Li Auto Slips Into Reverse: September Deliveries Down 6.29% to 31,817

Li Auto’s September numbers landed on Thursday, and they mark a return to negative territory. The Chinese automaker handed over 31,817 vehicles last month, a 6.29% drop compared with September of last year and a 15.56% sequential slide from August’s 37,679 units. That August figure had snapped a three-month losing streak with a 32.07% year-on-year gain, but the momentum clearly didn’t survive into the fall. Cumulative deliveries since the brand’s inception now sit at 1,833,651 as of September 30.

The quarterly picture is rosier than the monthly one. Li Auto moved 99,964 vehicles in the third quarter, a 7.24% improvement year-on-year and 1.66% better than the second quarter. Over the first nine months, however, the total of 293,436 units represents a 1.25% decline from the same period a year ago, a gap that has widened from the 0.60% shortfall recorded through August.

Product activity stayed busy even as volumes softened. The new Li L6, an extended-range SUV that received a generational overhaul in July, cleared the 10,000-unit mark in September. The company expanded its battery-electric side with two September launches: the Li Mega Home MPV, an electric people-mover that arrived September 2 at 509,800 yuan (roughly $75,690) — 50,000 yuan below the earlier Home variant — and the Li i9 Home, a flagship electric SUV introduced September 16 at 369,800 yuan. Li Auto also pushed its Mach VLA 2.0 driver-assistance suite over the air to nearly a million AD Max vehicles running Orin-X and Thor chips.

Looking ahead, the refreshed Li i6 five-seat electric SUV is set to debut in late October, with deliveries still targeted for early November. The updated model will carry an in-house 5C battery and the company’s own Mach driver-assistance chip; Li Auto says the revised timing is meant to narrow the gap between ordering and taking delivery. October also brings the brand’s European premiere at the Paris Motor Show, where the i6 will be marketed as the Li 6, with sales planned for the fourth quarter. Target markets and pricing remain under wraps. As of September 30, Li Auto counted 485 retail stores across 160 cities, 532 service centers and authorized shops in 217 cities, and 4,188 supercharging stations totaling 23,077 stalls in China.