China EVs & More
Electric Vehicle (EV) & mobility experts Tu Le and Lei Xing plug you in to all the latest going's on in the 🇨🇳EV & mobility space that are sure to have effects on the 🇺🇸 and 🇪🇺 regions. Specifically, Tu and Lei dissect the week’s most important news coming out of the China EV/Autonomous Driving (AV), chip, battery, ride-hailing, shared & micro-mobility verticals. Learn more about companies like: #NIO #XPeng # LiAuto #BYD #Arcfox #Seres #Voyah #Xiaomi #Huawei #Tesla #GM #Ford #VW #Audi #Merc #BMW #Didi #Meituan #WeRide #Pony.ai #AutoX #Baidu #Apollo #Hesai #Seyond #RoboSense
China EVs & More
Episode #176 - XPeng Celebrates 10 Years, GM Restructures 🇨🇳, Merc Catches Fire in Seoul
Tu and Lei open this podcast with a discussion of Polestar launching production of it's Polestar 3 in the US, South Carolina. They quickly shift the conversation over to XPeng's 10 year anniversary and discuss what they remember about XPeng over the last 10 years.
Lei and Tu then move to discuss the speed of change and product refreshes. The automotive space hasn't seen this frequency of refreshes ever.
Tu changes subject over to General Motors (GM) restructuring the China business along with a brief history lesson for GM doing business in China.
The discussion moves over to a 15 minute CNBC video that was posted that compares the US Model Y to 4 Chinese branded vehicles: BYD, Li Auto, NIO and XPeng that Tu contributed to and was interviewed for.
The podcast closes out with a discussion on the Merc EQE that caught on fire in an underground parking structure outside of Seoul, South Korea which sparked a HUGE uproar about the safety of EVs and who supplies which batteries to what vehicles.
CEM #176 Transcript
Recorded 8/16/24
Tu Le:
Hi all 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 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, welcome back! We ask that you help us please get the word out about this podcast 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.substack.com, which I encourage you all to do. Lei, a patient Lei. Can you please introduce yourself?
Lei Xing:
Yes sir. Good morning. This is Lei Xing, your co-host, former chief editor of China Auto Review. This is episode #176. Three major milestones to mention at the top of the show. Polestar 3 job No. 1 in the U.S., ONVO L60 job No. 1 in Hefei and 10 years of Xpeng. All happening in the last couple of days. So congrats to these brands. We've been, it’s fair to say the three brands we’ve probably mentioned them millions of times on our show. NIO, right?
Tu Le:
An extension of NIO.
Lei Xing:
I think each of these milestones are pretty significant. I have to say Polestar 3 producing in the U.S. finally is…
Tu Le:
Let me give my quick perspective on that. Everything else is just noise because they're building here. A lot of FUD, a lot of doubt and uncertainty. But at the end of the day, there's Americans building Polestars in South Carolina. So.
Lei Xing:
Yes. And it seemed, I think Polestar 3 was like, unveiled, was, what two years ago, slightly less than two years ago, I believe. And there were some delays, because of the software, LiDAR, I mean it couldn't come at a better time because of the 100% tariffs, right? So, and then the Polestar 4 producing in South Korea next year, is also a way to circumvent that, right?
Tu Le:
Well, so the, what's important here is Lei, that, unfortunately, the lack of tariffs or the lack of significant tariffs didn't help the Polestar 2. So hopefully, the 3 resonates more from a product standpoint and feature standpoint to Americans than the Polestar 2 did.
Lei Xing:
Yeah, because of the, after all it’s an SUV. So, yeah, and…
Tu Le:
I went to a Polestar retail store near my house. And you couldn't take it for a ride, it was parked inside the retail store. It was white. It would be great to see it in other colors. I like the clean lines of the white paint, but it also makes it a bit hospitalish, like the entire retail experience is a little bit sterile, because everything is white. Everything's gray, everything's black. So I would normally lean into stuff like that, but this is almost too much.
Lei Xing:
Yeah, it's just totally different here with the kind of experience of trying to buy a car.
Tu Le:
Let's reflect really quickly on the 10 years of Xpeng, Lei. What's your first experience? And I'll tell you mine.
Lei Xing:
The first experience, I don't have the photos, was I think it was 2014 or 2015 when I went to Guangzhou and seeing one of the mule cars based on the Lexus. Now kind of thinking back to then, how far they’ve come and how difficult it still is for them to get on this momentum, because of some of the failed models that they've launched in recent times. We were on a show yesterday, right, we talked about this, maybe the last episode about this NOA race, the smart driving, they were in the lead, but I don't think they are in the lead. They say they are in the lead. These are some of the things that come up, but also of the experience, many of the experiences we've had, you and I, with Xpeng. So somehow it resonates more with us. Maybe.
Tu Le:
I think it's important that we both visited, we've both spoken to Brian (Gu). You’ve, have you spoken to He Xiaopeng.
Lei Xing:
Yes. This was 2019, I think, in Guangzhou. They had their 1024 event. So yeah, I have.
Tu Le:
And so I feel Lei, that these NIOs and these Li Autos, these Xpengs, because you and I have tracked them literally since day one, and seen them grow, seeing some of the challenges, talking to the people, being hopeful about them, being able to jump or leap over some of these hurdles and challenges. It's just rooting for them because you know people there personally and great people, good products. It's just a brutal market. My experience could have been 2016, 2017 and saw a G3 and then got connected to a couple of higher ups there and spoke to them. I won't tell you who they are, but and then first-time visiting was 2019, just before the pandemic, or end of 2019, early 2020, one of the two, and got to drive Xpeng from Xpeng. I had driven Xpengs from friends and our good friend Eliot Richards from Fully Charged.
Lei Xing:
Sure, he’s an owner, right?
Tu Le:
He owned a G3. And so again, they've evolved for sure, and we thought the P5 was going to be a decent hit for them that failed. And so you almost want to be cautious when you say anything about a product being a clear cut hit nowadays in China. I think the SU7 is a clear cut hit, but that's looking backwards. And so.
Lei Xing:
There's great expectations and there's great burden. You only have to look at the upcoming MONA M03 and the ONVO L60. It will be hard to imagine if they don't do well. But what does do well mean, right? Do we…
Tu Le:
So let me ask you Lei and we clarify, I think we clarified this couple episodes, ONVO is a separate brand, MONA is a trim package under the Xpeng brand, correct?
Lei Xing:
Well, it's a new series. You can look at it as a new model basically. But ONVO is a separate brand. So it's a little bit different, but I mean these are the volume getters, right? These are the drivers. You would expect, they are launching. So MONA launching end of this month, then L60 launching.
Tu Le:
With the ceiling of $19,000.
Lei Xing:
L60 launching in about a month. So within that month, I’m sure ONVO, NIO is going to produce as many as they can because they want to deliver at the moment that the cars launched, right? That's what they want to do.
Tu Le:
They have to. Any lead time between the launch and the delivery. It gives the competitor a chance to incentivize the buyer to make a switch.
Lei Xing:
And that expectation is, one example is this this Stelato S9, the moment they announced that they got 2,500 units of order in 24 hours, the BAIC shares dropped because of the expectations that it should get more.
Tu Le:
That's crazy, right?
Lei Xing:
I mean for a RMB500,000, actually RMB400,000 right? So.
Tu Le:
If you, for those that haven't seen the Stelato S9, it's a flagship that should be competing against the 7 Series, the S-Class and the A8.
Lei Xing:
Really, I think the one key word that throughout what we talk about, maybe today is the speed, right? The speed. It's the best of it, the worst of it, speed kills, speed wins you market. The latest example that one of the topics you put on was the fastest battery, but also the fastest iteration of a model changeover and the culprit being ZEEKR.
Tu Le:
Can you go into more detail on that?
Lei Xing:
Well I tweeted something out saying, basically, they have a 2023 year, 2024 year and 2025 year model on sale all during the same year. Who does that? Only China EV Inc., maybe only ZEEKR.
Tu Le:
I think ZEEKR jumped a shark on that, though, because you cannibalizing and it's hard to. Could you imagine the amount of pressure that the suppliers are under now? Because their purchase orders are probably just 30 days out. So.
Lei Xing:
Yeah I mean there's this protest. They went to the ZEEKR building headquarters. And these signs put up? I don't know how this will play out. And if it really dents into this ZEEKR reputation, but I mean that new gold battery, right? Think about it like, 50, the existing 001 with the Qilin or the Shenxing from 10% to 80%, 15 minutes, right? Under ideal conditions. I mean and that is already lightning fast. Then we bring it down to 10.5 minutes. It's, that's part of the “juan,” right? The rat race that's happening. It's only a matter of time somebody else brings it down to the sub-10 minute.
Tu Le:
If you think about it, Lei, you go to Starbucks, unless you order online prior to picking it up, that's how long it takes to get a coffee. So it's almost the perfect timing, 8, 10 minutes. And so the pressure to have a 400 or 500 mile range battery decreases significantly. And if the battery pack is smaller, the car's lighter, it's a self. It's a positive reinforcing thing because the battery is smaller, the car is lighter. And so we're optimizing for a few different things, whereas this Lucid Air, I think is over 5,000 pounds. It's an amazing vehicle. The BMS needs to be really important. But if you could lop off a few hundred pounds because you have a smaller battery, you're not as worried about having that extra 75 miles of range, creates a lot of flexibility now.
Lei Xing:
Yeah. And then also going back to ONVO, I think one of the metrics that there hitting trying to hit is that 12.1 kWh/100 km, which in fact, this is something being available on the market soon. And Mercedes is with their next-gen platform vehicle, that's the target they're trying to reach next year. And by the time it happens next year, somebody else is probably going to beat that number. It's continuing to.
Tu Le:
But I think that's the key number now, because of all the different chemistry and the one variable that people can't clearly understand, including me. So I'm not saying, not me, is the battery management system. A lot of folks in the U.S. they're using other people's battery management system. I think the OEMs are trying to bring it in house, but again, a great battery management system, ala Tesla can probably eke out 10%, 15% more efficiency from the same battery. Those become a little less important. And I think this range per kWh is probably the moving forward, going to be the most accurate measure of how efficient a pack is.
Lei Xing:
Yeah. And then the other part of the reason why ZEEKR launched the 2025 model earlier was, I think in one of the interviews, executive interviews, it was shared, actually, that one of the pressure points, burdens in the competition in the market is indeed that leadership that Xpeng supposedly has: the NOA game. I think ZEEKR felt they were behind a little bit on the Mobileye route. One of the biggest changes in 2025 model year is the smart driving kind of the stack with the new standard Orin chips, lidar, RoboSense LidAR, 8295. And remember that one of the ZEEKR, when they first launched 001 couple of years ago, one of the issues they had with customers was the 820A chip. And the screen, it wasn't working well. So they upgraded to 8155 for free. But you can't do this for the 2024 model year. I think they said that because of the wiring, the harness, right?
Tu Le:
And the cost, because there's many more ZEEKR 001s in the wild right now.
Lei Xing:
So that's part of the competitive environment forcing you to make these kind of moves, which at the end of the day, as I said, for better or worse, speed kills or speed wins.
Tu Le:
Well just at a certain point in time, I think it's gotten ridiculous already.
Lei Xing:
But also, I think it could be one-off. So I don't imagine ZEEKR doing this every day, every year, say, by the middle of 2025, they launched a 2026 or 2027 edition. It could be this one-off, but we'll see. But I think the standard is within 12 months, a refresh comes out. It's hard to imagine that goes down to six across the industry.
Tu Le:
I could see major over the air update in 6 months.
Lei Xing:
That's happening, that has been happening. That's the standard for many years now, but, yeah.
Tu Le:
And culturally, if we're looking at some of the other big news this week, GM is looking at restructuring of China. These are the reasons for that because the legacy OEMs can't keep up the speed at which change happens in China is such that culturally, if your mindset has been every 3 years, I'm going to build a brand new vehicle or refresh entirely a brand new product. Now it's 18 months, it's just hard to revolutionize something that's been ingrained in the culture, in the processes, in the policy, in the sourcing for 100 years. I've always pointed to and you know this Lei that we can change things at legacy auto, but if they don't change from a management and culture standpoint, it's just going to be impossible for them to make the transition over and be able to keep up with the Teslas and the NIOs and the BYDs.
Lei Xing:
Yeah, and this lack of speed for GM, for the foreign automakers, for the joint ventures that are operating in China is exactly one of the reasons why they've lagged behind the last few years. And this news on GM and I think it's as much about GM as it is about SAIC because if you look at SAIC as a group, they are facing a bit of pressure as well. If you look at the group sales, including all the joint ventures, including Wuling, they just recently just this week had a huge management shuffle of their two major joint ventures, GM and Volkswagen. So Shanghai GM hired a PATAC guy as the new president, tech guy.
Tu Le:
And let me ask you this. Let me stop you right there, Lei because I'd like you to help me understand something. There's GM International Operations in Shanghai. There is Shanghai GM, there’s PATAC, and then there is, so I'm, can you map this out what the different entities are?
Lei Xing:
Well, PATAC is kind of the local R&D organization for Shanghai GM, for GM China for that matter, because a lot of the locally models are initially developed there. And I think there was another executive that left that was in charge of GM International which included GM China. I think the issue is kind of like Ford over many of number years, the organizational issue, Asia Pacific over China. Finally, China was a standalone. So to me, I think, going forward, it's this autonomy, really for any of these foreign automakers that they operate, the autonomy of their joint ventures. They really have to treat themselves like a China EV Inc. startup in order to compete rather than relying on. So they need this autonomy to make quicker decisions, whether GM is willing to give that up, right? These are the issues that probably were being discussed.
Tu Le:
The fact of the matter is the local operations don't want to be held back by headquarters, by the mother ship. It's the same with Volkswagen, it's the same with GM. And so they're finally getting this autonomy, but it could be too little, too late.
Lei Xing:
Yeah, I was reading this interview in the Chinese media of this new president. He basically denied rumors that GM was going to sell Buick to SAIC, there were rumors about that. He denied it, and he also denied that Chevrolet is leaving. He said, going forward, the three brands, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet will continue to have various models coming out, and it will be a three-brand strategy. We'll see about that. But I think in the short-term, it's about, I think Mary Barra also mentioned this in the earnings call, the inventory management, dealer management. And then the layoffs are probably going to happen if you want to be profitable.
Tu Le:
They're already happening. And I was told at the dealer level, at the staff level, the local employees have been getting laid off. And we should also point to the fact that it looks like GM is moving more towards a Ford model where they want to do an asset light, and then if you compare that and contrast that with the Germans who are actually doubling down, investing more, you get a sense of the difference of how they feel about the markets, because the Germans still have much more to lose, because a larger portion of their profitability comes from the China market than the U.S. 3 or, Stellantis is kind of the one foot in the U.S one foot in Europe. So they're a bit of a hybrid. And they've also integrated a lot of LeapMotor products already into their portfolio. So that's going to be more of how much is too much, and what's the right combination of LeapMotor products, LeapMotor IP into this current Stellantis product plan? You and I believe I think Tavares will likely close shop on one or two brands, which he's warned last month.
Lei Xing:
Interesting Stellantis also made some management changes for China, I think Jeep, Alfa Romeo, right? I think you saw that and then PATAC, I read that they're, right, so Shanghai GM they still have 10 new NEV models launching over the next year. So they're considering all tech routes, including EREVs, think about that. So you just have to go with the market, right?
Tu Le:
Yeah, and hopefully the lessons learned in China and the speed, the increasing speed, the processes that end up coming out of the China team can be adopted in Europe, in the United States, or for GM at least in the United States, because they don't really have European presence. So we've kind of beaten this horse. So what's the next thing you want to talk about?
Lei Xing:
I think anything out of your newsletter? I think we talked about the milestones, ONVO, ZEEKR, GM’s, GM in China.
Tu Le:
So, actually let’s talk about this, because I don't know if you got a chance to see it Lei, but CNBC had…
Lei Xing:
Yeah I saw that.
Tu Le:
Posted a 15-minute video. What do you think?
Lei Xing:
I'm glad that, I mean CNBC is a big platform, right? So I think they…
Tu Le:
I think it’s cose to a million views in three days.
Lei Xing:
There should be more of these, I think, really, I mean our boys down on the ground, they're doing the, China Driven, Eliot, Mark, right, Wheels Boy, they're trying to do what CNBC is basically trying to already and just to educate the western audience of the type of vehicles.
Tu Le:
For those that are wondering, CNBC posted a video, 15-minute video. They actually, CNBC U.S. was leading the production of this. They pulled in Eunice Yoon. They contacted me. I gave them quite a bit of background because they pivoted a couple of times on subject matter and kind of what they wanted to drill down into. And it ended up being a comparison between a Tesla Model Y in the U.S. versus a NIO, a BYD, a Li Auto and an Xpeng. And for sake of full disclosure, I kind of recommended to Eunice, these are the vehicles because there's so many and I just wanted to focus on the U.S. traded companies and BYD, and so I think generally they did, they did a very, very good job. And it's hard to do 176 episodes worth of detail into a 15-minute video. But one thing that a lot of the NIO folks pointed out was that she was using an older generation swapping station, true, very true, but I give them kudos because Eunice got in these cars. She's speaking Chinese in these cars. And so I think overall, I give it a thumbs up because I obviously don't have any control over how they present it, right? And so it was good. I think it's an eye opener for more mainstream people now, because you listeners who have been listening for a while, know all about this stuff because Lei and I have driven Xpengs and we've been to Auto Shows and we regularly tell you things that media can't, because we're not journalists. And so we hear rumors and we'll mention them in these shows, but have a look when you get a chance. It's on YouTube, it's on CNBC.
Lei Xing:
I mean we have inside access, right? So.
Tu Le:
Anything that you thought was like, man, that's not right or that's wrong?
Lei Xing:
No, I think it's difficult to get the latest and the greatest. If you were doing, I mean if you want to educate, I think it's more of educating the general kind of the competitive environment on the ground rather than if you are positioning to show the latest and the greatest. That's something else, right? So there's always, I mean ZEEKR, right? The latest ZEEKR, 2025 model year with the old seven, with the 10.5-minute charging speed. I mean all this is, you're not going to show that as soon as it comes out. But…
Tu Le:
It’s a good first effort.
Lei Xing:
Yeah first step, I mean maybe next time do a ZEEKR, do a Xiaomi, right? There's many, at the start of the video it said there were 139 brands.
Tu Le:
When people are wondering about subsidies. So they highlighted BYD how much they've gotten in subsidies from the Chinese government. So if you're curious about those things, there's also a decent amount of data that's been thrown at you. So.
Lei Xing:
Yeah, and then I mean at the top of the show you mentioned about checking on the Polestar. In China, my own experience is go to any dealership showroom and more than likely you can just get a test drive on the spot right there. If you want to check things out, putting your consumer hat on.
Tu Le:
Actually one thing, Lei. Sorry. If you want to keep on talking about this, we can keep on talking about, but I wanted to get your thoughts on a Mercedes EQE in Korea, just outside of Seoul, had spontaneously combusted in an underground parking lot. It was revealed that they're using Farasis cells for that particular vehicle and 140 vehicles in the parking garage were damaged. Dozens of people were injured. And so Korea is now kind of freaking out rightfully. So because they are concerned about EVs being parked, EVs being charged. And so what are your thoughts on that? And how much do you think this is Farasis in particular, or specifically challenge versus just having more EVs in underground parking lots?
Lei Xing:
First of all, it's salt on the wound of that relationship or partnership of Mercedes and Farasis which hadn’t been going well. That's why they're diversifying their kind of supply, battery supply, cell supply.
Tu Le:
Important to note that Mercedes is an investor in Farasis.
Lei Xing:
That was announced in 2020, I think or…
Tu Le:
2019?
Lei Xing:
Yeah it was early, it's early part of the pandemic, I remember, there was the strategic investment. Second, I, you know, it's, do you look at it, it's probably one of those isolated incident that happened to be Mercedes. It can be anyone. And I mean EVs catching on fire. It's a topic that we have no, it's difficult to pinpoint a right or wrong answer. It's happening in China, still happening in China. I think ZEEKR boasts that of all the vehicles they've sold, they've never had a one single fire. I don't know if that's correct, but they pride on themselves saying that. Can everyone say that, I don't know? And what exactly was the issue, the circumstances? It's always a topic…
Tu Le:
That’s going to be interesting to see because it wasn't plugged in and so it was definitely spontaneous. The other thing that should be noted,
Lei Xing:
Let's just say, a rat ate into the cell. I mean it's like my dog ate my homework.
Tu Le:
The one thing that's also very important is that Mercedes really and when I was in Beijing, I had spoken to a few of Merc folks. I think they really thought Farasis could be the partner to balance out CATL strength. And Mercedes wanted Farasis to be their European cell provider. Farasis wasn't ready for the bright lights. The factory that was planned in Europe never happens. That is also subsequently when Mercedes began dual sourcing from CATL. So currently, I believe the only, I believe that Mercedes sources from Farasis, SK and CATL. So one of the things that one of the outcomes and this was voluntary was that the OEMs in Korea are now letting or communicating who the cell manufacturer for their particular products are.
Lei Xing:
Yeah, sometimes usually that's not communicated. They refrain from communicating that.
Tu Le:
And what's important Lei, is battery fires aren't exclusive to Chinese cells.
Lei Xing:
No.
Tu Le:
For the folks that are just tuning in or tuning in late, I happen to have a Lucid Air for the next week. And I'm not a car review guy. I will push it. I would gladly recommend a few of the other guys, Insideevs we’are friendly with. And so that's not my thing. Although I'll likely post one or two videos with my thoughts, but for a deep dive, I would go to those guys, but I do have one for a week. It's a Grand Touring. It is pretty nice, man. The deals they have for the Polestar 2 and the Lucid Air currently are pretty enticing. And so for a sedan, it's about the size of an S-Class. The roominess is, I have two sons, two growing boys, and they're like, this is so roomy in the back. So.
Lei Xing:
It's the U.S. version of the Stelato S9 I have to say.
Tu Le:
Yeah, it's if there are any questions, DM me, post them, and I’ll try to answer them. I'm still trying to figure out how to use the interior front console to my liking. So I'm watching YouTube videos. So.
Lei Xing:
Just try it out. I mean just fiddle with it.
Tu Le:
One thing I do know is that you mash on the gas. It goes, it goes. But electric vehicles they all kind of do that.
Lei Xing:
Speaking of roominess, I think the angle, some of the pictures put out by the ONVO L60 was a little provocative with the deer in the back row, right? I saw that and I’m like…
Tu Le:
I think it looks great. I think.
Lei Xing:
At that price point, right?
Tu Le:
The other thing that, so this weekend happens to be the Woodward Dream Cruise Lei. So, I will be driving up and down Woodward in this Lucid to see if I get a bunch of dirty looks or bunch of honks. Because the Lucid, you do not see them in Michigan very many. Do you see them in Mass?
Lei Xing:
I’ve seen some here, I've seen some Lucids here, in a small town. I've seen some Taycanss, I've seen some Cybertrucks.
Tu Le:
Yeah, I started to see handfuls of Cyber trucks now, too.
Lei Xing:
Supposedly there was a Cybertruck in China with the green license plate. I don't know if you saw that or not. Somebody I don't know how they bought one.
Tu Le:
It’s street legal?
Lei Xing:
I guess so if they have the green license plate or somebody PSed that I don't know like.
Tu Le:
The last thing I wanted to get your thoughts on is HiPhi officially. Can we stick a fork in HiPhi officially?
Lei Xing:
Yeah. Done. Done.
Tu Le:
Gonzo. It should be noted that HiPhi was co-founded by an ex-General Motors Shanghai executive.
Lei Xing:
Yeah former Shanghai GM president.
Tu Le:
If you're wondering, a lot of ex-German Legacy Inc. on the China side, anyways, are, and U.S. legacy Inc. are now executives are at a lot of these startups. So no different than a Frank Wu, head of design for JIYUE, moving over from GM to BAIC to JIYUE, so.
Lei Xing:
Yeah, I mean the 007, right? That's another highly expected model out of JIYUE. So.
Tu Le:
I know we haven't gotten that close to NIO day, but not a lot going on with the ET9 yet. I'm expecting probably next 5 or 6 weeks. So that's all I have. Man. Let's open it up for questions. If anyone has any questions, please raise your hand. I will read a couple of the comments here. Unfortunately, Polestar treats the product like an electrified 240 DL wagon, need a lot more spice to get America interested, just my two cents, that's from Jeffrey NIO San Francisco, and then ONVO, let's get it NIO. The M3 M is here. I'm not sure. What's the M3 M Lei?
Lei Xing:
I don't know.
Tu Le:
So Peter Liu, it's a dead road for foreign tech firms in China. If their headquarters don't give their China JVs autonomy, I tried to improve, auto firms have some lucks until they run into the transition to EVs recently. Yeah completely agree. China speed, F1 car, legacy speed, an elephant on a unicycle, man these comparisons are great. And Peter also said the CNBC video is excellent. So, yeah, cool. I’m, people are not going to nitpick some of the stuff, especially the ones that know a little bit. But again, generally speaking, CNBC has a pretty broad audience. I think it does a pretty good job of representing what's out there currently, even if some of the technology is a little bit older that they are used for those vehicles.
Lei Xing:
Yeah, I mean you can never cover everything and be perfect at that pleasing to all audience, right? So yeah.
Tu Le:
I don't have anything. So you want to close it out here.
Lei Xing:
Yeah sure.,
Tu Le:
All right, everyone. Thanks again for joining us. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. We will talk with you all next week.
Lei Xing:
Enjoy Woodward.
Tu Le:
Hey, thanks again for joining everyone. We'll talk to you soon, next week.
Lei Xing:
Yeah. Same, likewise, have a good Woodward. Bye bye.
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.