NIO (NYSE: NIO) founder, chairman and CEO William Li said on September 1, 2026, during the automaker's second-quarter earnings call, that the third-generation ES8 large SUV is on track to reach its 150,000th delivery this month. The milestone falls almost exactly a year after the redesigned flagship began reaching customers in late September 2025.

NIO delivered 10,999 units of the new ES8 in August 2026 alone, pushing cumulative deliveries of the model past 140,000 by the end of that month. The SUV crossed the 140,000-unit mark on August 21, 2026, during the Chengdu Auto Show, reaching that figure 335 days after launch, and had already reached its 100,000th delivery in just 215 days, a pace NIO said set a sales record for models priced above 400,000 CNY.

According to the China Passenger Car Association, the ES8 was the top-selling large SUV and the top-selling model priced above 400,000 CNY (c. $59,520) in July 2026, a double lead it also held cumulatively for the January-through-July period in both segments. The SUV had also topped Beijing's large-SUV sales rankings in the first quarter of 2026, regardless of powertrain type or price bracket, according to local registration data cited by NIO.

The milestone arrived alongside NIO's second-quarter results, which showed total revenue of 32.14 billion CNY (c. $4.78 billion), up 69.1% year-over-year, and an operating profit of 210 million CNY (c. $31.25 million), roughly triple the prior quarter's figure. Gross margin reached 18.4%, up 8.4 percentage points from a year earlier, marking NIO's third consecutive profitable quarter.

First-half 2026 revenue totaled 57.67 billion CNY (c. $8.58 billion), up 85.8% year-over-year, with positive operating cash flow for four straight quarters and cash reserves of 56.7 billion CNY (c. $8.44 billion) at the end of June. For the third quarter, NIO guided to deliveries of 108,000 to 111,000 vehicles, implying year-over-year growth of 24.0% to 27.5%.

NIO's broader delivery numbers also climbed in August: the automaker handed over 35,836 vehicles across its NIO, Onvo and Firefly brands, up 14.5% year-over-year, split between 21,174 NIO-badged vehicles, 8,810 Onvo units and 5,852 Firefly units. Through the first eight months of 2026, company-wide deliveries reached 262,893 vehicles, a 57.9% increase from a year earlier, pushing cumulative deliveries since NIO's founding past 1,260,485 units.

On the same call, Li said more than three-quarters of buyers of the newer ES9 SUV were coming from outside NIO's existing owner base, adding that all-electric powertrains have become the mainstream choice in China's passenger-car market and that brand reputation is increasingly deciding purchase decisions. The comments echoed remarks Li made three weeks earlier at a Shanghai management forum, where he described the domestic auto industry as moving through overlapping phases of consolidation, accelerating EV adoption and a shift from brand confusion toward brand clarity.

The third-generation ES8 introduced a redesigned exterior built around NIO's Sharknose front fascia and flush, hidden-channel window trim rather than exposed weatherstripping. Its double-layer "Double Dash" daytime running lights use 333 non-parametric facets on each side, while the body panels carry a hidden water-channel platform measuring 16 mm, which NIO describes as the widest of its kind on a production vehicle.

The SUV measures 5,280 mm long, 2,010 mm wide and 1,800 mm tall on a 3,130 mm wheelbase, and comes in six- and seven-seat layouts across six exterior colors. Thirteen separate aerodynamic revisions bring the drag coefficient down to 0.256, according to NIO.

Inside, the ES8 runs NIO's newest cockpit architecture, anchored by a 38-inch augmented-reality head-up display and a 15.6-inch center touchscreen shared with the flagship ET9 sedan, both supporting Dolby Vision. The cabin runs on NIO's SkyOS "Tianshu" operating system and a 5-nanometer in-house chip called Shenji NX9031, which the company describes as the first automotive-grade chip built on that process node; voice assistant NOMI Mate 3.0 supports six independent listening zones, one per seating position.

Roof-mounted lidar housing, part of the AQUILA sensing suite (NIO)

Three "zero-gravity" seats, including two in the second row and one in the third, can recline simultaneously, with the second row adjustable up to 26 ways and reclining as far as 151 degrees. Driver assistance comes from NIO's AQUILA sensor suite, which pairs three lidar units, a pair of side-mounted wide-angle lidar sensors and 4D imaging radar for what the company calls lane-level perception across its highway and urban driving system.

Rear cabin in Sumac Red leather, with diamond-quilted zero-gravity seats (NIO)

A dual-motor setup produces a combined 520 kW and 700 N·m of torque, taking the SUV from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.97 seconds, while a 102 kWh battery pack returns a CLTC-rated range of 635 km (395 miles) at a claimed energy consumption of 16.6 kWh per 100 km. The ES8 rides on NIO's 900V charging and battery-swap platform, which supports charging rates up to 5C, adding roughly 250 km (155 miles) of range in five minutes or completing a full battery swap in about three minutes at a peak charging power of 600 kW.

That charging speed leans on infrastructure NIO has built out alongside the ES8's rollout: as of August 16, 2026, the company operated 9,210 charging and swap stations nationwide, including 4,020 battery-swap stations and 5,190 charging stations with 29,915 individual charging points, and had completed more than 120 million battery swaps to date.

NIO lists the third-generation ES8 from 382,800 CNY to 446,800 CNY (c. $56,960 to $66,480) before incentives or its battery-subscription option. With deliveries still climbing seven months after the CPCA first ranked it the country's top-selling large SUV, the model's run toward 150,000 units will test how much further NIO's most expensive vehicle line can extend its lead before rivals in the segment respond in kind.

Conversion rate: 1 USD = 6.72083 CNY as of September 1, 2026.