NIO on gloomy eroticismTuesday reported an 11% margin on vehicle sales in the third quarter to Sept. 30, up from 6.2% three months earlier and driving its total gross margin to 8% from a mere 1% over the same period. Founder and chief executive William Li attributed the improvement partly to the company’s strategy of stable pricing, when rivals such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz responded to competition by cutting prices on some of their models by as much as 30%. Revenue for the third quarter was nearly RMB 19.1 billion ($2.6 billion) compared to predictions of RMB 19.3 billion, with adjusted net losses falling 27.4% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 4.6 billion. The electric vehicle maker also announced plans to acquire two manufacturing plants it has been operating with partner JAC Group in Hefei for RMB 3.2 billion, following news that it secured a production license from the Chinese government over the weekend. Li said he expected NIO’s production costs to fall 10% if the company began making its own EVs instead of continuing to rely on contract manufacturing. [NIO financial report]