NIO vs. XPENG — Back Almost Even Again!

Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.

I’ve said it before several times — XPENG and NIO have had a humorously similar growth trajectory over the past several years.

Sometimes one surges ahead of the other for a while, and then things swing again and the other one surges ahead. NIO had a bit of an advantage in 2020 and most of 2021, and the XPENG took over until late 2022, then NIO held the floor until late 2023, and so on and so forth. XPENG reached new peaks at the end of 2025, but then NIO took the lead in December 2025.

Well, in recent months, it has gotten tight. Most recently, in June, the two EV companies from China were as tight as a soccer shoe (or football boot). XPENG had 40,126 sales, while NIO had 40,597 sales. That’s just about a 1% difference.

Looking at the monthly sales charts, XPENG’s high sales looked much more solid at the end of 2025, but then NIO had that spike and didn’t fall as much in 2026.

Where do these two companies go from here? I don’t know, but I have a lot of fun tracking them. Both keep introducing new models while trying to achieve financial sustainability, largely in a hyper-competitive Chinese EV market. I feel a bit more bullish about XPENG, especially since NIO’s approach has involved bringing two more brands to market in order to achieve its sales growth. Also, NIO’s focus on battery swapping may be getting a bit questionable in the face of “Flash Charging.” That said, I’m not a big fan of the robot distraction or flying cars at this moment in time.

What do you think? What are your projections for growth and which company leads in the second half of 2026?

For more on each company’s recent sales, see:

Here are static versions of the charts embedded above: