Chinese electric vehicle (EV) companies Nio and Li Auto had a fantastic run in the stock market during the last week of February. But, surprisingly, this upward trend took a sharp turn downwards on March 3.

Let’s look at the numbers: Nio (NYSE: NIO) stocks jumped by 12.18% from $4.27 on February 25th to $4.79 by February 27th. Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) saw an even bigger leap of 24.89%, climbing from $26.36 on February 24th to $32.92 by February 26th. However, this celebratory mood was short-lived as both stocks took a tumble on Monday morning, with Nio dropping 4.32% and Li Auto plummeting 9.73%.

What’s behind this sudden market shift? It seems the stock market reaction might be an overreaction to the delivery reports that both companies released at the start of March.

Li and NIO Stocks Take a Dive… Despite Delivery Growth?

Let’s dig into those delivery numbers. Li Auto announced they delivered 26,263 vehicles in February. While this might seem modest compared to industry giants like Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and BYD, it’s actually a solid 29.7% increase compared to February last year!

Nio also shared their February numbers, reporting 13,192 deliveries. While less than Li Auto, this figure actually represents an even more impressive jump of 62.2% year-over-year growth!

Post-Filing Jitters? Why EV Maker Shares Might Be Shaking

It’s a bit of a puzzle trying to pinpoint exactly why these Chinese EV stocks corrected. However, a likely explanation is the growing trend of stock volatility triggered by earnings or delivery reports – regardless of whether the news is good or bad.

We saw a recent example of this with Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). They announced fantastic earnings in late February, but instead of celebrating, the stock faced a sell-off afterwards. This highlights just how unpredictable the market can be after these announcements.

Let’s consider some other factors that might be at play, perhaps from less obvious data points. For instance, Nio made headlines recently for registering just 12 cars in the Netherlands during February. This is similar to the buzz around Tesla selling only one EV in South Korea back in January 2025.

Around the same time, news coming out of China about self-driving technology painted a picture of ongoing challenges. Even with advanced systems like the one in the Li Auto L7, flawless performance seems to remain elusive.

However, it’s debatable whether these reports from China directly influenced the stock prices on American exchanges. Interestingly, Tesla’s ‘full self-driving’ system apparently didn’t fare too well in tests on Chinese roads compared to other models.