BEIJING — NioCNBC’s CEO William Li stated that the biggest problem right now is ensuring stable supply chains.

A rise in raw materials prices has forced the Chinese electric car manufacturer to raise its rates of charging customers.

When Covid controls in April prevented Nio’s from getting parts from suppliers, Production was temporarily suspended by the company.However, the company stated that it could restart production within a couple of days.

Still, Li described, on Thursday, the state of overall auto production in China as being in the recovery process, while Shanghai, and other parts, remain under Covid supervision.

On the sales front, Li said he expects consumer demand for electric cars to persist — even if the Chinese government reduces subsidies or other policy support for the sector.

Nio sold more than 5k cars in April, even though Covid restrictions were in place. However, this is still a significant increase on the nearly 1k vehicles delivered in March.

Passenger car sales fell by 35.5% year-on-year in April, but new energy vehicles — which include battery-powered electric cars — saw sales surge by 78.4%, according to the China Passenger Car Association.

Li is the founder of Nio and its chairman. He spoke to CNBC in an interview Emily TanPrior to the company’s secondary Singapore listing.

On Friday, Nio carried out a secondary listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange by way of introduction — which differs from an initial public offering as no new capital is raised and less paperwork is required. Instead, investors will be able to trade company shares on other exchanges than the main one.

Beginning March Nio also carried out a secondary listing in Hong KongIntroduction. New York Stock Exchange is the company’s primary and first listing place.

Although the auto executive didn’t elaborate on the reasons for choosing Singapore to be its third listing location, he said that Nio could still reach more investors through this route.

Li stated that Nio will export vehicles to Southeast Asia, and also open an artificial intelligence research and development centre in Singapore. However, he did not give any specific dates.

The company is currently focused much of its overseas expansion on Europe, primarily in Norway.

The NYSE remains the primary trading location for start-ups. This is where they held their initial public offering in 2018.

U.S.-listed shares of Nio have climbed by about 150% since that IPO — a volatile three-plus years that’s included several quarterly plunges and one full year in 2020 that saw a surge of over 1,100%.