Chinese electric vehicle stocks jump while Tesla sits idle for the day (NASDAQ:LI)

Chinese electric vehicle stocks ripped gains on Thursday to extend, in some cases, on a strong rally on Wednesday.

Investors may be warming up again on the Chinese EV sector due to April deliveries reports that came in slightly ahead of expectations. Some of the highlights included BYD Company (OTCPK:BYDDF) reporting a 49% year-over-year increase in April wholesale volume and Nio (NYSE:NIO) reporting a 135% year-over-year jump in deliveries. Leapmotor also outperformed during the month, and Xiaomi (OTCPK:XIACF) pointed to robust demand and 88K non-refundable orders since the SU7 launch. Bloomberg Intelligence also noted that China’s push to boost consumer spending could signal more stimulus to promote new-energy vehicles.

Lotus Technology (LOT) was up 19.75% at 11:20 a.m. XPeng (NYSE:XPEV) showed a 9.01% rise, and Li Auto (NASDAQ:LI) rallied 7.78%. Nio (NIO) added 2.95% after a double-digit jump on Wednesday. BYD Company (OTCPK:BYDDF) pushed 4.78% higher as it also extended on Wednesday’s gain.

There has also been a bit of cooling off with analysts on the implications of Tesla’s (TSLA) mapping deal with Baidu (BIDU) and Elon Musk’s headline-popping trip to Beijing. The general consensus is that the Chinese EV makers are not necessarily falling far behind in the autonomous driving battle, and still have the home nation advantage. Tesla (TSLA) trickled 0.25% lower on Thursday and was swapping hands back below the $180 level.