(Yicai Global) Sept. 15 -- Shares in Li Auto continued their downward trajectory today, after reaching a historic peak at the end of June, as the president of the Chinese electric car startup reduced his shareholdings again this month, raising eyebrows among investors.

Li Auto’s share price [HKG:2015] was trading down 2.4 percent at HKD103.50 (USD13) as of 11.40 a.m. China time today. The stock has lost 37 percent in value since it hit an all-time high of HKD165.30 in late June.

Shen Yanan sold a total of one million shares in two attempts early this month, pocketing USD13.2 million and diluting his stake in the Beijing-based startup to 1.68 percent from 1.74 percent, according to the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing website.

And in December last year he offloaded two million shares a number of times, earning more than CNY200 million (USD28.7 million), according to public data. Shen has bagged around CNY300 million (USD43 million) through company share sales in the past nine months.

Investors will be concerned that Shen knows something that they don’t. Sales have slumped since the first quarter, and with it, its stock price. The firm’s shipments more than halved in August from both a year and a month earlier to 4,571 units, according to its August sales data released earlier this month. This is less than rivals Nio and Xpeng Motors.

The advent of Li Auto’s latest model, the L8, was the main reason for the low sales of the firm’s flagship model, the Li One, last month, according to a recent report by Soochow Securities.

Li Auto is now preparing to discontinue the Li One and has slashed the price by CNY20,000 (USD2,871) to boost sales. This has incurred the ire of some buyers who are upset that the firm concealed the fact that it was going to stop making the Li One and reduce the price when they bought the vehicle.

Li Auto’s losses almost tripled in the second quarter from the same period last year to CNY640 million (USD91.8 million), according to its second-quarter financial report released last month. Revenue was up 73 percent year on year but down 8.9 percent quarter on quarter to CNY8.5 billion (USD1.2 billion).

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor