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NIO · Forward model · Street case

The Street case, 20 quarters out

Model as of

Each segment is projected from its own operating driver, rolled up into consolidated cash flow, and discounted back to a fair value per share. The assumptions below are editable — change them and every number on this page moves with them.

Five decisions decide how this model reads. 1. CURRENCY. NIO reports in renminbi. Every dollar figure here is translated at the single constant rate of RMB6.8980 to US$1.00 that NIO itself used in its 2026 Q1 release. NIO's own historical releases each translate at that quarter's own noon buying rate, so the dollar series on the stock page differs from this one by up to about 1% in the older quarters; the renminbi underneath is identical. The basis quarter reconciles exactly: RMB25,532.7m is US$3,701.5m in both. 2. THE SPLIT IS THE COMPANY'S. NIO publishes exactly two revenue lines - vehicle sales and other sales - and nothing below them. Deliveries are broken out by NIO, ONVO and FIREFLY brand every month, but revenue and margin never are, and battery swapping, BaaS and power solutions have never been reported as a revenue figure of their own. No brand split and no swap-revenue line is estimated anywhere here. Vehicle sales is tabulated in every quarterly release; other sales is marked estimated in the nine quarters where it is total revenues less vehicle sales rather than a printed line, even though the identity is exact. 3. THE FIRST PROJECTED QUARTER IS ALREADY A FACT ON VOLUME. On 21 May 2026 NIO guided the June quarter to 110,000-115,000 deliveries and RMB32,777-34,436m of revenue. On 1 July 2026 it disclosed 107,658 actual deliveries - 2.1% below the low end. The unit driver is set to reproduce 107,658, not the guide, which is why the model's first quarter lands at RMB32,779m, at the bottom of the guided range rather than the middle. 4. WHERE THE OPERATING LEVERAGE LIVES. Corporate overhead is held at 13.24% of revenue - R&D plus SG&A less other operating income, less a quarter of 2025 depreciation, over basis-quarter revenue. That is deliberately a flat ratio even though NIO's operating costs have been falling in absolute terms while revenue doubled: R&D was down 40.7% and SG&A down 20.5% year over year in the basis quarter. The leverage is expressed once, in the verticals' terminal margins, rather than twice. 5. NO PRODUCTION CEILING. NIO discloses no installed capacity anywhere - the 20-F says only 'three advanced manufacturing bases'. The unit driver therefore has no cap, and at base assumptions deliveries reach roughly 632,000 a year by 2030. Nothing in the filings confirms that is buildable. NO SEASONALITY IS APPLIED, and that is a finding rather than a gap. The Chinese New Year trough is real - the Q1 factor measures 0.626 - but the centred four-quarter moving-average test fails on its own terms for both verticals: vehicle-sales signal 0.555 against a worst window-to-window spread of 0.504, other sales 0.161 against 0.148. The spread is the launch calendar, not noise, and the amplitude is compressing as the base grows: Q1 as a share of the prior Q4 was 0.600 in 2024, 0.579 in 2025 and 0.669 in 2026. Applying the measured factors makes the model print 73,054 deliveries in 2027 Q1 against 83,465 actual in 2026 Q1, a 12.5% year-over-year fall nothing supports. The cost of leaving them out is that each modelled year is smooth where the real one swings.

NIO forward model
Horizon
Fair value per share $6.85 +100% against $3.43
Terminal-year revenue $36.04B last four projected quarters
Enterprise value $16.16B −$469M explicit + $16.63B terminal

What the sell side is actually underwriting. Twenty-four analysts polled by S&P Global carry an average target of $7.37 on revenue of RMB135.69bn this year and RMB157.06bn next. The revenue is not the disagreement: this model's 2027 figure is within about 1% of theirs. Running a slightly faster ramp through the same margins and the same cash economics gets to $6.85, and only because the exit multiple goes to 0.85 times revenue and the discount rate drops to 13%. What this case does not reach is the $7.37 target itself, and no revenue assumption gets there - the last 7% is multiple, not volume. Free cash flow still does not turn positive until the December 2029 quarter.

NIO REVENUE MODEL

Latest: $9.30B (2031Q1E)

Period Value
2023Q1 $1.55B
2023Q2 $1.27B
2023Q3 $2.76B
2023Q4 $2.48B
2024Q1 $1.44B
2024Q2 $2.53B
2024Q3 $2.71B
2024Q4 $2.86B
2025Q1 $1.74B
2025Q2 $2.76B
2025Q3 $3.16B
2025Q4 $5.02B
2026Q1 $3.70B
2026Q2E $4.80B
2026Q3E $5.10B
2026Q4E $5.39B
2027Q1E $5.67B
2027Q2E $5.95B
2027Q3E $6.21B
2027Q4E $6.47B
2028Q1E $6.72B
2028Q2E $6.97B
2028Q3E $7.21B
2028Q4E $7.44B
2029Q1E $7.66B
2029Q2E $7.88B
2029Q3E $8.10B
2029Q4E $8.31B
2030Q1E $8.51B
2030Q2E $8.71B
2030Q3E $8.91B
2030Q4E $9.11B
2031Q1E $9.30B
Scenarios

Where each case comes from

Bear case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Bear column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Bull case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Bull column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Street case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Street column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Valuation

From cash flow to fair value

The published model, discounted at 13.0% a year with an exit multiple of 0.85x on revenue. The horizon and sliders above do not change this walk.

Present value of free cash flow, 20 quarters−$469M
Terminal-year revenue$36.04B
Terminal-year EBITDA$2.38B
Exit multiple, on revenue0.85x
Terminal value$30.63B
Discounted at 13.0% a year, terminal value becomes$16.63B
Share of enterprise value from the terminal103%
Enterprise value$16.16B
Net cash$1.00B
Equity value$17.16B
Shares2.51B
Fair value per share$6.85
Against the deployed price of $3.43, as of +100%

0.70 times terminal revenue, discounted at 14%. The anchor is what the market pays for the same kind of company on the same day: NIO itself at 0.66 times trailing sales, XPeng at 0.96 times, Li Auto at 0.09 times only because its enterprise value is 12% of its market capitalisation. This is a volume carmaker with a battery-swap network, not a software business, and 0.70 times sits just above what the tape pays NIO now and below XPeng. The 14% discount rate is a loss-making China ADR with negative explicit-period free cash flow: equity risk, execution risk and listing risk on top of each other.

Read the other way round: at $3.43 the market is paying 0.4x terminal-year revenue, holding every other assumption on this page fixed. That is the number to argue about.

Quarter by quarter

The projected path

The published model's 20 quarters. The horizon and sliders above do not change this table.

Quarter Vehicle salesOther sales Revenue YoY EBITDA Capex FCF R40 PV of FCF
2026 Q2E $4.39B$411M $4.80B +74% $278M $359M −$81M +72 −$78M
2026 Q3E $4.68B$423M $5.10B +61% $299M $375M −$76M +60 −$71M
2026 Q4E $4.95B$434M $5.39B +7% $320M $390M −$71M +6 −$65M
2027 Q1E $5.22B$446M $5.67B +53% $340M $405M −$65M +52 −$58M
2027 Q2E $5.49B$458M $5.95B +24% $360M $419M −$60M +23 −$51M
2027 Q3E $5.74B$470M $6.21B +22% $380M $433M −$54M +21 −$45M
2027 Q4E $5.99B$482M $6.47B +20% $399M $446M −$47M +19 −$38M
2028 Q1E $6.23B$494M $6.72B +19% $418M $459M −$41M +18 −$32M
2028 Q2E $6.46B$506M $6.97B +17% $436M $471M −$35M +17 −$26M
2028 Q3E $6.69B$519M $7.21B +16% $454M $482M −$28M +16 −$21M
2028 Q4E $6.91B$531M $7.44B +15% $472M $494M −$22M +15 −$16M
2029 Q1E $7.12B$543M $7.66B +14% $489M $505M −$16M +14 −$11M
2029 Q2E $7.33B$556M $7.88B +13% $506M $516M −$10M +13 −$6M
2029 Q3E $7.53B$568M $8.10B +12% $523M $526M −$3M +12 −$2M
2029 Q4E $7.72B$581M $8.31B +12% $539M $536M $2M +12 $1M
2030 Q1E $7.92B$594M $8.51B +11% $555M $547M $8M +11 $5M
2030 Q2E $8.11B$607M $8.71B +11% $571M $557M $13M +11 $8M
2030 Q3E $8.29B$620M $8.91B +10% $586M $567M $18M +10 $10M
2030 Q4E $8.48B$633M $9.11B +10% $602M $576M $23M +10 $13M
2031 Q1E $8.66B$647M $9.30B +9% $617M $586M $27M +10 $15M

Every row is projected. A year-over-year change is shown only where the quarter it compares against exists — an em dash means there is no comparable quarter, not a flat year.

Track record

Model revisions

Assumptions are marked to reality as each quarter prints. Every change is appended here, with the fair value the model produced at the time, so the model's own history stays visible.

DateFair value thenNote
2026-09-01 $4.57 Initial model, built on the 2026 Q1 basis quarter and the 107,658 second-quarter deliveries NIO disclosed on 1 July 2026, the day before NIO reports the June quarter.