NIO Earnings Preview May 21, April Delivery Breakdown, The Chip Race & 3.8% Inflation | May 12

Four stories today — all connected to your NIO position.NIO reports Q1 2026 earnings on May 21st before US marketsopen. Three things to watch on the call: whether revenuegrowth outpaced delivery growth as management guided,whether gross margin held above 17.5% from Q4 2025,and what William Li says about ES9 and L80 demand momentum.April delivery breakdown: the ES8 delivered 13,020 units —44% of NIO's entire monthly volume. The 5566 lineup(ET5, ET5 Touring, ES6, EC6) is under significant pressurewith meaningful year-over-year declines across every model.In Q1 the ES8 accounted for over 77% of NIO-brand deliveries.That's a company running on one engine. The ES9 and L80are engines two and three — both launching in the next 15 days.Every major automaker now wants chip independence.Volkswagen announced it's developing its own automotiveSystem-on-Chip in China for Level 3 autonomous driving.VW is already using Xpeng's Turing chip in its firstall-electric China SUV — the ID. UNYX 08 — which justentered production with deliveries starting by end of June.Reports from the Chinese internet suggest NIO is planningto sell its Shenji NX9031 chip to other manufacturersafter spinning off the chip business. The Apple siliconplaybook applied to automotive.April CPI dropped today at 3.8% year over year — thehighest since May 2023. Gasoline up 28.4% annually.Beef up 14.8%. Airline fares up 20.7%. Real wages fell.Bank of America now forecasts no Fed rate cuts untilthe second half of 2027. Traders are pricing a 30%chance of an actual rate hike by year end.The macro headwind is real. It's Iran-driven.It resolves when Hormuz resolves. Until then —watch oil, not the Dow.Also — missed yesterday. Writing a book. More soon.🔐 Nord Security:- NordVPN: https://go.nordvpn.net/aff_c?offer_id=15&aff_id=143053&url_id=902- NordPass: https://go.nordpass.io/aff_c?offer_id=488&aff_id=143053&url_id=9356💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/GSbp4wRCourtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.