Li Auto Completes Strategic Shift for Fiscal Year 2025! Hundred Billion Cash Reserve Safeguards New Journey into Embodied Intelligence

On March 12, Li Auto released its Q4 and full-year 2025 financial reports. Amid increasing industry competition, the company achieved a total revenue of 112.3 billion yuan for the year, marking three consecutive years of over 100 billion yuan in revenue and three years of profitability.

In 2025, as Li Auto fully transitioned into an embodied intelligence enterprise, the company completed a comprehensive overhaul of its organization, R&D, and sales systems. In Q4, performance significantly improved quarter-over-quarter, with deliveries of 109,000 vehicles and revenue of 28.8 billion yuan, representing increases of 17.1% and 5.2%, respectively. At the same time, the company’s cash reserves reached 101.2 billion yuan; annual R&D investment hit a record high of 11.3 billion yuan, laying a solid foundation for the launch of new products in 2026 and the goal of 500,000 vehicle sales.

Li Auto CEO Li Xiang stated during the earnings call that 2026 will see the full realization of three years of technological accumulation, returning the company to a leading position in the industry.

Strategic Shift Shows Results

Operational Fundamentals Remain Steady

Financial data shows that in 2025, Li Auto delivered 406,300 new vehicles. Despite fluctuations influenced by market conditions, Q4 deliveries saw a substantial quarter-over-quarter increase, demonstrating strong recovery momentum. The proportion of pure electric models continued to rise, indicating the company’s entry into a new development cycle driven by both extended-range and pure electric vehicles. The full-year revenue of 112.3 billion yuan keeps Li Auto at the top tier among emerging automakers, while a net profit of 1.1 billion yuan during a period of strategic industry investment reflects robust profitability and confirms the company’s sound operational fundamentals.

On the sales front, Li Auto completed targeted capability upgrades in 2025, resolving operational bottlenecks under the direct sales model and building a more competitive sales system. By establishing a four-tier flat organizational structure—headquarters, regional offices, city managers, and store managers—decision-making efficiency greatly improved, and frontline employee satisfaction increased significantly. The company also innovated by introducing a partnership system for stores, making stores the basic operating units, with excellent store managers eligible for profit sharing, thereby fully stimulating terminal vitality. Additionally, Li Auto optimized its network layout by closing underperforming stores and opening new outlets in potential markets. President Ma Donghui explained that these adjustments are normal optimizations rather than blind closures, and the partnership system will make the direct sales model more dynamic. He expects noticeable improvements in sales and operations by the third quarter of this year.

By the end of 2025, Li Auto’s cash reserves reached 101.2 billion yuan, providing a strong financial cushion for future growth.

CFO Li Tie noted that ample cash flow enables Li Auto to seize opportunities in embodied intelligence, accelerate technological R&D, and expand into global markets, giving the company greater strategic resilience amid industry fluctuations. Currently, Li Auto has established 539 direct stores and over 4,000 self-operated supercharging stations, forming a solid offline presence to support growth in 2026.

Record R&D Investment and Technological Foundations

Embodied Intelligence Technology Fully Formed

In 2025, Li Auto’s R&D spending reached 11.3 billion yuan, a record high, with 50% allocated to AI-related projects. Over the past three years, total R&D investment has amounted to 33 billion yuan, averaging one billion yuan every three days, with a focus on breakthroughs in core embodied intelligence technologies.

In technology development, Li Auto adheres to a “focus on core” strategy, channeling resources into the vertical field of embodied intelligent vehicles, while exploring new businesses such as AI glasses and humanoid robots through a startup-like approach, achieving dual progress in core technology and new track exploration.

This accumulated effort has fully shaped Li Auto’s embodied intelligence technology base, with a self-developed full-stack technology barrier continuously strengthening. The self-developed chip Mach-100 is scheduled for mass production in Q2 2026. As China’s first automotive-grade chip based on a native data flow architecture, its effective computing power for running large VLA models is three times that of NVIDIA’s Thor-U. With two chips, the total computing power reaches five to six times higher, significantly enhancing the safety and smoothness of intelligent assisted driving. Meanwhile, Li Auto completed organizational restructuring in R&D, dividing teams by foundational models, software, and hardware, enabling coordinated design of chips and models, solving previous fragmentation issues. R&D iteration cycles for driving models have improved from once every two weeks to once daily, marking a qualitative leap in efficiency.

The launch of Li Auto’s AI glasses Livis in December 2025 marked the first validation of migrating AI technology from the base to consumer devices, demonstrating the cross-product reusability of Li Auto’s technological system.

On the vehicle side, Li Auto completed a major upgrade of the MEGA platform. The pure electric SUVs i8 and i6 have collectively received over 100,000 orders. After resolving battery supply bottlenecks, the i6’s monthly deliveries continued to rise, reaching 16,000 units during the Spring Festival in February 2026, with production capacity expected to increase to 20,000 units per month in March. The market recognition of the pure electric product lineup continues to grow.

2026 is expected to be a pivotal year for Li Auto to realize its technological achievements. Li Xiang explicitly stated during the earnings call that the all-new Li Auto L9, launching in Q2, will be the “pioneering embodied intelligence robot.” This vehicle features comprehensive technological reengineering from perception and decision-making to execution, equipped with industry-first 3DViT 3D spatial perception, a fully integrated chassis, and self-developed third-generation range extenders, evolving from “human-native driving” to “human-machine co-driving.” The top-tier Livis version will push the application of embodied intelligence technology to new heights.

Looking ahead to 2026, Li Xiang set a target of 500,000 vehicle sales, representing over 20% growth compared to 2025, with a “3+2” growth strategy. The three core focuses are sales system management, the refresh of the L series, and increasing pure electric models, supported by the realization of intelligent R&D results and expansion into overseas markets. Additionally, Li Auto plans to launch the flagship pure electric SUV i9 in the second half of the year to further enrich its product lineup. To address industry challenges such as component price increases, the company will share costs with suppliers and improve internal R&D efficiency. The dual-track reform of battery supply will also ensure stable production capacity.

The comprehensive transformation from traditional automaker to embodied intelligence enterprise has given Li Auto a first-mover advantage in this new arena. The 11.3 billion yuan in R&D investment, the 101.2 billion yuan cash reserve, and the upgraded operational capabilities form the core support for the company’s return to growth in 2026. With the launch of new products and full realization of technological achievements, Li Auto is embarking on a new chapter driven by its mission of “Proactively changing the world” in the era of embodied intelligence.