_________________6.thumb_head

Photo/NBD

Dec. 3 (NBD) -- Electric carmaker NIO Inc. (NYSE: NIO) announced Thursday that Padmasree Warrior, chief development officer of NIO and chief executive officer of NIO USA, has decided to resign from her roles for personal interests after three years at the helm, which will be effective from December 17, 2018. 

The successor of Warrior's position has yet to be announced.

NIO's prospectus indicated Warrior held 1.4 percent stakes in the company. The U.S. chief's resignation marks the first major management departure since NIO's IPO in September this year.

In fact, this is not the only thing that bothered the electric car vendor recently.

Issues related to auto quality have become a severe problem for the new public electric carmaker.

Report said on Friday that NIO ES8 still has system defects. For example, the in-car artificial intelligence system Nomi is occasionally disconnected.

These system defects further led to functional flaws related to door handles, rear-view mirrors, air suspension systems, individual driving modes and radios, the report added.

A NIO ES8 owner recently asked for returning the car, denouncing that it took two months for repair scratches and Nomi was automatically started in the midnight.

With regard to the issue, NIO responded the problem was quickly solved and the car owner had driven the car back.

Apart from head resignation and auto quality scandal, the company also suffered whopping deficits in its financial results.

According to the financial report for the third quarter of 2018 released by NIO on November 6, the revenue for the third quarter stood at 1.47 billion yuan (211.7 million U.S. dollars), an increase of 3,095.3 percent from the second quarter this year. 

But the net loss for the third quarter reached 2.81 billion yuan (404.7 million U.S. dollars), representing an increase of 56.6 percent over the second quarter this year.

An organization pointed out NIO aims to occupy the market by setting low prices which caused the increase in the loss. 

A research report released by the Deutsche Bank also showed the price-performance ratio of NIO's ES8 and ES6 was not at a normal level.

NIO's chairman and CEO William Li hoped more attention will be paid to the company's investment in research and development rather than the loss. 

According to Li, the market will see tremendous changes in the vehicles in the following 5-10 years and automatic driving, artificial intelligence, 5G and other technologies will deeply transform the structure and supply chain of vehicles. The investment will finally pay off, he added.

 

Email: wenqiao@nbd.com.cn

Editor: Wen Qiao