The podcast starts with a brief update on the COVID situation in China and how its affected production this time around.
Tu and Lei then move onto a BYD update - namely the news that BYD will be increasing the price of their products and the rumors of BYD launching production sodium ion battery cells early next year.
Tu then brings up the announcement by Mary Barra that GM will be launching 10 electric vehicles by 2025 in China that will all be built off the Ultium platform. Tu emphasizes that this is what's called a 'blitz.'
The conversation moves over to Polestar reaching 100K production units which Tu and Lei both congratulate Polestar for achieving.
They move onto an update on Baidu's Apollo program and that both Pony.ai and Baidu received approvals from the Beijing govt for (Phase 2) robotaxi services where the safety driver can be in the back seat.
Tu and Lei close the pod out with why they are thankful this Thanksgiving.
The podcast starts with a brief update on the COVID situation in China and how its affected production this time around.
Tu and Lei then move onto a BYD update - namely the news that BYD will be increasing the price of their products and the rumors of BYD launching production sodium ion battery cells early next year.
Tu then brings up the announcement by Mary Barra that GM will be launching 10 electric vehicles by 2025 in China that will all be built off the Ultium platform. Tu emphasizes that this is what's called a 'blitz.'
The conversation moves over to Polestar reaching 100K production units which Tu and Lei both congratulate Polestar for achieving.
They move onto an update on Baidu's Apollo program and that both Pony.ai and Baidu received approvals from the Beijing govt for (Phase 2) robotaxi services where the safety driver can be in the back seat.
Tu and Lei close the pod out with why they are thankful this Thanksgiving.
CEM #93 Transcript
Recorded 11/23/22
Tu Le:
Hi everyone and welcome to China EVs & More when my co-host Lei Xing and I will go over the week’s most important and interesting news coming out of the China, EV, AV and mobility sectors. What Lei and I discuss today is based on our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice. If you enjoy this room, please help us get the word out to other enthusiasts and tune in again next week.
My name is Tu Le. I am the managing director at Sino Auto Insights, a global management consultancy that helps organizations bring innovative and tech-focused products and services 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.com, which I encourage you all to do.
Lei, happy Thanksgiving, good afternoon. Can you please introduce yourself?
Lei Xing:
Happy Thanksgiving! Happy World Cup. Good afternoon. This is Lei Xing, your co-host and former chief editor of China Auto Review. This is episode #93. I just wanted to make sure I get the number right.
Tu Le:
That’s a lot of numbers, man, a lot of pods.
Lei Xing:
You've been watching lots of World Cup, I guess?
Tu Le:
Unfortunately I did not get the peak at the Japan game today. I peeked at the France Australia game when Australia was winning for about the first 5 minutes. And then France woke up, but I saw the 1:1 draw with Wales. And we have that private chat group that has a bunch of Brits in it. So the Three Lions will be crying on Friday, I think, so.
Lei Xing:
Well you and I being, you are Vietnamese American. I'm Chinese American. So you and I being Asians, we're all pretty fired up, Saudi Arabia and Japan, rooting for Korea tomorrow.
Tu Le:
Yes, it is…
Lei Xing:
Asian pride, Asian pride.
Tu Le:
It's about time, right? Because I think it is very cool to see someone your skin tone and achieving great things, whether it's on a pitch, whether it's in a boardroom, whatever. So.
Lei Xing:
Whether it's in EVs, anyways, you know the joke about Qatar, the World Cup is, from the Chinese point of view is, the only Chinese factor that's not in Qatar is the Chinese national men's team. Every, everything else, there's some Chinese factor involved, right? The stadiums are built, and the buses that are running there, Yutong and Higer, they're all Chinese brand buses. There's Dongfeng Aeolus cars running over there. There's a Chinese referee, I believe, that’s going to officiate one of the games. But sadly, and we've been talking about World Cup, but World Cup has magnified what is going on in China right now? Big time.
Tu Le:
Good and bad.
Lei Xing:
Good and bad. And so the last couple of days, it's really gotten to a head, right, of people.
Tu Le:
We've seen videos of what's going on at Foxconn. So I think Foxconn and Apple are going to have some explaining to do. There's a lot of videos being floated around the internet that are heartbreaking and pretty serious. It goes to show that Covid, Zero COVID is not going to go away anytime soon in China and the current cities and you add to this Lei. The current two cities that are, seem pretty serious with infections is Beijing and Chongqing. So those are the two cities I hear about the most, have you heard of any others that are in either virtual lockdown or very limited?
Lei Xing:
In Guangzhou. I mean these are all huge automotive hubs, three cities that we’ve mentioned.
Tu Le:
So Beijing has Beijing Automotive, it has Li Auto, it has Hyundai, no, not a Hyundai plant anymore.
Lei Xing:
Mercedes.
Tu Le:
And Chongqing is where Chang’an is. So Ford is there, Chang’an Motors is there. I think we can't emphasize enough that all of these places are important automotive hubs for the Chinese automotive sector, so.
Lei Xing:
And, you know, the China New International Exhibition Center outside of Beijing, where the Beijing Auto Show is held is now a what, “fang cang” – makeshift hospital.
Tu Le:
A quarantine center.
Lei Xing:
A quarantine center, right? And I've seen some videos and photos of the scene there. And it's…
Tu Le:
So, for our American listeners, it is like the exterior of an RV, so it's like aluminum little, single wide. There is a bed, a very not comfortable bed. There is a sink and there is a toilet, no shower, in a lot of these fang cangs. You quarantine in there for 3 and 7 days depending on your testing and where you're from, because your QR code could pop at any time, so.
Lei Xing:
I mean you were in Beijing during the Shanghai lockdowns. And it feels like this time, it's gotten even worse from the perspective of people being fed up. I get that feeling. I mean you went through how it was like in China and now seeing this at this point in time, especially with the World Cup, people from 32 countries traveling to Qatar and, right? That, just I think people are really angry.
Tu Le:
So I was being told and I don't know if this is true or not like you tell me, because you surf the China internet pretty regularly. I was told that a lot of the pictures from Qatar for the World Cup, the crowds were being blurred out in order to not show them, not wearing masks. So I don't know if that was true or not, but that's what I was told.
Lei Xing:
No, I mean, I think last few days is just a little bit sick to the stomach, just to see the kind of sentiment and…
Tu Le:
And I'm actually very relieved that it is in Shanghai, these, the Chinese government has implemented like surgical lock down where they're locking down at a building level. And unfortunately, the COVID is still, what's the right word for it? It's still being transmitted all over the country, and I was told that every Province has a number of cases. So not one Province, not one of the 31 or 30 provinces is left untouched, so.
Lei Xing:
So, this I mean, a week or a couple of weeks ago or less than a month ago, right? We were talking about prospects of this year, I said it was a foregone conclusion, but right, these things happen. And then you think what we're less than a week from December and how this is going to affect the final numbers. I think it'll still remain strong, but going into 2023, this is kind of foreshadowing that some of the companies are going to face difficult situation, case in point WM Motor.
Tu Le:
They're teetering.
Lei Xing:
Cutting, what, reducing their salaries and all that, right? An internal letter from Freeman (Shen).
Tu Le:
Which is still unbelievable to me, because I know you and I felt the same way early on in the process that WM was going to be one of the survivors.
Lei Xing:
I'm not so sure now.
Tu Le:
And that's a shame because most of my contacts and friends have left, but I made some decent friends there. And so it's a shame for them to not be able to keep up with everyone else in every other company, so.
Lei Xing:
I mean, I feel like the year is ending on a down note.
Tu Le:
Well, in China at least, right? Because I think I feel from someone who has been in the United States for the last 3 months now, I feel pretty lucky and feel this Thanksgiving is extra special. We'll talk about it, because I’d like to talk about it at the end real quick for 30 seconds. So onto the news, what do you want to talk about? You update us.
Lei Xing:
Probably the most talked about thing right now is the BYD raising prices, in contrast to Tesla, rumored but denied, reducing prices again. I think there's some debate on that front. My personal view is whatever BYD or anybody else does, Tesla is going to have to find his way on its own. It doesn't really matter if others increase prices. And, like we said in the past, not going to be surprised at all if Tesla reduces prices again, because they still have that card to play.
Tu Le:
But it's not as effective. So it's not.
Lei Xing:
No, it hasn't been.
Tu Le:
So they need to play defense for as long as they can until some reinforcements come. And as far as we know, there aren't going to be any reinforcements coming for the foreseeable future, so.
Lei Xing:
And kind of with Elon’s, all his attention on Twitter. Luckily, we can still do this spaces. So thank you Elon.
Tu Le:
It's working for now. So we still have a platform, you know, Thanksgiving we're all being thankful for everything right, so.
Tu Le:
There are a few people that we follow that are already like putting alternate, I don't even know what they're called
Lei Xing:
Mastodon, Post, etc.
Tu Le:
Mastodon. So I had never even heard of Mastodon until 2 weeks ago, so. And if it wasn't for BYD’s really insignificant price increase, right? It's RMB6,000 so, it would be their rumored sodium-ion battery, right?
Lei Xing:
It's nothing, less than $1,000, right?
Tu Le:
Yeah, they're literally take just passing on the cost to the consumer. They're not gaining any margin with that price increase, right? So.
Lei Xing:
Right. Then, the sodium-ion, I think that the fine print is, I think they're going to do it just like CATL, just a matter of timing and limited or mass quality production, that’s the difference.
Tu Le:
So for people that aren't that familiar with batteries, to not to oversimplify this, but sodium-ion takes the lithium out of the battery. But it is even less effective on range. It's cheaper, but it's going to be not as long of a range as an LFP and definitely not as a NCM, where you would see this is likely vehicles that are less than RMB200,000 where I think the expectations are a little bit lower on range.
Lei Xing:
Right and BYD does not have a demand problem right now. So I don't think the price increase is going to dent their sales in any significant way.
Tu Le:
It's against the backdrop of all of these subsidies, not all of them, but the two or three subsidies potentially going away. Whereas everyone is looking to zig because they're vehicles and products will be more expensive. Come January 1, 2023, BYD is like, I got it, pass these costs on to you. And they seem very careful of not really making the price delta, something that would alarm the customer.
Lei Xing:
I still expect aa surge because of this subsidies are going away, but again, we repeat EVs are becoming Vs.
Tu Le:
For BYD they are Vs. So they stop making them (ICEs), right?
Lei Xing:
So I think it's become a pure market driven, not pure, but majority market driven market anyways, so I don't expect this kind of price increase to have any major impact.
Tu Le:
Let's deep dive a little bit on the BYD though, because in Europe, in Australia, and parts of Southeast Asia.
Lei Xing:
Morocco, did they just went to Morocco?
Tu Le:
They found an agent.
Lei Xing:
Brazil, Morocco.
Tu Le:
This is where BYD lives, they live in the under RMB150,000 price point, the $22,000-$25,000 price point. So no one can touch them there. And they have two BEVs currently, the Qin and the Dolphin that are under RMB150,000 in China. And they will have the Seagull starting next year. So there will be three products that are going to be their high runners in China. They're going to be more expensive than $22,000 outside of China. But if you can sell most of your capacity domestically and then sell some of your higher margin stuff abroad, that's a great strategy. And the sub-RMB100,000 price point for BEVs in China this year is 36.8% of the market. So it's a high volume bunch of vehicles that are sold. So again, BYD is charting at around 3.8 million units in annual capacity. So if 30% of their capacity is like sold for sure into China, this gives them a ton of flexibility in other places.
Lei Xing:
Right, and I believe they also have a 300,000 unit capacity plant coming online at the end of this month in Jinan, if I remember correctly. So still increasing that capacity and speaking of overseas, the only they just got their Australian NCAP 5-star for the ATTO3. Remember, there were some issues with the rare seat
Tu Le:
Yep, the harness.
Lei Xing:
It looks like they got the 5-star, so for the ATTO3. So that cements them I guess. The only thing I’m going to say is that European play of the 72,000-Euro Tang and Han, we’ll see how that plays out, because that's pretty expensive.
Tu Le:
Especially when you compare it to NIO, who just announced their pricing, right?
Lei Xing:
Right. So that's interesting competition among the Chinese, China EV Inc. outside of China playing out.
Tu Le:
And NIO would much rather be aligned and compared to a Mercedes and a BMW than a BYD Han or a Tang in Europe. I assure you that.
Lei Xing:
Sure, sure.
Tu Le:
Want to talk about GM?
Lei Xing:
GM? About time? I think we were looking sort of at a Volkswagen-esque type of announcement, you know we're going to spend. Shanghai-GM is investing RMB70 billion which is basically $10 billion over the next, by 2025, over the next 3 years on electrification and digitalization and autonomous driving and all that.
Tu Le:
So they just converted a factory in Wuhan, I believe, that is the only building Ultium platform which is their battery, their BEV platform. And the first product is actually being built in Shanghai. It's the Cadillac LYRIQ. They will be building most of those other ones out of Wuhan and out of that Cadillac factory in Shanghai. And so you wonder when that was going to happen and it did, 10 products, that's a blitz, that's called a blitz within the next 2 years effectively, right? So this raises some really, really interesting, dynamic between, let me say this. Let me finish my thought real quick, because GM has now doubled down on China. And they also need to grow like crazy in the U.S., and if the U.S. government is very tough on China, how is that going to play for GM who's going to be launching 10 cars in 2 years effectively?
Lei Xing:
Yeah, GM unlike the other foreign legacies, they really have two markets only in the world. North America and China basically, everywhere else it’s right, is insignificant.
Tu Le:
Because remember that they sold Opel to Stellantis. So they're not doing anything in Germany effectively except for commercial vehicles, I think.
Lei Xing:
Yeah. And one thing pointing out is that they're going to launch the so-called SDV platform. We were talking about that Motortrend’s Coding the Car book and documentary, this Craig Carlson, the former VP of Software for Tesla. I think he says something very interesting was, all these companies, legacies, they have 500, thousands of people in their software team. We had Tesla at, we had 50 people at the very beginning and got that right. And he said that's not going to work. That was interesting. And now GM has a team of 1,300 people in software and digitalization. So good luck that they're in the same boat as Volkswagen, I think, as far as software.
Tu Le:
I'm going to be a homer. I'm going to put my USA hat on, I just think that…
Lei Xing:
USA! USA! USA!
Tu Le:
I just think that GM has a much easier go of it, at least in the United States, because of its proximity to Silicon Valley, to Pittsburgh, to Boston, whereas Germany, there is no technology Silicon Valley in Europe, right? The closest thing to any startup community to have is Berlin, but Berlin is not in and of itself very large from a innovation and venture capital investment standpoint, in the grand scheme of things. And then the next largest hub is London in Europe. And so it's just going to be much tougher to find decent coders in Europe than it is in the United States. And it's already hard in the U.S.
Lei Xing:
And on the volume side, these legacy foreign automakers in China, there's not one company, there's not one that has a model that what do you say that moves the needle? Not a single one. You look at all of those out there. They have tons of models, EVs on sale, but there's not a Model Y or one model that really sells. And LYRIQ has not, it's slow ramping up, but.
Tu Le:
The Mach-E either, right? Remember that tweet I sent earlier this week, where the Audi dealer in Chinese wrote: we have EVs here out of his window? So I tweeted: thanks, but no, thanks, Audi. Where's the NIO House? So it is mind boggling, but you hope that at least GM has looked at the ID.4, ID.3, how it's performed, what the challenges are for that those vehicles in China and are pulling up features into their 10 vehicles that they're launching, or 15 vehicles.
Lei Xing:
To take an analogy of the LiDAR competition from Dr. Jun Pei that they're into this execution phase. I think for these foreign companies, they're still in that validation phase, because they're still investing. They're still building these plants. Audi, right? Audi, they just had their roofing for the Audi FAW NEV and that won't come online until 2024. So I think these foreign legacy, they are really banking again on the second half of this decade. So the first half of this decade is going to be owned by the Chinese and Tesla.
Tu Le:
And I think it's really hard. I think 3 years ago, it was okay, this is to assume that they could play defense for several years and then starting in 2027, start to build that volume of EV sales in China, the United States and Europe. But with how EV adoption has really been pulled forward, I see a few legacy brands that you and I have known since childhood, maybe going away in the next 5 or 7 years.
Lei Xing:
Not surprising if they do. We're kind of rooting for the U.S. almost right, to do well.
Tu Le:
But I’m a little bit torn because I want to see a lot of innovative stuff. I want like not drag down knockout competition between the tech companies and the legacies, but I just don't know if the legacies can go blow by blow, or blow to blow with the tech companies.
Lei Xing:
And to be honest, I want Tesla to do well in China and elsewhere. But the competition.
Tu Le:
They have to do well. If they don’t, the whole sector is going to pay for it.
Lei Xing:
The competition is right, that's what it is.
Tu Le:
So every beauty queen has some warts is basically what you're telling me.
Lei Xing:
Kind of.
Tu Le:
And then we're only talking about product and OEM, we haven't even talked about batteries. We haven't talked about chips. We haven’t even talked about data. We haven't talked about, because you know GM and Volkswagen, for sure, are looking at playing 3D chess with the diplomacy issues, with the subsidy issues, in the United States, with the we need to make sure that we maintain good relations with the Chinese government in order for these 15 vehicles to have a chance at the China market. And if I was GM and I was Mary, I'd be staying up at night trying to line up each of those products with who I believe which Chinese domestic brand and which specific product of that Chinese domestic brand I would be competing with and then doing some competitive analysis to really, really make sure that each of my products stands out in some sort of way.
Lei Xing:
Yeah.
Tu Le:
So China is a different animal than the United States and Europe, but I think Europe is the first region that will feel the pressure from China EV Inc., Great Wall has said now that they are getting to, which markets did they enter in Europe, I forget.
Lei Xing:
Well they just shipped the batch of the Coffee 01 PHEVs to Europe.
Tu Le:
That's right. So they are officially selling into Europe now. So. You also wanted to talk about the 100,000 units from Polestar?
Lei Xing:
Yeah I man that's produced at the Luqiao. I mean all of their vehicles are produced in China, which is, and it’s sold in what 27 markets now, 25 or 27 markets now. So kudos to China manufacturing.
Tu Le:
So kudos to the manufacturing side. I'm going to, I think they tried to market that as a win, the Polestar 2 has been selling since, let's say, delivered since June 2019. And so that's about 40 months. And that means that they've averaged around 2,500 units per month. Not great. We know that they don't sell well in the U.S. and we know they don't sell well in China. So that 100,000 units is mostly for Europe. And it's a new brand. I can't call it a startup. It's not really a startup to me. It's not ground up startup. So if you look at it at 2,500 per month, little disappointing, I would say, but they're not wanting you to focus on that part. Let's see what happens with the much more expensive Polestar 3.
Lei Xing:
Moving on to Baidu a little bit? Robotaxi?
Tu Le:
Let’s do it. Congratulations to them. I think they're doing well.
Lei Xing:
So both Baidu and Pony got their, this is interesting: the driverless permit with backseat safety drivers, so no safety drivers in the front driver or passenger, but safety driver in the back. So baby step until you get rid of the entire, the safety drivers.
Tu Le:
So this is what's the Beijing government is considered Phase II.
Lei Xing:
Phasee II.
Tu Le:
Phase I was safety driver in the front, Phase II safety driver in the back, Phase III is no safety driver. So think Cruise last week with Lei and I.
Lei Xing:
And then Apollo Go, they did 474,000 rides in Q3. So I think Robin said that they're perennially the biggest what, kind of the robotaxi ride-hailing in the world.
Tu Le:
1.4 million rides since inception covering about 36 million km or 22.37 million miles.
Lei Xing:
Right. But one thing he mentioned was that there's also besides a robotaxi, there's also the autonomous driving ANP, all that, AVP and he said, they're not going to have any meaningful revenues on that side, I think until 2024, that's one thing to point out. And the other thing is the…
Tu Le:
Real quick: those are hardware software stacks that they're trying to sell to OEMs.
Lei Xing:
Yeah the other thing is the JIDU ROBO-01 will be the first model to use Baidu ANP3.0, which is kind of the equivalent to the city driving assistance, city-NGP, so there you have it, that they're banking on that.
Tu Le:
And Frank already told us to expect some surprises out of that ROBO-01. So we're looking forward to seeing what else they attached to the launch of that vehicle. And I have to, I have to mention this because friend of China EVs & More, he had tweeted about a podcast, he interviewed someone about their transcendent robotaxi ride in San Francisco. As I had to retweet or respond, hey, if you want to know about my transcendent rides in SF and Beijing and in Guangzhou, you can invite me on the pod. So I think it's great that people are able to use the robotaxis in the United States, but if we're talking global competition, you got to get into these cars globally, right? Anyways.
Lei Xing:
Still kind of processing that ride, which was, I don't know if it's transcendent, but it was.
Tu Le:
yeah, it made me, I think we said it last week. It made us hopeful. So, again, we'll have to go back to SF hopefully, Alfred in the next month or so, month or two, maybe right after Christmas and visit you. So you can take us out to eat. We can do the Waymo and the Cruise one again in the day in the daytime.
Lei Xing:
Because we've seen some social posts of people riding the Waymo. Then the other thing I wanted to point out was so the Formula 1 Shanghai GP looks like it will be cancelled which doesn't bode well for the Shanghai Auto Show.
Tu Le:
It does not.
Lei Xing:
We were all looking forward to Shanghai Auto Show and now it's up in the air. I still think at this point, it should be able to be held because the logistics are completely different with auto shows compared to a Formula 1 race.
Tu Le:
But the disappointing thing Lei, is that it might be in a domestic audience rather than a foreign audience, unfortunately. So if it's like whack a mole like it is right now, which it very well could be come March and April of next year in China, I'm not sure I'll want to go through all that stuff, even if I was to stay for 3 weeks, because the whole point of going back would be to go visit our friends, to go visit these companies that we've been talking to forever. They're all not in Shanghai, by the way.
Lei Xing:
I just wish this is a turning point, we’ll see, but.
Tu Le:
On Twitter, they're saying that we have these arbitrary government meetings like the two meetings in early 2023. That might be the turning point. Somebody had kind of questioned, why do we believe that these opening would revolve around these government meetings. And so they made sense. It's just kind of random. Everyone's just guessing. So what I did want to talk about was the pricing for the ET5, ET7 and the EL7, also known in China as the ES7, the new large SUV from NIO. We're looking at non-battery, so battery lease price of 61,900 for the ET5, it seems a little heavy, that pricing seems a little high. The ET7 is 81,900 euros.
Lei Xing:
I mean the positioning is there.
Tu Le:
Yeah.
Lei Xing:
that's I mean, compared to a 72,000-euro BYD.
Tu Le:
Yeah, that but I actually think the ET5 slots between the 3 and 5 for BMW and the C and the E. Am I wrong? I think it's a little bigger than a C but and it matches the footprint of an E I think. And so I think it leans more E and 5 Series than C and 3 Series. But what do you think?
Lei Xing:
I mean it's 3 Series and C. That's what I see it as it's baby Benz. That's what it's right, positioned. But the thing is, we can’t expect big volumes anyways, because they have to address the domestic demand. And we're all looking forward to see what kind of numbers we are going to get in November and December. And I think Edison’s team threw out some numbers, 13,000 in November and close in 19,000 in December. We don't expect, they've shipped what, some of the models to Europe, but it's in the hundreds, right?
Tu Le:
Those initial units were more for just marketing and awareness than any significant sales.
Lei Xing:
But I think the fact of the matter is, they've been flexible enough to respond quickly to what the users want. And then we figure out the next steps, I guess. The demand is.
Tu Le:
The other challenge would be if supply chain due to COVID and lockdowns continue to be a major issue. And they have limited production, they'll probably send it all to China keeping in China.
Lei Xing:
At this point, it doesn't look good looking forward to the next few weeks because of, I mean what, half of China is almost on soft lockdowns or something? That's what you feel, right? So now we're going to see these production get affected. People not being able to go out and right, to take delivery. That's another thing.
Tu Le:
Yeah. Because that's what, that's one thing we talk about production numbers. But if people can't go out and buy the cars, then what's the point?
Lei Xing:
That's why I hope this is a turning point that some things can be changed for the better, but.
Tu Le:
I just don't see it well into 2023. I just think, it is…
Lei Xing:
My prediction on the 6.8 million, I did have the caveat. I did have the asterisk barring any major disruptions, which we're seeing kind of right now.
Tu Le:
Two weeks ago that asterisk was pretty small, but now it's like magnified. So anyways.
Lei Xing:
That's all I have.
Tu Le:
Let me see.
Lei Xing:
You wanted to talk about Thanksgiving a little bit or what.
Tu Le:
So let's open the room up for anyone who wants to chat or has anything to say, love to have any discussions that you guys want to talk about. But I wanted to take a minute because as an immigrant who's American, Thanksgiving was always super special for me. And so I wanted to kind of take a second to tell everyone who, what I'm thankful for. First of all, I'm thankful for you Lei for being my friend.
Lei Xing:
You read my mind and I was going to say the same thing about you.
Tu Le:
I think we keep each other honest. We, I think we are both pretty knowledgeable, probably two of the most knowledgeable people. And I think that we do a good job of covering a broad scope of what's out there, but most of all I value your friendship and your wisdom and knowledge. And then the second thing is I’m thankful for being together with my family here in the United States after kind of seeing the last few days on Twitter and talking to my friends and stuff, my ritual for the last 4 or 5 years has been to on Thursday, go to JingA in Beijing with one of the founders and have Thanksgiving with Christian Li and have Thanksgiving dinner with him. He's Canadian and so we just kind of made it a tradition over like 5 or 6 years because I have kids and it's important to really celebrate these holidays. And then on Saturdays we would have like a proper Thanksgiving with our friends and stuff. So unfortunately I don't think my friends in Beijing and in Shanghai are going to be able to get together like that. So it saddens me because I know that as Americans living abroad, Thanksgiving was always kind of like the American holiday that everyone was invited, not just Americans. Okay? And so it's unfortunate if they're not going to be able to get together on Saturday. But so that's all I wanted to say. And third of all I'm thankful that we're still able to do this podcast and that people are interested in what we have to say. I think we try to do as good of job as we can. And so and the support that you guys are giving us and showing us is awesome. So appreciate that as well.
Lei Xing:
Yeah I mean you've said what I wanted to say pretty much. Just thankful for having this platform and the fact that the industry, the global industry is going through, that the changes that are affording us to talk about those kind of changes otherwise will be dull, right? But it's not. And you throw everything in there, the COVID, China supply chain, the transformations and the events and the people that we get to go and see, right? We're really thankful for that. Kind of living over here, it’s right, it's pretty much back to normal.
Tu Le:
This will be the first Thanksgiving in 14 years since I've been in the United States.
Lei Xing:
Are you having turkey?
Tu Le:
Of course. Yes sir.
Lei Xing:
We don't usually have turkey, I remember, in China, at least the last couple of years here, usually have dumplings, because like Thanksgiving is almost like Chinese New Year for Americans, right? Where families get together once a year. So we don't usually eat turkey, but at least I'm thankful that I have family here.
Tu Le:
Yeah man. And let me, I'm going to pat myself on the back for another 15 seconds here, because I posted on LinkedIn what my thoughts were on Coding the Car documentary, I thought it was great. Peculiarly, there weren't any technology folks. I think I mentioned that last week, but it reminded me of an article I wrote 4 years ago that I think resonates.
Lei Xing:
Yes! Great article!
Tu Le:
It just scratches the surface, right? It's just kind of a just broad overview. But I think it still rings true. So for anyone that wants to read that article, it was an article I wrote for, I hate saying thought leadership, but I guess if anything were a thought leadership piece, it would be that, but it was just kind of an opinion piece or an article that I had written for American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing for their magazine and watching Coding the Car. I was like we are behind in the U.S., we are super behind in the U.S., so.
Lei Xing:
I think that book, I've been reading in the last few days, is actually better than the documentary, because it has a lot more comments from these people that they were interviewed, right? And to see the perspectives from these legacy executives, and especially that guy from Tesla is, you can see the kind of where the gap is on software.
Tu Le:
The one thing I would favor over listening to the GM folks or the Ford folks, or the Volkswagen folks, or the Mercedes folks, is listen to the Rivian folks, listen to the Lucid folks, that are technology first. And then the auto part is the supporting cast as opposed to the main character. I think that'll give you a much better idea of how far the legacies really need to go, because we're talking about the product, generally being the exact same, right? It's four wheels in a car. But how Lucid and Rivian approach it versus how a GM, a Mercedes or a Volkswagen approaches it is still completely different.
Lei Xing:
And that's why going back to our conversation earlier is now we're seeing GM talk about this SDV, we're seeing Volkswagen banking, although delayed, by banking on this SSP platform. And all others, right? Mercedes with the expectation that they will get software right his time. Is that going to happen? We'll see.
Tu Le:
One of the caveats that I had was that in a digital world, things move faster. So the slower you are, the farther behind you get, you can't just keep pace and then stay behind the same distance. You're going to get lapped. If you don't get it right quickly, the other important part to really differentiate digital from traditional automotive is an iterative process. I think it's not just that the software gets thrown out there, and then that's it. Because what Apple does so well, what Google does so well, what Amazon does so well is while you're sleeping, it sends out patches that you don't even know have fixed bugs that have only happened to X% of users of the iPhone, right? And so you don't even know it right, and 2 weeks ago. What's his name, DeLuca was like these vehicles are going to have OTA capability. What? This is not news guys. So anyways, if there are no questions, man, I’m good. I’m good to go.
Lei Xing:
Yeah same here. Next week it’ll be, our next episode will be on December 1. And you know what happens on the first of every month: we talk about sales.
Tu Le:
So I also wanted to and I'm taking this job from you today anyways. Housekeeping: Lei and I will be part of a Climate Transformed conference on December 7, more details to follow. But it's going to be a look at 2023. And so it's going to be pretty exciting because we're not going to take a China look at it. We're going to take a global look.
Lei Xing:
The crystal ball is pretty cloudy right now, pretty…
Tu Le:
and I'm going to propose something to Lei, because last year, we had a great idea that we never executed on. And maybe we're going to have some special awards in the coming weeks for a few of the vehicles or a few of the brands and we’ll share that hopefully by the first episode of January.
Lei Xing:
That's another.
Tu Le:
Should be fun, though, will be fun for us.
Lei Xing:
Another job for us.
Tu Le:
But it'll be fun. Anyway, so for anyone and everyone that celebrates Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving, happy long weekend. Thanks again for listening. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening.
Lei Xing:
Likewise, Happy Thanksgiving. We're all very thankful for everything and talk to you guys next week. Next Thursday. Byebye.
Tu Le:
Peace.
Tu Le:
That brings us to the end of this week show. Lei and I thank you for tuning in. My name is Tu Le and you can find me on twitter @sinoautoinsight. You can find Lei on twitter @leixing77. If you wouldn't mind rating and or reviewing us on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you grab your podcast from, we'd appreciate that as well. Even better if you enjoy this show, please tell your friends about it. Please join this again next week as we track down all the latest news on China EVs & More.