Research on Supply Chain Financial Risks of New Energy Vehicle Enterprises: A Case Study of NIO Inc.

Abstract

Against the critical cycle of global electrification transformation in the automotive industry, supply chain finance has become a core tool to alleviate the financing difficulties of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the upstream and downstream of the new energy vehicle (NEV) industrial chain and ensure supply chain stability. The level of financing constraints of core enterprises directly determines the credit boundary and risk level of the supply chain financial system. This paper takes NIO Inc. as the core research sample, selects the panel data of NIO and BYD from 2017 to 2024, uses the KZ Index as the core indicator to measure the intensity of corporate financing constraints, and conducts empirical research in strict accordance with the norms of empirical papers through three core dimensions: benchmark time series analysis, horizontal benchmarking analysis, and policy effect analysis. It focuses on verifying the correlation between financing constraints and supply chain credit risk, the risk differences of different supply chain structures, and the differentiated impacts of local government industrial policies. The study finds that the KZ Index can accurately depict the financing constraint intensity of NEV manufacturers, and its fluctuation is highly positively correlated with NIO’s supply chain credit risk events. NIO’s highly externalized supply chain structure and supply chain finance model anchored by the credit of a single core enterprise make its supply chain system far more sensitive to fluctuations in financing constraints than the vertically integrated BYD. The short-term blood-transfusion-style policy of the Hefei government for NIO can only mitigate risks periodically, while the long-term industrial cultivation policy of the Shenzhen government for BYD can fundamentally alleviate corporate financing constraints and improve supply chain stability. This study enriches the quantitative research results on supply chain financial risks of NEVs, and also provides empirical support for risk prevention and control of industrial chain entities and the formulation of local government industrial policies.