File photo/Zhang Jian (NBD)

May 6 (NBD) -- Chinese electric car manufacturer NIO (Nasdaq: NIO) released on Sunday an announcement, denying the rumors about major job cuts and fraudulent sales volume. 

In March this year, a person who claimed to be a former employee of NIO revealed on the famous question-and-answer website Zhihu that the automaker made up the car sales for last year by selling most of the vehicles to its staff.

According to the person, NIO launched a preferential purchasing plan for employees under which they can buy a NIO ES8 for 460,000 yuan (68,306 U.S. dollars) and get a refund of 540,000 yuan for the car in the coming three years.

Besides, the company was said to have started a big round of layoffs starting from February 25, according to an anonymous user on Zhihu. The job cuts affected employees in the vehicle testing segment and in plants, automotive R&D engineers, and testing and R&D personnel for the battery, motor as well as electric control technology, revealed the user.

NIO's automobile factory in Nanjing eliminated more than 100 positions, another person noted on the website.

In response to reports about the layoffs, NIO posted the first statement on March 22 saying that all the information published by those users was total fabrication.

The statement emphasized as of the end of this February, 13,964 NIO ES8 cars had been delivered, and only 2 percent of the total are bought by its employees. NIO was optimizing the personnel structure and welcomes new talents, the company added.

National Business Daily noticed that the rumors broke out as the Shanghai-based start-up reported a widened deficit for 2018.

The latest financial earnings released this March showed NIO generated 4.95 billion yuan in revenue last year, with net loss soaring by 92 percent year over year to reach 9.64 billion yuan.

The firm's financial performance could worsen due to the decreasing car deliveries. In the first quarter of 2019, 3,989 NIO ES8 vehicles were delivered, only half of 7,980 for the fourth quarter of 2018.

It is worth noting that NIO was recently caught in trouble by a car burning incident.

On April 22, a NIO ES8 SUV that was undergoing repair in an authorized service center in northwest China's Xi'an, caught fire and was seriously damaged by the flame.

NIO issued a statement on April 30 explaining that the incident resulted from a short circuit after the car's battery pack was struck in chassis impacts.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn