China EVs & More

Episode #194 - 2024 Summarized in Numbers, Tesla Model Y Juniper is here, CES Highlights

• Tu Le & Lei Xing

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Welcome to Episode 194 of the China EVs and More podcast! In this episode, hosts Tu Le and Lei Xing wrap up 2024 and share insights into the global EV and mobility sectors. Key topics discussed include:

1.China’s Dominance in the EV Market:

•China’s remarkable sales of nearly 13 million NEVs in 2024, representing a 50% domestic market share.

•The continued decline of foreign automakers in China, including shrinking market shares for Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Porsche.

2.Tesla’s Market Strategies:

•The Model Y’s global success as the best-selling vehicle in 2024 and its dominant position in China.

•The unveiling of Tesla’s updated Model Y (Juniper) and the strategic focus on maintaining competitiveness in the Chinese market.

3.CES 2025 Highlights:

•A strong presence of Chinese companies, with brands like Zeekr, XPeng, and Li Auto showcasing cutting-edge technologies.

•Innovations in LiDAR, smart cockpits, and EV design from companies such as NVIDIA and RoboSense.

4.Policy and Market Trends:

•The impact of US restrictions on Chinese automotive hardware and software.

•China’s government incentives to boost EV adoption, including expanded trade-in policies for older ICE vehicles.

5.Emerging Players and Innovations:

•Xiaomi’s ambitions to scale EV production with its Su-7 model.

•The rise of premium features like Dolby Atmos and Vision in vehicles like the 
Zeekr 009 MPV.

Companies Mentioned

•Tesla

•BYD

•NIO

•XPeng

•Zeekr

•Li Auto

•Volkswagen

•Porsche

•Mercedes-Benz

•Xiaomi

•RoboSense

•NVIDIA

•Huawei

Join Tu and Lei each week for expert insights on the challenges and opportunities shaping the future of global mobility.

Lei Xing (00:

00.718) Alright. Let's get started.

Tu Le (00:

06.037) you 20.031) Welcome to the live China EVs and 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 feel free to post them in 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 discussed today is based on our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice. If you're new, for those that are new to the show, welcome. And to our loyal listeners and viewers, welcome back. We ask that you smash that subscribe and like button so 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 at doing this. So help us get the word out about this podcast to others. My name is Tu Le I'm the managing director at Sino Auto Insights, a global management consultancy that helps organizations bring innovative and tech-focused products and services to the 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... recuperating Lei can you please introduce yourself?

Lei Xing (02:

00.482) Yeah, good morning. Good morning. And yeah, this is we missed last week, but good morning from my side. This is your phone. Yes, yes, we'll talk about it.

Tu Le (02:

13.855) But we did record something that is very, very worth the wait.

Lei Xing (02:

21.07) This is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review. And this is episode number 194. Before we get into the topics, this is the last, I tweeted out last night, this is the last episode in the Biden era.

Tu Le (02:

44.199) Mmm, yes.

Lei Xing (02:

45.414) And reflecting back, we started this podcast right after Biden got into office, if you remember.

Tu Le (02:

58.015) See, I just feels like we've been doing this forever,

Lei Xing (03:

02.542) And so we've grown the last four years together with China EVs. And China EVs quickly, in 2021 when we started this, was three and a half million. And in 2024 was nearly 13 million. So in four years, annual sales increased by about 10 million units. And every year since 2021. We've added about 3 million NEVs and we've done close to 200 episodes and we should pat ourselves on the back. I think the last four years, you and I, with our respective, both through China EVs and more and our other initiatives, helping the world, educate the world. through this platform and others about what's happening on the ground, about the market. So we should pat ourselves on the back and it's a time flies and you know.

Tu Le (04:

24.007) Yes, Yes, sir. And it was a kind of a random thing that launched this, but I think it was something that you and I kind of saw was worth tracking and communicating and educating, creating that awareness. And it's actually more important than ever to kind of keep up with what's going on. We'll talk about a few of the things that the Biden administration have. some policies that they've just closed on, right? As he's walking out the door, leaving what to do for the next administration. And let's just say that the Biden administration, as he's walking out of the White House, is not dialing down anything with regards to Chinese technology on US roads.

Lei Xing (05:

20.268) Yeah, so topics 2024 sales, new model Y, CES. Where do you want to start?

Tu Le (05:

31.859) Let's just close the book on the two four and talk about the final numbers. Maybe you can start and then the numbers that, that you don't talk about, maybe I can pull up a few.

Lei Xing (05:

44.622) The big numbers, like I said, close to 13 million NEVs. That includes export numbers. That take rate is about 41%. But the domestic sales was actually close to 50%. And as we know, the last six months of 2024 in the passenger vehicle sector, the new energy passenger vehicle take rate was above 50 % in each of those months. another great shift happened in 2024. And it's, and this year we're going to officially have any these outselling ICEVs once for all 2025. And also the big numbers was close to 6 million vehicles exported. The big caveat is close to 80 % of those are ICEVs. And any of these were actually flat in terms of comparison to 2023, 1.28 million versus 1.2 million. And I'd say a quarter of those are Tesla's, right?

Tu Le (07:

14.89) the day. 18.889) The European tariffs had a bit to do with the sales being flat or the exports being flat.

Lei Xing (07:

25.614) Yeah. Yeah. And then the other big peeling the onion is PHEV grew at about 5x the growth of BVs. And that's going to happen the same way in the domestic market as well as export, given the EU tariffs with the number of virtually everyone is moving into EREVs. including the foreign automakers. So those were some of the big trends. I think yesterday also the numbers announced by the Ministry of Public Security over about, if I remember correctly, about 34 million NEVs on the roads. That already accounts for nearly 9 % of the 353 million vehicles. on the roads as of the end of 2024. Now, 9 % take rate is already more than the annual sales take rates of many of the foreign markets. Let's say Europe, US. I think US was still below 10 % last year, still below 10%.

Tu Le (08:

48.317) Eight. were eight. Or we were eight. We were eight.

Lei Xing (08:

55.372) So I mean, the numbers, right? don't lie. China is an EV market.

Tu Le (09:

07.637) Drilling down little bit more Lei. Let's have a quick... 17.013) Just talking about the China market now, because you had talked about NEVs. There were a total of 17 million according to Roe Motion, who does market research for the EV sector globally. And obviously, when you say 13, you mean commercial vehicles too then, I think.

Lei Xing (09:

38.988) Yep, everything export commercial vehicles, passing vehicles.

Tu Le (09:

43.381) So on the passenger vehicle side, we're around 11 in China, okay? And China made up more than 60 % of the global sales. The European Union, what's that?

Lei Xing (09:

47.128) Mm-hmm. Yep. 57.774) Two-thirds. Just say two-thirds, roughly.

Tu Le (10:

01.971) Yeah, two thirds. 07.944) In China, we've talked about this throughout 2024 about how foreign legacies are shrinking. The Chinese EV brands collectively had about 65 % market share of the China passenger vehicle market. And that's reflected in Mercedes losing 7 % year over year, Porsche down 28%, VW Group, And now we're including Audi and Porsche in that number, minus 9.5%. And with regards to Volkswagen Group, we're still talking millions of vehicles that they sell. Okay? You're going to say something?

Lei Xing (10:

48.942) Volkswagen Group sales fell below three million units in 2023. Not the last time that happened, guess what? All the way back to 2012. there's one a bit and the other one I want to mention is the traditional ICE passenger vehicle domestic sales were down two and a half million units or 17.4 percent compared to 2023. Well guess what? Those two and a half million units where did they go? They went to NEVs. And hence, the traditional foreign legacy market share falling because of the ice.

Tu Le (11:

44.533) And so there's not going to be a transition from ICE capacity over to NEV capacity. so the largest export markets for the 78 % of all exports from China last year, Russia, Middle East, Mexico, other parts of Latin America, and it's Not just the Chinese brands. Chery's the biggest exporter. SAIC exports quite a few, but GM also exports. Ford, Jim Farley, this past week said they made $600 million on the China market. And not because of domestic sales into China, it's because of exports. Because the Lincoln Nautilus is manufactured in China and shipped all over the world. And on the commercial side, they ship transit vans that are built in China to all over the world. So don't think of China, the export market for only Chinese brands. It's the global export market for every brand that does business in China. And now that we've kind of shined the light on the losses on the foreign automaker side, some other numbers. BYD is up 41%, NIO is up 39 % year over year, Li Auto 50%, XPeng 34%, Zeekr 87%, Leap Motor 104%. Now, Zeekr and Leap Motor are little bit smaller bases, but that's who's taking the foreign automaker share, okay? Generally speaking, okay? There's other EV brands and there's dozens of others that... all add up to taking a couple percentage points here from the foreign automakers, but largely it's, you know, less than 10 EV brands that are still continuing to grow. And BYD definitely has the thumb on the scale. In 2024, BYD became the fourth or fifth largest automotive manufacturer in the world. They will beat Ford and they will beat Honda in sales.

Tu Le (14:

07.253) in 2024, I believe. And to your point about Tesla being a large exporter of EVs, the number one vehicle sold in the world is, take a guess, Lei, I'm sure you know this.

Lei Xing (14:

22.184) XY.

Tu Le (14:

25.173) The Model Y. So Tesla. 33.749) Regardless of what you think of them and Elon, Model Y was the best selling EV in 23. Model Y is the best selling vehicle in 24. And so people were asking me, why China first? Why not the United States? Well, because they're American company. Why launch the Juniper? So first of all, Shanghai Gig is the most efficient factory. Number two, they have requirements from a productivity standpoint for that factory from the Shanghai government in order to get those tax credits. Okay, so they're penalized if it runs under a certain utilization or whatever. I don't know the exact numbers, Lei. I don't know if you know them, but they do have KPIs that they need to meet. Number three, It's just the most important market. And I looked at the numbers just before we got on. The sales ratio of Model Y to Model 3 in the United States is about six of every 10 Model Ys in the United or six of every 10 Teslas is a Model Y in the United States. Almost 7.5 of every 10 Tesla sold in China is a Model Y. So you could argue, because I've always said China is like the United States. It's an SUV and crossover country. It's even more so at least with Tesla. I don't know about the broader numbers Lei from sedan to SUV in China, but you know, Chinese love the model wise. Let's just say that. so that's why the Juniper is launching first. And we're seeing that they're also going to start production rumors of it.

Tu Le (16:

43.719) are starting in Europe very soon. You know what that tells me, Their sales numbers or the forecast sales numbers are lower than everybody else thinks for 25.

Lei Xing (16:

57.774) So I've said in the past that Tesla in China is a Model Y market. If it's seven and a half, it felt like it's 10 out of 10. Every Tesla sold in the Chinese market was a Model Y. Just look at the vehicles on the roads in Beijing and Shanghai. The Model Y is definitely, you see them more than the Model 3s. So that's number one. And second, yeah, competitively, Nowhere is more cutthroat or bloodbath than the Chinese market. And it's old. And if you think about the number of vehicles, new models that are launched, not every other month, but every other day. No wonder that we have this new Model Y come out first. And preceding that was this pretty aggressive measures put in place at the end of last year by Tesla to get rid of the of the older inventory. And that new price points of the Model Y. The 200, I think it starts at 263,000 RMB. Baked into that is a possibility for a priced movement sometime later this year. I will bet you based on market conditions, based on competition that play is in the bags. So that shows you how competitive the market is even for a new model, let alone older models trying to survive. And we got to give Tesla credit for being resilient of the Model Y continuing to be the one on the top.

Tu Le (18:

51.934) In the works.

Lei Xing (19:

13.758) selling EV models, if not the top selling EV model consistently in 2024. But again, as you all always said, it's these combination of hundreds of model Y killers that are pushing from, that are trying to catch up from behind. And it's not one model. It's not one company. Hence, you know, and it was, I mean, that new model Y was rumored or talked about for better half, better of the, you know, the second half of 2024. And yeah, I mean, that's, it was about time.

Tu Le (20:

09.557) And just to emphasize kind of relative size, Tesla sold about 1.79, 1.8 million vehicles last year. You know that, that was flat from 23. 633,000 were sold in the United States. 657,000 were sold in China. So as a share of the market,

Lei Xing (20:

24.302) on a little bit.

Tu Le (20:

38.271) China market is smaller, but again. all of Tesla's real strategy and I'm not talking Elon, I'm talking Tesla now. goes through China. so, and we can talk about this, those things that the Biden administration did, but we'll come back to that. what the numbers that you and I have just thrown out, it should tell you that the United States and Europe is dealing with

Lei Xing (21:

09.774) Yes.

Tu Le (21:

23.093) a boulder and it's kind of run them over in China and it wants to run them over in the home markets and right now it's the tariffs that are really holding back that boulder and again with emphasis let me place emphasis on this 78 percent of the five and a half million vehicles that you said were exported for ICE vehicles. And most, I won't say most, let's say a good portion of those went to Russia, went to Middle East. Some of them did go to Europe and Mexico, Latin America. So.

Tu Le (22:

12.125) If I'm hopeful, that means the foreign legacy still have time to make some moves, pull in products in order to compete. Because what is also important that I failed to mention earlier, the global EV market grew 25%. Now that's largely on the backs of China, but The United States and Europe grew as well. And this year and next year, there will be higher CAFE requirements. Now in the United States and higher emission requirements in Europe, do those get revisited and eliminated? If so, that takes the foreign legacies off the hook, foreign out.

Lei Xing (22:

47.832) Well.

Tu Le (23:

07.285) But ultimately, it doesn't make them more competitive because they need to keep up with what's going on in China.

Lei Xing (23:

18.286) So maybe a slight correction. I just saw this number from ACEA. are the preliminary numbers for the BEV registrations in Europe in 2024 was down, down 6%. They haven't published the final numbers yet, but it looks like it was a down year in the European market. And obviously with that is a lower. proportion of EVs. I think they dropped by one percentage point compared to 2023, 13.5%. But I think going back to the sales a little bit, I think one very important key word that you and I mentioned is a word called capacity. And you talked about capacity at Tesla. keeping that capacity humming. And from the National Bureau of Statistics and from the CAAM numbers, close to 32 million automobiles were produced in 2024. Now that's a record. And because of that capacity, because of the economy, Last week, China announced this continuation of the scrap and trading incentive, widening it to cover not only the China III emissions vehicles, but China IV emissions vehicles. To give you an idea, so in

Tu Le (25:

06.741) Can you explain what that means? The China 3 mission is two minutes...

Lei Xing (25:

10.542) China, three emissions in China was implemented in the summer of 2010. And then seven, I think it was seven years later in 2017, China four was implemented. So you can imagine the number of vehicles that could fall.

Tu Le (25:

30.869) But when you say these numbers like China 4 emission, they're similar to CAFE standards, correct?

Lei Xing (25:

37.944) Cafe standard, right? Euro three, Euro four, know, similar, but with the Chinese market. So these are millions of vehicles potentially that if every one of those vehicle owners me being included. I still have a China, there was a vehicle bought in 2010 that I still drive around whenever I go back to Beijing. Yeah, and it's still got a blue license plate and I myself is very much enticed to trade it in, to scrap it in for any V because if I don't, I put it in a junkyard. It was nothing.

Tu Le (26:

07.187) Lucky you, they got the license plate.

Lei Xing (26:

23.79) But if I scrap it, I get 20,000 M &B. But I have to buy any of these first. So imagine this is the pressure from the economy, the pressure to keep manufacturing activity. I think this is behind really this expansion of this trade-in policy. to continue spur consumption in order to keep the factories running. And we saw the numbers yesterday, 5 % GDP growth. Take that with a grain of salt. Yeah, well, China says whatever numbers, they'll do it, So I think those are some of

Tu Le (27:

00.639) The other thing that- 06.997) It's always right around 5 % man, it's always right around 5%. 18.633) The other thing that the other important number Lei is the FX rate for the RMB.

Lei Xing (27:

25.986) It'll be interesting to see what happens once Trump gets into office with the expected announcement in tariffs, right?

Tu Le (27:

36.021) I don't want to be an economics professor, but effectively, the yuan against the dollar has gone down in value, which makes Chinese goods cheaper. But it also makes things more expensive for Chinese consumers domestically. And so there's this balancing act between

Lei Xing (27:

50.136) further the values. Yeah.

Tu Le (28:

05.959) upsetting foreign countries, number one. Number two, making sure that the RMB is still strong so that inflation doesn't take over domestically in China. And you and I know, I think you were there recently. I'm looking forward to being there in April for the Shanghai Auto Show. It's quiet in China from when compared to the heydays of when you and I were

Lei Xing (28:

44.376) That is true. think, yeah, I mean, the industry, we have the Chinese New Year coming up in less than two weeks. It seems to be starting to slow down a bit in recent days.

Tu Le (28:

59.721) I already see people talking about get your orders in and stuff like that.

Lei Xing (29:

04.078) Yeah, and Q1 as we expect because of this Chinese New Year straddling both January and the shorter February month, so Q1 will be low. That's expected. if we think about, I mean, some of the numbers, some of the targets that we're seeing, right, Xiaomi is aiming 300,000 units. You

Tu Le (29:

36.981) We know those, those when, you add everybody's forecast together, we know that that's like one and a half, two X what actual sales are. So everyone's pretty upbeat and positive at the beginning of the year. Now with Xiaomi, they're going to launch a second vehicle later this year and the likelihood of them hitting that 300,000 number. probably depends on how early they can launch that second vehicle. Because I don't see the Su-7 getting 300,000 orders.

Lei Xing (30:

10.222) Well, those launchers... the U7 will launch in the summertime. So I'd expect probably out of those 300,000 units, at least two thirds are still Su7s. Maybe 70%, 75 % are Su7s, but the remaining be the U7. But it was funny that the minute Tesla tweeted on the Weibo platform of the new Model Y, Leijun retweeted it with

Tu Le (30:

26.313) Mm-hmm. 40.149) I saw that.

Lei Xing (30:

44.002) two words, two characters, basically saying, And responding to the original Tesla tweet saying, we're going to launch the Model Y, and all of you can try to compete, can compare with the Model Y. And Lei Jun is like, OK.

Tu Le (31:

09.013) So let's move over to your thoughts on the Juniper.

Lei Xing (31:

15.212) Well, we kind of talked about it already.

Tu Le (31:

15.837) So, well, but let's kind of talk about some of the differences between the current model and the Juniper because we're starting to see them, mules anyways in Shanghai. Somebody sent me a couple of pictures, but they probably won't start delivery until at least mid to late February, my guess is. And so they're effectively going to have a full year of this new Model Y refreshed Juniper and my guess, Lei, was to your point about they've kind of baked in some cost cut or price cut potentials. And I would say within the first six months there, you're going to see some movement on price downward by Tesla. That's my guess. So we're seeing an incremental

Lei Xing (32:

09.058) Yeah, mean, that's, that's.

Tu Le (32:

14.439) Increase in range for the Juniper. There's a rear monitor now. There is a turn signal stock now. And a front and a rear fascia update, but outside of that, I don't really know. I guess it's a little bit quieter inside and, you know, I don't know. That's there's a meme picture running around the internet and I tweeted it on.

Lei Xing (32:

46.624) I saw that. 53.145) The one with the glasses, with the belly. Yeah, that's a good way to sum it up. Yeah, I think from a design and styling point of view, it's more cyber-trucky, cyber-vanny because of the front, the light bar. I think it'll do well. I think the Chinese consumers are looking forward to it.

Tu Le (32:

54.855) Yeah.

Tu Le (33:

11.893) BLEH!

Lei Xing (33:

24.037) But again, there's many other, right? The Xpong is launching the G7. There's the U7. There's other, I mean.

Tu Le (33:

34.837) Well, I don't think, I think you and I agree that the updates and the new features don't really move the needle.

Lei Xing (33:

48.92) Yeah, think it's still more from this kind of the Tesla brand premium or this foundation that they have. I think we'll carry them. through most of 2024. And remember last year, right, the 657,000 mentioned, there's roughly about 300,000 that were exported.

Lei Xing (34:

26.696) And 900,000.

Tu Le (34:

28.755) That's where you get the million unit capacity for Shanghai Giga. So give or take 100, 200,000 units. Shanghai gig capacity is probably at 1 million, 1.2 million.

Lei Xing (34:

50.529) at least, yeah, at least that much right now.

Tu Le (34:

53.353) So always keep that in mind and a good rule of thumb. If the factory's not running at around 80, 85%, it's probably not making a ton of money. And there's probably pressure to either decrease price to push that utilization rate a little bit higher or some pressure by the Shanghai. Chinese government, Linggong local government. But let's move on to CES. Hey man, it was good seeing you at CES. It was a ton of fun, right? My first time.

Lei Xing (35:

33.772) Well, said, yeah, your first time. So I'm going to let you get some takes because it was not my first time. So maybe your impressions and what it felt like, what were some of highlights, who you met, who we met, who we talked to officially and unofficially.

Tu Le (35:

42.485) Ugh. 56.533) So I didn't actually get to walk around the halls too much. The weather was great. Yeah, I flew in on Sunday so I could relax, met up with a buddy of mine who you met and on Monday morning was ready to go. I had to do some work so I was a little bit late to the John Deere presser, but John Deere launching.

Lei Xing (36:

01.839) Well, okay. I did, so... As I always do. 15.82) Good.

Tu Le (36:

26.709) autonomous commercial, like construction vehicles. And I'm talking three stories high, like 20, 30 feet tall, as big as a conference room. So seeing them and that, it kind of got my blood flowing a little bit. The conference rooms or the press conference rooms were pretty big. And then raced over and saw the Toyota. Wolven City press conference, which was absolutely meaningless. And then you and I bumped into a bunch of friends. We saw John, we saw a few other people, John McElroy. And then, you know, the highlight was Jensen Huang. So then we went to the Zika booth, or Zika press conference. Zika conference.

Lei Xing (37:

02.958) It was kind of cheesy, weird at the same time. 21.218) Well, the first highlight was Zika. Definitely Zika.

Tu Le (37:

26.653) It was in a smaller room than the John Deere press conference, and it should have used the John Deere press conference because I think it could have filled that conference room three quarters. A lot of automotive analysts were there curious because this is the cool thing about the people that we meet, Lei. I think there's a ton of mutual respect because they believe we know. or they know that we know what we're talking about. And I think you and I being American have kind of followed some of these people anyways. And so seeing them, meeting them, talking with them, having them having interest in our perspective on what's going on in China and how it's affecting Europe and the United States. So we sat down with Ed Kim and Robbie DeGraw from AutoPacific, great, great guys. They're very, very curious about. the China market. bumped into Patrick George from Inside EVs. We saw Kevin Williams, who's also from Inside EVs. And I was impressed with Zekr's press conference. The presentation was a bit generic, but that's probably because you and I have seen iterations of it several times. Yeah. So, but

Lei Xing (38:

28.866) Yep, there you go. 48.903) of it.

Tu Le (38:

52.245) When you talk to Robbie, you talk to Ed, they were really impressed with the presentation. And then they walk over to the booth in West Hall and are like, wow, the mix is a game changer. Because again, they're thinking $40,000 in China. It probably won't be $40,000 in the United States. But the mix is an MPV a la the ID Buzz where the front seats turn around. And you can make it a little mini conference room. You can play cards. And I walked over there. None of our friends were there, but I just kind of just wanted to hear people's reactions and just kind of people watch and everybody's like, ooh, ooh, this is great, blah, blah, blah. And so when you take away the politics, when you take away, this is a Chinese car. You can't deny that these things are great. And we reminded or I reminded Ed and you reminded during dinner, it was like, this is one brand. There are dozens of others. Now these other brands in China have certain flavors. So you and I might not like certain brands, but not because it's a trash car, but because maybe the features don't resonate with us. And so, kind of alluded to that in a LinkedIn post that you said, we beat this dead horse many times. And so let me be clear, because I kind of looked at the post again. This wasn't about James Carter. I think he's very genuinely curious. This is my, my poke at Western analysts. You know who I'm talking about, Lei. And so we don't have to say names, but there, there's still a lot out there that are influential that are. depicting an accurate picture. And so that was good. And then you and I, we bumped into Brian Gu and his handler while we were waiting in line for Jensen Huang's Nvidia press conference, which was at an arena at the Mandalay Bay.

Lei Xing (41:

11.926) Yeah.

Tu Le (41:

19.669) conference room, was at an arena, 12,000 people. It was a little long, it was over an hour. I left about five minutes before it ended, I think, a couple minutes before it ended, amazed. Upon reflection, like... CES reminds me of the Chinese convention. Like it's so vast, there's so many things going on. And CES has the wherewithal to be kind of the OG of large, conferences. And as efficient as it was, it was a little too much, right? Cause traffic is so bad and you taking the monorail, I think is smart. I didn't know how to do that. So I just, I either walked or took the bus. which meant that I slept for about 15, 20 minutes every time I got on the bus. And one thing that stands out or stood out to me during Jensen's presser or his presentation was that he said, autonomous vehicles will be the first multi-trillion dollar robotic sector. And so He should know he's driving a lot of that. Almost every autonomous or intelligent driving system that's worth its weight has Nvidia Orin chips and the Orin chips are going to be replaced by I forget what those name the name of the new chip is but Orin is going to go away and he's yeah and he's got an yeah Thor Thor. Yep. And so. And then there's an entire startup hall.

Lei Xing (42:

55.266) Blackwell, Thor, Thor, Thor, Thor, Thor, Yeah, I'll talk about that.

Tu Le (43:

08.437) called Eureka Park, that was cool. And the events, the evening events were great too. So that's my download. What did you think?

Lei Xing (43:

21.368) So talk about CES. mean, that acronym has become, it used to be called the Consumer Electronics Show, but now the branding, they don't actually spell it out. It's just called CES. And when people talk about CES, they know it's about the future. They know it set the tone for kind of the industry, for the tech industry, not only the auto industry. But over the years, this was my eighth time attending. As far back as 2007, when Ford and Microsoft kind of announced the sync, It started becoming more automotive. So over the years, I've taken various spins on that acronym. So CES has become the car electronics show. the car experience show, and more recently, especially this year, the Chinese electronics show, the Chinese experience show, the China tech.

Tu Le (44:

28.372) Hmm. 31.967) Let me stop you there. About 4,500 exhibitors, about 1,400 of them, 1,300 of them were Chinese. So that tells you they dominated as exhibitors.

Lei Xing (44:

44.59) And that's the thing, because this year CES was special. It was going into it, the anticipation and the anxiety of Trump 2.0 right after it. So not only for the Chinese companies, I think for Nvidia, for every other company, whether they're American or Chinese or any other. based anywhere in the world, I think there was bit of anxiety and anxiousness going into it. And we saw, again, the announcement of the chip restriction, the official finalization of the ICV hardware software ban. So going into it was...

Tu Le (45:

27.142) I see V 31.701) Let's get into a little more detail there, Lei. So the Biden administration had announced that they're going to vehicles, hardware, and software from countries of risk, or I forget how they actually defined it. And it's basically code word for China and Russia. And they finalized that language. Yeah, adversaries.

Lei Xing (45:

56.684) adversaries, adversaries.

Tu Le (45:

59.775) So they finalized that language and they rolled it out last week or earlier this week. And so the limit is 10,000 pounds. So anything above 10,000 pounds, they're not restricting it yet. So commercial vehicles, they're not restricted yet, but that's passenger vehicles. And to give you an idea of what 10,000 pounds looks like on a passenger vehicle, think.

Lei Xing (46:

04.866) Earlier this week, 13, 14. 18.958) They're looking into it.

Tu Le (46:

29.557) Escalate IQ and think Hummer EV because those are both around 9400 pounds So every other vehicle is going to likely be Between well, I won't say likely most vehicles ICE vehicles EVs are between 2500 and 5000 pounds Hummers are are just monsters on the road and on top of that this week they also announced some restrictions for supply chain on drones or UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles. So combined, it raises the stakes. Now we knew about these things because they had made announcements, but now it's official. now the Biden administration is handing this off to Trump. We don't know what he's going to do. My guess is that he doesn't. change them for the foreseeable future. But these are preemptive strikes because again, there are no connected, generally speaking, with the exception of a Polestar 2s and a couple other vehicles, there are no Chinese electric vehicles on US roads. But what's important to remember here is that there is that USMCA or what NAFTA is. So NAFTA 2.0, the United States, MCA, I forget, Mexico Canada Agreement.

Lei Xing (48:

06.935) agreement.

Tu Le (48:

08.725) where technically if a Chinese EV maker or Chinese brand could build in Mexico and shipped to the United States for free. so the Biden administration wanted to close that loophole without having to open up the USMCA to renegotiate it. Because that would have been bad faith on the Biden administration's part. So they created this policy to close that loophole. or one of the reasons they did that was to close that loophole. So there's a few different reasons, but you know, to your point, man, it's not going to stop a lot of these Chinese companies from trying to do business in the United States. We can look at TikTok, can look at Xiao Hong Shu.

Lei Xing (48:

55.374) Xiaohongshu has become the platform for EV diplomacy.

Lei Xing (49:

05.367) and for diplomacy of any kind. That's the starting off the new year was interesting.

Tu Le (49:

13.855) So, and the crazy thing is, Xiaohongshu is, I look at it in China as more of an e-commerce or social commerce platform than a social media platform. So, it's weird. I wonder if they created a campaign and they incentivized maybe some of the KOLs in the United States to kind of download it. You know what mean? I don't know.

Lei Xing (49:

23.276) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tu Le (49:

42.591) how they knew to look up. And I don't know it as Red Book. I know it as Xiaohongshu, right? so, Xiaohongshu just means Little Red Book. But it was really successful in China and then it kind of flattened out or plateaued.

Lei Xing (50:

04.52) it's one of the biggest social media platforms outside of WeChat. Douyin and Billy Billy, these video sharing experiences sharing platforms. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah, so back to CES. yeah, I think this was an important backdrop, these type of bands on Chinese products. But I mean, the Chinese companies exhibiting going into CES, they knew

Tu Le (50:

16.563) Ichi!

Lei Xing (50:

33.164) that this wall was going to be set up anyways, but that does not stop them from showing really, I mean, what they're about, the Chinese companies, the OEMs or the tech companies. So I think, right, one of the mic drop moments was the Jensen Huang's, the multi-trillion dollar autonomous vehicle industry. And he shared a slide of the Thor platform with a number of Chinese brands, right? Xiaomi, Liotto, whoever. And then the other mic drop moment was at the Zika press conference. Giovanni, I think he said, you know, everything we're talking about here at this press conference, we're not talking about the future. We're talking about the president. Right? And The jarring thing that you mentioned about taking the buses and there was traffic is I describe CES as a automotive show on steroids, meaning, yeah, there's cars and trucks being unveiled, but it's really the smartification. It's no longer even the electrification. So I'd say CES acronym is connectivity. electronics and smartification. That's what CS is all about from our lens, automotive lens. And from the minute, so the way I do CS every year is the first day I arrive in the afternoon, there's tech trends to watch. At the very end of the, on the ninth, before our dinner, the last place I stopped was the Sony Honda Ophila One. So I checked out the interior. There was a demo I signed up. The minute I sat in on the first day of the tech trends, something about China came up. Two slides. One slide was on, there was a BYD battery and the other slide talked about Xpeng LHD. And the Sony Honda Mobility Ophila 1, when this guy, Kai, was showing me around,

Lei Xing (53:

01.87) I said at least four or five times. That's not the first time I've seen this. 11.384) The lidar, the tower, the of the ears on top of the vehicle. The door handle is doors. and the interior cockpit. The minute I sat in with the Yoke and the eight-pillar-to-pillar, I was like, man, deja vu because we saw this in Ji Yue. And I think in terms of the big trends, think...

Tu Le (53:

43.677) And what's important to circle back to what you said Giovanni said. We're not talking about the future, we're talking about the present. They feel it's not gonna come out for another year and a half, two years. That's the crazy thing because...

Lei Xing (53:

56.408) We're here now. Yeah.

Tu Le (54:

03.247) In most legacy OEMs, features that are currently in production in China are still conceptual for them. It's mind boggling. Mind boggling. Unreal.

Lei Xing (54:

19.374) Yeah. And then so the other way I would describe it is inside the North Central West halls, you live in the future. Once you step out, you go back to the reality of traffic, difficulty of getting around. And the West Hall, if you went to the West Hall, right? I mean, that's a gigantic one hall. I think the biggest exhibition I've ever seen anywhere in the Maybe next year's Beijing Auto Show will trump it. And then inside the hall, mean, every company is exhibiting there, not only the Chinese companies. There are some kind of China factor involved. And I think it was the first time in my mind, CES, the number of Chinese OEMs represented, I think was a record. Green Wall Motor was there with the Wei, Ranshan, Xfone, LHT, right? We can consider it OEM. Zicur, obviously, with the three vehicles. Li Auto Mega was exhibiting at another venue thanks to Dolby. Thanks to Dolby, because the Li Auto Mega is the world's first vehicle equipped. with Dolby Vision and Atmos at the same time. And guess what? The ZCUR 009 Grand, the MPV, is another one with the Dolby Vision and Atmos. So what I wanted to say in that respect is, CES, you would always find, more often than not, these latest and the greatest.

Lei Xing (56:

17.934) either go into Chinese vehicles first, or it's the Chinese companies that come out with the innovations first. So the Chinese OEMs, and then I think LiDAR was a big part of it. And the Chinese big three were there. And they were not talking about vehicles. They launched LiDARs for robotics. So I think 48.246) highlights or keywords I think at this year's CES stepping out of the automotive bit was the autonomous lawn mowers, the autonomous swimming pool cleaners, or big. And guess what? They'll be equipped with Chinese light arts. And remember SEPTOM? Did you know that they got acquired by Koito?

Lei Xing (57:

16.898) And I talked to them, were showing this MagnoSteer Lidar and I'm like, okay, so how many customers do you have? And then compared to the RoboSans and Hecai, They don't even talk about automotive anymore. They're moving into the robotics. RoboSans said that's this dexterous hand that you could interact with. totally developed by RoboSense.

Tu Le (57:

50.505) And they had, I think the company's name was Coop, an autonomous delivery food delivery vehicle, like a small one. so RoboSense is, they're using RoboSense LIDAR. So to your point, right, you know, I think the restrictions have made it unattractive for the Chinese LIDAR companies to really.

Lei Xing (57:

58.99) Yeah, I hope yeah. They're using the.

Tu Le (58:

16.041) think there's a ton of growth in the automotive space. Now, they're going to be changing gears, but they all follow each other and they beat each other up regardless of what sector. So it's going to be a knockdown drag out fight between Intervusion, RoboSense, and HeSai. Is the world big enough for all three of them? Probably not. Is the world big enough for... Two of the three? Yeah. And so let's see, because I think it's also important to note that these companies have US employees now too. RoboSense has an office here in Michigan and an office in Mountain View or Newark, think. then SEPTAN, which is an American company actually, we visited in Troy, Michigan. And then HSI has teams of people in the United States. You know, it's not these truly, truly, truly Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese companies. And I think it's also always, always important to remember that because there are American people involved now.

Lei Xing (59:

26.254) And then some of new things I saw or interacted with, guess who the first two companies utilizing Nvidia's Thor platform are from OEM and a computing kind of the platform. The first OEM, guess what? Zika. because Zika at the booth showed off the own self-developed domain controller using the Thor platform. And the other company is Lenovo. Believe it or not, it's the first one out of that type of company utilizing NVIDIA's Thor platform. And that domain controller is actually going into the next generation of re-rides, RoboTaxis.

Tu Le (59:

55.125) Hmm.

Tu Le (01:00:

07.518) Hmm.

Lei Xing (01:00:

24.974) and RoboMans. these were, yeah, mean, Lenovo is obviously, they're not new in the IT space. They're relatively new in the automotive kind of smart cockpit driving space. right. And I think the other trend was all the electronics companies, be it TCL, be a pioneer, TV companies.

Tu Le (01:00:

28.786) All like...

Lei Xing (01:00:

55.96) there will be sections in the booth that had automotive stuff. Right?

Tu Le (01:01:

00.405) Microsoft had an entire section, an entire booth that was just automotive related.

Lei Xing (01:01:

06.776) Qualcomm, Intel, Mobileye, AMD, although the AMD press conference we went to did not talk about automotive stuff, but those are the trends. And I think the one other big, big trend that this year's CES was display. especially BMW, they announced the Panoramic iDrive. And this PHUD is the hottest thing at this year's CES. The A-pillar to A-pillar, this thin display of information, right? BMW had it, Valeo had it, HOE, the company from China.

Tu Le (01:01:

35.274) Mm-hmm.

Lei Xing (01:01:

55.158) was displaying some new concepts of micro and mini LED displays inside and outside the vehicle. So I think display was huge. And then there's many other things that we can talk about, but in the interest of time, I think the Chinese OEMs, LIDAR display, You know, the RoboSense, I forgot to mention Geely Galaxy E8, with the LiDAR, they call it the Smart Driving Edition, is launching soon.

Tu Le (01:02:

42.335) So.

Lei Xing (01:02:

42.356) And right, so that's, you know.

Tu Le (01:02:

45.045) The number of people they told me that the automotive mobility section of CES was the smallest that they'd seen. Now, do you agree with that?

Lei Xing (01:02:

59.31) I talked to many people at the booth. did say somehow the traffic was a little bit slower than last year. And yeah, I mean, it was. as much as it was important to see who was there and as much as important to see who weren't. One of companies that was not exhibiting is Lumina. I think they've had some issues of the ramp up of the LIDAR products for Volvo and even for Mercedes. I think they didn't exhibit companies like Amagana, right? These two companies always had big presence at CES with outside.

Tu Le (01:03:

47.125) When I told you, Lei, when I checked into my hotel room, guess who I saw walking out of the, yeah, so I saw Ola on Sunday afternoon. so...

Lei Xing (01:03:

54.488) Hola. That's all. Yeah.

Tu Le (01:04:

04.021) One thing we should talk about before we close out the show is I busted my butt to take the 11 p.m. out of Las Vegas so I could land in Detroit Metro at 6 a.m., drive home, and then drop my stuff out, shower, come right back to Detroit for... the Detroit Auto Show media kickoff. And so I got there around 8.30, not really knowing, because it was freezing. So my parking spot was probably a quarter mile away. So I was freezing, walked in there, couldn't find coffee, and they announced the North American Car Truck of the Year. So the SUV...

Lei Xing (01:04:

47.916) I think, yeah.

Tu Le (01:05:

01.681) of the year kind of crossover was the ID Buzz. The truck of the year was the Ford Ranger and the sedan of the year. shoot, I forget.

Lei Xing (01:05:

10.574) Crazy. 15.79) Was it the Civic? I think it might have been the Civic. Civic? Yeah, it be the Civic.

Tu Le (01:05:

19.623) It was the Honda. Yeah, so I'm a little bit ashamed of our show. And then for those of you that are, not the China EVs and more show, the Detroit Auto Show. so went through the actual auto show at around 10 o'clock, bumped into the usual such bags, John McElroy, know. And so seeing them, seeing him in Vegas and seeing him, man, God bless him.

Lei Xing (01:05:

35.768) This is Detroit Auto Show. 45.518) Clear, yeah.

Tu Le (01:06:

03.989) He's as hardworking as we are. did a seven minute walkthrough. And then I sped it up and posted it on LinkedIn. So for those that are wanting to, or upset that they missed the Detroit Auto Show, I have a two and half minute video and you didn't miss anything. John made a really, really good point. Yeah, he made a good point saying that.

Lei Xing (01:06:

24.738) Good thing I had...

Tu Le (01:06:

31.529) This is not for the manufacturers. It's for the dealers to sell cars. Not a ton. The lion's share of the vehicles on display are on sale today. No one fails. The night before, I missed because I was still in Las Vegas. Ford had a big event. They unveiled a refreshed Expedition and a couple of Mustangs. Now, existing Mustangs, but kind of different.

Lei Xing (01:06:

34.242) Here it is, yeah.

Tu Le (01:07:

00.149) Editions, let's just say that. And so we have to do a lot better. Number one, it's in January and it's freezing out. Number two, there's just not a ton of sizzle, man. There's just not a ton of sizzle. So anyways, because I totally forgot about the Detroit Auto Show already and it's only been three days. That's why I was like, oh, we should talk about this for a second. So.

Lei Xing (01:07:

12.014) It's hard to be yes. 28.162) Yeah, so I mean, I think the highlight of the Detroit Auto Show was definitely the fall of 22 when you had came back. the week that I spent over there is still in my memories. That was one of the best weeks. But after that, mean, Detroit Auto Show is who still, I nobody talks about.

Tu Le (01:07:

39.559) within a few weeks of me coming back. 56.445) And Lei, most importantly, buddy, we went to that preseason game and you saw the foundation of the Lions becoming this great, great team. That was fun, right?

Lei Xing (01:08:

08.314) Something you are proud of.

Tu Le (01:08:

13.653) Yeah, well, we'll see what happens on Saturday. I'm hoping that we continue to do well. But that's all I have, I think now that we're back into the swing of things a little bit, we should be able to consistently get some of these shows out. And then number two, we had some really great interviews that we did in CES. One of them involves a very high ranking management at a company that I'll give you a hint, starts with an X and ends with a Pung. So, and we'll get that out on Monday or Tuesday. It's really, really, really good interview. He didn't shy away from any questions we had. So.

Lei Xing (01:08:

48.782) What? 59.342) He posted the LinkedIn post with that picture. So hey, of us, know.

Tu Le (01:09:

08.297) So. But hey, anyways, I'm glad you're feeling better, buddy, because you were quiet on the DMs. And I was like.

Lei Xing (01:09:

16.142) Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, was honored with that earlier in the week.

Tu Le (01:09:

21.555) Iron Man, so that's what happens when you're walking 25,000 steps a day and probably not sleeping well and not eating that well, so.

Lei Xing (01:09:

27.118) But I always do that. I mean, Show, Beijing, Shanghai, CES, I try to soak it in. Yeah, it's...

Tu Le (01:09:

34.825) Yeah, you do. That's kind of your MO, huh? You go to these big shows, then your immune system goes down, and then you're sick for a couple days. I think that's...

Lei Xing (01:09:

43.758) Yeah.

Tu Le (01:09:

46.902) Let me check real quick to see if there are any questions. No questions, no questions. So we can close it out.

Lei Xing (01:09:

57.454) All right.

Tu Le (01:09:

58.281) Thanks everyone for joining us. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Please keep an eye out for our special editions, the Max episodes. We are reigniting those and hopefully have quite a few of them this year. So we'll talk with you next week. Bye bye.

Lei Xing (01:10:

17.976) Yeah, that'll be the last episode of the Year of the Dragon next week, right before the Chinese New Year. Bye-bye.