Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) have made long-term investors a fortune. I hear CEO Elon Musk has also made a few quid along the way.

However, given that the electric vehicle pioneer is currently valued at over $1 trillion, I think it’s safe and sound to assume that Tesla’s profits will be much less dramatic in the future. Investors have likely missed the battery boat when it comes to life-changing returns.

But about what? NIO (NYSE:NIO)? The company is called the “Tesla of China” due to its similarities in the premium electric vehicle segment. In New York, it has a much smaller market capitalization of $15 billion and just announced its first-ever quarterly profit.

Can this one emulate Tesla’s incredible money-making success?

Similarities

NIO stock, which is up about 110% in the last year, has already delivered solid gains for some savvy investors. But it’s still down 83% over five years, while Tesla is up about 55% (both in US dollars).

Looking at NIO, I see some similarities to Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company. First, both are very groundbreaking, with NIO building its own battery swapping stations. There, customers with a subscription can replace the battery with a novel one in just three minutes on average.

In February, NIO reached the milestone of 100 million battery replacements. According to the company, this saved users a total of 83.41 million hours, an average of over 88 hours per user, compared to conventional EV charging.

Currently, there are 3,790 NIO battery replacement stations worldwide, about one-third of which are located on major highways in China.

Interestingly, the company is opening up its network to other electric vehicle companies, which reminds me a bit of Tesla opening up its superchargers to rivals. Both were built to solve the problem of range anxiety (still a barrier to wider adoption of electric vehicles).

Meanwhile, NIO finally turned a profit after years of losses (just like Tesla). In the fourth quarter, the company reported a net profit of RMB 282.7 million (approximately USD 40 million), a significant improvement compared to the previous year. Revenues increased by 75.9%, driven by novel and refreshed models.

Finally, NIO is committed to artificial intelligence, and its vehicles have a physical AI companion (NOMI) on the dashboard. Of course, Tesla is versatile when it comes to this technology (robotics, humanoid robots, and so on).

Differences

That said, I think AI gets to the heart of the difference between NIO and Tesla. The latter has always been appreciated for being more than just a manufacturer of electric vehicles, especially today as it moves closer to mass production of robots and robots.

Plus, while Musk was still seeing these projects, Tesla had most of the electric vehicle market to itself. There was much less competition and its international development, including in China, was largely unimpeded.

NIO, in turn, is likely to face significant trade barriers in the US and Europe in the future. And it will likely always be valued as an electric vehicle maker, rather than transcending that category as Tesla is.

Another key difference is the discount that investors give to Chinese stocks due to geopolitical risk. At any time, Beijing can change the rules of the game, causing investors to flee.

As such, I don’t see NIO as the next Tesla. The stock could still do well, especially if NIO continues to gain.

But none of them are on my shopping list today. I see better growth stocks elsewhere in my portfolio.