Li Auto reaches 1,000 supercharging stations but will face challenges in meeting year-end target

Li Auto put its 1,000th supercharging station into operation today, but will face challenges in reaching its goal of more than 2,000 by the end of the year.

Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) reached the milestone of having 1,000 charging stations in China, but will face a big challenge to reach its year-end goal.

The carmaker’s 1,000th charging station went live today on Qomolangma — also known as Mount Everest, its highest-altitude charging station, the company announced today.

To date, Li Auto has charging stations in 175 cities across 31 provinces in China, offering 4,888 chargers.

Li Auto started building its own supercharging stations in the first half of 2023, opening the first seven supercharging stations for trial operation on April 20 last year.

In March this year, the company said it aimed to have more than 2,000 supercharging stations by the end of 2024.

That means to reach this year’s target, Li Auto needs to add 1,000 new supercharging stations in the next two months, or an average of 16 per day.

That seems like a challenging task, considering the company added an average of 2.4 supercharging stations per day in the first 10 months of this year.

In 2025, Li Auto expects to have more than 5,000 supercharging stations, covering 90 percent of main highway routes, and 90 percent of core urban areas in Tier 4 and more developed cities, the company said on March 8.

On an earnings call today, Li Auto management said it is targeting 4,000 supercharging stations by the end of 2025, scaling back from the 5,000 target previously mentioned.

Li Auto’s announcement of the targets came as it was seeking to boost sales of its first battery electric vehicle (BEV) model, the Li Mega MPV (multi-purpose vehicle).

The company launched the Li Mega on March 1, along with the 2,024 L-series extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) models.

However, sales of the Li Mega have subsequently fallen far short of expectations, and the company has also delayed the release of additional BEV models from the second half of 2024 to the first half of 2025.

A sufficient number of self-operated superchargers are necessary to sell all-electric SUVs at this stage, Li Auto management said in a May 20 earnings call.

The right time to bring Li Auto’s all-electric products to market would be when it has a similar number of self-operated superchargers as Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) China, the company said at the time.

Tesla announced on October 18 that it has more than 60,000 charging stations worldwide, with more than 2,000 stations in China offering 11,622 superchargers.

Li Auto reported third-quarter earnings that beat expectations earlier today, but fourth-quarter guidance appears to be disappointing.

The company’s management will hold an earnings call today at 8:00 pm Beijing time (8:00 am US Eastern time).

Li Auto beats Q3 revenue and net income estimates, but Q4 guidance appears to disappoint

Li Auto’s number of charging stations