NIO went public with a single car model on the road, and it still raised about $1 billion on the New York Stock Exchange. It was September 2018. Tesla was struggling to build its Model 3, and China was pushing hard to clean its city air. NIO, based in Shanghai, sold a seven-seat electric SUV called the ES8 and promised a service network built around the owner. Investors were buying a promise that China would make its own Tesla.

An Internet Founder Builds a Car

William Li, who had built the car-shopping website Bitauto, founded NIO in 2014. He lined up backing from Tencent and other Chinese tech investors. NIO designed its cars in-house and had a partner, JAC Motors, build them in Hefei. Its boldest idea was the battery swap station. A driver pulled in, a machine replaced the empty battery with a charged one, and the car left a few minutes later.

One Cent Above the Floor

NIO priced 160 million American depositary shares at $6.26 on September 11, 2018, one cent above the bottom of its range. The stock fell as low as $5.35 on its first day, then closed at $6.60. Losses piled up in 2019, and the company came close to running out of cash. A 2020 investment led by the city of Hefei kept it alive, and the stock soared that year. NIO still trades on the New York Stock Exchange under NIO.

Cover: Blue and Orange Sky, Paul Huet. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a blue sky (NIO's 'Blue Sky Coming').