How Chinese EV brands turn customer relationships into orders: Li Auto, NIO and AITO

Core assessment

The most useful lesson Chinese EV challengers offer established luxury brands is how they connect trust, product experience and the sales organisation. Customers develop reasons to buy before visiting, test the differences that matter in the showroom, and receive continuing help with outstanding purchase decisions. Digital tools preserve needs, coordinate resources and track outcomes. Advisers interpret those needs, explain trade-offs and build trust.

The three companies emphasise different capabilities. Li Auto describes headquarters support for lead generation, tools and sales policies. NIO combines dedicated advisers with owner relationships, allowing existing users to help build prospective customers’ confidence. AITO-related channel practices illustrate how training and demonstrations can make complex technology understandable.

Independent evidence supports examining these approaches. In J.D. Power’s 2026 China Purchase Experience Index, NIO scored 827, leading the premium and domestic NEV segments; Li Auto scored 816, leading the mass-market NEV segment. NEV advantages concentrated on showroom product experience, test drives and follow-up. The study covered 9,093 vehicle owners and assessed purchase experience, rather than conversion across all prospects.^[1]

Competition starts before the showroom visit

A premium-car purchase involves confidence in the brand and its fit with the buyer’s life and identity. Established marques have accumulated recognition over decades. New brands must build trust through additional routes.

NIO’s owner relationships provide one route. Its 2024 ESG disclosure reported 2,253 active user clubs nationwide at year-end, covering more than 660,000 NIO users.^[2] Communities create opportunities to hear about ownership directly. For prospects concerned about charging, service and running costs, an acquaintance’s specific experience can answer questions advertising struggles to address.

The commercial mechanism is a change in lead quality. An advertising lead may contain only a model preference and budget. A referred prospect may already understand battery swapping, service responsiveness and daily costs, arriving with more specific questions. Advisers can spend less time introducing the brand and more time resolving vehicle choice, household use and purchase terms.

Established luxury brands also have substantial owner bases. To use them effectively, retailers need to record referral relationships, when a prospect accepted the introduction and who owns the follow-up. Asking who made the introduction only at purchase leaves little opportunity to support the journey or identify which owner activities generate useful opportunities.

With appropriate permission, digital records should retain referral sources and customer needs. Progress shared with the referrer must respect the prospect’s wishes, and rewards should be transparent. Activity costs, adviser time and incentives belong in the acquisition calculation, measured against the same order and delivery definitions as paid advertising.

Li Auto: headquarters builds the conditions for selling

Management’s explanation during Li Auto’s second-quarter 2025 earnings call is more informative than the title “product expert.” The company described a marketing department to increase online leads, changes to site selection to improve offline traffic, sales-policy authority for regular selling periods, training materials and tools, and separate professional and management career paths.^[3]

These arrangements address a practical constraint: advisers need organisational support. Communication skills alone cannot compensate for poor leads, unavailable vehicles, unclear policies or delayed approvals. Headquarters should solve recurring problems centrally, preserving advisers’ time for customers.

For luxury franchises, the important comparison is the interface between manufacturer and retailer. Does a lead arrive with the customer’s actual concerns? Can training explain meaningful differences against competing vehicles? Is there an accountable person to resolve an entitlement or delivery issue? These interfaces determine whether digital investment improves daily selling work.

Li Auto has also adjusted incentives and responsibilities. In June 2024, Jiemian reported company confirmation that headquarters retail and delivery functions were being combined. A salesperson described differences in their earlier performance measures, with retail credit tied to locked orders.^[4] Customer responsibility must therefore continue beyond the order. Advisers should be able to see delivery status, changes and exceptions so customers do not have to find a new contact after paying.

The implication is to design digital projects around advisers’ work. Measure reduced waiting and duplicate entry, and problems resolved. An additional headquarters dashboard that requires another store form may consume rather than release selling time.

Test drives should help customers make a decision

Many electric-vehicle capabilities are difficult to understand from specifications. Family accommodation, cockpit interaction and driver assistance need to be experienced. Advisers must connect customer needs to product behaviour that can be demonstrated.

A September 2025 investigation by 21 Auto into Huawei’s automotive channels described common requirements for feature explanations and test-drive processes.^[5] This provides a historical example of turning product presentation into work that can be trained, checked and repeated; it does not establish identical current practice at every AITO outlet.

Standardisation should cover accurate explanations, preparation and safety boundaries, with emphasis adapted to the customer. Parking demonstrations may matter more than computing specifications to a buyer worried about manoeuvring. Families travelling together need to assess access, space and passenger comfort. These are recommended experience designs, not verified universal brand scripts.

Digital preparation can improve reliability. AITO’s official privacy statement lists test-drive records including the store, adviser, vehicle, duration and distance.^[6] Useful operational additions would identify what the customer wanted to verify, what was experienced and what questions remained. The public statement does not establish that these additional items already form part of uniform sales management.

Bookings should also connect to vehicles, routes and adviser schedules. A customer expecting a particular specification but receiving a different version creates avoidable explanation work. Driver-assistance demonstrations must respect operating conditions and clearly explain driver responsibility and limitations. Exaggerated promises can become complaints after delivery.

Luxury-brand training should develop the ability to organise an experience as well as recall features. Manufacturers can supply demonstration methods, relevant situations and common questions; retailers can choose the combination for each customer. This preserves accuracy without requiring a recital of every specification.

NIO: release time for real purchase opportunities

Customer relationships require time, including the discipline to stop ineffective work. Reporting in March 2025 described NIO sales changes: frontline staff said call-volume and test-drive-volume assessments had been removed, while a Fellow communication channel allowed management to respond directly to field issues. One reported case concerned resolving a customer’s request about the transition between monthly offers.^[7]

Calls and test drives are easy to count, but additional activity may not resolve hesitation. Excessive volume targets consume time that could address genuine purchase barriers. Managers need visibility into what holds back important opportunities and access to people authorised to resolve those issues.

Digital tools should help prioritise that work. A customer requesting a trade-in proposal, delivery confirmation or another family visit needs different action. Advisers should record the next step and agreed timing. Store managers should review stalled opportunities to distinguish a postponed purchase, a product mismatch and slow internal response.

AI can help organise appropriately authorised conversation records, extract tasks, identify recurring questions and retrieve approved product information. These are recommended capabilities; public evidence does not establish equivalent deployment at all three companies. Prices, entitlements, specifications and feature boundaries must come from controlled information, with advisers checking before communicating.

A useful follow-up brings new information: a trade-in assessment is ready, the requested vehicle has arrived, or an earlier question has a reliable answer. Customers have a reason to continue the conversation when the contact helps them make progress.

Which interfaces luxury brands should redesign

BMW’s 2020 cooperation announcement with Alibaba already described connected dealer participation, omnichannel marketing and customer-lifecycle management.^[8] FAW Audi’s website explains that test-drive information is shared with the customer’s chosen dealer, which arranges the contact and appointment.^[9] The digital foundations exist. Execution and shared accountability deserve attention.

Start with three interfaces. First, manufacturer-to-dealer leads should include known needs and previous communication, not merely a name and number. Second, booking, vehicle preparation, test drives and follow-up should sit in one customer record, with explicit responsibility at handover. Third, issues beyond advisers’ authority should reach an empowered owner, with resolution times recorded.

Retailer incentives must support this work. If manufacturers expect long-term relationship management but reward short-term purchasing or isolated activities, stores will prioritise tasks with clearer payment. A recommended approach is to link part of support to effective retail outcomes, delivery quality and customer-issue resolution while preserving viable dealer economics.

The transferable strength of these challengers is their willingness to organise work around customer decisions. Li Auto offers a case in frontline support, NIO in balancing continuing relationships with selling efficiency, and AITO-related channels in organised technology demonstration. Luxury brands already have substantial customers and retail assets. The priority is to make them work together: advisers remember the concern, stores prepare the means to test it, and the company resolves obstacles promptly. Digital returns should be measured against that operating chain.