Episode #184 - Paris Motor Show Recap Special!

In this engaging episode of the China EVs & More podcast, Tu Le and Lei Xing recap their experience at the 2024 Paris Motor Show, offering insights into the evolving global EV landscape. Highlights include discussions on the growing influence of Chinese automakers in Europe, the resurgence of European brands like Renault, and key geopolitical challenges shaping the automotive industry. The duo also shares anecdotes about networking, market dynamics, and the cultural aspects of the show.

Key Topics Covered:

•Chinese Automakers in Europe: The prominence of brands like BYD, Xpeng, and AITO at the Paris Motor Show, their strategies, and the European market’s response.

•European Brands’ Counterattack: Renault’s new offerings and the competitive pricing of French EVs as a response to the “Chinese EV assault.”

•Market Dynamics: Observations on global trends, the geopolitical backdrop, and the future of auto shows.

•Industry Leaders & Networking: Encounters with executives and key players such as Carlos Tavares (Stellantis) and Herbert Diess.

This episode delivers a deep dive into the intersection of automotive innovation, global market strategies, and cultural exchanges.

List of Mentioned Companies

Automakers:

1.Renault

2.Stellantis (including Citroën and Peugeot)

3.BYD

4.Xpeng

5.LeapMotor

6.AITO

7.Dongfeng Forthing

8.Hongqi

9.Skyworth

10.Tesla

11.GAC Group

12.Cadillac

13.Ford

14.Dacia

15.Alpine

16.Mobilize

17.ZEEKR

18.Porsche

19.Volkswagen

Suppliers and Tech Companies:

1.Valeo

2.Bosch

3.ACC (Auto Cell Company)

Startups and Smaller Firms:

1.Microlino

2.Snap X (Hydrogen fuel cell startup)

Others:

1.Lithium Americas

2.McKinsey & Company

3.Pony.ai

4.WeRide

Transcript

CEM #184 Transcript
Recorded 10/18/24

Tu Le:

Welcome to the live China EVs & More podcast. We will open the room up at around the 40-minute mark to anyone who's keen to ask us any questions. So please feel free to post them into X or YouTube. In the next hour or so, my co-host Lei Xing and I will go over the week's most important and interesting news coming out of the global EV, AV and mobility sectors. What Lei and I discuss today is based on our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice. For those that are new to the show, welcome. And to our loyal listeners, welcome back. We ask that you smash that subscribe button and that like button so that you don't miss anything from us in the future. Also, I'm confident that Lei and I are two of the best in the world doing this. So help us get the word out about this show to others. 

My name is Tu Le and I'm the recently repatriated from Paris 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 of course I encourage you all to do. A recently expatriated Lei. Can you please introduce yourself?

Lei Xing:

Not even sure if I should be using expatriate or repatriate because it's blurry. So good evening from Beijing. This is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review. And this is episode #184. Let's talk about Paris. Still lots of memories.

Tu Le:

So what were we doing the last few days, Lei? Maybe you can start out with telling everybody what we were doing for the last few days.

Lei Xing:

The last few, well, well, not the last two days, but the previous days before the last two days, because both of us were traveling and you were still in Paris a little bit. We were at the Paris Motor Show, the 90th edition of the Mondial de L’auto. Pardon my French. So where, you know, actually, I want to have you start first because this is my second consecutive attendance of the Paris Motor Show, but it was your first. So I wanted to ask your impressions first and I'll, you know, share mine. And this is my third time attending overall since 2016.

Tu Le:

So I'm colored. I'm colored by my opinion of Paris, very very, one of my favorite cities in the world. I was just there about two months ago with my family. And so all these great memories are really recent in my mind. And again, with the exception of yesterday and two nights ago, the weather was beautiful. Not too hot, but not too cold, a super walkable city. I walked almost everywhere and took the subway. In other instances, I did have some Uber rides, but because my time was short and I was trying to go from place to place. That being said, I missed the first BMW media presser because timing was bad for me. 

Lei Xing:

You didn’t miss much.

Tu Le:
Yeah, okay. I didn't think so because I was there for the Renault presser. And this was on par with what you would see in China from a national company, from a confidence level of the executives. Luca de Meo just oozes confidence, right? And so, and I love the 4 and 5. I wish Americans would really lean more heavily into those types of vehicles because I got in it. Now understand I have two boys, 11 and 13. So the backseat is not going to be practical for them for very long. But these smaller cars, these hatchbacks, can make, be made to look really cool. So there was that the heavy presence of the Chinese EV companies, despite the uncertainty with the tariffs and the current negotiations, I think was also readily apparent, heavy traffic for BYD. And I think XPeng made a huge splash in Paris. And then some of the other things about networking and being able to meet new friends, that was also good. But overall, it was smaller. And I think you and I, Lei, we are a bit biased because we're always blown away by the size and the energy of the Beijing and Shanghai auto shows. But we should probably compare the European auto shows. And you and I both really enjoyed Munich last year. Munich was different because I'd never been there. So it was me as much exploring the city as it was the show. This time it was really just, okay, how do the Parisians and French do auto? And most of what I talk about is U.S. and China or, you know, North America and China. So I downloaded a ton, very, very educated. I probably have a bit of an anti-Europe bias because of Volkswagen and some of the ABB, man, Renault, at least from a European region standpoint, they're going to do some great things, I think.

Lei Xing:

Great, that was great, I completely agree. For me, what I saw, first of all, this is a, we're in Paris, so it's the home court of the French, obviously. And when I say French, I mean Renault, number one, and two, the Citroen Peugeot of Stellantis. And then second, was kind of the home court for the Chinese brands. Then third, everybody else. That's how I felt. And then looking at it from a 30,000-foot level, I saw healthy competition. I saw healthy exchange. I saw a European, specifically a French counterattack. And I saw frugality and from the Chinese brands and comparing to 2022 when it was still a little bit subdued because we were coming out of the pandemic. This year, it felt like a normal European Paris, Parisian auto show. And actually, you talked about the size of it. It felt bigger actually, but if we look at the different brands, various brands, BYD actually had a much, much smaller booth, stand than 2022 when they announced the ATTO 3, the Seal, when they basically launched their kind of the Europe strategy, right ? Those five or six models that are selling on the market, right, that they were introduced two years ago. But I mean, you look at Stellantis, the LeapMotor press conference, Carlos Tavares.

Tu Le:

With a guest appearance by Carlos Tavares.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, I posted a picture of him embracing with Chairman Zhu Jiangming, and that felt like a picture was worth a thousand words given what's happening to Carlos, what's happening to Stellantis, the EU tariffs in the backdrop, the “Chinese EV assault” into Europe. And the fact that he's leaving, Carlos is leaving by the end of next year, I guess. So that embrace, I thought was many words and kind of one picture, right?

Tu Le:

And I will add this Lei, who, I've seen him in a lot of Detroit news lately, in a lot of Detroit news media, look much happier in Europe than he does when he's being interviewed in.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, he brought LeapMotor in as the 15th brand of Stellantis. Now what happens after he leaves? Where is that collaboration going? Those are some of the things that we can watch in the longer term. But also if we look at...

Tu Le:

I'm going to add one thing. AITO booth was the largest Chinese booth and they're not even entering the market. At least they didn't announce anything. So you go.

Lei Xing:

That's where I was headed. If we rank.

Tu Le:

We know each other too well, man. We know each other too well.

Lei Xing:
If we rank the 9 or 10 Chinese brands exhibiting on a scale of announcing strategy, tactics, being committed to the European market with clear goals and moves, we'd have to probably rank BYD number one, Xpeng number two, GAC Group number three, and perhaps the rest of the China EV brands as what you pointed out in the newsletter. They were there because of FOMO. Or it was more of a branding, marketing stunt more so than showing the European audience that we have these certain processes that we're going to take to launch and enter Europe. So I mean AITO, they had the biggest booth. They had that what, how many thousand kilometers? Yeah, was huge. Yeah.

Tu Le:

It was huge. It was bigger than BYD’s. It was huge. So just relative.

Lei Xing:

They had the M9 that was driven across Asia and Europe, had that…

Tu Le:

15,000 km over 38 days.

Lei Xing:
Right. Dongfeng Forthing was there. Hongqi was there, Skyworth.

Tu Le:

I knew they were Chinese. I knew Forthing was Chinese, but I needed to figure, I needed to Google which company they were from, so.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, Dongfeng Fengxing, which is they used the Forthing. It was more for these other kind of the Chinese brands, there's more launching new or revealing new products rather than using as a platform rather than announcing concrete strategies of entering Europe. And then I think you mentioned Luca de Meo, I think out of all the European automaker CEOs, he is the star right now because I mean, he said during the press conference, I don't even remember that, that their product portfolio is the best in the last 30 years. I think that's what he said with the 4 and the 5 and the other brands. Dacia launched the Bigster hybrid, the SUV that's below 30,000 Euros. And that's an epitome of what I was talking about, this counterattack of, and the 4 and the 5, right? They're probably going to be competitively priced EVs. So,

Tu Le:

And this is where Lei, you and I are a little bit different because I've not known Renault as a brand, a significant brand for a long time, because you don't see that many of them in China and they're not sold in the United States. Now you've covered the industry for years, so you have much more awareness about them than I do. But, so the second day, normally what I do, and I think you do too, is you jump and race to all the media events on day one. I actually call that day zero. And then normally on day one, you and I will walk around either together or separately and just check out the cars, take pictures, but do more leisurely. Day one was open to the public and it was crowded. There's no better representation of that than the Renault booth where I felt like the ZEEKR X booth a couple of years ago when people were waiting in line to go sit in a 5, the Renault 5. And so that tells you that Renault still resonates heavily, and they had a store, they were selling swag. So it was, it was full on, and into your point. I have no idea how they're profitable at that 30,000 Euro price point, 40,000 Euro price point. But, you know, they're going to do well in France for sure. And other parts of Europe. And what was great about the Renault Group brand pressers is they were right next to each other. So after Renault, you moved over to Dacia, moved over to Alpine, you moved over to Mobilize. And then you and I, I think we went to a Chinese presser. But and then I think that was when BYD and we met up with Roger and Afonso and so again, I, but we did see Weiming Soh, so I said hi to him, talked to him for a second. 

Lei Xing:

Yeah, I saw him, yeah, I said hi to him as well.

Tu Le:

And you know, and again, he's managing Renault China. I don't know how aggressive they're going to be. Do you have any idea what Renault is going to be doing in China? Because I didn't get an impression of that.

Lei Xing:

And also remember that BeyonCa is still there. It's just not, there's not, hasn't been a lot of activities or announcements, but it's still there. It's still ongoing. Remember that. No, I mean, Renault in China, in terms of localizing, in terms of local production in China, I think that Dacia Spring is still produced. At least the current generation, they showed a kind of a new Dacia Spring and I actually looked at the badge, the production batch, the manufacturing batch in the vehicle, it wasn't China. So who knows? But Renault is working with Geely Group on that Horse joint venture on the powertrain, right? So that's one kind of play. But local production, no, I don't think they're, let's say, producing a Renault 5 or 4. I doubt that's going to happen.

Tu Le:

One thing that was not really talked about was the Ampere company that Renault has. I want to say it's the equivalent of what CARIAD is. Now, I don't know that much about it. I don't have a ton of Renault contacts, unfortunately. I'm going to...

Lei Xing:

Ampere is more, I feel like it's more of a battery or cell platform. 

Tu Le:

And charging? Yeah.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, I think so it's like a combination of all of the above sort of. So that's my kind of that one. 

Tu Le:
My homework is to learn more about it.

Lei Xing:
Yeah, yeah. And then I think if we talk about the memorable moments I remembered, it was at the very beginning of the Xpeng press conference when He Xiaopeng went on stage and he tried to speak English and he stuttered. He’s like, I'm a little happy. And it was so funny. I think he was trying to say I'm a little nervous. He ended up saying I'm a little happy. Then happy was the right word because less than two hours later, how many orders did they get for the P7+?

Tu Le:

30,000 over a couple hours or something like that.

Lei Xing:

So I guess he knew something was going on. That's why he was happy. And then the BYD, Stella Li, right? I call her the queen of BYD because she dropped a bunch of numbers of how big BYD has become. R&D, investment, global footprint. So that was...

Tu Le:

Lei, I'm going to tell you a side story here. I was driving back to my hotel yesterday to pick up my luggage, because I had a meeting that morning. And the Uber driver, nice 32-year-old gentleman in Paris, yes. And I told him, we're talking about cars because he had a Suzuki hybrid, okay? And I asked him how is it? loves it, it's affordable. And then he had mentioned BYD. And this is a 32-year-old Uber driver. So BYD is now, everybody knows about it. Now you and I still need to probably dispute bad takes and kind of set the record straight because there's still a lot of bad takes. Now there's a Bloomberg article that just dropped a couple of days ago from friend of the show Gabby Coppola and a couple of her colleagues, Danny Lee also contributed to it, that talks about the Apple contributions. Now they interviewed one of the industry experts who hasn't been to China in a while but and likely hasn't driven any of those BYD cars, but whatever we'll leave that there. So any but so the French like layperson is now all about BYD and they understand BYD. The surprising thing, I expect BYD to have a lot of foot traffic. They did. I expect, I didn't expect Xpeng to be as crowded as they were. Pleasantly surprised with that. LeapMotor was not that heavily trafficked. So that was a bit of a surprise to me. It was, when you compare them to the energy levels of an Xpeng or a BYD. Okay. So that was a little bit surprising. Now when you were visiting LeapMotor, did you see a lot of foot traffic?

Lei Xing:

So I went back, yeah, I guess I would agree. It wasn't as hot. I mean, I was only there on the press day because I was, you know, I had to leave for China the next day. If I had a chance, you know, maybe I could have seen a better picture. Yeah, I mean, the French was, also worth mentioning is I did go back during the evening because Paris Motor Show is one of, I think, the only auto show in the world that has a first day, zero going from 8 am all the way to midnight. And the reason being is in the evening they have these more relaxed party style environment for their VIP guests. It was all cordoned off with the lines and tapes. And there were champagnes, there were beer, wine. So I went, walked around and every booth was like that. There's…

Tu Le:

And the French know how to do it.

Lei Xing:

No, no. But I think with the exception of Luca de Meo was there in a roundtable, I didn't see any other senior executives at any of the other booths. It was just people there drinking, celebrating, dealers, probably investors. I'm not sure if there were any media, but it was interesting. They had music, you know blazing, they had a DJ that stood on the Cybertruck. We should touch upon Tesla a little bit. Tesla had their, the bucket, right, bucket of their products on display. There was a DJ playing on the bed of the Cybertruck.

Tu Le:

They didn't even have a floor. All their cars were on the normal floor of the auditorium or the conference hall. So it wasn't even like set up.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, yeah. And I was looking at the DJ, was like, hmm, pretty sure this will be replaced by the CyberDJ. Optimus, right? I was like, that, that. Yeah.

Tu Le:

So I was sitting outside at lunchtime on day zero, bumped into Alejandro Perez, who's a Spanish automotive journalist. And I bumped into Felix, and a gentleman on the German automotive media side, more influencer than traditional media. But this woman on a platform with lights and everything, she was getting pulled by a tugger. And she was DJing on this platform with lights and everything. So that was pretty funny. I just can't, every city needs to put their touch on the show. And Paris really did that. And at the end of the day, there were only three halls. And one of them was two thirds full. It wasn't even completely full, but it felt like a well attended media day.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, yeah. And in the evening outside, I think it was Hall 6, it was club music. And with the laser, like shooting all over the place with the fires going up, I should post some videos, I haven't. So it was like, it made you forget all the kind of the pains like, the auto industry feels so good. It was so lively and

I think Luca de Meo posted something on LinkedIn. He was like, let's celebrate, right? That just makes you feel good and forget all about all the geopolitical tensions for a day or a few hours. And then now we're back to the bickering, right? We're back to what's going to happen before the end of the month that the tariffs are going into place, whether any political solutions will be reached. So for a while, right, it was really, you know, the French, the French was the French, right? We loved it.

Tu Le:

Hey man, I got a little bit of the French fever and I bought one for myself because I collect these things, number one, and I was struck by Renault.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, I have a couple of smaller ones from two years ago, also Renaults, really the classic Renaults. And then some anecdotes.

Tu Le:
Then, go ahead.

Lei Xing:
Maybe we should talk about.

Lei Xing:

LeapMotor, on the day when I arrived on the 13th, I walked around a little bit in Paris and I went to the LeapMotor store or storefront, which is part of the Stellantis. It's in the Buloun Court where Renault is headquartered, the western part of Paris. And that storefront was really small. So there was a T03 and a C11 or a C10 inside that store, but nothing else, very small. It was a Jeep, Alfa Romeo dealership. Very, it wasn't, you know, glitzy. Let's just put it that way. And the store used to be a Fiat Professional store. If you look on the Google maps you kind of see the old picture, but now it's a LeapMotor. And from my understanding is that the T03, they were still waiting for some kind of approval to get before they can get some kind of the subsidy but it was a local thing. I think they'll get it at the end of the month. So that's interesting. And speaking of going around Paris on the 13th, I bought a one-day kind of the RATP pass for 20 Euros. And I took the buses, metro, all the places that I went. I didn't need to Uber. I walked. It was really convenient. 

Tu Le:
So conveninent. 

Lei Xing:
And we don't have that in the U.S., unfortunately. Maybe in New York City, you know, but that's part of the Paris that you love.

Tu Le:

When I had time or was able to plan around things, I walked in all of the small bistros, all the small little shops. When you walk by these blocks, you want to walk in and just sit down and have a coffee because they're so cool. They're right on the street and they're just a part of this portrait of Paris that you see in pictures and it's real life and It's it is it's something that I wrote about in the newsletter. I just wish American cities really embraced you know, the biking thing in Paris is so prominent and it just seems more bustling because as opposed to horns honking all the time you just see parents riding their kids around on three passenger bikes and stuff like that. And I would have loved to been able to do that. In Beijing, there was a couple of things going on when my kids were younger. It was a lot, it was really polluted because it was still in the early 2010s. And those types of bikes were expensive and you couldn't rent them or short-term lease them. And so we walked a lot and we took DiDis a lot when, when the kids were in Beijing, but I just wish Detroit or I hope because we have an opportunity to really redefine some of that, how people move around the city. And I know you had an event with Valeo. So anything that came from that that you could talk about?

Lei Xing:

It was, yeah, I went to the, Valeo had a Mobility House just outside of the auto show the evening of the 14th. and it was, the interesting thing was the current CFO of Valeo, Edward DePirey, the current chief communications officer of Valeo, Francois.

Tu Le:

Actually, Lei, let me stop you there. What is Valeo.

Lei Xing:

Valeo is the French equivalent of Delphi, let's say. 

Tu Le:
Bosh.

Lei Xing:
They're one of the suppliers, tier-one suppliers in the world. And by the way, that Renault 5 E-Tech you have, the rear and the front lights are supplied by Valeo. And historically, when the Renault 5 was first launched in 1972, guess what? Valeo was the lighting supplier. So 40, 52 years later, Valeo is still the supplier. And that's the French connection, I guess. But I was saying the chief

Tu Le:

And Valeo, is it Valeo or Valeo? I call it Valeo. But they have a prominent presence in Michigan, in Detroit, just outside of Detroit. And they have a prominent presence in China too.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, Valeo. And they just celebrated the 30-year anniversary of entering China. So the CFO, the current CCO, Francois Marion, were the previous two Valeo China presidents. And the current president of Valeo China is a local Chinese, Zhou Song. I think Valeo, relatively, they are faring better in the Chinese market compared to some of the other tier-ones and globally for that matter. And their products is very simple. They have three business lines, power, brain and lighting. Power, really powertrain. Brain is the software development software defined vehicle and the autonomous driving part, and then lighting is a big part of, obviously of Valeo So I had some conversations, checked out some of the models, and they had this mixed reality racer product where you can play a video game of racing in the back seat, but what you see is the road, actual road that the vehicle sees.

Tu Le:

So it's pulling real-time data from the camera, real-time feed.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, yeah, and that's from the sensors. Yeah, so I mean, they're kind of, know, maybe these things innovating and they're a LiDAR provider. They're the LiDAR provider for the Mercedes Drive Pilot, the Level 3. So, yeah. And that was pretty much the, I only had 48 hours in Paris. So I think I fully utilized the time there and soaked it in.

Tu Le:

A couple of my anecdotes, day one, I came back. I had to do an interview at the Xpeng booth. And so I got there a few minutes early. There's a gentleman walking around by himself. You would not know him. The French didn't know him. 

Lei Xing:
I know him.

Tu Le:
And I was like, wow, it's Herbert Diess. And so I walked over to him. He was so kind. I think we've met like once, but he meets people all day long. I shook his hand, introduced myself, and we talked for about 15 minutes. And super patient with me. He said he had an interview a little bit later, so he kind of qualified it, but he was not in a hurry and he didn't want to shoo me away. so I was and he believes Porsche will turn it around. And he believes that Volkswagen brand will turn it around. We'll be able to turn it around. So I think he's still got a bit of the home team. That was my former company. So I don't want to begrudge them or talk bad about them. But he's too smart to know that there is an enormous, enormous uphill climb in order for those two companies to really be back to the levels that they were in China before COVID. I don't actually think they reached those heights ever again. But again, Diess was very positive about his outlook for those companies. And then, this reminds me because you had talked about BeyonCa with Taycan struggling in China. You know, one of their first vehicles was rumored to be a Taycan killer. So I don't know if, and I know that Weiming was raising capital. And so I don't know how far along he is with that or product development on that vehicle, but assuming that they have capital, BeyonCa within the next two years could launch a Tesla killer in the China market. 

Lei Xing:

Yeah, I don't think so. I'm being pessimistic.

Tu Le:

Yeah, me neither. But so the Tuesday night, I was invited to a McKinsey dinner and I met some interesting people. There's a French company, I would call it the equivalent of France's Our Next Energy. It's called ACC, Auto Cell Company. And they're building a Gigafactory. 

Lei Xing:
Isn’t that the joint venture between Mercedes and Stellantis?

Tu Le:
Say again? Yep, with Stellantis. I think so. Uh-huh. And they have a Gigafactory in Northern France. And I met two folks from that company there that evening, spoke with them for a bit. They seem very, very confident in their capabilities and ability to roll some cells in the near future and finding European sourcing for lithium. So, and then I pinged a few other friends and they were like, yeah, because the hard part is not rolling a couple cells, the hard part is rolling millions of cells every day. And just ask GM, just ask Our Next Energy. 

Lei Xing:

Just ask Northvolt.

Tu Le:
So I'm, yeah, Northvolt basically blew up, but I'm going to keep track of them. I don't know if you remember this, but when I went to Europe a couple of months ago, I had met some dealer group who was selling microlinos, those small cars in Switzerland. So at the McKinsey dinner, I meet the founder of Microlino and I told him my situation. He was like, what, it was like, that'll never happen again. Just, just, just email me or call me and we'll make sure you get a test drive. And I was like, awesome. And then the third person that I met was a company, the CTO of a, I think it's called Snap X. It's a hydrogen fuel cell startup. And he was talking about how they were tackling the issues, they raised some capital, they want to raise more. But any startup that is using McKinsey as a consultant, probably has too much capital already. So anyways, yeah, so interesting conversations because my cup is now more full on better understanding European side. I'm going to do my best to make sure that I balance out what I hear from the United States and China with Europe because obviously that makes us better analysts and kind of being able to talk intelligently about everything that's going on. So, yeah, man. And then Wednesday, we had that private dinner, co-hosted with Ross Douglas, the founder of Autonomy Paris. That was very successful. There were a couple of AITO executives there, a Total Energy executive. Remember Volta Trucks, Lei? Have you heard of Volta Trucks? The Swedish guy. I met Carl Magnus, one of the co-founders. He was there. And then personal friends. You remember my Swiss friend, Olivier Glauser, I think you met him. And my other friend Duncan Clark, who was an advisor to Jack Ma in the early days of Alibaba. So anyways, very successful trip. And I definitely will keep it on my calendar as a future destination for any Paris Motor Show.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, I think as far as the global motor show calendar is concerned, I think in Europe, clearly Munich and Paris are probably the remaining relevant auto shows left. 

Tu Le:

Yes, I don't think Geneva is going to do.

Lei Xing:

Geneva is done. It's over. We know that. And then it's Beijing, Shanghai. The U.S., CES, there's CES.

Tu Le:
LA. I think LA. 

Lei Xing:

LA to a certain extent, but you know, yeah.

Tu Le:

Hey, you got to pump up LA so that it's good for us to keep going. Anytime I can go to LA, I'll go to LA.

Lei Xing:

Yeah. Yeah, me too. I'll be there.

Tu Le:

But so that's going to be in November and then CES in January. Those are, I believe, the two next big automotive related events. And so I did want to talk about, before we move on to things, Cadillac had a booth right next to BYD. They are going to...

Lei Xing:

Ford had one.

Tu Le:

Yeah, so they're going to start selling because Cadillac stopped selling in France for a while and I think that they're reentering, they leaned into the fact that Cadillac is named after a French Explorer and Detroit is a French word and so they are launching the LYRIQ and the OPTIQ which are two EVs and I was pleasantly surprised with the level of interest at the booths for Cadillac. So good for them. I think that this could be a real opportunity for them to re-enter the European market with what I think will be competitive products there. Now, they're not that competitive in China, but not many products are. But yeah, I took pictures, sent it over to a few friends that you and I know. I’m really hopeful that Cadillac can make an impact there. And then finally, I wanted to congratulate Lithium Americas and the GM deal that was just announced, $600 million on a joint venture. So they moved from an equity investment to a joint venture. And the mine is in Thacker Pass on the border of Nevada and Oregon. So hopefully in the next 18, 20 months, we're going to start seeing some volume lithium carbonate coming out of the U.S. region, the North American region.

Lei Xing:

Cool. 

Tu Le:

That's really all I had, man. Anything?

Lei Xing:

News out of, or just a couple of mentions of big news out of China today is the CSRC approval of WeRide’s listing on NASDAQ and the submission of the F-1 from Pony.ai. So in one day we have, we're looking at the IPOing of  two China AV Inc. on NASDAQ in the coming weeks. Pretty significant, given the current backdrop. They're going to go ahead. Yeah.

Tu Le:

So let's pull back AITO for a second. AITO's presser, no mention of Huawei being the brains of that vehicle, number one. And let me emphasize this, they had this FOMO booth that was larger than BYD's, no plans to enter the market and no announcement of the price on those vehicles. Now, one thing I did want to add, I recorded most of the pressers and I'll be posting them on YouTube soon. So for those that are wanting to watch that, keep an eye out for the YouTube links. But that's all I had. Now, do you want to talk about what you're doing in China, dude?

Lei Xing:

Well, the last, yesterday was, let's just say I dealt with a private matter and I'll give you a hint: real estate. And it took me quite some time. 

Tu Le:

Hmm. you can DM me about it. You can DM me about it. 

 Lei Xing:

Yeah, I’ll DM you about it. And speaking of the real estate, we just saw the GDP growth numbers. 4.8% first three months, 4.6% in Q3. And that was expected.

Tu Le:
 It's amazing how those numbers come so close to the forecasted numbers all the time.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, so, but I think on the ground, the two days I've been here, I do sense, still sense that not the gloominess, but the confidence. I think we still lack that confidence in terms of kind of the economy, you know. I do feel a little bit of that. And even with the real estate, what has happened with the stimulus moves at the end of September, what I got from speaking to some of the agents is that the fact of the matter is people need the money in their pockets. They don't have them. So, you know, that's, yeah.

Tu Le:

I'm going to make a comment about there's media that point to China's growth numbers like that 4.8% and saying that the Chinese economy is doing really well. It's doing great. It's doing the best in the world. But there's also equivalent to the United States where the stock market has been doing amazing. But there's not that many in the stock market in the United States, number one. And so on paper, all these economic numbers look great for both China and the U.S. But if you talk to people in China, and you and I, we have a lot of dear friends, almost like family-like people that we still consistently talk to on a weekly, daily basis. And we don't get that impression of these economic numbers boosting the lives of people. And I don't get that in the United States either, because yes, inflation is real in the United States, things are more expensive. And in China, there's a funk that when you talk to people who have been there a while, it's different, it is different. And so I think both things can be true. These economic numbers can show that the economies are doing well. But when you talk to the people and their experiences, yeah, it is not as good as before.

Lei Xing:
Yeah so the sentiment is still somewhat low, but I think you look, you know, people carry on with their lives. Restaurants still buzzling. Yeah, I mean, it's….

Tu Le:

Yeah, it's not, I don't want to give the impression that it's like this Great Depression thing, people were really high on the capabilities and the growth of China just five or six or seven years ago prior to COVID. And I feel that's changed.

Lei Xing:

And it looks like we're still waiting for some kind of a package, a big number to be announced somehow. Yeah. And then next week.

Tu Le:

So that's all I had man, anything else?

Lei Xing:

I'm just on that investor tour I'm doing next week, traveling around. And then I'll head back. And hopefully I get to drive one of these latest and the greatest EVs. And it was interesting to see the P7+ in Paris four days after it was revealed, officially revealed in China. But obviously, Xpeng had an agenda of doing the pre-sale pricing, which I wooed and ahhed during the press conference.

Tu Le:
So you didn't mention how much, how much was it buddy?

Lei Xing:

RMB209,800 so RMB200,000. 

Tu Le:

That was the incentive price though, right? That wasn't the MSRP. Yeah.

Lei Xing:
That was the pre-sale price. So.

Tu Le:
So a little, so about $29,000 for a fully featured B, C-Class sedan, C-size sedan.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, slightly. Slightly, I think it's slightly bigger than the Xiaomi SU7, but they’re priced about the same because Xiaomi S&7 starts at about the same price.

Tu Le:

Yeah. So, and then Xpeng on Twitter or X posted a picture of Brian Gu talking to Macron at the auto show. So that was cool.

Lei Xing:

Oh right, presidential visit, which they didn't kick people out, which was good. Unlike, well, you had to kind of step away or something.

Tu Le:

No, but, well, yeah, I was in booth 6 and I didn't realize that I went back. was trying to get back into booth 5 or Hall 5 and there was secret service lined up and police just lined up. They just went like this, like, no. Universal language. No. And but first this live stream went well considering where you are and. 

Lei Xing:

I think it feels normal. I don't feel any glitches.

Tu Le:

Yeah, yeah, haven't seen any on your side. I haven't seen anything go wrong. But yeah, man, I think this has been a really, really good recap of the Paris Motor Show. I hope that when we see each other in LA, we'll have actually more time to actually spend, maybe grab some dinner, meet some friends. And always the best part, or one of the best parts of us being able to travel to do these things is seeing Daniel Kirchert meeting Felix for the first time. You know, seeing a friend. So I got a chance to talk to Robert Dooley and Sam who has, from the UK who worked the design agency.

Lei Xing:
Yeah, I saw them as well. I saw them next to the Cybertruck.

Tu Le:

Yeah and make new friends because again, one of, I won't say it's a blind spot, but it's an area of opportunity for me to learn more about the European market and just sharpen my knife and understanding of the dynamics, the particular dynamics there. So, and then meeting those European influencers, right? So.

Lei Xing:

And then, you know, what was impressive was, know, Stella Li speaking English, Feng Xingya, president of GAC Group, spoke English, their overseas president spoke English.

Tu Le:

The entire, and the Hongqi was speaking English too, I think. The AITO guy was speaking English.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, He Xiaopeng, he needs to step up a little bit on his English, but other than that, yeah, you know.

Tu Le:

And let me assure the audience Lei that I guarantee you Li Bin, Li Xiang, He Xiaopeng, they probably spend an hour or two a day with English tutors. Cause I don't think they're not trying to learn English. Yeah. So.

Lei Xing:

Li Bin, his English is good. He just doesn't know, just do it.

Tu Le:

Okay, I don't see any questions or comments, Lei. We'll try to be better about figuring all that stuff out and trying to encourage questions and comments. But can you check LinkedIn or X to see if there are any comments? Because last time before we closed out, one or two people had mentioned that they had made some comments and we didn't address them because I don't have. 

Lei Xing:

No, not on X.

Tu Le:
Okay, so let's close it out now buddy, hey, enjoy Zhong Guo, and send pics and then safe travels and I will talk with you next Friday. You'll still be in China next Friday.

Lei Xing:

Yeah, I'll still be in China on Friday. I should be in Shanghai on Friday.

Tu Le:

Okay, okay, so we'll figure this out for next week, but assume that if you can do it Friday night in China.

Lei Xing:

Most likely in my evenings like this time would be good.

Tu Le:

Okay. Cool, man. Hey, everyone, thanks again for joining us. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. We will talk with you all next week. Lei, don't close that window.

Lei Xing:

Bye bye, Au revoir, Zai Jian.