Saying that shares of automaker Nio (NYSE: NIO) have been volatile would be an understatement. Since going public in 2018, shares rose as much as 850% as recently as 2021, only to give back all of those gains. As of this writing, shares are down 11% since Nio’s IPO.
Is it possible that Nio could surge tenfold from here? Let’s see how it could happen and whether the company can get there.
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The foundation
Nio’s market capitalization currently sits around $14 billion, down from more than $90 billion during the 2021 EV boom. For the stock to realistically deliver a 10X return from current levels, the company’s market cap would likely need to grow to well above $120 billion.
Now, it should be noted that Nio’s business today is actually much larger than it was near its peak valuation. In 2025, the company delivered a record 326,028 vehicles, up 47% year over year, while revenue climbed 33.1% to $12.5 billion.
In Q4, 2025, Nio also reported its first-ever quarterly net profit, generating $40.4 million, while gross margin improved to 17.5% from 11.7% a year earlier.
That’s the foundation for this extremely bullish thesis.
Scale, scale, scale
For Nio stock to realistically become a 10-bagger from today, several very specific things would need to happen.
First, deliveries likely need to grow to between 2 million and 3 million annually. Automakers that sustain market caps above $100 billion generally operate at an enormous scale.
In 2025:
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BYD delivered roughly 4.6 million vehicles. Its market cap sits at $116 billion.
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Tesla delivered about 1.64 million vehicles. Its market cap sits at $1.6 trillion.
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Toyota delivered roughly 10.3 million vehicles. Its market cap sits at $222 billion.
It’s that kind of scale that Nio needs to hit.
Margins matter
Second, margins would need to continue expanding significantly. Today, Nio’s gross margin sits around 17.5%. If Nio can eventually sustain automotive margins above 20% while controlling operating expenses, annual earnings could increase dramatically, thereby reasonably justifying valuations above $100 billion.
But getting there requires survival first.
That’s critical because Nio remains one of the most capital-intensive electric car stocks in the world, largely because of its aggressive spending on battery-swapping infrastructure, R&D, and global expansion efforts. It’s also competing inside China’s brutal EV market, where price wars continue to impede margin expansion.
