Episode #224: German Blues, BYD Booms, and Tesla’s $30K Mirage

Tu and Lei unpack a pivotal week in global EVs — where Germany’s giants stumble and China keeps charging ahead. 🇨🇳⚡️🇩🇪

Volkswagen’s BEV sales plunged 42 % in China, Mercedes and Porsche posted double-digit declines, and BMW trimmed profits as BYD surged abroad — up 880 % in the UK and 2,250 % in Germany. The hosts explore why legacy brands are losing momentum, how BYD’s rise is rewriting the cost game, and what the next-gen CLA, iX3 Neue Klasse, and MEB Plus platforms must prove in 2026.

They also hit:

🔋 China’s Golden Week charging surge (123 M kWh)

🚙 Tesla’s “de-contented” Model 3 & Y vs GM’s $29K Bolt 2027

⚙️ New Chinese energy-efficiency rules

🤖 Lyft × NVIDIA × TensorAuto’s “personal AVs”

🔬 Solid-state battery breakthroughs & CATL’s skateboard play

Insightful, fast-moving, and packed with data & industry-insider perspectives — all in under an hour. 

Your weekly download on the global EV power shift.  

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to the China EV Landscape

01:46 Challenges for German Automakers in China

08:13 Tesla vs. BYD: The EV Sales Race

10:30 Impact of Chinese EVs on Global Markets

13:53 Charging Infrastructure and Consumer Behavior

17:29 New Energy Efficiency Regulations in China

22:16 Tesla's Decontented Model 3 and Model Y Launch

24:25 Tesla's Market Dynamics in China

27:33 The Impact of New EV Models

29:41 Battery Technology Innovations

32:14 The Future of Autonomous Vehicles

34:34 Car Buying Adventures and Market Trends

36:31 Battery Swapping and Industry Insights

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Key words:

China EVs & More, Tu Le, Lei Xing, Sino Auto Insights, China EV news 2025, Volkswagen Group China, VW BEV sales drop, Mercedes China sales, Porsche China sales, BMW profit warning, BYD UK sales, BYD Germany sales, BYD global expansion, Tesla Model 3 decontented, Tesla Model Y trim, GM Bolt 2027, GM LMR battery, CATL skateboard platform, NIO Gen 5 swap station, solid-state battery China, Lyft NVIDIA TensorAuto, EV price war Europe, China charging network, energy efficiency policy China, EV subsidies China 2026

Transcript

Lei Xing (00:00)
 Take a breath. Take a breath.
 
 Tu Le (00:01)
 Welcome to the China EVs
 
 and More podcast. In the next hour or so, my co-host Lei Xing and I will go over the week's most important and interesting news coming out of the global EV, AV, and mobility sectors. What Lei and I discuss today is based on our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice. For those that are new to the show, welcome. And to our loyal listeners and viewers, welcome back.
 
 We ask that you smash those subscribe and like buttons so you don't miss anything from us in the future. My name is Tu Le I'm the managing director at Sino Auto Insights, a global management consultancy that helps organizations bring innovative and tech-focused products and services to the
 
 to the transportation and mobility sectors. I write a free weekly newsletter that we pull many of our discussion topics from. You can sign up for it at sinoautoinsights.substack.com, which of course I encourage you to do. Getting my house fixed, Lei can you please introduce yourself?
 
 Lei Xing (01:06)
 a electronics gadgets upgrade and Lei.
 
 I've got this.
 
 Tu Le (01:12)
 nice!
 
 Lei Xing (01:12)
 ‚Åì
 
 I got the new Mac so ‚Åì my tech is being fixed ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (01:16)
 You upgraded both?
 
 You upgraded the Mac and the iPhone? Nice, dude. Nice.
 
 Lei Xing (01:21)
 And the iPhone, yeah, it's about time. So this
 
 is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review. And this is episode 224. Quite a slow week, Because it's been the holiday break. China just came back.
 
 Tu Le (01:35)
 Well, not for the Germans. Well,
 
 actually, it's been a slow few years for the Germans in China, actually.
 
 Lei Xing (01:42)
 Some love for the Volkswagen Group. Porsche, nice little cup I got from Munich. And yeah, so Volkswagen Group, I just saw this morning, they posted numbers. yeah, a 42.5 % drop in BEV sales in China. And they're official.
 
 Official press release said this was the expected pause as they prepare for the delivery mode of the next generation Xpeng inside CEA architecture EVs in China next year. ‚Åì 85,000 BVs sold in China in the first nine months, ‚Åì down 42.5%. ‚Åì
 
 25,000 in a quarter. Yeah, mean these numbers look scary, but it's kind of
 
 expected. ‚Åì You know they're going toward that bottom and then trying to climb out. We're not there yet and we don't know whether that climb out is gonna be a success or not. ‚Åì Porsche, Volkswagen brand, the ABBs, we've sold the numbers, ‚Åì the Germans, they need some love.
 
 And that's where we begin.
 
 Tu Le (03:14)
 So Mercedes is also down double digits in China, think 20 % year over year for Q3. BMW is little less than flat. they seem to be, yes, but their share price tanked after they reduced guidance for profits. So we're seeing...
 
 Lei Xing (03:28)
 Rather that we're
 
 Yep, yep, yep.
 
 Tu Le (03:43)
 The outcome on the foreign legacy side from the legacy automakers that have traditionally, with the exception of last few years, been pretty strong, especially on the premium side. And we're talking specifically BMW, Mercedes, Audi, which is lumped into the Volkswagen Group number and then Porsche, which also looks like ‚Åì it's continuing a three year.
 
 major downward trend. think it was 2, 15, 28 or something like that from the standpoint of year over year, sales shrinking in 2025 is going to continue that I believe for a fourth year or third year or something like that. So Porsche is going to be likely close to or less than 300,000 units this year. think less than 300,000 units, which is very, very concerning.
 
 So.
 
 Lei Xing (04:40)
 Well, the thing is they're still growing slightly. Even for the Volkswagen Group BEV Global sale, everywhere else outside of China are growing. Europe is growing. In the US, it's growing. But in China, it's what do you call a nothing burger? Is that the idiom? Lesson?
 
 Tu Le (05:00)
 It's less than nothing. It's a slider. It's smaller
 
 than a burger.
 
 Lei Xing (05:04)
 And yeah, Mercedes, I think if you look at these numbers, they've always been at the 700,000 to 800,000 unit in the past years. But this year, it looks like it's going to drop down to the 600,000 mark. ‚Åì Quite a significant reduction. And Porsche, yeah, Porsche down 26 % better than what they did in the first half was 28%.
 
 Just to put this into perspective, I think it was like 90,000 units in 2022, which is the first year they saw negative growth since they entered the Chinese market in 2001. And this year, they're probably going to be around 40-ish, which is more than a half drop compared to the 90 just three years ago, right?
 
 So it's, yeah, it's.
 
 Tu Le (06:04)
 So their all time
 
 sales high globally is around 320,000 units with about at its best China being about 90,000 units and the United States, yeah, yeah. And the United States also being about 30 % of their sales or North America, meaning the United States. So.
 
 Lei Xing (06:27)
 What's interesting is that when I was in China, Porsche opened up a pop-up in Shanghai ‚Åì and they launched ‚Åì an even higher edition of the
 
 I forget, it might have been the 911 or some other model, a higher trim edition costing a little bit more. I think they're doing other things rather than trying to improve sales. They know it's going to be down. And right sizing the channel, right? 100 dealership was the target.
 
 All of these Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen group, all of them, have their next generation EVs launching, starting with the CLA, Mercedes CLA, which have been teasing recently, ahead of the launch later this year, which will start their next kind of the product wave. ‚Åì But still question mark, still question mark.
 
 This,
 
 Tu Le (07:28)
 I think it's also
 
 important to note that with the exception of Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, they're high runners anyways. They all build domestically in China with their joint venture partner. So a lot of capacity is sitting idle in China right now. They still import the high end, so the S-Class, the seven series.
 
 And the A8s are still exported or imported into China from Germany. But the three series, the five series, the E class, C class, they're all built locally.
 
 Lei Xing (08:05)
 I think luckily for someone like a BMW group, is most exposed to the US EU tariff situation, did say that the retroactive of the 27.5 % tariff to 15%, I think, right? They're going to get some refunds, like single digit million euro refunds. that's good news, at least on the books.
 
 But ‚Åì yeah, sales. The other one was Tesla, right? Tesla Q3 deliveries was more than Mercedes. And we'll get to Tesla, but you know.
 
 Tu Le (08:47)
 and
 
 And as
 
 BYD sales flatten out a bit and shrink a little bit, they're still on the BEV side, the champion of BEVs. They're outselling Tesla this year. So undisputed, undisputed.
 
 Lei Xing (09:06)
 Yeah, one highlight
 
 has been BYD's overseas. And this number, one of the numbers of this past week, 880 % growth in the UK market in September, which is, believe it or not, BYD's largest single country market outside of China.
 
 Tu Le (09:28)
 Oh, hold on, hold on. From a percentage standpoint, Germany was 2250 % increased.
 
 Lei Xing (09:36)
 Yeah, well, volumes are low, so. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (09:38)
 Yeah, volume. the
 
 meanwhile, relative to the other Chinese, the volumes are still a few thousand. So pretty significant relative to the other Chinese players in Germany. But from a denominator standpoint, an absolute standpoint, it's very low, very small.
 
 Lei Xing (09:49)
 And then...
 
 Yeah, and then they just did their 14 millionth in their Brazilian plant, right? I tweeted some photos. It's actually pretty, if you look back, of the, just 13, 15, 14 months ago, they produced their eight million in the summer of 2024 in Thailand. And it's been 13.
 
 14-15 months and they've done another 7 million total. So from that perspective, it's ‚Åì pretty dramatic, I think, and they'll probably get to their 15 million ‚Åì within the next three months, probably by early January. They are facing pressure as we talked about the last episode, but overseas, they're just pushing.
 
 here and there.
 
 Tu Le (10:53)
 And one thing I have not pressed send on this week's newsletter, so apologies for those folks that are ‚Åì waiting for it. But I did ‚Åì start writing my thoughts on what we see from the challenges that the German legacy automakers have in China will be mimicked. And there's always going to be downward pricing pressure now.
 
 because so many EV makers in China have gone abroad and started to export. the opportunity to really gouge customers in Europe and the United States, the United States for now, let's leave that off the table. But in the future, we're gonna see Porsche also struggle with margin. Mercedes struggled margin in Europe.
 
 as the Chinese makers really, really understand the European markets and the North American market eventually, because they learn and they're fast at changing and adapting. so unless Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Audi, Cadillac are able to kind of reconcile their cost structure.
 
 then we're not going to see those margins, generally speaking, from those premium brands like we have traditionally in the past. I don't think that's likely.
 
 Lei Xing (12:25)
 Yeah, and then for the UK market, right? So BYD, ‚Åì so in the UK market, there's not the EU tariffs, but at the same time, BYD does not enjoy the local kind of the subsidies or incentives for the UK market. So they're still growing, right? It's over 11,000 units. A lot of those are plugins. Yeah.
 
 And which shows, right, that the tariffs are probably not going to be the solution if you want to compete and, you know, head on with the Chinese.
 
 Tu Le (13:05)
 It's important
 
 to remember that the UK market does not have a large domestic automotive manufacturing presence anymore. They hand build Rolls Royces and Bentley still and Aston Martin. So they do ‚Åì own the high end still, at least for the brands, the Rolls Royce again. But that's also why I think
 
 Lei Xing (13:14)
 Right.
 
 Tu Le (13:34)
 UK consumers are a bit more open-minded when it comes to ‚Åì EV adoption and Chinese brands specifically.
 
 Lei Xing (13:44)
 And UK, a lot of these electric buses from BYD, Yutong, An Kai, they've been in UK for years, for decades if not. there's been this, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So.
 
 Tu Le (13:55)
 London Cab Company. The black cabs are now Geely branded ‚Åì vehicles.
 
 the one thing about the UK is that adoption will likely be slower just because the UK and my British friends tell me this, don't have the capital, the government doesn't have the capital to subsidize EV purchase.
 
 ‚Åì Unlike a Germany, a United States, a Norway, the government isn't putting its thumb on the scale ‚Åì for EV adoption, at least in the UK for now. But they are adding charging infrastructure, which again is another important ‚Åì dimension of EV adoption or increased EV adoption.
 
 Lei Xing (14:43)
 Yes, speaking of charging infrastructure, ‚Åì some numbers to share. I tweeted this ‚Åì of the numbers charging EV charging data on China's expressways. If I remember correctly, 123 million kilowatt hours worth of charge during the eight day break. There's 48,000 charging.
 
 Guns, think that was number that was given out by the National Energy Administration. And on day one, close to 17.5 million kilowatt hours were charged.
 
 So how do you describe this? mean, China is now a country on EV wheels, if you will. We talk about the penetration. There's a bit of debate about people fighting and having to wait during this special stretch of time, which there are about two or three per year, the Chinese New Year, the May holiday, the October. ‚Åì
 
 But the fact of the matter is EVs, they are charging in China. So those are my market numbers.
 
 Tu Le (16:04)
 Then you
 
 can't build charging capacity.
 
 based on a high over two or three day period, you know, for the entire year, cause that would just be a waste of money. And so.
 
 Lei Xing (16:21)
 Yeah, I think,
 
 yeah. I think sooner or later China needs to change the way how the holiday works. Because this is the bottleneck that's been created because of this holiday break. And, you know, we did the trip pre-May holiday last year and during the May holiday this year, which helped because otherwise we would have been, it would have been a much worse
 
 experience driving all that mileage down China. And more more people, they're smart enough to say, we got to leave early or return late. But still, see the waiting and the jostling for charging in the videos.
 
 Tu Le (16:50)
 Yeah.
 
 So if I can recall correctly, and you correct me if I'm wrong, there's basically three time periods where China just shuts down. Obviously Chinese New Year, May holiday, and then ‚Åì October, mid-autumn festival. And so those are the three that people should try to plan around if you're living in China. But again,
 
 It's just really hard to make those types of investments for only three time periods because the rest of the time those charging stations are going to be pretty idle, I think.
 
 Lei Xing (17:50)
 I think the ratio of the chargers to EVs on the road, it's increasingly getting to the point of one to one in China. Not there yet, but yeah, it's a crazy number.
 
 Tu Le (18:04)
 It's crazy number. And they're
 
 bunched up into tier one cities. They need to flow into the lower tier cities. ‚Åì there's never been this point in time that I can recall where...
 
 a major need was not addressed in a short period of time. But we lived in China during kind of the boom years. ‚Åì The economy is a lot different than it was when we lived there. so ‚Åì things are different from the government standpoint. ‚Åì
 
 I think 2026 is going to be such an important year for China, the Chinese EV companies, because a big focus will be on their growth abroad, the protectionism that's going to come along, and the compromises that will be made by some of the countries that are trying to accommodate local production.
 
 and importing from the Chinese brands.
 
 Lei Xing (19:22)
 Yeah, and then 2026 also we can look forward to something that China is doing. And this is quite important that happened during or right after the break is the newer requirements on energy efficiency in order to get the purchase tax. So this was just announced like a couple of days ago where you needed to apply for new kind of certification in order to
 
 get exempt from what it's now going to be a 50 % savings on the purchase tax starting next year. basically what happened was they're raising the weight, the curb weight of the vehicle. So the heavier it is, you need to meet a more stringent kind of energy efficiency requirements, which is kind of a way to following
 
 several safety, ADAS, payment terms, all of the ways that China is trying to kind of balance or have a higher threshold of rewarding the ones that are actually not trying to piggyback. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (20:32)
 BANNEDGE
 
 Well,
 
 it's because of the involution. Some companies, the struggling companies, they would just build cars and take advantage of those subsidies. so what the Chinese government is doing is effectively creating CAFE standards for electric vehicles in a different way. ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing (20:51)
 The zero kilometer, know, yeah, those, yeah, so. ‚Åì
 
 Yeah. Yeah. Which is, which
 
 is, think I, I'm an all four, you know.
 
 Tu Le (21:12)
 Well, and just remember, generally electric vehicles are heavier than ICE vehicles. So having more electric vehicles on Chinese roads is going to increase probably a lot of, let's say stress and durability of the roads, the Chinese roads.
 
 Lei Xing (21:30)
 it
 
 Yeah,
 
 and I think also the numbers that we shared about the charging, electricity charge during the holiday break also shows kind of the Chinese consumer habits of, you know, it's part of the majority of EVs and the infrastructure themselves, but also consumption habits of, would you say that will be a frugal way of spending?
 
 during the holidays by driving your EVs to other parts of China rather than using another. ‚Åì There could be some factor involved in that, think, ‚Åì because we don't have the full data yet for kind of the consumption spending during the eight-day break. ‚Åì But definitely the Chinese are heading out more, right? ‚Åì But are they spending more?
 
 a question mark, right? So that's that's good.
 
 Tu Le (22:33)
 Well, actually,
 
 anecdotally, friend of the show, ‚Åì Evelyn Cheng who is a journalist for CNBC, she had spoken with some hostel owners or hotel owners in some of the lower tier cities. And it seems like they aren't spending as much for this holiday. So we're seeing the economy ‚Åì biting a little bit on the consumption side. And this is where the Chinese government is really trying to figure out.
 
 what the right, to your point, what the right balance is, right? Because they want to become a consumption economy, but if people, if Chinese consumers are afraid to buy, then they need to continue to be an export and manufacturing economy, which doesn't really help them for the future. So they're a little bit in no man's land. ‚Åì
 
 and they need to sort that out because I think the Chinese government is afraid to write big checks to subsidize things ‚Åì because of all the debt that ‚Åì some of these companies carry. So anyways, I don't want to turn this into an economics discussion. So there's a CNBC story from Evelyn Cheng that I would invite you all to take a read if you want to learn more about what Lei is talking about, whether
 
 consumption during the October holiday ‚Åì was higher, lower, or the same as in years past.
 
 Lei Xing (24:09)
 I mean, the first two days or the September 30, I was traveling, right? I went to Shanghai for the Zeekr and then I went to Shenzhen to see my parents. I mean, I saw some of the road actions on the expressways. The airports were humming. I mean, October 1st and September 30, leaving Shenzhen and going to Beijing, lots and lots of people. But, you know.
 
 Tu Le (24:34)
 Let me ask you this. Thoughts on the. Decontented model 3 and model Y that launched this week.
 
 Lei Xing (24:41)
 I
 
 call it a brick city because going into I was actually expecting the standard versions or the in the in Chinese called Qigai ban which literally means beggar versions for lack of a better word skeletal right I was expecting more toward a 30,000 price point but
 
 it was actually more toward the 40,000, still below 40,000, 36 something, right? For the Model 3. And actually in Massachusetts, you get a $3,500 state incentive. So it's a bit cheaper. And then you give the benefit of doubt in, did you see Elon retweeting a tweet that said because of inflation, $30 something today would mean back in the
 
 stays $27,000. So effectively it is below or it is around the $30,000.
 
 mark, I guess what i'm trying to say is it's not there enough ‚Åì psychologically
 
 Tu Le (25:51)
 Well, it doesn't make up
 
 in the United States, it doesn't make up for the $7,500 subsidy going away.
 
 Lei Xing (25:56)
 No,
 
 it's $5,000 off. You can look at it that way from the previous.
 
 Tu Le (26:01)
 But again, decontenting is not a strategy. I've said that in the newsletter. And also, let's be clear, these aren't new products. They're new trims for the Model 3 and Y. And so anyone that expects a huge jump or a huge surge in sales, you should probably not listen to those people.
 
 Lei Xing (26:13)
 Right.
 
 Well, also after the September tax credit ending, they need something as a ‚Åì driver. So this decontenting, this lower trim is one way to do it. there's Tesla right now, there's no other, there's no other alternative. They don't have a new model in the pipeline. If we're talking about really a model two or Q.
 
 Tu Le (26:48)
 Well now there's rumors that there's 30,000 on the way.
 
 Lei Xing (26:53)
 Well that was kind of the cyber cab equivalent maybe two doorish I don't know but ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (27:01)
 It's a, and again, we have to point to the China market because if they went 30,000 and only decontented, they would not sell in China. Not the way most people needed to, you know, they've walked away from the 20 million unit forecast by 2030, but I don't know how they get to three or 4 million in the next couple of years without new products.
 
 The big constraint would be even if they launch a Model 2, how many would it sell in China? Because they're selling 600,000 units now. If they launched a Model 2 for 30,000 or 25,000 US dollars, maybe they double sales to 1.2.
 
 Lei Xing (27:35)
 Yeah.
 
 I think in the Chinese market, the psych is a bit different because they've done the model YL, which is a plus. They're going to introduce the model Y plus, which is going to have over 800 kilometers of range. So they're adding instead of subtracting in China. And it kind of worked out because we saw the September CPCA numbers over 90,000 shipped.
 
 from Giga Shanghai. And there are over 600,000 ‚Åì China and overseas sales out of Shanghai, which is awesome. think ‚Åì given the environment, they're going to get to close to 900,000 units. And what is their capacity? Who utilizes the capacity well? Tesla.
 
 still at this point. you know, I'm being a STAN today, strangely resilient in China, Chinese market.
 
 Tu Le (28:54)
 But
 
 here's the question, Lei, and for those folks that are listening and are interested in Tesla, would love to have your perspective. So add your comments in the chat. But even if China does increase incrementally from a sales standpoint, it's shrinking in Europe and the United States. So global sales might be flat.
 
 Lei Xing (29:01)
 here's the drill. Sorry.
 
 Tu Le (29:23)
 Or it might increase a little bit. But unless they can turn it around in the other two major regions, then they're still stuck at incremental growth.
 
 Lei Xing (29:39)
 Yeah, I this year, I think we said quite a while ago, if it's flat, it's a win, right? For Tesla globally, if you can get to 1.8 million, it's a win, given how difficult China is, at least.
 
 Tu Le (29:53)
 So ‚Åì the only other thing that I wanted your take on is the 2027 Bolt is going to be launching early next year.
 
 Lei Xing (30:06)
 Well, that's what Tesla should have, maybe, I don't know if it should have, but something that people are looking forward to, that kind of the 30,000 model. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (30:17)
 So let's
 
 update everyone. The MSRP is going to be around $29,000 for the GM Bolt. And it's going to be much improved from version 1, which stopped sales about two years ago. So I'm looking forward to it. And GM said it's going to be that. And the Equinox are going to be their high runners.
 
 Lei Xing (30:38)
 Well, I think it's
 
 going to be a great addition to keep, first of all, keeping the model nameplate and then something really an affordable EV at that. And if I remember correctly, currently in the US, Tesla is about 46%, 45%. Next is GM and then Ford after. Maybe Hyundai, Kia in fourth place.
 
 It's going to help, right? It's going to help ‚Åì GM to eat into Tesla, definitely, I think.
 
 Tu Le (31:11)
 But we still need to see charging infrastructure investment continue in the United States, which could be a political thing. So maybe blue states have more charging infrastructure than red states, which is not going to be good for overall EV adoption in the United States.
 
 Lei Xing (31:16)
 you
 
 Thank
 
 Well, at least all of them, are able to charge at the NACS adapters, right, or the chargers in Tesla network, right. So that's a plus.
 
 Tu Le (31:37)
 Right. Which
 
 puts money in Tesla's pocket.
 
 Lei Xing (31:42)
 Yeah, yeah, so, ‚Åì but yeah. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (31:49)
 So anyways, hey, everyone, this week is the battery show. I did not go to the battery show this year. I was told that it's not as good as last year. And our friend, Steve Levine, did not go either because he blew his budget on going to Munich, he told us, which I believe was a better call anyways.
 
 Lei Xing (31:54)
 ‚Åì okay.
 
 Yeah, definitely better.
 
 Tu Le (32:12)
 You know, I think he
 
 learned a lot. think he got to meet a lot of people and I don't think he has any regrets for going to Munich and he got to hang out with us so.
 
 Lei Xing (32:23)
 Yeah. then, the other big story that came out of China during the ‚Åì
 
 The holiday break was a breakthrough ‚Åì in solid-state lithium metal, ‚Åì a critical technology. It's very technical, but it has to deal with an adaptive surface, bringing the ‚Åì anodes and the electrolytes better together. It was by a group of Chinese researchers, which they think
 
 could be a winning formula for the commercialization of solid state. ‚Åì I think that was a big story, actually. That was.
 
 Tu Le (33:11)
 as
 
 GM wins an award for their LMR technology at the battery show. So I think this is great. I do believe that GM and Ford have a really, really, really heart-to-heart conversation about their competing LMR technologies to try to save money and do some joint research and development in order
 
 Lei Xing (33:17)
 Okay.
 
 Tu Le (33:38)
 to not only save money, but try to get to market quicker. it's upon reflection a little bit, the United States is waking up. Some of the legacies are waking up. Volkswagen seems to be still very, very slow because if we think about the Bolt I mean, they're launching it in production early next year. So.
 
 Lei Xing (33:43)
 .
 
 Tu Le (34:08)
 The MEB Plus is launching next year, but not until late next year, I believe. And by middle of next year, 2026, hopefully, we'll have seen the R2, ‚Åì the Baby Gravity, the Bolt, some other.
 
 Lei Xing (34:24)
 I'm
 
 waiting very much looking forward to the R2 because R2 to me would be something like ‚Åì a NIO in the US, right? I like the CEO, I like the products. It's different from everyone else. So I wish it could have been a Chinese brand that I could buy, but not yet.
 
 Tu Le (34:53)
 I'm definitely keen to kick the tires on the R2. I really like the R1. I think it's overpriced, but I really do like the R1. So let's do this. Let's jump to questions, unless you have anything else, Lei.
 
 Lei Xing (35:01)
 Yeah. Yeah.
 
 One more thing I would add is this will be interesting to you. Lyft, NVIDIA, and TensorAuto. TensorAuto, remember that name. They announced this ‚Åì deal yesterday to launch the so-called personal AVs. Something you can buy and something that's Lyft ready, which you can have your car go into the Lyft robotaxi network.
 
 Tu Le (35:25)
 Nice.
 
 Lei Xing (35:37)
 I was doing a little bit digging and guess who the CEO, current CEO of TensorAuto is.
 
 Tu Le (35:45)
 Who's this?
 
 Lei Xing (35:46)
 It will be a light bulb for you. Professor X.
 
 Tu Le (35:48)
 sure are. ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing (35:51)
 Go to their website and look at their line of their executives. His name is called J Xiao. The reason I mention this is because AutoX, one of the AV startups from China, has been quiet for more than a year now.
 
 Tu Le (35:51)
 ‚Åì jeez.
 
 Ugh.
 
 Lei Xing (36:04)
 So I think he's taking his ambitions, talents elsewhere. Very interesting, very interesting. Yeah, it's crazy how...
 
 Tu Le (36:07)
 talents elsewhere.
 
 OK. So OK, right on. ‚Åì They did. They
 
 made a lot of noise when they launched. And then, yeah, we didn't hear anything from them. They had that event in Shanghai that I went to. And the vehicle really looked not in production form.
 
 Lei Xing (36:23)
 Yeah.
 
 Up to our
 
 trip to Shenzhen last May in 2024, I still saw some AutoX testing in Shenzhen. But since then, they've been really dead. There's no news about them. Yeah, yeah. And so I think it'll be interesting to see because that's the area where Tesla robot taxi is being played, right?
 
 Tu Le (36:49)
 I just think they ran out of money. I think they ran out of runway.
 
 Lei Xing (37:01)
 have your vehicle go into the fleet. ‚Åì But yeah, that's the last thing I'll mention.
 
 Tu Le (37:09)
 Okay, so happy Friday, SPX. What car did you end up getting Tu and at what price? ‚Åì So the adventures of Tu's car buying. I put a deposit down on a Mach-E because I wanted Blue Cruise. ‚Åì The Blazer EV, most of them in Michigan, I was late to the parties, but most of them do not, the ones that
 
 Lei Xing (37:16)
 you
 
 Okay.
 
 Tu Le (37:37)
 ‚Åì I had to choose from did not have super cruise. So and the ones with super cruise were going to be quite a bit more expensive than the Mach-E. So I go to a dealer, my local Ford dealer, and he tells me he has a Mach-E for me and ready. And so I was like a day late doing the credit application, doing the deposit. And so he was like, OK, yeah.
 
 The dealer's gonna traded it. And then he calls me back. He's like, the dealer sold it. He reneged. So they were gonna trade. And so what happened?
 
 Lei Xing (38:15)
 So you had a car in
 
 stock ready to deliver, is that correct? And now you don't. All right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (38:19)
 But I was in Munich, remember I was in Munich? And so I
 
 answered, I responded later, not immediately. And then I waited for the credit app because I wanted him to confirm that they still had the car. They did have the car. So I put the credit app in and then a day later the dealer reneged that he's gonna trade with. But he told me that he looked online.
 
 And his inventory is like, there's a car that's going to be delivered in November. And if we create the transaction today, you can still have it. So this was ‚Åì a better outcome for me, because I still have that Ionic 5 that I need to turn into in December. And if I would have had to deliver the Mach-E in
 
 Lei Xing (39:08)
 Right, right, cool.
 
 Tu Le (39:15)
 September or late September, early October, I would have either had to get another plate or turned in the Ionic 5 early because it wouldn't have have a, I would have transferred that plate. And so this works out much better. And he was like, the price is going to be the same because we created the transaction early. So I don't, so to answer your question, SPX, the adventures of Tu you know, car shopping.
 
 Lei Xing (39:22)
 Hmm.
 
 Tu Le (39:44)
 Believe I'm gonna be getting a maki in late November stay tuned though because things change All the time and they still have great deals on car. You know the Santa Fe is a smoking deal right now I got an email smoking deal right now. what you have the old body style, right or Yeah, so ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing (39:56)
 Yeah. Which, which I drive right now. So great mileage. Yeah. have the old body style. Great mileage.
 
 I could get 40 MPG on local roads. It's right. So, but
 
 Tu Le (40:08)
 Nice.
 
 ‚Åì So hopefully that answers your question, SPX But again, come back to me in late November. I will let you know whether or not the transaction was completed. Sean K asks, why isn't CATL coming out with a swappable EV yet? Pretty sure they have an alliance with several companies. So Sean, ‚Åì they do have.
 
 Lei Xing (40:17)
 It always works out. It always works out.
 
 Tu Le (40:40)
 Swapping stations, they're called ‚Åì Choco. ‚Åì I don't believe they want to get into the EV manufacturing space. They want to be the picks and shovel people. And I think that their customers or their OEM customers would not be very happy with them because they're straddling that line already because they have investments in
 
 Lei Xing (40:44)
 Choco Swap Stations. Choco Battle Packs.
 
 Tu Le (41:10)
 an avatar and a few other EV startups. So avatars not an EV startup, but they it's a new brand. So I think that's a tough sell for for CATL to get into EV manufacturing. What do you think, Lei?
 
 Lei Xing (41:26)
 So
 
 two things come to mind. First of all, they do have these ‚Åì several OEMs and models already in operation, at least in the fleets that utilize their current battery swap network. And those are expanding. And second, this is something we missed in the show today. Their ‚Åì skateboard subsidiary, which I visited, remember back in April in Shanghai, ‚Åì
 
 I actually drove that skateboard. chassis. They had their first race, capital race, ‚Åì yesterday. I forget the amount, but think of it this way that ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (41:59)
 during the press event.
 
 Do you remember the name of the subsidy areas? Is it separate?
 
 Lei Xing (42:17)
 It's called Shidaizhinen,
 
 which literally means times smart, ‚Åì because Ningde Shidaizhinen is the Chinese name. So they use part of the name for the subsidiary. It's based outside of Shanghai, very far, next to Giga Shanghai, actually. So think of it as ‚Åì not an OEM, but
 
 Tu Le (42:21)
 Yeah.
 
 Lei Xing (42:46)
 CATL is not a exclusively a battery supplier. Just think of it that way. But they're not an OEM. But I'm sure there are lots of things ‚Åì on tap for them. With this skateboard chassis, I think it's already in the second generation already, which they showed in Shanghai. And they do their own e-motors.
 
 So watch out, I don't know. mean, never say never, but at this point, it doesn't look like they want to be an OEM. So that's, you know.
 
 Tu Le (43:23)
 Just
 
 like Huawei doesn't want to be an OEM, but they want to control everything.
 
 Lei Xing (43:26)
 Yeah, yeah, you could put them in the same bucket.
 
 It's very murky. It's very blurred of what a battery supplier is supposed to do and not supposed to
 
 Tu Le (43:35)
 They want to work behind the scenes, but control things. Sean K writes, NIO's head of NWM and AI are leaving the company, but is NIO becoming more ruthless and just firing people without any result? Left and right? Any information on the new Gen 5 battery swap station?
 
 Lei Xing (43:58)
 There's been a few, several shuffles of past few days. We said it was slow, but actually it was, know, retrospect, it was not slow. I think one or two others had quite a few shuffles of autonomous driving executives. I don't see it ‚Åì significant enough to warn, ‚Åì you know.
 
 people come and go and ‚Åì I don't see it as a big ‚Åì issue for any of these companies. Xpeng, right? I think one of their leaders in autonomous driving division left. mean Wu Xinzhou, left a few years ago to go to Nvidia.
 
 Yeah, these are very common things. I don't really look at them as worrisome. The fifth gen battery, I just saw a tweet from think it was Arthur Shen. Right around Christmas time, they will have one up at their headquarters and right around the Chinese New Year time, I think all the new ones that will be built
 
 Tu Le (44:49)
 still a close ally.
 
 Lei Xing (45:18)
 will be fifth gen. Gen five, gen five. yeah, I think we're seeing the end of rollout of the gen fours toward the end of this year, which is.
 
 Tu Le (45:19)
 Jeff, Jeff, five.
 
 And they're going to push
 
 into the 100 kilowatt hour standard pack.
 
 Lei Xing (45:35)
 Yeah, so which is another reflection of this speed that things are iterating. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (45:46)
 Felix is tuning in. What's up Felix? Felix had a nice long trip in China. So ‚Åì Sean K. Any information? Okay, he asked that twice. anyways, that's all we have. Blubb says NIO is a good topic. So we just talked about NIO So thanks Blubb. And I don't have anything else.
 
 Lei Xing (45:48)
 Felix had fun. Yeah, he had fun. Yeah.
 
 Yeah,
 
 over a million swaps ‚Åì total in eight days in their network. It's pretty amazing.
 
 Tu Le (46:14)
 ‚Åì wow, man, like
 
 like I Don't miss those are the things I don't miss like Like going to the Great Wall when it's like just crazy crazy packed is not fun, you know gonna Tiamin going to Forbidden City, you know, you avoid those places obviously during the tourist tourist times ‚Åì Felix says Yunnan was so pretty and kind. Yes
 
 Lei Xing (46:28)
 Yeah. ‚Åì
 
 yeah, I mean that's...
 
 Tu Le (46:44)
 You know,
 
 you know why Felix is because it's close to Vietnam, dude.
 
 So ‚Åì everyone, have a good weekend. And we will talk with you all next week. So all right, everyone, have a good weekend. Bye bye.
 
 Lei Xing (46:55)
 Yep, same time. Bye bye.