Episode 169 - Tu at MOVE London, JLR + Chery and FSD in China reception

Tu starts the podcast out talking about his experience at the MOVE London event where he hosted two panel discussions. 

Lei then pivots to update everyone on the latest news about potential tariffs the Chinese govt are considering in retaliation for the EU tariffs on Chinese EVs. 

Tu and Lei then take a few moments to digest and unpack what it all means. 

They move onto the latest partnership announcement between JLR and Chery and how this falls in line with Stellantis and Volkswagen both partnering with local Chinese manufacturers. 

Tu talks about how these partnerships may create a reliance on the companies doing well in both regions in order for the partnerships to be successful. 

Tu and Lei close out the podcast with a discussion about FSD coming to China, what their domestic competitors think and updates on a few other Chinese AV startups.

Transcript

CEM #169 Transcript
Recorded 6/21/24

Tu Le:
Hi everyone and welcome to China EVs & More where my co-host Lei Xing and I will go over the week's most important and interesting news coming out of the China, 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. To our loyal listeners, thanks for listening and welcome back. We ask that you please help us get the word out about this podcast to other enthusiasts and course 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.substack.com, which I encourage you all to do. A Beijing lei, can you please introduce yourself.

Lei Xing:
A UK Tu, a London Tu. Good evening, good evening I guess for both of us, isn’t it?

Tu Le:
Good afternoon.

Lei Xing:
Well, so kind of late afternoon your time. So good evening from Beijing. This is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review and this is episode #169. Welcome to a special UK, start of summer episode. Tu, you've been in London for a few days. You've been on a couple of panels at the MOVE London event. And I hope you've seen some China EVs on the roads. So let's begin from where you are and talk about the action so far.

Tu Le:
So I got in on Sunday and met up with a couple of old Beijing friends. So it was great to see them. The weather has been perfect. I am staying in an area called White Chapel, which is very close to the Gherkin. So walked around, took some pictures of that. And again, I haven't been to London in 21 years, so it feels like I’ve never been. 

Lei Xing:
Wow, so it's on my bucket list. I’ve never been to the UK. So.

Tu Le:
Oh man, so the UK, so like, I don't know what the UK. London is, got to be a top 5 city in the world. Now, if it was raining every day, I would not have the same opinion, but it's so walkable. And again, the weather has been nothing but perfect.

Lei Xing:
Nice and cool.

Tu Le:
In the morning it's cool. It's not cold. It's cool. And during and, but everyone's telling me this is the best like week, two weeks of almost every year. And it's almost unseasonably warm. It almost feels like San Francisco in a way, but San Francisco in the morning, it's a dew, it's a fog because of the water. And it's like bitter cold in San Francisco, but then that mist burns off. Then you have a beautiful day from like 9, 10 o'clock to about 5 o'clock and then the fog comes back in. In London, there's no fog, there's no mist, but it's cool. And then from like 9 to 10 at night, it's nice and it gets a little cool. So the MOVE conference, it's marketed as the largest mobility conference in the world. They have locations or conferences in Austin, Texas, so MOVE Austin. MOVE Singapore.

Lei Xing:
Yep we've been there. We were there two years ago in September.

Tu Le:
And then London is their signature event. They are a European company, and I was lucky enough to get asked to come and moderate two panels. Wednesday was the charging panel and standing room only for our panel discussion, maybe had a little bit to do with me and a lot to do with Andy Palmer being on the panel. He is the ex-Aston Martin CEO, ex-Nissan COO. And so Daniel Kirchert worked for him. We'll get back to Daniel in a second. And, huge advocate for clean energy vehicles. I didn’t know.

Lei Xing:
Yep seeing some recent tweets.

Tu Le:
And so did you ever meet him when in back in your media days?

Lei Xing:
No, probably passed by, but never officially in the capacity that you met.

Tu Le:
So I think we've kind of exchanged things on social media and maybe kind of almost like second or third layer know each other. But this is my first time meeting him, talking to him, super nice, nice guy. And it's quite surprising. He's one of the few that is a motor head. He's a gear head. He's a car guy that is really, really long clean energy, really pushing more chargers. So he's he was the CEO of Podpoint which creates charging infrastructure for the UK. He moved to chairman recently and he's doing a couple of other things, but his main theory is that people need to get over range anxiety, because most people only drive X number of miles per day. And he used the Nissan Leaf, the vehicle that he pushed while he was at Nissan. Because the Nissan battery, I think is like a 26-kWh battery. And he said that if we want affordable EVs, we need to make the battery smaller, maybe half the size of the average battery today. And so that's one way to do it for sure. But in the back of my mind, and he knows about China EV Inc., but I think he's newish to that thought of and the depth of the product availability. And then we talked about, is it, one of the questions was emotional, political, or rational, why EV adoption is so volatile right now? And so talked a little bit about that, about range anxiety, about not being comfortable. If there's no chargers and then there's a statistic that I was in a discussion yesterday that in Europe, at least, people think that they are going to be using public charges 80% of the time. And then some of the car companies did some research and it's actually only 6% of the time in Europe. And I didn't know that number. So that was super surprising as well. But there were infrastructure and there was an infrastructure person on the panel as well, who's trying to optimize the use of energy for charging so that when you're plugged into the grid at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, you're not being charged the full fare, because it's a peak time, right? There's aa battery aspect to it or a storage aspect to it. That was the first day Lei. We take it for granted in China, because we had, I actually don't know how big that battery was for the G9. Do you know?

Lei Xing:
It's on the orders of probably like 70ish kWh, I’d imagine?

Tu Le:
90? So just for our audience, Lei and I drove from Beijing to Shenzhen, 1,500 miles, 2,100 km. We stopped for twice in Zhengzhou, Changsha, and then finally in Shenzhen. We charged twice every time, except for the third day where we were. That was the only day we had any challenges with charging, but we got out of the charging station. We would normally go into the charging stations with about 20-25% left. Is that right, Lei? I think we'd leave with about 90% or between 90 and 95%, because it kept us at 95. It normally didn't take more than 30, 40 minutes at the most.

Lei Xing:
I just checked. It's 98-kWh for the performance MAX that we had. So pretty big.

Tu Le:
That's even more impressive, right? Cause would you agree that we got out of the charging station no more than 30, 40 minutes.

Lei Xing:
Exactly. That's right.

Tu Le:
And so I told you my experience last week in the United States with a Kia that had a 65-kWh. I was there for an hour and a half. The UK is even slower than charging, and remember Will had complained about it when he came back to the UK on vacation, I think, to visit family. So I mean these are real challenges. We take it for granted, because there are so many super chargers in the United States and in China, but they're still dealing with pretty slow charging. In London in particular, I can't answer about this other stuff. But the second one was on Thursday, yesterday, and it was about…

Lei Xing:
Old friends.

Tu Le:
Yeah the globalization of electric vehicles and I think there was enough interest, so they bumped it from half an hour to 45 minutes. I moderated, our good friend Daniel Kirchert was there. Our good friend Afonso was there who is now an independent, I would say journalist who has a very successful website, EV, in electic vehicles without the r and there was an, Urban Science, retail, automotive consultancy. And then a person who was doing like a platform for EV buyers that like an informational platform, it sounded similar to like a carwow. But not as big, obviously. And so that was a good crowd. Again, pretty full. Again, I think maybe had a little bit to do with me and more to do with a few of the other panelists, but there needs to be some education here Lei for sure. And on July 4, there's going to be an election. And so I think people are still kind of on the fence of about how to feel about Chinese EVs in the UK. Now what makes it unique? It's similar to Australia where the UK doesn't really build that many of its own vehicles. So they're either going to export them from Europe or import them from Europe or import them from China or some combination thereof. We know that currently, although Stellantis surprised a lot of people by rolling off the first LeapMotor C10 yesterday or two days ago in Poland. So maybe we'll see Chinese

Lei Xing:
It’s the T03.

Tu Le:
T03 sorry.

Lei Xing:
Yeah, the smaller. Yeah, which is good. I mean its…

Tu Le:
It's a kit. They shipped the kit. And real start of production is in September, so they're probably going to ramp. And then by the end of this year they are going to be delivering them to customers. I would assume as LeapMotor badged vehicles. So maybe that's I’m actually surprised Stellantis is able to do China speed.

Lei Xing:
Tavares is smiling even more.

Tu Le:
Ear to ear. Ear to ear, he doesn't care now.

Lei Xing:
Yeah, given the current backdrop.

Tu Le:
So can you tell us what the latest on the tariff situation is between China, the EU and let's bring in Canada’s time too.

Lei Xing:
Well the latest is we talked about German sausages and it so happened that the MOFCOM, China's MOFCOM is, just announced this anti-dumping investigation on EU imported pork and pig byproducts. Then second, the most recent chatter.

Tu Le:
Let me stop you there Lei. Because there are so many pigs in China. I don't know what they're doing, importing pork. You and I know there are so many pigs, it's the favorite meat, it's the favorite meat of Chinese. So.

Lei Xing:
Now, the second was the most recent chatter was on. Yeah, I know cracking me up. On how far the investigation went, meaning that now there's a few automakers and even a few European automakers in a closed-door meeting had talked about the EU investigation going too far and trying to extract, I guess, sensitive information. That's been the latest chatter. And I tweeted that MG’s design director mocking the 38.1% punitive tariff with some new design. 

Tu Le:
They have a new marketing document.

Lei Xing:
So I guess you make fun of it. You try to take it on a lighter note, anyway you can, but.

Tu Le:
But you and I know that 48% is going to hurt, because guess what? We see a lot of from a clean energy side in the UK, ton of MGs. And MG is pretty popular in Germany, too. If he's not laughing, he's crying. So because that is really going to hurt them.

Lei Xing:
Yeah, especially MINI, right? Which is, we talked about this joint venture between BMW and Great Wall Motor. Although, in the beginning, it’ll be for the Chinese market, but the intention was to export back to the EU.

Tu Le:
But they're pointing, but the Chinese government is also pointing their attention at one specific segment. Can you tell the audience what that segment is on the tariff side? High displacement.

Lei Xing:
Yeah, the 25%, the 2.5L was also the most recent chatter, haven't been formally announced yet, but that's a quarter million passenger vehicles of 2.5L and above were imported into China last year.

Tu Le:
Many of them sold with German logos. 

Lei Xing:
So not small numbers.

Tu Le:
So we've said this in past podcasts, but let's create context ok Lei, and you correct me on the numbers because there, I remember these from yesterday's panel discussion. Daniel had brought this out, and you and I know them. ABB, Audi Beamer Benz typically between 700,000-800,000 units, all three of them, each of them. So it's a third, it's more than it's a third of their sales annually. Okay? Early days when I first moved to China in 2009, most Chinese people I knew, if they “you qian” (are rich), right, they don't want the Chinese-made BMW, they don't want to buy the Chinese made C-Class, so they buy the German made which is more expensive. But now almost every high runner for the Germans is made domestically. And so when they go high displacement, we're normally talking high-end 5 Series, high-end 7 Series, S-Class, A8s. So these are their profit machines. They're low in volume, like you said, 250,000, but there could be 20, 30,000-Euro of profit for each of these vehicles for ABB and so this is a real danger in who it hits at the heart of. It's a company that's, name starts with P and ends with the orsche, because they don't make because that was their thing, right? We don't make Porches anywhere else in the world. So it is, and they're already down 40% over the last year in China, 40%. So that's a massive number. And so who do you think has the advantage and who's going to stare and blink first on this stare down? Who's going to blink first? 

Lei Xing:
It's tough. I don't see anyone.

Tu Le:
It's tough isn’t it. 

Lei Xing:
I mean Porsche was on the cusp of getting to 100,000 units in China and 100,000 units would warrant a consideration of local production that's been rumored many many times over the past. And now, the sales are tanking and tariff doesn't help.

Tu Le:
Let's make that distinction. Sales were tanking already. The tariff is probably going to push it much farther into panic button territory. Yeah, because if I was an odds maker Lei, I would lean a little bit more Europe having an advantage than China, because only for the fact that it's a bit rich for the Chinese government to make certain complaints about how things aren't fair and everything, because in the early days, a lot of these OEMs had to do some cart wheels to enter the China market. It was well worth it for them. But they still had to go through some things, right?

Lei Xing:
And I heard of this crying out for the EU investigation going too far and touching sensitive information that SAIC got the 38.1%, rumored, part of the reason is because they didn't cooperate as much in those investigations. I can't confirm that, but right, you see these like debate.

Tu Le:
Again, Lei, it's a bit rich, because it is a bit rich, right? So meaning that there's some irony to this. And so the other thing that I wanted to mention was that Canada is now looking at adding tariffs. So this is the thing I’m not really clear because I asked the panel yesterday, because 50% of Tesla production comes from China. Is it, if I import into Canada, is Tesla considered a Chinese company and do they get the tariff? Or is there an exemption? So I'm not sure about all that stuff like Europe, right? Because they build, but every Model Y, every Model 3 for the most part in Europe in 2023 was shipped from Shanghai.

Lei Xing:
I probably see as it doesn't matter as long as it's made in China, it doesn't matter who you are, okay? Doesn't matter if it's Tesla, right? The EU tariff applies to Teslas, made in China Teslas.

Tu Le:
But Lei, I didn't complicate it. The freaking EU did it right? Like you know 17% of BYD, 20% for Geely, 38%, I didn't complicate it, right? So like what? So we were kind of talking about that like they had to be like surgical about it. And it's the weirdest thing who is not really saying that much, BYD, because they got away with a slap on the wrist and they're like, you know what, we’ll eat that.

Lei Xing:
Yeah, it's interesting that SAIC and Geely have come out with official statements of the tariff. BYD has not. So it goes back to the slap on the wrist comment that we talked about last episode.

Tu Le:
So it's that non-win win.

Lei Xing:
Non-win win, right.

Tu Le:
I was late getting on this by like a minute. And here's my tweet, right after this show ends: the more and more EU legacy Inc. and China EV and Battery Inc., the more and more partnership deals, they ink together, the further and further U.S. legacy Inc. seems to get away or their chances seem to go away from catching up in theoretical terms. That's how I look at that.

Lei Xing:
It's the perfect segway to talk about another, Indian-owned, UK company, JLR.

Tu Le:
I’m going to say this real quick and then you take over, I can't help, but think Lei, this is Ford-Chang'an, because JLR is a little bit later, and they get the more difficult joint venture or partner, because JLR’s all premium luxury and Chery’s historically not known to be premium and luxury, but please go ahead.

Lei Xing:
Yeah so JLR formerly Jaguar Land Rover. They made that strategic, a change in the corporate name and then all their name plates now becoming brands right? Defender, Land Rover, Jaguar now become separate brands rather than models. So JLR is a new corporate name, and they've had this joint venture with Chery for 12 years. During those 12 years, the Chery JLR joint venture has been at best mediocre. So it wasn't great. The performance wasn't great, but they survived. And now they just made this announcement three days ago bringing back the Freelander nameplate as a brand which will use Chery’s E platform on a series of products. First to be produced at the joint venture for the Chinese market, potentially going forward exporting to other markets. So I tweeted that this is following the Stellantis Leap, Volkswagen Xpeng, SAIC Audi, another one of these reverse, what I call the reverse JVs, where now the Chinese partner is bringing the technology to the table rather than before.

Tu Le:
Just today, Lei, Rolls Royce and CATL, did you see that?

Lei Xing:
The Rolls Royce is the other Rolls Royce, not the Rolls Royce Cars. 

Tu Le:
It's not. Okay. Are you sure? 

Lei Xing:
No, it's the engine. I think it's the other one. So.

Tu Le:
I thought that for a second, I was like you can't 

Lei Xing:
But still relevant, sure.

Tu Le:
But let's say this, because there's an article about the EU looking at these tariffs forcing these partnerships, these partnerships are already happening. And this should just confirm that most European legacies have looked themselves in the mirror very objectively and finally admitted that they can't do it alone. They can't compete, they can't build the technology and the culture and the knowhow in the time that's needed with the capital that's available. And what's important to note? You tell me if you've heard anything different, before Stellantis acquired the 20% stake in LeapMotor. I heard Leap was a mess. And Xpeng I heard is pretty well managed is just that they're making rash decisions on some stuff and product decisions that also had scratches. But the team seems to be okay, LeapMotor I heard was not great. And so there's no guarantee that any of these work out.

Lei Xing:
And the same applies to the JRL Chery move.

Tu Le:
Agreed.

Lei Xing:
 I, to be honest, the JLR corporate, Jaguar Land Rover, is facing the same problems that every other foreign automakers are facing in China. They're becoming irrelevant. So if they don't do it, if they didn't make this move, they become irrelevant. If they did, they made this move, at least they give it a try and maybe have a chance, but that chance is pretty slim. They have to try, which is, try what the other ones have tried, no guarantee for success.

Tu Le:
And Jaguar is effectively zero in China right now, the irony about.

Lei Xing:
It's not, of the premium brands, it’s not often talked about. Maybe Land Rover, a little bit.

Tu Le:
But the weird thing. I mean Range Rover could do no wrong for several years and then they made too many derivative brands from the Range Rover nameplate. And then Chinese consumers got confused, sales went down, they simplified things, and now sales have gone up again. Range Rover…

Lei Xing:
And also, now I was just going to say the same problem that you talked about earlier of these 25% tariffs, the upper, the more premium Land Rover models that these two are used to buy, right? Or imported, over RMB1 million models. Same thing.

Tu Le:
And so I actually am okay with this. One of the things that I had written in the newsletter this week, Lei, was that if Xpeng is doing well in Europe utilizing Volkswagen’s help and resources and network and dealership and marketing, the last thing they would want is for Volkswagen to be tanking in China. And so this creates an entity that wants their counterpart to succeed in China. Maybe that's the way to do it. Because you know that…

Lei Xing:
Yeah I mean, I called it the “new forcification” so new force “Xin Shi Li” right, in Chinese, means new force or the “smartevfication” but these three or four case studies that have happened, they all are different. So Volkswagen Xpeng and Stellantis LeapMotor are entirely different because what Stellantis did with the T03, the LeapMotor T03, it's not happening for Xpeng. Volkswagen is not going to produce the Xpeng, right, for Xpeng, right? So this is only for…

Tu Le:
Not yet.

Lei Xing:
So right now it’s more, that model is more focused on using the Xpeng platform for upcoming SUVs in China for Volkswagen. And Xpeng gets these revenue stream, right? That was already happening in the first quarter. So these are a bit different and same for Chery Jaguar Land Rover because there are already a joint venture, whereas the other ones are not. So. But I think you see now these foreign automakers tinkering with these different business models in order to survive.

Tu Le:
We also have to remember Lei that LeapMotor has both EREV and BEV. So Stellantis has a bit of flexibility here, whereas Volkswagen really only has one play using Xpeng’s BEV platform and using their last-gen BEV platform at that. And JLR, same thing, Chery’s BEV platform.

Lei Xing:
Well I mean the G9 platform platform isn't bad. I mean we drove it.

Tu Le:
No, I'm not saying, but like spending $900 million and not negotiating we're going to use the latest platforms kind of, and that's not Xpeng’s fault. I don't fault them for that.

Lei Xing:
And Xpeng may be going into EREVs. As does Xiaomi? So, what else?

Tu Le:
But that's mitigating risk. I see these BEV companies going into EREVs or hybrids, and for those that are listening that aren't sure what an EREV is, it’s an extended range electric vehicle, Li Auto up until the MEGA, L6, L7, L8, L9, all EREVs. So there's a small displacement gas engine in the vehicle.

Lei Xing:
Usually 1.5L.

Tu Le:
And it powers the battery. It doesn't touch the wheels. That's why they call it an EREV instead of a hybrid. But I think that's smart. I think that again, the price war, the pressure to get keep these factories running and the fact that their last bastion of high-volume market has, not like the United States slammed the door shut, it seems like the EU has given them options. But the only company that seems to be well positioned in the immediate term is Stellantis and BYD. So we knew when BYD entered four years ago, Lei, you and I talked about this probably in that on one of our first podcasts that they priced the Han and Tang very high. And the ATTO 3 super cheap. So I don't know if they are going to eat a lot of that tariff. I don't know what they're going to do yet, but you better believe that they're going to sharpen their pencil, and they're going to continue to ship PHEVs and BEVs as needed into the European market. So, let me do this Lei, do you have anything else you want to talk about?

Lei Xing:
Well, speaking of Xpeng He Xiaopeng is in the U.S. testing out Tesla FSD 12.3, whatever version. He posted something and then somebody posted something on Twitter and Elon replied: Chinese automakers are the most competitive and Xpeng replied to that, saying we love to have you.

Tu Le:
They're basically complementing each other.

Lei Xing:
Come to China, we love to have you come to China and try out XNGP. I mean it's like cheesy.

Tu Le:
I wonder if that's our friend.

Lei Xing:
I don't know. I mean, I wonder also. 

Tu Le:
It’s very funny. No, but hey man, they know, the Chinese players know that FSD is not going to be this thing that's going to scare them. It’s just not.

Lei Xing:
Yeah but I think at the same time, I think they're watching this very closely.

Tu Le:
Oh, “dang rang” for sure.

Lei Xing:
They'll welcome it. But in the back of their head and mind that it's something that they can’t be too sure, a positive on, because obviously, what the FSD has been able to accomplish, at least in the U.S., I mean it's been pretty significant. The feedback has been that it's really good. And given that it’s a vision only system. And you know that also given the backdrop that there's been some cases against Xpeng engineers supposedly stealing Tesla…

Tu Le:
And Apple.

Lei Xing:
Right. And Apple. It’s not… Yeah, when Xpeng tweets that, and when He Xiaopeng is actually out there testing out the FSD, it's I mean how do you look at it, right? People will jump on it. And then.

Tu Le:
Well, most people know the story of Huawei sending about 40 or 50 engineers to Silicon Valley or California to try out FSD as well. I mean that's not unusual. It's basically kind of competitive analysis. And you don't falt anybody for that. It's just it's funny that Xpeng is like, yeah, come on down, we'd love to have you. Yeah it's great. The one thing Lei that like there's a couple of quick things that I’ll talk about. We talked about JLR Chery, we talked about Stellantis, talked about Volkswagen with Xpeng. It's not just the Europeans. Now, if you know of any others that I don't say, please add them, because the U.S. automakers are doing it, Ford with CATL, GM in the China market with Momenta. So it's not just the Europeans.

Lei Xing:
And Momenta just got that clearing, I guess, or receipt of filing notice on their listing in NASDAQ or NYSE.

Tu Le:
Yes, yes. The one thing that was interesting was two days ago, James Peng, the founder….

Lei Xing:
Oh yeah, Pony. He was there.

Tu Le:
Looks like he had a keynote at like 9:30. I came a little bit late caught most of it. They're going to open a technical office in Luxembourg. I don't know if that has anything to do with the scrutiny the Chinese AV companies are beginning to receive in Silicon Valley, but or they just see a more immediate opportunity in Europe. So.

Lei Xing:
Remember that China and Germany signed an agreement on the study of kind of the cross border data exchange on AVs, right? So, watch out for that.

Tu Le:
That's still, from an EU policy standpoint, and the United States policy, there is none. I think both governments are really studying what the best way to ensure the data isn't transferred overseas. It isn't utilized in some nefarious way. So I think 2024, you'll get a much brighter spotlight on that. As you start to see more and more Chinese EVs in the EU market, and the next president is elected in January. What else did I have? Do I have anything else? Now? And now, first of all, were there any other American and Chinese tie-ups that? No, I can't think of anything else.

Lei Xing:
No.

Tu Le:
So let's do this. Let's open the room up. If anyone has any questions or just wants to post it in the chat or the comment section, you can do that or raise your hand. Giri, what's going on? Man could see that you're listening. Hope you're well hope. Wondering, are you in Thailand? Just give me an ok, it's late in Thailand, too. But any surprise about Fisker filing for bankruptcy, Lei?

Lei Xing:
Well, I'm just sad that our first MAX episode executive having to file for bankruptcy the second time. So, sorry.

Tu Le:
There are so many. 

Lei Xing:
I'm not surprised at all.

Tu Le:
I won't say so many. There are a couple stories now that deep dive into that cluster of a company. I mean.

Lei Xing:
Remember this is almost 3 years ago and he was talking about even the China strategy, and they were going to open a China showroom at the beginning of this year and that never happened. I mean…

Tu Le:
Obviously that is, the next ones to watch are Faraday. I think VinFast is another one to watch.

Lei Xing:
It's also really bad reputation for, likewise for ARCFOX, who are, both ARCFOX and Fisker they're using Magna Steyr production assets or capabilities. So.

Tu Le:
Magna Steyr has a reputation for contract manufacturing, but I think it's ICE vehicles.

Lei Xing:
They produce the G-Class, right? Some of the BMWs, Jaguars, right? So.

Tu Le:
But there hasn't been a contract manufacturer that has been able to successfully. I take that back, because Lordstown has its own set of issues, and Fisker has its own set of issues. So it was probably more of a capital and a management challenge than an actual inability to produce and manufacturing expertise, challenge. So.

Lei Xing:
So I mean the U.S. startup, EV startup space now is really getting thin, right? FF is kind of like their 98th life. Rivian’s ok, I guess. Lucid, I don't know. 

Tu Le:
Rivian seems to have a second win because of the positive feedback from the R2 and the R3. And so the cool thing here at the MOVE conference Lei was that there were a number of charging companies, which tells me that charging manufacturers, I mean building chargers is going to get commoditized pretty quickly.

Lei Xing:
I think in Europe, especially in Germany, maybe in quite a few other countries as well. It's not about the charging. It's not about the chargers, but really the red tape for getting the approval. That's been what's holding back, part of the equation, chicken and egg problem.

Tu Le:
I took an Uber last night from my dinner to my hotel. Was in an MG, I think it was E4?

Lei Xing:
MG 4 EV.

Tu Le:
MG4 EV, that's right. MG 4 EV. It was nice, very simple, but it probably had less than 1,000 km on it, but no issues, I was like, and then the person I was sitting next to, he's British, and he said he bought an MG, and he's been super happy with it. So I think we just put to bed that these cars aren't competitive. They're more than competitive. I think Daniel had kind of keyed in on that messaging a little bit as well. And the consensus from the panel was that. So Daniel said 30 brands might enter Europe, but 5 to 7 might.

Lei Xing:
He's responsible for at least three himself. So what the heck.

Tu Le:
So have you seen that Me 4, HERO 4? Google it real quick. The Dongfeng Hero 4, it looks like a Hummer.

Lei Xing:
Oh the Meng Shi. Yeah, i've seen them.

Tu Le:
In the next week and half. I'm going to go to Lausanne, Switzerland, cause NOYO is a Swiss company.

Lei Xing:
Yeah they are based there. They just, couple of months ago that they launched it, right? Yeah.

Tu Le:
Daniel has a Hero 4 and he's going to drive it to Lausanne. We're going to drive it around Switzerland. I’ll definitely send you some pictures of that.

Lei Xing:
Yeah, and he's having a headache because of this new tariffs, right?

Tu Le:
I mean that's also one of the reasons he selected Switzerland to as the first country. Because I think he can kind of dial in his business model, dial in his software. And kind of wait out what happens? I guess.

Lei Xing:
I mean the volumes are so low.

Tu Le:
But Dongefng VOYAH has launched another pretty cool looking on paper anyways, pretty cool looking vehicle. So.

Lei Xing:
So the VOYAH Zhiyin, the smaller SUV and I just were shared on supposedly being produced at one of Dongfeng’s joint ventures interestingly enough.

Tu Le:
But the EU drama has really only begun. So this is, so buckle up. Strap in.

Lei Xing:
We're seeing it play out, right? Daily.

Tu Le:
Yeah.

Lei Xing:
The pork, the sensitive info, the 25% tariffs.

Tu Le:
And it's not unusual. You and I have to laugh, but it's not unusual for some of the Chinese. Let's say analysts, not Chinese analysts, but the Chinese like the representatives to be overly dramatic. I think sometimes so everything, anything, sometimes when anything happens bad to a Chinese company, it's like the end of the world. So sometimes you got to take that with a grain of salt, but hey, everyone appreciate you being able to accommodate our revised schedule today. You're going to say something.

Lei Xing:
No, you still be on European time next week, right? So we'll figure it out again.

Tu Le:
So I had a meeting this morning. That's why I couldn't do the 9 am and then for those in London next week, next Wednesday, there's going to be an event, if you're interested DM me, it's at the China Exchange near Covent Garden, there’s an organization called Beijing in Britain. It's going to be a thoughtful discussion about UK strategy towards engagement with China. There's going to be two panels, a panel with me, Henry Sanderson, Simon Wright, who is the industry insiders, industry journalists for The Economist.

Lei Xing:
We met in Beijing, right? 

Tu Le:
That’s right. Taller guy with a beard. Yeah, and so looking forward to it, if anyone would like to go, DM me, I can send you the link. Actually, I’m going to post it on Twitter anyways. And LinkedIn so would love to see you. There's been a few people that have, didn't know my face but saw the logo, and came up and were like podcast is great, newsletter is great.

Lei Xing:
Yeah finally get to meet.

Tu Le:
Yeah, exactly. So here's a funny story and I'll tell it to the audience too. There's this woman that, it was in the after party, comes up to me, because I have the China EVs & More work shirt on and the name on it says Lao Ban (boss), right? Nobody knows, no western knows what that means and then she's blonde hair, blue eye comes up to me and she's like Ni Hao Lao Ban, she’s Ni Hao Lao Ban. And I come to find out so she works at a startup and I'm a mentor at Plug and Play, the startup is a Plug and Play startup. She's from Michigan and she spent two years teaching English in Guangzhou and I thought it was the funniest thing, so super nice. She was like small world. She didn't know that Daniel and I cause Daniel and I were just standing at the table drinking beer talking. She didn't know there's two mandarin speakers at the table, so it's pretty funny. Anyways. Hey. Thanks again, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. 

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.