Weilai Onvo will launch the L60 on September 19 in Hefei, Anhui Province, with the goal of delivering 20,000 vehicles within the year.。

NIO (NYSE: NIO) sub-brand Onvo will officially launch its first model L60 SUV (sport utility vehicle) on September 19, following the opening of the first stores on September 1.。

Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, said on yesterday's earnings call that Onvo will launch the L60 on September 19 and begin delivery in late September.。

Onvo also later shared the date on its social media accounts and said the launch would take place in Hefei, Anhui province, where two of NIO's current factories are located.。

The Onvo L60 debuted on May 15 and began accepting pre-orders with a pre-sale price of 219,900 yuan ($31,000) including batteries, which is 30,000 yuan lower than the current starting price of the Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) Model Y in China.。

Lee said on yesterday's earnings call that the model will be priced slightly lower at the time of its official launch than at the time of the pre-sale.。

Like the Weilai brand models, the L60 will also support power exchange, which is expected to achieve a lower threshold for buying only the body and renting the battery.。

Lee said the pre-sale order for the Onvo L60 exceeded expectations and, as has been the case in the past, did not disclose the specific number of orders.。

Lee said NIO is aiming to deliver 20,000 Onvo L60s this year and is working hard to prepare its supply chain for the delivery of 10,000 units in December.。

He said NIO hopes the Onvo L60 will reach a monthly delivery of 20,000 units sometime in 2025.。

Onvo is targeting a marker with annual sales of more than 8 million units and a high sales cap, Lee said, adding that a gross margin of 15 percent is a reasonable target for the sub-brand in the long run.。

The long-term goal of the Weilai main brand is 40,000 sales per month and a gross margin of 25%, Li said.。

In order to cope with the production of new models and maintain the production of existing models, NIO is increasing plant capacity。

The Weilai F2 plant has begun double-shift production and the F3 plant has begun construction, which will start production in the third quarter of next year.。

NIO currently has two vehicle plants in Hefei - F1 and F2, F1 will be fully operational in 2018 and F2 will be fully operational in September 2022。

On June 5, Weilai co-founder and president Qin Lihong revealed to local media that construction of Weilai's third plant in NeoPark, Hefei, had begun.。

The new plant, with a single shift capacity of 100,000 vehicles per year, will be available for products under the Nio brand and the Onvo brand, Qin said at the time.。

In terms of sales channels, Onvo opened its first 105 stores on September 1.。In a phone call yesterday, Lee said Onvo will have more than 200 stores in China by the end of this year.。

For the Onvo brand, Weilai seems to pay more attention to the efficiency of capital utilization.。

Weilai Chief Financial Officer Qu Stanley said in a conference call yesterday that Onvo's investment in single stores, including capital expenditures and rents, was significantly lower than that of the Weilai main brand。

Qu said that the first batch of Onvo stores that have opened will cost less than 1 million yuan per renovation on average, and the next 100 stores will have lower renovation costs.。

($1 = RMB 7.0931)