Episode #211 - Surprise! Trump and Elon ≠ BFF, Changan + Dongfeng Merger? JK!, May Sales

In this episode, Tu and Lei discuss the latest developments in the electric vehicle (EV) sector, focusing on the impact of historical automotive brands like Chrysler, current market challenges in the US, and the implications of recent sales trends. They delve into the fallout from the social media spat between Trump and Elon Musk, the significance of China's rare earth restrictions, and emerging trends in EV technology. The conversation also highlights insights from recent automotive conferences and engages with audience questions about the future of the industry.

Keywords

EV, automotive industry, Chrysler, Tesla, Trump, China, rare earths, sales trends, technology, conferences

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Transcript

Tu Le 

Welcome to the China EVs and More podcast. 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. And maybe talk about a social media spat between two important people. What Lei and I discussed today is not investment advice.

Lei Xing 

Hmm.

Tu Le 

So please don't use it as investment advice. To our loyal listeners and viewers, welcome back. And to our new listeners and viewers, welcome. We ask that you smash those subscribe and like buttons so you don't miss anything from us in the future. and I are two of the most knowledgeable people in the world doing this. So help us get the word out to others about this show.

My name is Tu Le I'm the managing director at Sino Auto Insides, a global management consultancy that hopes ⁓ 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. ⁓

normal week, Can you please introduce yourself?

Lei Xing 

Yeah, it slowed down. Good morning to Mr. Lao Ban. This is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review. And this is episode number 211. Actually, first of all, happy centennial to the Chrysler brand. Today, June 6th, is the actual birthday for Chrysler.

Tu Le 

right.

Lei Xing 

and hometown, your hometown brand, the trivia. I don't know if you knew this or not. The Chrysler Dodge Neon at one point in the 90s was considered to be localized production in China, but that never happened. What ended up happening was Buick started producing the sale and that became an overnight success.

So just a bit of history, ⁓ but know, Chrysler, they've gone through the many changes.

Tu Le 

The neon, that's bringing back some memories. That's like my friends

in high school had them, I think.

Lei Xing 

Yep. And so that's out of the way. The BBB. I think people who follow what's been happening in the last couple of days know what BBB means.

Tu Le 

You

So let me add a little bit to that whole Chrysler thing. I grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, originally where the Detroit Lions played. There's a stadium called the Pontiac Silver Dome. when they built the ⁓ headquarters in Auburn Hills, it was just a couple of miles from my house. So my...

Lei Xing 

Hmm

Kanya Dome, Silver Dome.

Tu Le 

Brother currently works at Stellantis and so ⁓ I drive by the Stellantis headquarters quite often and I think Volkswagen Group or Audi headquarters is right around the corner. So ⁓ for those that are wondering how immersed I am in local American Michigan automotive sector, I was just at Forvia headquarters yesterday for

conference. So I'm surrounded in Metro Detroit by companies that I've been familiar with since I was a little kid. So what's happening right now, what Lei and I have been discussing for the last several years, he also has been covering the China side of what US automakers and European automakers are doing in China.

Now it's actually come full circle because all the companies that he has covered with his father via their China auto review platform has emerged, evolved into the current set of companies, the 50, 100, 150 or so companies that many of which we talk about. So I guess I wanted to.

say all that Lei because the 100 year anniversary, I'd like to say I was following them for about 40 of those years or like 45 of those years and the different iterations. Remember it was just Chrysler, Daimler Chrysler, FCA and then Stellantis. ⁓ So, so yeah, and then

Lei Xing 

Yep.

Tu Le 

I heard that the Orion assembly plant where I got my first job at GM, that might actually end up closing because of all the changes ⁓ to the EV strategy for General Motors. But I digress. Sorry for taking up a few minutes to be nostalgic, but I think it was important for people to understand that I'm homegrown Michigan kid that

Lei Xing 

Let me.

Tu Le 

just happened to live in a few interesting places. But yeah, so.

Lei Xing 

No, Chrysler is an important part of the Chinese auto industry history because of AMC's original joint venture with BAIC in Beijing Jeep, which later became Beijing Daimler Chrysler, which later became Beijing Benz BBAC today. ⁓ Chrysler Corporation was the first company for an automaker to set up a ⁓ joint venture in China.

So that's kind of the significance and then all the hiccups that they had over the years. ⁓ But back to today. ⁓

You know, we're kind of in a messy. ⁓

situation here in the US with Elon and...

Tu Le 

It gets messier

by the day, literally, because tariffs, changes in strategy, more tariffs, restrictions on rare earths, and then Elon and Trump have a falling out over social media platforms.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, was interesting. It happened on the same day that Trump had to talk with Xi and it looked like that talk was quite positive based on the readouts based on what Trump posted. So it feels like we're going perhaps, maybe not, but Trump and Xi could be another bromance brewing. Who knows? Trump and Musk, they're breaking up and that was the news.

Tu Le 

Huh.

Well, one thing's

for sure with the big, beautiful bill and the tariffs threatening to push the United States into a recession, I think Americans are feeling pretty uneasy, you and I included, about our economy. And for me in Michigan, again, I went to two conferences this week and what did everyone want to...

Lei Xing 

Talk about it.

While we're here, just talk about what we get out of the way and then some of the takeaways.

Tu Le 

OK, so

two days ago, every year there's an auto tech conference, and it's ⁓ from Informa. So they have global conferences. And this one happens to be where the battery show used to be, Lei and Novi. And these conferences, they are really, really trying to find their firm ground, because how

Lei Xing 

Okay. Yup.

Tu Le 

People consume information and I think people are getting more bored with the whole one-way communication with a bunch of panels and everybody agreeing with each other. So you and I, don't do it on purpose, but because we're not tethered to a specific OEM or a specific supplier,

I think you and I are free to kind of talk pretty openly and frankly about where we believe the challenges are, the opportunities are, the companies, the stumbles of the companies, and then the opportunities. So, yes, two days ago was a small, we called it, they called it a fishbowl where Joe White and I sat there and threw out a few topics to begin with. And then ⁓ Joe White, for those that don't know,

is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. was the Detroit bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. You know him, Lei. ⁓ He just retired from Reuters and is writing a great newsletter on Substack called the High Speed Rodeo. So for those that ⁓ don't know who Joe is, he also wrote a book about ⁓ Japan and when they came into the United States, which is very, very apropos for

what's happening now with China. And so he and I just answered a bunch of questions. There's about 12, 15 people sitting around these couches and it was super interactive because they were asking us questions. We were asking them questions. then yesterday was a panel discussion among the automotive analysts and ⁓ supplier group president sat on the panel.

A contract manufacturer, tier one supplier sat on the panel. Then I sat on the panel, a lawyer. So a few advocacy group guys, Terry Woychowski, the president of Caresoft. He was also on the panel. And we talked about manufacturing and what's going to take to make the United States competitive again. everybody was kind of framing it as US.

Lei Xing 

Mm-hmm.

Tu Le 

When I grabbed the mic and made my initial comment, I said with the current trajectory of all of the tariffs and everything, we need to look at Canada and Mexico as competitors potentially. And then we need to look at Michigan versus the United States South as competitors. We can't say the United States because with the tariffs and you and I saw these

Canadian dealership groups at Shanghai Auto, seeing which Chinese brands they might help sell in Canada. the USMCA or the free trade agreement, that's getting blown up. If it doesn't get renegotiated, Canada and Mexico are going to become our competitors.

Lei Xing 

Mm-hmm.

Tu Le 

So it was a good conversation, I always and you always want to bring it back to these. If these are global companies, why are we only talking about North America? Why are we only talking about the United States? Because what happens good or bad in all these other regions really affects their ability to fund, to develop products and understand what other markets are doing to bring features.

from those markets into the US market or vice versa. again, pretty interesting. I think that my parts were ⁓ people were listening intently on because I was changing, not changing subjects, but really reframing how traditionally people look at things. You do that too, when you're in ⁓ panel discussion.

Lei Xing 

I think it's.

Tu Le 

that and then I'm embargoed, but I also went to a Ford tech event in Dearborn on two days ago as well. So I'll talk to you all about that after the embargo is lifted. But let's just say there wasn't much going on. anyways.

Lei Xing 

You

Well,

it's good that you're in auto ⁓ happenings, Heartland. There's nothing going on here.

Tu Le 

Heartland.

But that's why you stay on top of what's going on on Chinese Social.

Lei Xing 

Well,

I tried to, but it's too much happening. ⁓

Tu Le 

Well, so

we know it's the beginning of a new month. So let's just go over May sales real quick.

Lei Xing 

I mean, we saw numbers tick up for LeapMotor, LiAuto, I think HIMA, the Harmony Mobility Alliance, went up a little bit. We'll talk about NIO. then BYD, mean, BYD just sat there at a new shareholder meeting yesterday. Well, actually today, China time.

Tu Le 

Is that broadcast?

Lei Xing 

Now I think I saw some snippets of it. Wang Chuanfu was tearing up and because of the recent scrutiny about the price war and about ⁓ indirectly someone pointing the fingers at BYD for being the kind of the evergrande. We talked about this last episode but he did say that they have the intent

to produce and sell 10 million NEVs a year.

which we talked about this on many occasions that that was the inevitability of what they're trying to achieve, be the next Toyota. And then you were saying that it's interesting that, I mean, they're the probably biggest culprit indeed in terms of price war, but they somehow framed it as, we were the tech.

we develop tech and then we bring the value to the customers in the form of cheaper, more affordable products. they're like, yeah, we don't want to play the price war, almost. But I mean, BYD is all along at the top, as always.

Tu Le 

That's called marketing.

But

Lei, that's the playbook, Like, it's not really us. means I'm a little embarrassed or, you And so ⁓ you've heard, I've heard that the Chinese government is not super happy about BYD cutting price a couple of weeks ago. And so...

Lei Xing 

Yeah. Yeah.

Tu Le 

You know, this goes.

Lei Xing 

Yeah,

this past week, the Xinhua News Agency, MIIT, People's Daily, CAM, they put out multiple kind of statements or commentaries out. And they actually have people from BYD quoted saying we

want to make this a kind of a fair playing field and not just participate on the Price War. ⁓ So it was kind of odd to see that. ⁓

Tu Le 

But this

is like asking Michael Jordan to be less competitive.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, basically that is. ⁓ And you know that's not going to be 100 % say no more, no more price cuts. It's ongoing as we speak in various ways. I don't think it stops the price war.

Tu Le 

No, doesn't.

And here's the mixed signals that think Wang Chuangfu and some of these other CEOs hear from the Chinese government because the Chinese government wants them to dominate foreign markets. But they want them now to start taking a little bit easier on themselves in the domestic market.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, and ⁓

Tu Le 

Any surprises

on the May numbers,

Lei Xing 

No, mean, NIO was down month on month, but Onvo increased and right there they're shifting their 5566 toward the end of May. and speaking of NIO, mean, it looks like awfully promising based on what was shared earnings call that going forward they expect big volumes.

Again, I don't blame Li Bin for putting down the flags. He said 50,000 at some point in Q4 a month.

At least they didn't say we're going to beat BMW 3 Series when the NIO ET5 came out.

Tu Le 

At this point time, Li Bin is stating that goal for internal reasons as well. This is not a marketing thing. This is like, we got to get there, guys.

Lei Xing 

Yeah. ⁓

And to me, to take a chapter from the Mission Impossible final reckoning, I think this is the final reckoning moment for NIO. Because after this, if they don't achieve profitability, if they don't achieve this 50,000 target that Li Bin talked about,

I don't know what else they can say again and do again. And, you know, that's the final reckoning. I think it's the ultimate.

Tu Le 

Well, so,

but in the back of our minds, we know it's not a product issue. These products are great. Now, is it pricing? I don't think it's pricing on the Firefly. Do you think it's pricing on the Onvo? You know, like, you can't pinpoint what is wrong. I can't anyways.

Lei Xing 

It doesn't appear that

the Firefly will be a significant volume contributor based on what Li Bin said because he said half of those 50,000 will be NIO, half will be Onvo. And Firefly is only a small portion of that 50,000, 50 plus thousand. And then in order for them to get to break even, right, he kind of gave the roadmap.

The 17 to 18 % were smart, 10 % SGA and 7 % R &D in order for them to break even. And looks like they will reach that. They plan to reach that and they're confident they will. At the same time, we also have Lei Jun saying they expect the Xiaomi EV business to be profitable at the end of the year.

He Xiaopeng mentioned a few weeks back that they can achieve profitability. The auto is already profitable. So, ⁓ accounting-wise, ⁓ And yeah, so this is it. mean, just roll up your sleeves and...

Tu Le 

We're talking accounting-wise.

Lei Xing 

There's only six months, seven months left in the year and we'll be watching closely.

Tu Le 

And what we're seeing also, is from Li Bin, ⁓ is that now that he has, and I think BYD to a lesser extent, now that they have multiple brands in the portfolio, if they only have ⁓ one RMB to invest, ⁓ where does it go? How is it divided? Because...

Lei Xing 

You

Tu Le 

If Firefly is not driving volume, why is it there? I know it was originally an export brand, but he launched it in China. So, and if it's a sub $25,000 car, it needs to drive volume.

Lei Xing 

Well, he's said on record before that ⁓ in terms of profitability, the NIO and the Onvo are probably going to be the drivers, not the Firefly. Firefly can afford to play a little bit more volume, but it's also a product that I think we, I probably have said this before, that it might not be the fittest.

Tu Le 

And so.

Right.

Lei Xing 

products for the Chinese market just because of the competition. outside of China, ⁓ there's ample opportunity for that segment on the market. But it looks like it's going to be, yeah.

Tu Le 

A case in point, Leigh, a

quick case in point. Yesterday at the Forvia VIA headquarters, Caresoft had a shark, BYD shark, and a seagull. I think a lot of people, I think there was about 90 people or 80 people at the small little event. A bunch of them had never seen a BYD. They got inside there all surprised. All of them were surprised. ⁓

Lei Xing 

Mm-hmm.

Tu Le 

the quality and I didn't speak to everyone. I only spoke to a handful of people while was standing out there because obviously you and I are able to drive those things whenever we go to China. I heard, I'd buy this thing. I'd buy this thing. Like they were really impressed and surprised. And I couldn't help but to show pictures of the Han L.

Cause I have them on my phone and I said, guys, this is a $45,000 car in China and jaws dropped. said, this goes zero to 60 in 2.7 seconds. has mega charging capabilities, rear seat massaging. And again, $45,000 and they were like incredulous. So people need to see it to believe it, which is

It seems like they should just trust this Lei, but they don't, which is fine when they start to see it and touch it and feel it and understand that there's no quality gap. There's no design gap. You know, and I think that most people saw the Seagull and saw a ton of value because it's a $10,000 car in China. one of Terry Woychowski's slides.

was he put the seagull up there and said, this is how much it costs in China. And then he put a golf cart, one of those Cub cadet golf carts next to it. And he said, this is $12,000 in the United States, a golf cart. So.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, remember last episode I slipped and talked about $10,000 and $20,000 even available in the US.

Tu Le 

Yeah.

Oh, I had to put that as a social media post, so.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, we're all wishing, ⁓

Tu Le 

So let me ask you this, Let's throw you a curveball and move on to something different. With the currents.

BFF spat between Trump and Elon. Do you think that it's just going to be limited to Tesla or does Trump get more severe with the US? I don't know what else he could do to sabotage the US EV sector, but do you think this is going to create broader implications because they're they're not getting along in the United States?

Lei Xing 

Well, don't think, I first of all, ⁓ Elon, he already was on the record about part of the bill was the mandate, right? Not the mandate, but the 7,500 ⁓ credit that's being cut, right? He said on the record many years ago and multiple times that he didn't care.

So, well, yeah, but I don't think that changes. I mean, that's the way it's gonna go. I don't think Trump will reconsider.

Tu Le 

He's lying, but...

Tesla's price during the social media war tanked and fell off a cliff. think Elon lost about 20 billion of personal wealth on paper anyways.

Lei Xing 

152 billion in market cap. But we went back up a little bit today. ⁓ And remember, seven months ago, we had our episode right after the election ⁓ that week. ⁓ You can check. We said, how long did the bromance last? I think you said that two guys with the big egos

Tu Le 

Taking off.

Lei Xing 

it wasn't going to be long. And here we are, seven months later. Six months, seven months after November, right? Almost exactly to the day, November 5th to June 5th, right? And it's only, I think it's only a small snippet of the soap opera being played out. Who knows what's going to happen, right? ⁓ And, you know.

Tu Le 

Six months.

Yeah.

Well, so,

so Elon spent 300 million getting Republicans elected 250 of that going to Trump. He tweeted for those that aren't on X or truth social, he tweeted that without the 250 Trump wouldn't have gotten elected. Then Trump was like, asked Elon if he wanted makeup for that black guy. He said, no.

And I don't want to get into the details too much, he did. Trump did threaten to cut government spending on Elon's companies, not just so, so star link SpaceX being the highest profile. And obviously with the cuts to the $7,500 and the charging infrastructure that affects the

to Tesla supercharging stations and it affects Tesla sales in the United States. And with the board, with investors already upset at Elon for being part of Doge and creating a lot of enemies, not enemies, let's just say a lot of ⁓ people that don't like him in Europe and the UK, you're seeing results.

resulting sales decreases in those regions and those countries, unfortunately. So.

We're tracking Tesla to probably a huge year over year sale shrinking. And this makes June 12th play such an important event for Tesla.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, there was that meme of that ⁓ exit, right? Did you see that? Elon going X-er toward the spat with Trump and then on the highway, the straightway was robot taxi. So, yeah, but who knows? mean, they could amend something ⁓ that could well happen. Because both of them, they change, I mean, they are...

one day they say something, the next day something is different. They could change at any moment.

Tu Le 

Well, especially now

that Trump has had a conversation with Xi Jinping, does that change? One thing that we should mention, and maybe you can start the conversation, Lei, is that China had created restrictions on some rare earths. You want to talk a little bit more about that?

Lei Xing 

Yeah, that ended up this was also reported earlier this week that in order to get by.

this restriction companies are thinking of actually producing the entire assembly and then import it back to the US because the assembly is not restricted to my understanding. Is that correct? Only the, I think that was reported by Wall Street Journal that that was interesting. So I mean, these loopholes and that.

Tu Le 

Right.

Lei Xing 

It is just weird.

Tu Le 

Always,

always want to remind folks that in the United States or North America, specifically union plants, if they're shut down, you're still paying worker salary, generally speaking. Okay. So if the factory is not building cars, it's not generating revenue and the expenses largely are still there.

You still got to pay for the factory. UAW workers are still getting paid. So in times of drastic supply challenges, supply shortages, each of the OEMs and each of the tier ones will create war rooms. They'll call them war rooms where minute by minute they're asking for a bill of lading to track shipments to make sure.

I was a logistics liaison Lei for the Fairfax assembly plant, Oklahoma city assembly plant for General Motors, one of my first jobs. And I remember shipping engines from Tonawanda, New York via plane in order to make first shift the next morning in Kansas city, because normally they would ship them via rail, but

Lei Xing 

Mm.

Tu Le 

The rail cars were delayed and so in order to not idle the factory, we chartered a plane to ship a couple dozen engines. And remember, engines are big and heavy, so not cheap, but it's cheaper than idling a factory for two or three or Four hours. So these are the types of extremes that the companies and the OEMs and the tier ones will take to your point about.

shipping back and forth, that's super expensive. But the alternative is shutting the factory down. ⁓

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Tu Le 

And we should explain, so there's minerals, are lithium, cobalt, and nickel. And lithium, China has deposits, United States has deposits. A lot of them are mines and deposits are in Australia and Chile. Unfortunately for the United States, 60 % or 70 % of refining capacity is in China. But those are minerals.

And then there's rare earths. Well, can't, can you pronounce half of them? There's seven in particular, okay? But it's not just the rare earths that China's restricting, it's the magnets. Yeah, yeah. Well, she's probably studying chemistry in the periodic table, but they're also restricting magnets and not normal magnets. We're talking magnets the size of a ⁓ chiclet.

Lei Xing 

No, okay. ⁓

My daughter probably can.

Yeah, anyway, exactly.

Tu Le 

and they go on e-motors and they go on consumer products. So it's not just the automotive, although automotive eats up the lion's share of the supply. These magnets use two or three of the seven rare earths. And they need those rare earths because these motors get really, really hot and they'll lose their magnetism.

Lei Xing 

Motor is here.

Tu Le 

when they get really, really hot, if you're using a normal magnet, these rare earths allow it to stay magnetized during extreme heat. And obviously electric motors, rockets, engines, control units get super hot. So one thing that's for sure, Lei, is that Americans, they didn't know.

Now they do how important China is to the global supply chain for almost everything.

⁓ So we talked about Elon a little bit. We talked about the rare earth, talked about May sales. Anything else that you wanted to talk about?

Lei Xing 

You can see it.

⁓ no, the only thing was, ⁓ so there's two model sevens ⁓ that are fighting for attention, the Xiaomi YU7 and the XPeng G7 starting to tease and they announced this ARHUD collab with Huawei. I mean they're trying to just... ⁓

change what perception of our HUD is all about. And then the G7 itself, I think it's going to slot between the G6 and the G9, which have been upgraded recently. The G7, if you look at the pricing of the G6, it's roughly between 180 to 200,000 renminbi.

the G9 is 250 to 280,000 renminbi. So we have that gap there, which the G7 will most likely priced and it's going to probably price below what the YU7 is going to be priced. I think well 200, well I'm guessing 230,000 renminbi maybe.

Tu Le 

So the YU7's starting at $33,000.

Lei Xing 

But I think the G7 will start at below 200,000 renminbi. At the top of the G6, which is right under 200,000 renminbi And then get up towards 250, 260. That's probably going to be the price band. And that's going to undercut, try to undercut YU7. But obviously they're different animals. But.

Tu Le 

Mmm.

Lei Xing 

Again, the significance is the power of Huawei. Now we're seeing Huawei everywhere. Not only in the HIMAs, not only in the Huawei Insides, not only in Audis, but starting to appear on the smart EV startups. At least on a component basis, on a feature, tech.

Tu Le 

Remember, XPeng and Huawei, they didn't get along for a little bit there. So this is a really big turn of events. And then you think about the XPeng Volkswagen partnership. If they're using Huawei HUD, is Volkswagen going to use the Huawei HUD for their vehicles? You know, it's anyone's guess.

Lei Xing 

not out of the question.

Tu Le 

Yeah, so that's got to be on the table, correct? And I will say this, the Apples and the Androids, they're also likely trying to push into head-up displays because this is really their wheelhouse. So.

Lei Xing 

Speaking of

head-up display, I actually, this is my personal as a consumer, I put a consumer hat on. I've never liked any of the HUDs, even the XPeng ones that they put out, because I don't like too much info appearing on the screen at all. Even when you make a turn on the Tesla that now almost all the smart EVs in China have is when you make a turn, this image appears.

on the right the video showing the side of the vehicle i've never liked that it just for some reason that that's a distraction to me so but

Tu Le 

The video.

So you know I have an IONIQ 5 and I have a limited. So I do have the HUD, but when I put the turn signal on, the video shows up on the IP, not the HUD. So the HUD is actually pretty simple. The HUD is pretty simple. The video, which is weird, it actually points down. And I feel it doesn't really help me see my blind spot. But anyway.

Lei Xing 

Right, right, that's what I was talking about. Right. And now...

Yeah.

Well, now the HUDs in China, they had the video showing up on the HUDs, not on the center screen. So we'll see about that. And it's probably going to be one of multiple features that Xpong will tease up until the reveal later this month for the G7.

Tu Le 

Here's a simple

thing that they could do. They could get feedback and then in an OTA create a way to turn it off if they wanted to.

Lei Xing 

Sure, sure. mean, that's

got to be there.

Tu Le 

And so from the pictures, the Huawei system looks great. ⁓ But again, if every time my turn signal's on and a big video shows up right on my windshield, it would seem to be distracting.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tu Le 

⁓ Anything else?

Lei Xing 

⁓ No, I think we covered ⁓ pretty much most of the topics today. Tesla, by the way, in terms of main sales right around the 60,000 unit point. don't yet know the breakdown between exports and ⁓ we'll have to wait a few days until the CPCA numbers come out. But it's respectable. think 60,000

Tu Le 

They're They're down.

split.

Lei Xing 

overall is still given the current environment. Not too bad, but overall pie, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tu Le 

But it's boosted by 0 % financing.

Lei Xing 

Other than that, ⁓

Yeah, I mean...

Tu Le 

Let's get some comments and questions.

So SPX, ⁓ again, thank you for being a loyal live stream participant. And I know, man, I've said the check is in the mail. I think I'm gonna punt to because I've really not been at my desk for very long. And the actual conversation, cause the question Lei is when will the hour long video.

with other influencers in China market be released. It's actually a two hour video and I have created the subtitles for it, but I might have to punt and send it over to Lei so he could read it and proofread it. It shouldn't be that hard because everyone was speaking pretty clear English.

Lei Xing 

You know, so

yeah, frankly, we don't do this on a full-time basis on this podcast. So we're busy with other things and sometimes it takes a bit of more lead time for these to come out to be published. So, you know.

Tu Le 

But basically I'll

just take this responsibility and say, SPX, just suck because I just haven't prioritized it as high as I should have. And it's a great video. think everyone's gonna really enjoy it.

Lei Xing 

We have some great

topics and discussions and debates and ⁓ predictions.

Tu Le 

And then so

let's commit to Lei. Let's commit to part one being posted before Wednesday or by Wednesday next week. And part two will be posted the following Wednesday. So we'll try to get 45 minutes and then 45 minutes, 50 minutes. So Jeffrey.

Lei Xing 

That's a good time frame.

Sounds good.

Tu Le 

Good to see you. I think you're going back to the United States for a little bit, right? So another week already. Good morning, good evening. Good morning or good evening to you. SSJJ005, hello to you two. Let me read this silently in case he like bags this or bashes this or something. When is the interview with NIO people coming up? We'll have to ask them first.

Lei Xing 

Wow.

Tu Le 

Personally, if NIO can deliver 50,000 a month, as they said in the earnings call, that will be only in December, not for the three months for Q4.

Lei Xing 

So you know for NIO they're actually considering tweaking the NIO Day.

Because in the past, since 2017, they've done this. When they unveil a new model, the lead time is extremely long. I think the ET9 or the ET7 was unveiled like, I don't know, one a half years before actually the product actually launched and delivered on the market. I think this was talked about in a media.

Tu Le 

A year and a half!

Lei Xing 

round table and then they were also talking about this ES9 flagship on the third gen platform so the 5566 that were recently launched on this so-called 2.5

platform and the ES9 is actually the true true even more than the ET9 I think the flagship

Yeah, mean, speaking of McLaren, part of the pathway to profitability and to relevance, I think if you look at the NIOs, all of their e-business, e meaning electricity related, so batteries, e-motor, power swap. These are things that can be considered standalone businesses. And what does NIO do with them? I think going forward.

is something interesting to watch.

Tu Le 

So I'll let you answer this Lei SSJJ005 Hai you yi ge wenti. Do you know why Zeekr is dropping their sales this year? Their best seller, the SUV 7X is even selling lower than the failing L60.

Lei Xing 

I don't read these if we're talking about on a weekly or on a one month basis. I can't conclude anything. I think Zeekr was 18,000 something in May, ⁓ which is normal. ⁓ I mean, they still have a target, right? I think they're now combining the Lynk & Co sales, which actually includes some ⁓ ICE vehicles.

⁓ So not sure how they play with the numbers but Zeekr itself I mean Not that they're part of the Geely Auto group or Geely Auto, ⁓ you know after the consolidation I just can't read too much into that based on one month number ⁓

Tu Le 

Yeah, I'm not that concerned, especially this early in the year.

I think the 7X is a pretty good car.

Yeah, I actually think it looks great too, because it's the crossover style, but very distinctive.

Jeffrey seems to be getting a lot of entertainment out of the Trump, Elon spat because he's like load up on popcorn, no critical minerals. Well, he's now talking about restrictions to the OEMs in Europe to the point where you, what you were talking about, Lei, how they're going to send modules over and do finished, you know, final assembly. ⁓ And then he also writes BYD, bring your donuts. It's getting interesting. Magnets.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

from here, Dronets.

Okay, that's a new one.

Tu Le 

⁓ So Diane

says, I'm a chemist. Magnets used in MRIs. Yeah, MRI. So magnetic resonance imaging systems. Yeah.

Lei Xing 

resonant imaging.

Tu Le 

June 17th. I'm not sure what June. so Jeffrey's going back to the United States on June 17th. ⁓ And that's it. Let me check the other platforms to see if there are any questions on that.

there to be. So I think that's it, man. I think we are good to go. This will be an on time.

Lei Xing 

All right.

Tu Le 

So next Friday, we should still be able to do 9 AM. And I believe there will be much more to talk about next week. anyways, ⁓ everyone.

Lei Xing 

45 minutes, 40 minutes, 45 minutes.

Yep, as every Friday this month.

Yeah,

so the robot activity thing, It's happening. Supposedly happening.

Tu Le 

Yeah, the robot

taxi thing. then I don't know if you saw, Lei, that Amazon is training robots to deliver goods. You know where they're sourcing those robots. They're not sourcing them from an American company. They're sourcing them from Unitree.

Lei Xing 

Oh, packages to your door.

Tu Le 

So

Unitree, for those that don't know, is a Chinese robot maker. We know Optimus. know that Aptronic is a ⁓ Texas-based startup doing robots. Unitree is one of them. Limex or Lim-X is another doing the robots. They have the dogs and things like that. But they post a lot of stuff, the Unitrees and stuff like that, post on ⁓ Chinese Social.

to show off their products quite frequently. anyways, everyone, Lei, have a good weekend. Everyone have a good weekend. Good morning, good afternoon. We will see you all next week at 9 a.m. Eastern on Friday.

Lei Xing 

That's correct. See you guys.