Xiaomi just delivered over 50,000 vehicles in December 2025 - outselling NIO after being in the car business for less than two years. Meanwhile, NIO has been operating for over a decade and just hit 48,000 monthly deliveries. William Li called his own company "weak" despite delivering 326,000 cars in 2025, and when you look at what Xiaomi accomplished, you can see exactly why.

This is the consolidation phase Li Bin warned us about, and the execution gap between these companies is becoming impossible to ignore. Xiaomi went from zero to 410,000 annual deliveries in under two years with just TWO models. NIO's projecting 456,000 to 489,000 deliveries in 2026 - year twelve of operations. That's only a 10-19% difference between a startup car company and a decade-old premium EV maker.

The Chinese EV market data from December reveals the brutal reality of Phase 3. Of fifteen automakers that reported sales, only FIVE maintained both year-over-year and month-over-month growth. Average sales dropped to 94,000 units after two months above 100,000. The top tier - BYD, Geely, SAIC, Chery - all saw month-over-month declines.

But the third tier is where things get interesting. Companies like Huawei's HarmonyOS system, Xiaomi, NIO, and BAIC all hit record highs. HarmonyOS delivered 89,611 units. Xiaomi crossed 50,000. NIO hit 48,135. The third tier is raising the floor, and in Q4, not a single one of those automakers dropped below 30,000 monthly units.

This is exactly what William Li meant when he said the final stage is a long-distance race with 3-5 percentage point efficiency gaps at every link. If you're not improving faster than the market average, you're falling behind. And the market average is now 40,000+ deliveries per month just to stay relevant.

Here's what separates execution from vision. Xiaomi focused on two models, leveraged their existing supply chain and manufacturing expertise, priced aggressively, delivered on time, and scaled fast. NIO admitted they "got carried away doing too many miscellaneous things" in their second cycle. They overextended, lost focus, and burned cash trying to be everything: premium brand, mass market brand, battery swap infrastructure provider, chip developer, and robotics company.

Xiaomi said: we're going to make great electric cars. Everything else is secondary. That's the difference between execution and vision. Vision is what you WANT to do. Execution is what you ACTUALLY get done.

Now Xiaomi isn't perfect. They dealt with serious public relations crises in 2025 including traffic accidents, the SU7 Ultra horsepower controversy, and safety concerns. This is the risk of rapid scaling - every mistake gets amplified. But they're handling scrutiny while scaling faster than almost anyone in the industry.

NIO's Phase 3 strategy is betting everything on operational efficiency. Li Bin is promising 40-50% annual growth, adding 1,000+ battery swap stations in 2026, opening 210 multi-brand stores in lower-tier cities, and pushing Firefly into 40 countries. The strategy is sound, but can they execute at Xiaomi speed?

The profitability question looms large. Li Bin is still confident about Q4 2025 non-GAAP profitability, but he's been promising this all year. If NIO misses after a decade in business, that's a credibility hit they can't afford - especially when companies like Xiaomi are proving you can scale fast without burning cash for ten years first.

Li Bin predicts at least 10 Chinese automakers will survive long-term, with China selling 35 million cars annually within ten years. But NIO's at 326,000 deliveries and needs to 10X to hit that 3.5 million vision. Xiaomi's at 410,000 and needs to 8.5X. If both maintain current growth rates, Xiaomi reaches 3 million before NIO does.

This is make-or-break time for NIO. Not because they're going to die - they have resources to survive. But the gap between surviving and thriving is getting wider, and right now Xiaomi's in the thriving category