Episode #208 - Reflections: AutoShanghai2025, Roadtrip: Beijing to Shanghai

In this episode, Tu and Lei discuss their recent experiences at the Shanghai Auto Show and the evolving landscape of electric vehicles (EVs) in China. They reflect on the advancements in Chinese EV brands, the strategies of foreign automakers, and the innovative power swap technology that is gaining traction. They also discuss the notable absences of key figures, the insights gained from a roundtable discussion, and the standout vehicle designs and innovations presented. 

The conversation also touches on the driving experiences with intelligent driving systems and highlights memorable models from the auto show. The hosts emphasize the globalization of the EV market and the future prospects for Chinese brands as they aim to expand internationally. The conversation concludes with predictions for the future of EVs and the industry's direction.

Key words
China EV, electric vehicles, Shanghai Auto Show, NIO, foreign automakers, power swap technology, intelligent driving, EV market trends, automotive industry, Chinese brands, Auto Show, Electric Vehicles, EV Technology, Industry Insights, Vehicle Design, Market Trends, China EV Market, Automotive Innovations, Roundtable Discussion, Competitive Landscape

Transcript

Tu Le 

Welcome to a newest edition of China EV The More podcast with Tu Le back in the United States. What Lei and I discuss today is based on our opinions. It should not be taken as investment advice. Anyone who's keen to ask us any questions, feel free to leave them into the comment section. 

in the next hour. So my co-host, Lei Xing and I will go over the week's most important and interesting news coming out of the global EVAV and mobility sectors. We'll talk specifically about some of the things we did over the last couple of weeks for me, 18 days and late currently still in China. We'll talk about some of the things that he's about to do. So if you're new to the show, welcome to our loyal listeners and viewers. Welcome back. We ask that you.

smash the subscribe and like buttons and help us get the word out to other enthusiasts who want to know more about what's going on in China and how it affects the world. 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 space. I Write a free weekly newsletter that you can...

that we pull many of our discussion topics from. You can sign aa for that, sino autoinsights.substack.com, which of course I encourage you all to do a well rested lay and a not rested Tu Can you please introduce yourself?

Lei Xing 

a overworked jet lag waking aa at 3 30 a.m. in the morning and missing China but also glad to be home Tu Yeah I'll be in your spot in two weeks so I'm actually kind of looking forward to going back to the other home. This is my

Tu Le 

Goodness.

⁓

Yes.

Hmm.

Lei Xing 

This is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review. This is a long overdue episode number 208.

Long overdue because we've been having fun in various ways and forms. We touched down in China, in Shanghai on April 20th. It's been two and half weeks. There's so much things happening and we did that.

Tu Le 

Both of us, same time.

Lei Xing 

The last two and a half weeks just went by like a flash. First of all, let's thank Neil again for lending us 2024 ET5 for the road trip that we completed on May 5th 6th from Beijing to Shanghai.

Tu Le 

Lending us, lending us.

Lei Xing 

Tomorrow, the new.

ET5, ET5T, ES6, and the EC6 known as the 5566, the refreshed editions pre-orders start tomorrow. And this just followed the updated, yeah, this just followed the updated LiAuto L6789 smart new editions that launched yesterday.

Tu Le 

No rest for the wicked.

Lei Xing 

And...

You know for as long as we've talked about these companies, NEO, and for as long as you and I in our previous capacities in your newsletter, in my previous role as China Auto Review, having reported on NEO, you know, ever since the beginning, ever since the, you know, 2014, 2015, this was actually the first time that we had this experience.

understanding the power swap process. And it gave us a great understanding of that process through this trip. And this was the second consecutive trip that we did during the Beijing Shanghai Auto Show time. And I think it's important to

say that for us, we kind of make an effort and a point to stay for long during the auto show. don't zoom in and we don't, you know, come down and spend a couple of days at the Shanghai Auto Show and then get out. For us, I think it's valuable that we have the time and the resources to actually

be on the ground and experience these vehicles for us to be able to share this perspective to our audience. And I feel actually very lucky.

Tu Le 

Let's be honest, Leigh. Let's just be frank and honest.

To your point, we don't swoop in for two days and tell the world, my God, these things are game changers. They want us to be there. Our contacts, they really enjoy and appreciate the fact that they get intel from us and they listen to us and ask us questions. so for the sake of full disclosure, Neo did not pay us.

to drive from Beijing to Shanghai. had complete editorial control over all of the content that we're gonna be posting. Some I still haven't or we still haven't edited and finalized, but that'll be happening in the next few days. I want you to ask all these other people. Now, car reviews are different, but if you're trying to be an analyst, a true analyst in the space,

You have to disclose whether or not you're getting paid by competitors and or the companies that you're trying to represent. You can have any opinion you want. OK, but hiding the fact that you're getting compensated is probably not or I won't say probably isn't isn't really being objective. So that's the polite way of me trying to say that. OK, so.

Lei Xing 

Well, yeah,

and piggybacking on that, hopefully, we can, you for those brands out there, please, if you want to sponsor us on the China EV some more, please, you know, we're open. You know, but we're going to continue to do this. did that, you know, I tweeted, right? We fast charged our way from Beijing to Shanghai.

in a XBOM G9 in 2024. We power swapped our way from Beijing to Shanghai in a NeoET5. And in 2026, how can we top that? I mean, that's just the epitome of what's happening in the Chinese smart EV space that every year, not year, but probably every week or every month that there's something new.

that get to try to do and top what is already available. And that's actually really what reflected at this year's Auto Shanghai is just the pace of what I would call companies trying to break the glass ceiling, right? How high can you go? And maybe, you know, I joke next year will megawatt flash charge away.

Tu Le 

you ⁓

Lei Xing 

from somewhere to somewhere.

Tu Le 

And what's important because

we'll, you know, we did a little bit of reflection or at least I did in last week's newsletter. We'll do a little bit more in this episode. But if we look at the last three or four years, here's the thing.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, sure.

Tu Le 

You can't not be at these shows and think you can speak intelligently because you're just reading other people's content and then spouting what you've heard because the three years, just the three years post COVID of these shows, everything has evolved. Now, year one, when I was there and you were there, you I had gone during COVID during one of the shows. so

I got to see it from the very beginning, like the real transformation. But, you know, it was a 22. It was in Shanghai, right? And then everybody came in or 21. Everybody came in, right? then, yeah, 23, sorry, 23. Yeah. Everybody came in with surprise, 22 in Beijing. It was more or less a coming out party.

Lei Xing 

21 21

Oh, you're talking about 23 when everything opens. Yeah, 23. Yeah.

Tu Le 

And this year to me is...

Lei Xing 

22 in paging, sorry, never happened.

Tu Le 

Yes. so 21 is what I meant when the woman jumped on the Tesla. I always get those two years confused because to me that two and a half years when I was in China was kind of a blur. Cause those are the COVID years. but so last year was the coming out party for the Chinese TV makers. Um, and then this year there's a maturity about

these companies and a confidence that the products do stand with the foreign automakers outside of China. So that's the other part I want to emphasize. I think they began to be confident last year and now we see complete confidence in their products that they're world class. The second thing is that there was a bit of shell shock, continued to be shell shock last year.

for the foreign automakers and you really, really saw not much effort from them. But this year you saw Volkswagen, Audi really come and Puik to give them credit, Cadillac as well. They were the foreign automakers that tried to make a splash this year. And I think they had levels of success.

I'd love your thoughts on that. They had levels of success because Buick, Volkswagen, they both showed off concepts. Buick's vehicles for the future, the Electra sub-brand, I thought those concepts looked great. Now, can they execute interior, exterior, and user experience? That's the key. But we've all seen these foreign automakers now partner locally.

the GM brands with momenta on the intelligent driving Volkswagen with XPeng and horizon and things like that. And so that should help them move faster. Okay. Cause they can't make these things quote unquote in the timeframe needed to put vehicles on the road that can be competitive with the Chinese. Now with the Chinese and again, give me 30 more seconds to kind of talk through this evolution lay.

There seems to be this maturity, also the blandness because everything on the exterior design is looking more more similar. And then from a feature standpoint, there aren't that many differentiators because everybody's using Snapdragon, everybody's using Orin. And it's like, which version is the latest? That's why Neo is launching these new ET5.

That's why Lei Auto, because that's what's going to get you sales. And every six months is always the new or a new version of a vehicle or refresh or a price cut. And the only feature currently due to the price war that matters to a lot of people is value, is the price. And we'll likely see a bit more maturity in the brand next year in Beijing, because that's really the only way you're going to start to differentiate yourself.

You know, trust in the brand. Hopefully late next year we'll also see in Beijing a whittling down of some of these brands because the weaker brands can't attend. They can't afford to. They might be strapped for cash, things like that. you know, what do you think? Do you agree or disagree? What parts do you agree? What parts do you disagree?

Lei Xing 

Yeah,

100 % agree. mean, if we look at, I think talking about the Shanghai Auto Show, it's as important to talk about who made it as it is important to mention who did not make it. we see the evolution, the high-fives. This year was Netta. some of the big foreign automakers, Hyundai, Kia, Jaguar Land Rover, Polestar.

some others. There's quite a few brands that were in Beijing that were not here. also, think one... Yeah, well, Tesla is one entire topic that we can spend days on. also, one of the narrative of who wasn't here was Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun.

Tu Le 

Tesla.

Tell me it was there but wasn't there.

Lei Xing 

and he chose not to come here because of probably everyone knows what happened. because last year Xiaomi and him basically kidnapped the Beijing Auto Show and took over the narrative of the new models. And then the year before, so if we look back the last three years and focus kind of on the foreign automaker perspective is

2023 the keyword was the shock and then 2024 is They kind of the keyword is accumulation Because they had that shock they made the decisions Volkswagen investing to expound Stellantis into the motor Etc etc and 2025 was sort of a counter-attack They kind of found their module their stands

Tu Le 

Okay.

Lei Xing 

there were more people visiting and checking out the cars. I went to all the big reveals of the, not the reveals, but the important cars at ABB, the four-legged Audi E5 Sportback, the Mercedes

locally produced CLAL, and the BMW iX3 in the concept form, but with the locally developed

software behind that Panamac iDrive. And then remember, I think in 2023, it was that when Zekker had the X and you compare it to the Audi stand, there was nobody at the Audi, but there was people waiting to get into the X. But this year, I noticed all the foreign bands, know, Volkswagen.

because they had this so-called in China for China models. And I think that the consumers, the visitors, they were piqued. So I think that that module came back. I was at the Volkswagen Group Media Night and I talked to Oliver Bluma a little bit and he told me something that was really interesting was he feels

that the three Volkswagen ID, the Era, Evo, and Aura from the three different joint ventures, as well as the Audi, not only the E5 Sportback, but the four rings Audi A6L e-tron, because they have in terms of design, in terms of the local content, in terms of, let's say, momenta, in terms of Huawei, they're on these vehicles now.

Tu Le 

Aura.

Lei Xing 

they've capitulated to the Chinese tech companies. And so the models they put out attracted the visitors. And it was interesting to sit in these vehicles. just what I did was just sit in the back and hear these Chinese consumers. They go in, they talk about it. They think, this is not worth it. This is nice. How much it could be.

Tu Le 

Okay.

Lei Xing 

it kind of give you an idea and ask the

question, are the foreign automakers back? And but I think next year is really the ultimate test because as we've seen, they're still losing money big time. They're still losing market share in China big time. But they have these products that they think

will make that come back, especially in the NEV space. I think that was one of the big narratives at the Shanghai Auto Show.

Tu Le 

I'd like to add that.

always kind of played lip service to the, where our products are for Chinese consumers. Bluma said this year that there is no global car, tastes are different, emerging trends are different. And I feel like the GMs and the Fords now get it and are very genuine about putting products on the road in China that really reflect

Chinese tastes, as opposed to shoehorning global features that are probably five years behind what's trending in China.

I got some play for whatever reason. I got some play at the AmChem event that I was a guest of where I said everybody and their mother has level two plus intelligent driving. And it's true. I can't really think of any player in China, foreign or domestic that we take seriously. We're talking about meaning, Lei, that doesn't have some sort of entry.

on the intelligent driving side. And luckily for us, we've tried most of them. So I think there's more genuine, like, we understand the importance of accommodating and designing for the Chinese consumer more than ever.

Lei Xing 

It is, ⁓

It is incredible. Again, we emphasize the iteration and the growth and the development and the capability of these type of NOA, NOP, whatever you want to call them, how they can be so much better. know, a year's frame to compare does not do justice, right? Because that's a long, long time.

And the NLP Plus we drove on the ET5 through the latest software was incredibly good on the highway.

Tu Le 

Let's go through the numbers.

We left Monday morning. We got to Shanghai or Beijing. Yeah, Shanghai Tuesday night about 830. I want to say I dropped you off around 815, 830. So we spent the night in Xuzhou, which was about, let's say 500, 600 kilometers. We drove day one. You the night before.

Lei Xing 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tu Le 

blop the battery out. And so go ahead, take over. There were total of six swaps. What else am I missing?

Lei Xing 

So just some of big numbers, 1300 kilometers or 800 miles, we took two days to do it. The first day 700, the second day about 600. Six swaps and we happened to swap at Gen 2, 3 and 4 stations. So and it was consistently on the 3 and 4 between 4 and 4 and a half minutes from the minute you park at the

designated spot and you push a button to the minute the system says the battery is done. Four to four and a half minutes, very consistent.

Tu Le 

So just to be very clear, there is a little area that's designated where the Neo vehicle parks. And then it detects you're in that parking space and it prompts you to press a button. then it autonomously, this is where it is autonomous because we don't have to do anything until the green light pops aa and it backs you into the swap station exactly where it needs to be. And

to your point, over the course of three and a half to four minutes, depending on the swap station, Gen 2 to Gen 4, it opens the compartment in the bottom, takes out the battery, puts the battery away, and then puts the new battery in there over, again, four minutes. And depending on the queue, why don't you tell them a little bit about...

three kilometers away, two kilometers away, what we're doing or what you're seeing on the screen.

Lei Xing 

So the power of the power swaps, I think it's important to call these power swaps instead of battery swaps because I think it's the importance of the power of the cloud. And the minute you leave from Beijing, you enter the destination in Suzhou, the system automatically recommends the batteries, the power swap stations that you should stop at.

And along the way, there's a automatic queuing that happens in the background because at the same time, other users might be going to that specific station as well. And you see the number of batteries available and how many people are in front of you. Those number constantly changes. But I think all the six swaps with except for one that we had to wait for another vehicle.

was when we got there, we did the swap. We did not have to wait. And the system requires you once you're close about less than a kilometer, it automatically puts in an order. And then within three minutes, you have to start the swap. Or they will cancel that order to be fair for other people who may be queuing. So this is, think, the power of the cloud that

to make it very convenient and seamless. ⁓

Tu Le 

I don't know what the

delay is between

What did showing on the screen inside the Neo with what's really happening at the power swap station, but let's assume that it was real time. The two things, the one thing that was, I wasn't sure how to take was when the instrument panel has the CLTC estimate of range. And there was another number, let's assume that's kind of the Neo real estimate of range. And there was probably a 10.

Lei Xing 

We don't.

Tu Le 

15 % Delta between CLTC and real range, depending on if the range was low, I think the number becomes more accurate or converges. So that was a little bit confusing to me, but that's me probably not understanding the Chinese part of some of the instructions.

Lei Xing 

But

after the trip, think as a, let's say, owner of the vehicle and doing this long trip and doing the power swapping, I had the confidence that the vehicle will get to that power swap station with enough range left so there's no anxiety.

Tu Le 

because

there's enough of them.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, so I think that's the peace of mind that I had that, again, not only that, but just starting off the trip and never worrying about range anxiety because we trust there's over 3,300 stations and growing and they're pretty much along the expressways if in the service areas, if not at least close to the

Tu Le 

Whoa.

Lei Xing 

you know, the expressways.

Tu Le 

Let's explain that. we took, because we were specifying Xuduo as our stop, we started on the G3. So for folks in the United States,

Lei Xing 

which is the Beijing-Taipei

Expressway. Jingtai. Jingtai. ⁓

Tu Le 

Yeah, the Beijing Taipei Expressway, Beijing Tai, right? And Jingtai, Jingtai. And

so for the folks in the Midwest, there's an I-75 that will get you from Beijing to Shanghai. That's the G2. We took the G3 because we were actually heading more west of Shanghai. And so once we got onto the G2, that was the main highway to Shanghai.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Tu Le 

So one would assume that those two roads, probably the most popular to get down to Shanghai from Beijing are going to be filled with swap stations. don't believe the rest of China is supplied like that yet. again, NIO is making calculations based on where their drivers are and where they anticipate sales to be.

Assuming that those swap stations will be populated in lower tier cities than this year in the coming years, I think is a safe assumption.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, so

right after the Shanghai Auto Show and right before the holiday break, NIO achieved the county coverage in Guangdong province. Right, so they've been saying this for a while that by the end of this year, they want to achieve county coverage, coverage on the county level in, I forget the number, but several provinces. I think at this point,

Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and probably another province has already achieved this county-level coverage. And I'm hearing there are 3,300. There should be at least over 4,000 by the end of this year. And perhaps more. I may have forgotten the number. But again, continue to bet out the PowerSwap network. And the important thing is, you know,

Firefly is not able to swap at any of these stations.

Tu Le 

But we saw Amona in a PowerSwap station. Or Anvo, sorry. jeez. Anvo, we saw an Anvo.

Lei Xing 

Your jet lag

Tu Le 

Yeah, I don't

normally make those types of mistakes. The one thing that I think is important for you to detail, Lei, if you will, is the inventory levels of each of these swap stations are different. There are four to 11, I think. So can you explain and talk about that a little bit?

Lei Xing 

Yeah, once you swap out the battery, your battery could become someone else's battery. That's simply how works. And then once it's swapped in, it'll be in that queue to be recharged. And we could be swapping in a battery that was recently swapped out by another user. That's the simple way of putting it. And sometimes the system will say, OK, because of the scarcity,

This battery you're swapping in is not charged to that. Usually it's a 90 % SOC. Yeah. but we never, I mean, I think all the batteries that we charged in showed a 90 to 93 %ish SOC, which is about over 500 kilometers CLTC.

Tu Le 

They're never charged to 100%. None of them.

Lei Xing 

It's the 75 kilowatt hour battery pack.

Tu Le 

And maybe you should also just mention that peculiarity that remedy itself on day two where it was telling us to go into city center. I think that's kind of worth mentioning.

Lei Xing 

On day one, day one, all the batteries, power swaps, we had to drive about six, seven kilometers from the expressway exit. Those are again, automatically recommended by the system. And I did have, I did have the expressway and power swap prioritized.

Tu Le 

Yeah, I'll do one,

The night before, you had put presets in to tell...

Lei Xing 

So, could have been the stretch of

Tu Le 

Meaning that you

preferred to swap stations right off the highway at the rest stops, not in city center.

Lei Xing 

or right on the highways, the service areas on the highways, not having to exit out of the expressway. That's what I So.

Tu Le 

Yeah.

And the

reason that is a big deal is because think of having to drive two or three miles into Manhattan to swap. And you might not think of Xuzhou as Manhattan, but there's nine million people in Xuzhou. So it's not a small city relative to the rest of the world. It's a small city relative to China's tier one cities.

But having the swap in the city could lose you 30, 40 minutes easily.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Yeah. But it was again, no complaint. I mean, it was, don't have to wait 30, 40 minutes like we did last year for each fast charge. So that's the peace of mind.

Tu Le 

Oh,

and I'm going to give us the championship belt. don't know too many non domestic Chinese analysts that have driven a total of 2300 US miles or 2300 miles using level two plus intelligence in China.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, that helped greatly.

Tu Le 

from two different brands.

So

I feel comfortable saying this. We did have some interactions or interventions, but I felt pretty safe, specifically on the highway.

I drive every day in the US on highways. so it took me a day or two to get used to driving in China again, because my alertness needs to be there right away. And when you get into Shuzhou, there's you and I were talking about this when we were driving out from the hotel. This feels like Beijing 10 or 12 years ago.

Lei Xing 

Well,

know the stops in Cangzhou, in Tai'an, in Xuzhou, there's a little bit of difference in each of those cities, right? The way the type of vehicles we saw, the type of mopeds, the type of scooters we saw, they were different.

Tu Le 

and

Remember when we went to that restaurant that we decided not to eat at and you were driving, you had to take over because there were so many mopeds. so this is where FSD is going to be.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Tu Le 

hamstrung because it's only Chinese data. I don't even know. I'll be honest with you. I don't know how to explain how they're training the system in China because it's not FSD. It's FSD lite. They don't even call it FSD. There was an analyst that said that FSD is going to, or these robotaxes are going to have problems.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, they changed the name already.

Tu Le 

To say that now, it's obvious because they're using existing FSD software. But if this guy would just go to China and try out some of these other robotaxi services, some of these intelligent driving services, it would be obvious that FSD is not this runaway system that dominates. I mean, we tried Waymo, guess what?

Waymo is great. It doesn't go to the airport. And how would that work with a bunch of Samoanchuas, a bunch of mopeds? Would it have difficulties? Of course it would, because that's not the data it's collecting currently in the United States or in the West. we can only judge it based on our eyes, how we feel in the vehicle, right? Because we're not

trying to grade it technically. But I also feel comfortable saying that you cannot, and these aren't level three systems where you can stop paying attention. You have to pay attention.

Lei Xing 

No.

No.

Tu Le 

So. ⁓

Lei Xing 

Let's

go back to the Shanghai Auto Show a bit. What were some of the memorable models? Which models did you think was impressive? Anything that stood out? I have mine.

Tu Le 

Okay.

So the Mercedes vision V that looked awful to me. It wasn't Well, I'll talk about some of the yeah, the nice ones and stuff. Generally speaking, I think the avatars are pretty vehicles I really like. And this is where. I'm hoping that me chirping at Frank Wu a little bit will help. I really love.

Lei Xing 

Okay, you're talking about the Notarian points.

I'll add to it. I'll add to it.

Tu Le 

the overall design of the Zika vehicles. I think there's a maturity to the 007 and then there's a 007 like wagon coupe. I was lent a couple of Zikas for the couple of days that I was in Beijing. And I told you this story, Lei, I'm in Gongti, Beilu, which is...

close to CBD in downtown Beijing right off the third ring road and I'm staying at a hotel and they dropped the cars off at a parking structure right behind the hotel. I get into the car and I'm like super excited because I'm going to see a friend and I have 45 minutes to get to like six kilometers basically like Liyama, right? And I'm late by the way to go six kilometers in 45 minutes because I'm like super excited and then I turn right.

right into a traffic jam. And I remembered why it's terrible to actually have a car in Beijing. But when I was able to drive the car, oh man, the Zeroes Move 7, big fan. And I also had a Zero Zero 9, the MPV, and it drove really well. It's very heavy, obviously, but yeah, yeah, yeah. So

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

No, we're given that in the US already, so...

Tu Le 

So I really liked the Z-Car, the 9X was great. Again, the only thing that needs to be massaged a bit more is the front end so that it's not so, it seems garish relative to the rest of the vehicle. And if you look at the 0-0-7 interior, the front console, I think it looks really mature. It was really well thought through, thought out. Now.

I also had a chance to sit down with Frank Wu and Stefan. You remember his last name? The head of design for Zika? Yeah, so, and talk to them a little bit about that. Yeah, talk to them a little bit about that. We both attended the Zika event that was during the media days on the bun on the white time. And they both, both Stefan's,

Lei Xing 

See you out.

Sheila, the former Bentley head of the...

Tu Le 

kind of talked about Linkinco and Zika design and so go ahead.

Lei Xing 

And

yeah, no, speaking of, right, I did a few recaps. My overall summary, it's the foreign automakers, including foreign suppliers, they were more Chinese, and the Chinese were more international. I think that's another big narrative. And the Zicur event for the fact that this was a special event, I think, for the international media.

And if you look at all of the Chinese brands, the Cherries, Chang'ans, JACs, GACs, BAICs, NIO, the Smart EV startups, the international presence, I think in recent memory, for me, I think it was incredible. Just the amount of foreign faces, foreigners that you saw. I think I have to go back to the...

before the pandemic to see this many international faces. And that shows kind of the globalization. Cherry invited 5,000 of their international dealer media to the show. And I should mention this already also, that we met so many of our kind of friends of the show and the industry. I met several.

Tu Le 

It would be add to that.

And.

Lei Xing 

western, mostly US, reporters that came to China for their first China auto show. So I'm glad. And the guy from MotorTran, I forget his name, he said last time he was in China was 2000.

Tu Le 

Well, there was some that came to China for the first time too.

Lei Xing 

And I think we, I am very glad that more, I mean, we've been talking about this, but it's never better than you yourself to come and see an experience. And I'm glad that that happened.

Tu Le 

And let me make this

clear. Just because they came for the first time in five years, seven years, 10 years, and they were like, my God, this is happening. We've been talking about it forever. So they didn't discover anything. It was already happening. They just weren't aware of it. That's a key difference here. Something didn't all of a sudden happen. Now, the other thing that I want to add to your point about

the foreign media is that in years past, it was, wow, these cars are surprisingly good. Can we trust them? Are they reliable? And who are these brands? Now, the foreign media is like, when are they coming? Because the assumption is now, yes, they are world class and these companies are ambitious. Now, the reality is, that there's

Out of all these companies that want to go abroad, the ones that you have to look out for are Cherry, which sells as J.Co. in the UK and Australia in particular. I think it sells as J.Co. in parts of Europe too. Zekker, BYD obviously, Expan, Nio to a lesser extent, because they're still kind of struggling domestically.

Liatto also to a lesser extent, but who else would you let's say highlight that we'll see more of in the next 18-20 months outside of China besides those brands? Yes. Okay.

Lei Xing 

Leap Motors. Every

single one of these brands, I think there's some plans, some more aggressive, some reserved about being on more markets outside of China.

whether it's the Chinese legacy ones or the Smart EV startups.

Tu Le 

And since you

mentioned Leap Motor, think what's notable was that none of the French, Citroen and Peugeot weren't at Shanghai Auto. But Leap Motor's technology is likely to underpin some of their newer vehicles in Europe in the coming years, is my guess. Renault was not present at Shanghai Auto, but again, they were impressive in Paris during the Motor Show. And so...

Lei Xing 

Right.

Tu Le 

So yeah, to your point, it was good seeing these people that we see at the motor show circuit. And again, it was also very, very apparent who was missing, who seems to be prominent voices against Chinese electric vehicles, but again, weren't present for the last few shows, which is...

I mean, there's an inside joke between a handful of us that we'll keep to ourselves, but I think most people know who I'm referring to anyways. speaking of which, we should, cause it's 9.50 right now, so I'll look to see if there are any comments, but I do want to advertise that you and I had the pleasure of sitting down. And again, we need to thank Neo for this because

Lei Xing 

man.

Tu Le 

All I did was ask and they said yes, no problem. So no one was compensated, but we went to a Neo house in Jingan Si next to the largest Starbucks reserved in the world and recorded a max episode round table with Ethan Robertson, who AKA is wheels boy, Yo Shen from TechNode.

Ed White or Edward White from the Financial Times. And we recorded for over two hours lay. And it was at a Neo house and we didn't really talk about the auto show. We meant to talk about the auto show, but we got a lot more broad. And I don't

Lei Xing 

Yeah, I would.

Tu Le 

want, you know, I'm not one for hyper bowl, but it was an insider's view. Because guess what? Jill lives there, Ethan lives there, and Ed lives there. So it's not like outside eyes for the first time. I'm sorry.

Lei Xing 

We kind of live here.

We kind of live here. Because we're going to be back again in the summer. So it's always like, you know.

Tu Le 

Yeah, well.

Yeah, we'll be back. Yeah, so

we both have plans to be back in the summer.

Lei Xing 

Yeah. But,

yeah.

Tu Le 

That was really cool. We'll do some things behind the scenes, but that roundtable was more successful than I thought. Now, the video is gonna be a little bit wonky because I'm not a videographer, I'm not a professional content guy, but the audio should be really good, which is the most important.

Lei Xing 

We

numbers.

We,

some of the stuff we talk extensively was one BYD, two, we talked about Geely and just as we were talking about Geely.

Tu Le 

Tesla?

Lei Xing 

Their Hong Kong listed arm, Geely Auto Holdings, made the announcement that they were requiring Zekker and making it private. So putting Zekker under the Hong Kong listed arm, we talked about Geely consolidation, brand consolidation. So that was interesting. And yeah, that was long.

To be honest.

Tu Le 

No, but it was something we would do anyways because whether it's on DMs, we formalized it by recording it. we talk like that to people offline all the time. And that's, think, one of the big factors and bonuses of why people listen and watch is because we

Lei Xing 

But.

Tu Le 

We do have access, I think, and I think respect amongst the people that we care about anyways, so it's, think because we're Asian, we're not as outwardly dumping our chests and tooting our own horns too much. That's not the Asian culture way, but we should do a little bit more of that just because

We are, we're out there getting it done and we're taking a lot more steps than others in the space.

Lei Xing 

Like you said, we're just nerds. think I've covered this industry for 20 some years and I couldn't think of doing anything else but just to be on the ground, see, hear, listen, experience, talk, discuss, and man, very grateful for it. Back to the auto show, I was going to say some of the notorious models. You mentioned

What was the first one? the Vision V, right? With the F-A-W grill and I think overdone interior. I think that was a lot talked about. There's a few models, right? The Z-CUR9X is referred to as the Hangzhou Bay Colony. There was another colonon wannabe, the Woohoo.

Tu Le 

The reason it's called Hangzhou Bay lay,

obviously, you know, but to our audience because Zyker is in Hangzhou.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, and the Hangzhou Bay is where Geely's R &D is based, in Ningbo. And then there's the Wu Hu Colony, the Jator Zongheng G900, with a couple of turbines sticking out of the exhaust pipes. The reason being, Cherry started out making ships. So they want to beat Yangwang UA.

to be the vehicle that can wade in water. Then there's a couple of other notorious models. One, I saw a Ion UT, this is from GAC Ion, in a Xiaomi Ultra paint and the sport strips. And they actually called it the Ion UT Ultra.

Tu Le 

Okay.

Lei Xing 

Then there was the Aura Lightning Cat Shooting Break Edition.

There's still these vehicles that make you kind of hmm. But I'll tell you the ones that I thought stood out. In terms of design, they were great. The WorldWay Pearl concept and the MG Cypher X. Maybe because of Yosef Kaban, who joined the SAIC motor from Volkswagen.

Tu Le 

Well, yes, they had an event. They had a standalone event.

Lei Xing 

I thought the Buick's were really good. I actually think that the biggest surprise of the auto show was the fact that Buick announced ahead of the auto show that they are now, yeah,

yeah, they announced this Xiao Yao architecture, this Electra sub-brand, the integration of Momenta.

and this three new concepts. They call it the precursor, the car, the SUV, and the ultra luxury and PV concept. I thought that was quite a big surprise to me because I didn't think that Buick was announced anything. But this is not so much a GM China-led event. It was a Shanghai GM.

Tu Le 

There's a pulse.

Lei Xing 

I the joint venture was a little bit more autonomy making these type of events. So I think they're doubling down. Volkswagen, obviously, not to mention. The Japanese. ⁓

Tu Le 

Mm-hmm.

Let's talk about

two of the three Volkswagen branded ID series. There's ERA and there's Aura, and then there's Unix. The ERA and Aura, I believe, are BEVs using XPong platform. Last gen platform though.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

The ID EVO, as a matter of fact, is one of the first G9 platform-based vehicles. And then the ID Aera is the big SUV with the extended range, EREV.

Tu Le 

Yeah,

so that's an E-REV, not a BAD. I think it's kind of separating those.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, from Shanghai Volkswagen. And then

the ID aura, the sedan, is from F.A.W Volkswagen. All actually built off of the ID code from last year. And the three wanted to show the individualization from those joint mentors.

And they're not going to be available until 2026 as production vehicles. hence, the real test is next year, even though we say it's a counterattack from the foreign automakers. But really, the true test of putting on a show or a dough is 2026.

Tu Le 

goal has to

be lay because next year it's in Beijing. It has to be they're going to show production ready versions by the show. And it should be noted that I'd heard some rumors about the Beijing Volkswagen team. Most of them having to move to Hussai now, or a lot of them, I won't say most. ⁓ So.

Lei Xing 

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tu Le 

I think the Volkswagen group is still trying to trim its forces or trim its staff in China because they're right sizing and there's currently way too many overhead to support the number of units that they're currently selling. continue, anything else on the car side?

Lei Xing 

Same for Mercedes, same

for Pan-W, Mercedes, local, they're launching the locally produced CLAL. It's rather small, interior space. Let's set in it. I did really, really like the BMW Noe class, the Pan-Amaramic iDrive, because you had to sign aa to experience, to have someone talk to you about the, there's,

There's the panoramic, there's several screens. I really like the way how the HMI with the user looking on the road without the HUD. So I think that's a huge bet that they have in the Chinese market. But again, localized production not happening until 2026. ⁓

Tu Le 

They're probably

the best position, I think, of the ABB to take advantage of the changes if they can reconcile pricing. But I also feel that the whole panoramic, because the Audi...

Lei Xing 

Remember, are, I think the number was 70 % of the code was written locally, software, because they have to fit the Chinese market, Chinese consumer taste. Same from the Chinese Volkswagen, right? ⁓

Tu Le 

Sure, the E5

has the whole panoramic. And the E5 had ⁓ monitors for the mirrors that bowed, like curved in. And that was a lot. I'll add two funny things. Cadillac, during their press conference, we can talk about that a little bit.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Tu Le 

There was a Ukrainian dancer. There was an unveil for the press event. And I was late because this was probably one of the most attended press events because they invited... What's the ping pong player's name? I forget. Chen something. Yes.

Lei Xing 

⁓ the world champion, yeah, I forget his name. Yeah. ⁓

Tu Le 

So

he is now a sponsor of Cadillac. So there was a car that had a tarp under it or over it. He was sitting inside the car and they unveiled the car and there's a dancer that slipped. And that moment went viral because they showed the dancer slipping and then panned to the ping pong player's face. And he was just kind of, you know, like surprised look on his face. So that went viral. But I think for Cadillac, that was good.

And then the second thing is on social media that went viral is the Audi E5 front.

Lei Xing 

That was recently viral.

Tu Le 

Yes. So or lack thereof the front the my goodness I don't even know why they bothered put anything in there. ⁓ God.

Lei Xing 

Microphone. Microphone.

Speaking of,

that puts it into huge comparison with the Anvil L90 and all they did at the show was showing the frunk and I actually went over there and sat in it. I held aa a sign and I almost wanted to squeeze myself into the frunk but I don't think that they let me do it. But I mean, that thing was huge.

Tu Le 

L9D

Lei Xing 

But the question is, does that sell the Envoy L90?

Tu Le 

Now that's a, to me, that's a, that's not really a defining feature that's going to differentiate itself.

Lei Xing 

You know?

I think that was the only thing they showed and they show even Li Bian doing with a fishing rod. So I thought that was cool. And speaking of right, the Cadillac Vistique looks like to be the first one adopting the Hesai LiDAR behind the windscreen, the front windshield. ⁓

Tu Le 

Using Momenta, using Momenta Intelligent Driving.

Lei Xing 

and using a special glass supplied by Fuyao. Okay, for that to work, for the lighter to work behind the windshield. Because on our trip, did you notice that the lighter on top of the ET5 was smeared with bugs? And it...

Tu Le 

Mm-hmm.

Lei Xing 

Luckily, it did not affect the performance, it's something that these innovations that people are thinking of to help with the performance. And then I thought, Cheri.

Tu Le 

For those, really

quickly, Lei, for those wondering who Fuyang Glass is, if you want to watch American Factory, it's a Netflix documentary. It highlights Fuyang Glass entering Ohio.

Lei Xing 

Well, yeah, full out glass.

Fuyao Glass is the CATL in the glass space. that's basically Fu Fuyao, yes. And I thought Cherry brought back the QQ. I thought that was cool. And then speaking of funny things that happened, right? The Anvo L90 I tried. Even though Lei Jun was not, I shared in the group, was not at the show, how did Xiaomi attract crowds?

What they did was they gave three hats that had the Xiaomi life on it. 5,000 hats every day to visitors. So on one of the second to last day I visited, I actually decided, you know, what the heck, I'm going to join that queue. And that queue was wrapped around the building and then back out again. So the wait wasn't that bad.

Tu Le 

Giveaway.

Lei Xing 

So I picked aa my hat along that queue since Xiaomi was directly, the booth was directly next to Anvo. The Anvo salespeople were carrying free bags and asking people waiting in the queue for the Xiaomi hat to scan the QR code and get the freebie, the bag, to get some leads. Right?

Tu Le 

Okay.

Lei Xing 

That's that's part of the the auto show that We probably people don't talk about and also again every single stand There were people live-streaming KOLs or just people hired by the brands to live-stream ⁓ Starting from the first day from the press day and Yeah, and I thought

Tu Le 

I'd send a 30 second video of that.

Lei Xing 

The Geely Galaxy showed the Starship, Zhan Jian. That was interesting, the boxy-shaped. And then I think the Japanese, Toyota had a few new models, Honda, EZ60, ⁓

Tu Le 

Mazda had a model that got talked about. The Japanese

came with some nice cars.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, GAC showed a high tech earth concept, a shooting break. I that was nicely designed. then all the, not all, but coffee. Coffee was a huge feature at many of these Chinese bands. And in order to get one, you had to do a scavenger hunt.

so that to learn the brand until you have those stamps and then you can get the coffee. And then humanoid robots, flying cars was a huge feature. ⁓ many of you. ATL, X-Bone, GAC, Cherry. One of the coolest things I did.

Tu Le 

There's a flying car in CATL's booth!

Obviously, X-Pong.

Lei Xing 

and we were at the CATL press conference on the 21st is after the day after they invited some media to their Shanghai facility where they had this chassis concept that you could drive in their facility. And I drove that for like two minutes. That's pretty cool. And CATL by the way, in that press conference mentioned that they're not just the battery supplier. They are a in the words of Robin Zung.

A new energy industry pioneer.

Tu Le 

So they're re-presifting themselves effectively. So.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, they do motors.

They do e-motors. They do chassis development. In addition to

Tu Le 

So what they're trying

to do, Lei, is move aa the value chain from being a supplier to being a provider. And I think that's important because I also think that there are other suppliers, non-Chinese, that are trying to also move aa the value chain from contract manufacturing to actual consumer brands. I think Foxconn is one of them.

Lei Xing 

Thank

Tu Le 

went to Taiwan for a few days during May holiday. And so got had a few meetings and I still believe that Foxconn is really trying to position itself. And I should mention that while I was in Taiwan, I used Uber. Uber is available in Taiwan and was picked aa a couple of times in a LuxGen, which is the Foxconn brand. And it was nice. It was

Lei Xing 

You know?

Tu Le 

You know, I think that again, unless you're on a plane visiting these countries and companies, you can't experience ElectsGen and how it would be competitive in the United States. You can't even talk about it. I actually have videos and was really impressed. Now, again, it's not likely to the United States anytime soon, but guess what?

Lei Xing 

Thank you,

you

Tu Le 

China is a tariffed out of the US market for quite some time. There's a huge opportunity, especially as Slate comes online and tries to sell us a $45,000 200 mile range vehicle. It's unreal. So there's a huge opportunity in the United States for other ex-China EV companies that they want to get aggressive to get first-move advantage. Now, Vintpeh tried to do that, but they just ran out of money.

the vehicle that they had launched into the US market weren't finished products. were basically pilots still that needed some, some, some final, engineering, let's say finishing touches. And so, but yeah, it is 10 11 lay the last thing I will say, go ahead.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

So, yeah, sure.

No, no, go ahead. I'll add a couple more things.

Tu Le 

The last thing I'll say is I'm very, very, very shocked that media aren't picking aa more the fact that Lei Ben pulled out two chips from his pocket during his press event and announcing that the ET9 is going to use their own silicon starting later this year. XPeng also

has announced that they'll be using them. So, yeah. So that as we're looking at trade talks this weekend between China and the United States, is that gonna be on the table? Because China's already restricting rare earths and minerals. And so these are probably the most important things with regards to

Lei Xing 

Why is that already on?

It's already been delivered, so.

Tu Le 

high technology, now consumers goods, like everyday goods that you and I buy in the United States, that's very important to us as consumers. from a strategy and global competition standpoint, it's gotta be silicon and it's gotta be rare earths are two of the things that are on the table that need to be discussed.

Lei Xing 

What

was in their viral videos that came out of the US of people queuing aa to buy the Insta 360? What was the model number? Five or something?

Tu Le 

I don't know.

All I know is that the Pocket 3 in China is sold out.

Lei Xing 

And I just went one last night, she told me the same thing, two to three months. No stock, zero stock. Yeah, was gonna add, know, speaking of Uber, Just the last few days since the auto show, Uber announced deals with Momenta, Pony and Weeride.

Tu Le 

Yes, no inventory.

Lei Xing 

Somebody actually joked that these three companies becoming the three concubines of Uber. So funny that these are collaborations outside of the US and China with an American company and three Chinese autonomous driving startups.

And if you ask me who the hottest company at this year's Auto Shanghai was, the only company that come aa is Momentum. Because I was at the press conference and the number of announcements they made, Buick, Cadillac, Toyota, Audi, Honda, and most recently with Uber. Cao Xudong, the CEO, he shared the number that was mind-boggling was

2022 they have one model on the market. This year by the end of April they will have a total of 136 models either already on the market or are on order with their system. And the first 100,000 vehicles for their system to be delivered

took 24 months, the next 100,000 vehicles, six months, the third 100,000 vehicles, three months. And one of reasons was they were hot because they had this huge booth inside the OEM hall, thanks to many of the brands that they now exhibit. So mean, this company, think just even for us who's looking at the market for such a long time that

that they just all of a sudden they just exploded right out of nowhere.

Tu Le 

Well, I wouldn't say they exploded late because we've known about them for quite a while. They've

just been under the radar, but they've been high profile because Toyota and GM have invested in them in the China market specifically. And so it makes sense that they would be part of a GM's portfolio of new products, Toyota's portfolio of new products. that gives them...

a step ahead, but this tells me that they're prepping for an IPO or some form of investment.

Lei Xing 

They are. They are. And they're going to be in Mercedes

CLA as well, the locally produced. that's an open secret.

Tu Le 

Yeah.

Now, will they make it to US roads? Likely not. Will they make it to Middle Eastern roads? Probably. And European roads? Maybe. strong relationships with the foreign brands give them a better chance of entering the foreign markets. you know, they were high-profile five or six years ago. And then

Lei Xing 

Mm-hmm.

Tu Le 

They were pretty quiet as Pony IPO'd as WeRide IPO'd. And they've kind of taken the place of like an Auto X as kind of second, third place within the RoboTaxi space. DeepRoute is aa there as well, but they have lesser profile. And I think DeepRoute is also looking to raise some capital.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, and then speaking of chips, the ET5 we drove has four Orin X chips. And Li Bin wants to save money. He mentioned how much money he could save by just putting on one Tianji 9311. I think that was the chip. And then the other company is obviously Horizon Robotics. They're going into

more vehicles and collaborations. They just signed deals with Bosch, Conti, and Denzel to provide. And interestingly enough, speaking of Buick, the other thing was surprising was Bosch is working with Qualcomm's 8775 chip on the Buick Electrux for the ADAS. That was the first time I, Buick actually said they're gonna be the first to put in

Tu Le 

Okay.

Lei Xing 

this Qualcomm's latest chip, ADAS chip.

I think things are just being mixed aa, right? It's going all over the places, the competition. People are fighting. People are, you know.

Tu Le 

Well, well, this

is the thing. This goes back to the differentiation, right? And I got to run pretty soon. So if you recall, I went to San Diego to that Qualcomm event and they were really, really touting their digital chassis and their entire

Lei Xing 

Sure, sure, sure.

Tu Le 

sweet solution, full, full stack solution for not only the infotainment, but, but intelligent driving. And I did meet aa with Qualcomm in China during the auto show. So it should be noted that they're like Nvidia. They, they have 90 % of coverage for the Chinese EV makers because what's running the infotainment in a lot of these cars, Snapdragon. And so they're touting.

the intelligent driving as well. And what's likely going to happen is that Jensen sees that these Orin chips and what will become Thor chips are probably commanding too high of a price. He's going to drop prices on these chips if the United States lets him. Now the difference between an Nvidia Orin chip and let's say a Horizon or a Chen Xing Neo chip is that

Neo is running five nanometers. And so there's still a ways behind Nvidia quite a ways. And it's still not proven that a Neo or an SMIC can really mass produce these at scale into hundreds of thousands of vehicles. And so I think that's really important to keep an eye on because the pricing of Nvidia chips are likely going to get squeezed because of all these

competitors that see Nvidia is too powerful and a way to differentiate yourself is probably not using the same hardware as your competitor. How effective in speed and compute these competitor chips are remains to be seen. But until they're not, Nvidia is the standard.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

the

the

The China smart EV space is such a mad scramble on so many fronts. That's all I'm going to say, right? You talk about chips, talk about batteries, talk about smartification, driving, ADAS, cockpit.

Tu Le 

Yeah.

We didn't even talk about the CATL3 updates to their products.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, are now three

different products in one shot. And then a couple other models I should mention. I thought the BYD Dynasty D and Ocean S was an upgrade of their current design styling. I like them really a lot. I think there's still a lot of improvement that BYD can do.

Tu Le 

We can do that next time.

Lei Xing 

And then there was a Denza Z concept and then Yang Wang came out with a UAL, bigger than bigger. And that's probably about the auto show and we should probably wrap it aa.

Tu Le 

So.

Let's go to the comments real quick. SPX asks, can the same car swap its battery take potentially from 80 kilowatt hour LFP and MC to 150 kilowatt hour semi-solid state for longer range when needed? ⁓ Don't know that yet.

Lei Xing 

I the answer is yes. I think the answer is yes and

Neel actually wants it to happen. And by the way, we didn't figure this out. There were 100 kilowatt hour batteries available in some of the swap stations, but I think all the six swaps were the standard 75 kilowatt hour batteries. Maybe we'll have to find out how we can do that, but I think the aim should be for you to be flexible enough.

to swap in a bigger battery for longer range. I don't see why that can't happen.

Tu Le 

I think it points to yes, but I do believe that there are software hardware constraints that need to be thought through. You know, from a software standpoint, it definitely needs to.

be understood because the BMS now is dealing with a lot of different things, the battery management. I'm not saying it's impossible, but that would be the goal. I don't know how easy it is, SPX. ⁓ And then.

Lei Xing 

And then the wild card

is for the Firefly to be able to swap at the CATL's Chaco swap stations.

Tu Le 

Yeah, so his next question

or their next question, any news or time frame about Neo CTO battery swap partnership?

Lei Xing 

What we do know is that on August 1st was it that the BAAS for the Firefly will be announced. So I think look for possible announcement of the CATL partnership.

Tu Le 

And then our friend of the show, Felix, we saw him at Shanghai. Super, super enthusiastic about the China EV space. His comments, I really want to drive with you next one, next time, not just bumping into us. I'm so ready for that Max episode. I think he's referring to the round table episode. Two hours.

Lei Xing 

which we met.

Tu Le 

It's a luxury I cannot wait for. What a treat. The luxury of listening to residents is amazing. Audio is the only thing that matters. Thank you. Because I do have a face for radio. Thanks for sharing the AUDI. Let's leap at the wheel. hey, this was good. Your system worked the entire time, Lei? I think there was only a couple of hitches.

Lei Xing 

Thank you.

Thank you

Well, it's 33

% uploading, so I have to leave it on.

Tu Le 

Oh wow, that's it. Anyways,

hey everyone, apologies for being away from the show for a couple of weeks. We do have some recorded content that I'll be posting hopefully in the next week, including a show that we recorded while we were driving the 85 and then the special max episode round table. But hopefully we will be back at this again.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Tu Le 

Same bat time, same bat channel next week with Lei still in China. thanks again for joining us. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Have a good weekend.

Lei Xing 

And

yeah, and a special appreciation to Neil. I got this nice Firefly purple t-shirt. Yeah, so hopefully I get a chance to drive on when I'm here.

Tu Le 

Nice.

Dude, I gotta get one of those freaking t-shirts. I didn't want to wait in any of those lines to get that stuff or I didn't want to scan too many QR codes and get bombarded and stuff. And I was like, if I like something, I'll ask for it separately. But they had the cool firefly bags. I thought those were pretty cool. no. And I...

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Sure.

I got that, I got that. But you have to post on

Xiaohongshu or something.

Tu Le 

Yeah, I

don't really need to do that. and I just, I wasn't trying to bring home a million things. anyways, everyone.

Lei Xing 

I'm going

to carry a Firefly bag in my local Trader Joe's. All right. Yep. Have a good weekend. Have a good weekend. Yep.

Tu Le 

Have a good weekend, everyone. We'll see you later, man.