Gasgoo Munich- On April 11, NIO founder, Chairman, and CEO William Li Bin, speaking at the Intelligent Electric Vehicle Development Forum 2026, said the company has already saved a significant amount of money when viewed through the lens of internal management reports.
NIO relied on NVIDIA chips in previous years, hitting a peak spend of $300 million annually.
Image source: Gasgoo
While developing in-house intelligent driving chips demands heavy R&D investment, it certainly costs less than buying them. Had NIO continued to rely on external suppliers, procurement would have become a massive expense given the company's 40% to 50% annual sales growth.
From that perspective, in-house chips are essentially trading R&D spend for lower costs — a move that pays off in gross margin. While the initial investment is steep, the economics already work out with usage in the hundreds of thousands this year alone.
