Leapmotor Tops 100,000 Again as China’s EV Upstarts Enter a Q4 Reset
China's new-energy vehicle upstarts released August delivery figures on Monday, with Leapmotor extending its dominance by surpassing 100,000 units for the second consecutive month, while Xpeng, Li Auto and NIO remained clustered in a tighter band of 35,000 to 40,000 deliveries.
Leapmotor reported 103,129 vehicles delivered in August, a year-on-year surge of 80.72% and the sixth straight month of sequential growth. The company said that based on recent comparable vehicle registration data, it now ranks among the top four new-energy passenger car brands globally and top three in China. Leapmotor attributed the sustained momentum not to a temporary market tailwind but to its vertically integrated model — the company controls approximately 65% of total vehicle costs, operates 18 component manufacturing facilities, and relies on full in-house research and development across its product lineup.
Xpeng delivered 39,107 vehicles in August, up 3.71% year-on-year, marking three consecutive months of year-on-year growth. However, the figure still sits within what the company acknowledges is an eight-consecutive-month year-on-year decline on an annual basis, underscoring that the near-term recovery has yet to translate into a structural reversal. The MONA M03 model retained its position as the top-selling pure-electric sedan in the RMB 100,000–200,000 price segment for 23 straight months, with cumulative MONA series deliveries crossing 310,000 units. The GX SUV, launched on May 20, has accumulated 21,501 deliveries, with 7,338 units in August alone. Looking ahead, Xpeng unveiled the G9L on August 11, which will launch in September featuring the company's second-generation VLA intelligent driving system. Chairman He Xiaopeng said at the second-quarter earnings call that with four new SUV models — the G9L, MONA L05, GX and MONA L03 — entering the market sequentially, the company is targeting monthly sales of 60,000 units in the fourth quarter.
Li Auto delivered 37,679 vehicles in August, a 32.07% year-on-year increase, recovering to third place in the peer ranking after two consecutive months at the bottom. The result also marked the first simultaneous year-on-year and month-on-month increase in four months. Still, the company remains on an eight-consecutive-month year-on-year decline when measured against the full year. Li Auto is accelerating its product cadence: the next-generation L6, launched in mid-July, has shown strong order intake with management projecting stable monthly sales of around 10,000 units. The next-generation MEGA is set to officially launch on September 2, followed by a new product event in Dubai on September 3 marking the company's entry into the Middle East market. The flagship pure-electric SUV i9 is expected to launch in mid-September, completing the company's EV product matrix. Chairman Li Xiang stated at the earnings call that the company's goal is to rank among the top three brands by sales in China's passenger car market above RMB 200,000 (approximately US$27.6 billion in addressable annual segment scale is not cited; the price threshold is RMB 200,000, or approximately US$27,600 per vehicle).
NIO delivered 35,836 vehicles in August, up 14.47% year-on-year, though performance varied sharply across its three sub-brands. The flagship NIO brand contributed 21,174 units, more than doubling year-on-year and sustaining monthly deliveries above 20,000 for four consecutive months. The budget-oriented Onvo brand delivered 8,810 units, posting simultaneous year-on-year and month-on-month declines for the first time in five months and extending a three-month sequential slide. The entry-level Firefly brand delivered 5,852 units, up 34.65% year-on-year for the fifth straight month of year-on-year growth. For the first eight months of 2026, NIO's cumulative deliveries reached 262,893 units, a 57.92% year-on-year increase, with Onvo's near-term weakness the primary drag on overall group momentum.
Cui Dongshu, a senior official at the China Automobile Dealers Association's passenger vehicle division, said the market is in a bottoming-and-recovery phase in August. He added that as consumption-support policies take effect and year-ago comparisons become more favorable, the pace of year-on-year declines in passenger vehicle sales should narrow steadily, with the industry entering a value-driven, structurally optimizing phase of development ahead of the traditionally strong September–October selling season.
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