If there were a word to describe Nio (NYSE:NIO) and NIO stock it would have to be “resilient.”

In early October, I suggested seven stocks under $10 that you shouldn’t buy. Nio was one of them. Since then, it’s up more than 15%.

At the time of my article in early October, I held out little hope for the electric vehicle company, that some are calling the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) of China.

“Nio wants to deliver a Tesla-like vehicle at a lower cost,” I wrote Oct. 3. “However, if experience making cars is important to you, you’ll want to avoid its stock.”

If you’ve followed the progress of Tesla over the past five years, I’m not sure why you’d want to invest in Nio.

The payoff for investors will take years, not months, if at all. With most of the big carmakers getting into electric vehicles, the competition is only going to intensify, something Tesla is more than prepared to face.

“Tesla has already demonstrated its ability to outcompete incumbents and their internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles despite a higher price, as consumers are willing to pay a premium for a better product and not just a different powertrain technology,” said Berenberg Bank analyst Alexander Haissl in October.

Tesla produced a profit in Q3 2018 of $2.90 a share — $1.84 a share or $314 million if you exclude $1.06 per share in regulatory credits — and it expects to do the same in the final quarter of 2018. This newfound profitability, which Tesla predicted, combined with the fact that Elon Musk’s vision appears to be gaining traction finally, and you have the makings of an excellent growth story.

Nio, by comparison, has barely stepped off the curb.

The Case Against Nio Stock

Nothing against the people behind Nio, but they don’t have Elon Musk’s visionary chops, and they certainly don’t have some of America’s bestselling vehicles, electric or otherwise.

Regardless of Nio’s potential, InvestorPlace’s Vince Martin believes that the current market’s resistance to risk is no place for investors to be rolling the dice on the next great automotive/tech company.

“This is a market that clearly is running from risk. Whether it’s trade war concerns, rising interest rates, or just profit-taking, equity investors are fleeing risk,” Martin wrote in mid-October.

“There are few stocks more risky than a Chinese auto company valued at roughly 1,000x revenue. I’m not terribly interested in the NIO stock story, but more aggressive investors might be.”

Vince is right about Nio. Only the most speculative investors should consider owning its stock in 2018.

Beyond 2018

My InvestorPlace colleague, Josh Enomoto, recently made an excellent point about Nio’s lack of brand recognition outside China and the time it could take to gain the trust of consumers.

“The most-worrisome headwind is time. The automaker simply hasn’t put in the time to become a renowned brand outside of China. This could take a lot longer than investors may realize,” Josh wrote Nov. 14.

“For example, American drivers today are familiar with Asian car manufacturers like Hyundai or Kia. But it took decades of trial and error and experimenting with customer incentives before these companies became household names.”

Tesla had an advantage.

It had Elon Musk. A name already familiar to investors because of his time spent at Paypal (NASDAQ:PYPL). However, even with that, Musk’s spent 14 years working on Tesla; it’s not exactly an overnight success.

Nio might have excellent technology, and its stock has been incredibly resilient in a very tough market, but I fail to see how it will survive 14 years of pain as Tesla has.

As stocks go, NIO stock is not worth your time.

As of this writing, Will Ashworth did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.