three nascent AI hardware lines—humanoid robots, flying cars and Robotaxi—naming an IRON humanoid robot, an in‑year flying‑car production goal and Robotaxi pilots as topline targets for 2026.
Industry participants say the February results reflect two immediate forces—an unusually long holiday that shrank effective production and sales days and the fading boost from tax‑related subsidies—but also a deeper shift in the new‑energy vehicle battleground. The contest is moving beyond sheer monthly volumes to encompass charging networks, financing packages, software and AI competence, and international footprint. For investors and policymakers the winners will likely be firms that can pair competitive hardware with energy ecosystems and scalable software offerings while navigating capital intensity and execution risk.