Niu Electric CEO: No plans to build cars for now, annual production is expected to increase to 2 million

The CEO of electric scooter maker Niu Electric reportedly said recently that the company has no plans to build cars for the time being. He said: "We are focused on urban travel."

Li Yan said his company plans to expand its sales network in smaller cities in China and accelerate the pace of opening retail stores. Currently, Niu Electric mainly produces two-wheeled electric vehicles in Changzhou. He also said that the company is also expanding its production capacity and is expected to double its annual output to 2 million vehicles starting in the second half of this year.

Li Yan pointed out that last year, Niu Electric sold a total of 600,892 two-wheeled electric vehicles worldwide, an increase of 43% over 2019. The Chinese market contributed 95% of sales, and most of the sales came from the top 20-30 cities in China.

He also revealed that the company is in talks with Southeast Asian ride-sharing company Gojek for the supply of NIU electric scooters to increase NIU's market share in the region.

Li Yan said: "We certainly hope to gain share in the global market. But this depends on the further reduction of battery cell costs, and expanding the market size of electric scooters will help reduce battery cell costs." Gojek declined to comment on this.

Niu's electric scooters and motorcycles use lithium-ion batteries, and the company, which gets 95 percent of its sales from China, has provided some scooters to Gojek for testing, said Li Yan, chief executive of the company.

Currently, the largest players in the Southeast Asian two-wheeler market are Honda and Yamaha.

It is reported that Niu Electric's battery suppliers include Panasonic, Samsung SDI, LG Chem and Yiwei Lithium Energy. The company currently has 1,600 retail stores in China selling Niu electric scooters. The company has more than 100 retail stores overseas and over 1,000 dealers.