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Nio shares have fallen to $4.38, down 93% from the stock's all-time high, heading into an earnings report on September 1 that investors are watching as a potential turning point for the struggling Chinese electric vehicle maker.
The stock bottomed at $3.14 per share in early 2025. After Nio posted a quarterly net profit for the first time in its history, shares jumped to $6.87 in April. They have since pulled back. The upcoming report will show whether that profit was a one-time event or the start of a trend.
According to a report by Yahoo Finance's Motley Fool, Nio has built a business model that differs from nearly every other EV company in the world. Rather than selling vehicles with the battery included in the purchase price, Nio offers buyers the option to subscribe to a Battery-as-a-Service plan and pay a monthly fee instead.
That fee gives drivers access to Nio's network of battery swap stations. At those stations, a driver pulls in and exchanges a depleted battery pack for a fully charged one. The process takes only a few minutes, which is comparable to the time it takes to fill a gas tank at a conventional station.
That speed matters. Battery-powered electric vehicles, even when using high-powered DC fast-charging stations, still require 20 to 60 minutes to reach a full charge. That gap in convenience has been one of the biggest obstacles to wider EV adoption.
The Battery-as-a-Service approach also lets Nio advertise a lower sticker price for its vehicles, since the battery, often one of the most expensive components in an EV, is not included in the upfront cost. The company collects recurring monthly revenue from the subscription instead.
The tradeoff is infrastructure. For the battery swap network to work, Nio has to build and maintain physical swap stations at scale. That requires significant capital before the revenue from subscriptions can offset the costs.
That infrastructure burden has weighed on the company's financials for years, alongside a broader slowdown in EV demand in the United States, where companies like Ford and Honda have pulled back on EV production or canceled models outright. China's market has moved in the opposite direction, with government incentives and domestic competition pushing growth even as established American and European brands have lost ground.
Nio operates in that Chinese market, where it has been trying to reach profitability while expanding its swap network and developing new models. The first quarterly profit in the company's history was a milestone that sent shares surging earlier this year. The September 1 report will show investors whether that momentum has held through the most recent quarter.
The company has also been building out a second brand aimed at a lower price point, which could expand its potential customer base if production and delivery numbers hold up.
Investors will be looking at vehicle delivery figures, revenue from the battery subscription service, and whether the company can show a path toward consistent profitability rather than a single quarter in the black.
The earnings report is scheduled for September 1.
