CEM MAX AutoShanghai2025 Roundtable - Part #2

Tu and Lei continue the discussion with Jill Shen - Technode, Ethan Robertson - Wheelsboy, and Ed White - Financial Times and in Part #2, the conversation delves into the complexities of the Chinese automotive market, focusing on international expansion, technology infrastructure, battery innovations, brand strategies, and the impact of global market trends. 

The speakers discuss the challenges faced by legacy brands and the rise of new brands, highlighting the dynamic nature of the industry and the anticipated vehicle launches that could shape the future of the market.

Keywords

EVs, international markets, battery technology, brand strategies, Chinese automotive industry, market dynamics, vehicle launches, consumer insights, technology infrastructure, legacy brands

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• 11:16 (Cont.) CEM MAX AutoShanghai2025 Roundtable - Part #2

Transcript

Tu Le 
 You know, I'm going to have this European guy who understands the market and is familiar with the consumer.
 
 Ed White 
 Yeah, maybe, but then also, and I think I might be not 100 % right about this, but I think in Australia...
 
 Part of the growth story for BYD has been selling it to expatriate Chinese with Chinese language advertising and things like that. BYD can do an international expansion. They can even probably price through the tariff risk. Or if they get pinged on EVs like they have in Europe, just switch to hybrids for a few years. They'll be able to make their way through that. But data security runs into national security. That becomes trickier.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 No.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yes,
 
 yes, for sure. And Europeans kind of the canary in the coal mine just because the United States is off the table. So let's see how they react, because the thumb is on the scale of the German government pushing the EU to accept Chinese imports and also local manufacturing. But the EU needs to step up and create a robust policy.
 
 around because they pride themselves on data security and data privacy. So this should be really one of the foremost challenges or issues that need to be tackled. So you're absolutely right.
 
 Ed White 
 Can I ask you guys a question? talking about the battery technology and infrastructure. In a lot of other countries, this is a major, you've seen this in Korea, like exploding batteries has been a real, had a big dent on the industry's growth there. And I think it's a risk, and seen as a risk, just not just for EVs, but for like lithium battery products and lots of consumer industries around the world.
 
 What's your level of confidence in the infrastructure and the battery charging and swapping in China? What's the feeling among you guys around this?
 
 Lei Xing 
 We had our own personal experience for two straight years, right? Last year in a G9, this year in an ET5, power swapping all the way down. Last year, charging all the way down to Shenzhen. From our own experience, it's been pretty, in terms of quality, in terms of availability, no issues, right? We can't say for sure that that's the case. mean, there's, why do we have this no explosion, no fire come out? Because that does happen.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Bye.
 
 Tu Le 
 And
 
 we're all Lao, right? We've seen those signs in parking structures where you can't park a moped, right? So they know that there's this risk. And I'll back this out even further, The Koreans primarily use NCM, a completely different chemistry. Most of the cars that are sold in China are LFP.
 
 The volatility isn't as high. I don't know the percentages, but it's definitely not as dangerous as an NCM battery, number one. Number two, the thermal runway is also a lot less. I think generally speaking, once a battery catches fire, I think you just need to let it burn out.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 in God's hands at that point. You have to have very specialized equipment, you know.
 
 Tu Le 
 But yeah, so we're working the consultancy hat on. We're working with companies in the United States that are building transportation containers for batteries, not just EV batteries, but all kinds of batteries because that does need to be monitored, right? And it could be one cell that creates.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Speaking of that, I actually spoke to a guy with SEVB, Sunwoda and he was saying the next, not breakthrough, but what you can tinker with in terms of battery cells. We have the chemistry format, CATL talked about it. We have the structural format. But he's saying those are, I think we've reached the peak. The next thing that we can do to the battery cell is chipify.
 
 meaning monitoring the health of the battery and know something's gonna happen well in advance. That's where they think that you can still advance the technology on the batteries. So I think that's important.
 
 Tu Le 
 That's years.
 
 Lei Xing 
 You
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 People
 
 listen to the podcast so they can know what's coming years in advance.
 
 Tu Le 
 Well, so I guess I just thought of this, Ed. There are videos and maybe the three of them can find them for you before BYD became this juggernaut where Wang Chuanfu was drinking the liquid in this blade battery. Remember on Chinese social? Yeah. Number one. Number two. You're going have to look this If you go to BYD in Shenzhen, the headquarters,
 
 They have a section of the main building that's closed off. And once a day they do a demonstration where they hit a nail through a regular battery catches fire and the blade battery doesn't catch fire. you know, I think, I don't believe in you guys tell me, cause I don't really look at social Chinese social that much. I don't know if, if, if that's happening, happening is as
 
 I don't think that's a huge concern yet.
 
 Lei Xing 
 I think maybe here's the way to look at it is these things are going to happen and we've seen different brands. I don't have to name them. They've had notorious accidents that national headlines accidents. But has that affected any of these sales in China. They have not. Have those affected the brands. Not so much Xiaomi to an extent but I mean they're just trying to be low key.
 
 Tu Le 
 Well, CATL right away was like, that's not our batteries
 
 Lei Xing 
 So who takes the blame?
 
 Tu Le 
 so we're going to wrap this up and we'll have some quick fire questions. Each of you guys can ask questions, but, why so many brands guys?
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 this is the bane of my existence.
 
 Tu Le 
 Because Westerners ask me a lot, like, why don't they just transition current brands? But this is not a China thing. This is also a foreign legacy thing in China,
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 coming one. Yes. You know, I was going to say when we're talking about the auto show earlier, one of the first things I thought of when you're talking about foreign legacy was the new Electra brand or whatever sub brand sub brand from from from you and I remember and I looked at I just thought to myself and my my friends at SAIC GM are listening right now waiting for me to hear what I have to say in my end. I don't really get it. I don't really
 
 Lei Xing 
 used to be a model. It's turned into a sub. That was where you were talking. You know, what is a
 
 Tu Le 
 Yes.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Exactly.
 
 And is it, so in my mind, the reason that you create a brand is if you are offering a unique product, a unique something that you aren't gonna be able to offer, you don't feel comfortable offering through another brand. So the company I think epitomizes this problem the most is Geely. I think they do a lot of things right, but I think that they have so many brands and now over the course of the last few years especially, the overlap in those brands.
 
 they've gone from, okay, there is some distinction between the two to being like, okay, what is going on now?
 
 Tu Le 
 Hey, Ethan, can you quickly name some of the brands just so?
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I'm going to.
 
 Ed White 
 I'm not sure if you'll just tell me that.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I think it's an illustrative example and I want to hear Jill's thoughts on this as well and you guys which is so 2021 Shanghai Auto Show right? I believe is yes, doing the math. Yes, the Zeekr 001 debuts. The Zeekr 001 was originally the Zeekr or the Lynk & Co Zero concept car which then they went hey you know what? New brand.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I remember asking, and I won't say his name, but we all know him. He works for Geely PR. I remember asking that gentleman, hey, is he Brit? He's a Brit. Hey, what? Nice guy. Nice guy. I said, what's the point of this? And he said, OK, so Lynk & Co. was originally ICE. Now they're electrified, so hybrid, right? Light and then PHEVs.
 
 Tu Le 
 Have you talked to that person?
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 and then EREVs. But Zeekr is going to be pure electric. And at the time I was like, okay, I buy this. He's like, they don't feel like they can sell to a, pure electric to the audience they want if it's still in the Lynk & Co. dealership, right? Also, we want to be at a higher price point. Great. Cut to 2025. You've got fully electric Lynk & Co.'s, you've got hybrid Zeekrs, none of it, the delineation is gone.
 
 They now finally have a unique design language at least. It used to be that the Zeekr and Lynk & Co models were almost identical in appearance.
 
 Tu Le 
 Except for the leaky clothes that have those three layers on the front end that are look terrible.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 And and and yes still it's still not distinct enough arguably But I mean if you think of it if you think of it as a bear I'll borrow the same part of the same group that I can buy into them having some similarities But why did this happen? Right? I think it goes back to In their specific case and I think a lot of cases one it goes back to the thing we talked about before with the auto show which is the the growth and popularity of PHEVs and the are these so Zeekr looked at that and said like well we want money and we've already are gonna develop these these these power trains for Lynk & co-cars and
 
 Let's just put them in the Zeekrs Geely. They're a big group. They're all about amortizing the cost of this R and D across as many cars as possible. That's why everything's on SEA. Exactly. And so, um, you have that the other thing that killed brands like Zeekr and every other brand Avatr, all these on paper premium brands, Denza is the competition is the fact that nowadays when they, um, I remember, and I've talked about this publicly before, but I remember having a specific conversation with
 
 Tu Le 
 CA platform.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 an executive from GLE, from Galaxy, and was at the E8 launch. And this was back at the end or beginning or middle last year when E8 came out. And I said to him after driving, I was like, you know, this doesn't drive like, this doesn't drive like a car that starts at 230,000 RMB or what, like less than like a little over $30,000. And he goes, that's because we didn't want to sell it for that. We wanted to sell it for a lot more money. We planned when we started developing to sell it for a lot more money. And
 
 The competition and the price war has put these brands in such a position that they can't afford to stick to their guns and say, Zeekr's premium, right? We can't sell it for almost the same price as a Lynk & Co. They have to in order to move units and they have to offer these power trains in order to move units. So it makes making distinct brands much, much more difficult, I think.
 
 Tu Le 
 And not specific to Geely, Stellantis and Volkswagen Group also have a dozen brands each kind of thing. And some of them are new, like Volkswagen ID series, like, and then Mercedes with the EQ series things. But anyways, Jill, why do you think there's so many new brands? Why do the Chinese like to launch new brands instead of
 
 converting current brands to clean energy.
 
 Jill Shen 
 I think there's probably another reason for, especially for overseas markets. I remember I talked to people from one of the top three Chinese automakers and there are people, they were kind of asking things like, hey, Jill, we hope you don't mention the name of our parent companies in your reporting because we don't want
 
 us to be recognized by overseas consumers as a Chinese brand.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Wonder which company.
 
 Jill Shen 
 Yeah, and this year's Auto Shanghai, this company created another new brand, which really confused me a lot. But this might be helping the company to expand its overseas market, especially in some other countries it has never entered before.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I'm not saying that this is the company you're talking about, because I truly don't know. But I'm thinking of these brands that, like we talked about before, about these brands that Huawei works with. I thought you made a good point about their breathing life into some of what I would frankly consider second and third tier Chinese brands. Your JACs, your Seres's, your Chery's and stuff like that. Yes, mostly state owned.
 
 Ed White 
 Big company.
 
 Tu Le 
 Chery's doing well though. I think you can say JAC so you can say Seres
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I would say, yes, there are distinctions within, right? There are varying degrees of this. I would say that if you are, a lot of these brands like that, special brands like Chery, GWM, Great Wall Motor, they have been selling outside of China for quite a long time. And so, you know, I think that when it's the case of someone like that, where they've already got an established reputation abroad.
 
 Well, there's two ways look at it. In their case, I could see them saying, okay, we actually want to start a new brand because everyone thinks of GWM and not to pick on them specifically, but they make pickup trucks, right? In whatever market they're selling it. Powr, powr, or Canon. It's completely confusing to me. What, which it should be called, but that I digress. If you are known for that and you want to come in and sell an Ora right, which is a compact electric hatchback, then.
 
 you may be moved you to create a pretty separate brand. But as they discovered in that specific case, actually, that's a lot harder than it sounds, because they completely changed the names now. So it's the GWM or whatever cat or zero three, sorry, they changed the name.
 
 Tu Le 
 XPeng Mona. God.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 That's a separate issue.
 
 Lei Xing 
 To answer those questions, it's actually a very simple answer. It's business basics. We have the perfect example right here. NIO, Onvo, and Firefly. For some companies, it's starting out at the premium end and going downward. For others, it's starting at the lower end, trying to go upward. And all it is trying to do is to address the addressable market.
 
 Tu Le 
 in BYD's case.
 
 So, but I would argue that NIO's case is different than Geely's. ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing 
 Exactly
 
 what I was trying to say, that for different companies, the strategies and the reasons why they're doing it is different than one from the other.
 
 Tu Le 
 Do you have a cheat sheet, Ed, in your room, in your office that maps all these brands to who the... Not in my computer, no.
 
 Thank
 
 Lei Xing 
 For the latest emerging brands, the reason is also very simple. We talk about the Buick Electra, we talk about the four letter A-U-D-I. It's a way to build, we're coming out with all new architectures. We're addressing different customer groups. And we have this, what we call the China Insight.
 
 So we have to use these new brands to be able to kind of, you know, hold them up rather than use a four ring, which is in the minds of consumers, it's something else. But AUDI is we're a Chineseified, localized Audi.
 
 Jill Shen 
 How rowdy.
 
 Tu Le 
 Well,
 
 Audi's situation is very unique just because we know there to be government official vehicles historically. yeah, that, yeah, the whole too many brands thing, that's not going to get answered today. And I'm sure we're going to see new brands in the next six, 10 months too.
 
 Ed White 
 One thing I wonder about though is that if you go back to the kind of the start of the conversation around this is a, know, what I was saying around this is from my point of view, an interesting industry because of the level of disruption and the fact that some companies aren't going to make it in the future and just won't exist. You know, this is the, it is an existential question for a lot of legacy auto brands as well as the startups.
 
 The level of desperation, in a positive sense, level of competition, but also the technology at a manufacturing level seems to me that one of the reasons there are so many brands is because there can be, because factories can be automated in a way that you can quite, and cars can be designed a lot quicker in the China context than they have been historically.
 
 The technology, both in terms of the marketing design, all of that sort of stuff, as well as the manufacturing, enables companies to do more than they perhaps could in the past. And because there's this level of desperation around competition, the shackles are kind of off. People aren't sitting there in Wolfsburg or wherever it is in California or Detroit, kind of sitting around mulling whether or not to do something for four or five years. It's just like, let's go. And then if it works, it works. The interesting thing really to track would be what brands are dying that
 
 we just don't even talk about it. Because there's kind of a bias to writing and talking about new brands, right? But how many of these cars that have been last four or five years have been launched don't actually really, aren't really sold anymore, have now been subsumed into some other kind of thing.
 
 Lei Xing 
 And if we elongate the horizon of the Chinese auto industry, multi-brand strategy is not something new. Back in the late 2000s, Chery, Geely, they came out with the...
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 and grand england rely well where are those do know anything that's that's what that's to the point of like they've been through this
 
 Lei Xing 
 I this is just cycles. And then in the mid 2010s, the Geelys and the Cherys, they kind of like, we want to be a one brand. But now they're multiple.
 
 Tu Le 
 Well, so, but that goes back to the whole with GM being CEO where he's like Pontiac's entry level. Then you graduate to Chevy because you got a promotion. And then at the end of the day, when you're this rich guy, you buy Cadillac. So there's this progression from a brand standpoint, but we're not seeing that. We're seeing just let's throw something on the wall and see if it's there.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Yeah,
 
 I think I think sorry, Jill.
 
 Jill Shen 
 No, no, no, I'm not asking anything.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 To your point earlier again, I think that when I criticize brands like companies like Geely for all these brands and stuff, it's the same thing you said before. mean, look, Geely can afford to have some brands go belly up and it will happen, right? Or to subsume brands. Obviously, Lynk & Co & Zeekr are now together as they always should have been. you know, does that happen with post? I'd argue that it should.
 
 Tu Le 
 does that happen with Polestar Volvo?
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 you know or or byd listen if Fang Cheng Bao doesn't turn out to be a huge seller. Okay. Well, we learned something, you know
 
 Lei Xing 
 be surprising if I've said this before that Zeekr and Lynk & Co become one brand in the future. wouldn't be surprising if Geely or Chery or any these state-owned automakers cut one or more of these brands. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le 
 So
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Lynk & Co.
 
 Tu Le 
 we always also have to remember that five, six years ago when a lot of these brands were launched, they were thinking IPO, right? And they were thinking, I'm going to cash it. Because Zeekr is publicly traded in US. So XPeng, Nio, Li Auto, who else? Anyone else? Zeekr? Yeah, Zeekr. The unfortunate thing is that
 
 Lei Xing 
 It's Zeekr Technology Group.
 
 Tu Le 
 You know, the whole SPAC craze and the EV craze kind of went away. And so that's also why I think we're stuck with these new brands that were, when they launched, probably projected to IPO. So let's wrap this up. Let me say this. Let me ask you all this. And I'm actually much, more interested in, cause I talk to you all the time. You from the perspective of what are the most anticipated cars?
 
 through the end of this year that you're looking to drive that haven't launched yet. And Jill and Ed, now that we're past the Shanghai Auto Show and you've read all the articles and done this thing, what are you looking to write articles about or what interests you the most for the rest of this year?
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Well, I'll I don't know if you want to start from the larger picture. You can start from this. I'm essentially a guy who stands in empty parking lots and sweats next to cars. That's mostly my job. That's mostly what my job really boils down to.
 
 Tu Le 
 You
 
 record yourself in a lot that's normally really hot outside.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I mean literally, not a metaphor.
 
 Lei Xing 
 some other people's videos.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 somebody else's video. You know, I think that there are a bunch of cars that debuted at the show that I'm looking forward to driving. The 9X is mentioned. The L90 from Onvo. I think that's going to be a really, really important car because the frankly the L60 launch didn't go as well as it could have gone due to various issues strategically, manufacturing wise, all these things. So that's going to be super important for them.
 
 becoming probably one of the most competitive segments in the Chinese car market, which is these large SUVs. Again, 9X, same thing, same category, basically, maybe a little more upscale.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yangwang U8L, the Chery Tigo 9L. These are some of the biggest series.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 The U8F. ‚Åì
 
 Absolutely. And so in addition to that, obviously, again, to reiterate, think this Xiaomi YU7 is going to be the biggest launch of the year. And I'm going to, who knows how, I'm never going to into the event. Xiaomi is not very open to letting foreigners drive the car. If you're going to make English language content, you've got to be, it's a little bit difficult to get your hands on one from them. you tell them what? Yeah, no, I failed to mention. Yeah, well.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yeah. Robertson?
 
 No, no, no. Maybe they don't know that name.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 You
 
 saw the people in the comment sections that are like, have you never driven the Yangwang U9? And I'm like, find a foreigner that has. You know, I am by the standards of the, I'm the biggest fish in this very small pond. But when you go and you kind of zoom out and you realize I'm an absolute microscopic minnow in an ocean compared to the domestic media who are going to get priority first. so yes, I will rent one. will get my come heller high water. I will get my hands on a YU7.
 
 And yeah, yeah, I mean, there's a whole lot of them. And then I'm sure there's ones that I don't even know that I'm excited to hear about quite yet, but that will be launched soon.
 
 Tu Le 
 Jill and Ed, what are you kind of?
 
 Jill Shen 
 There's one model that really interested me most was actually the Xiaomi YU7, which is however absent at this year's Auto Shanghai.
 
 Tu Le 
 So the YU7 looks like Ferrari.
 
 Jill Shen 
 Yeah, because I talked to many analysts and many of them, they are really bullish on Xiaomi. Actually, some of them believe that Xiaomi really has the potential to challenge BYD or even replace BYD in the next, maybe in the next...
 
 Tu Le 
 Those
 
 are bold statements and unrealistic statements, but fair enough.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Xiaomi
 
 does want to be the top number, top five global automaker.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yeah, that's fine.
 
 Jill Shen 
 And it has such a great influence among younger customers in China. But something also unexpected to me at this year's show would be that a pickup truck from JAC, I mentioned this to Will at that BYD stand. I met him at the BYD stand and I talked to him. Driven One. Yeah, China Driven One. And I talked to him about the pickup truck.
 
 I bridged him with the JAC people later on.
 
 Tu Le 
 Jill should hook you up, dude.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Well, yeah, I don't know if I have a contact in JAC. There we go. Thank you. This is why this is really why I did this. I'm here for the connections. Go ahead.
 
 Jill Shen 
 ‚Åì
 
 OK. So I think we all know that BYD has a very big launch for its shark pickup last year in Mexico. And I'm not sure if it is doing well.
 
 Tu Le 
 It's okay.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 In Australia it is.
 
 Jill Shen 
 Yeah, and Cybertruck, the Tesla one is also not very well recognized, right? So I'm, and the JAC pickup one was really, looks very, very familiar to the Tesla Cybertruck, I have to say that.
 
 Lei Xing 
 I saw that.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I missed this. I'm going to go back and look at it.
 
 Jill Shen 
 But it probably also has some like original design. Yeah, I'm you you can really check that out. So I would and and also on the other side, JAC The management from JAC. has a really like clear picture about selling pickup trucks overseas because pickup truck is actually
 
 quite forbidden in China, especially in urban cities, in big cities. So we don't see a lot of pickup trucks in China, but the company is really kind of like planning to sell them big overseas. So it even has some like roadmaps when the chairman of JAC talked to Chinese media, says like, we are planning to enter Australia and Middle East in the next couple of years.
 
 I really didn't expect that to happen from a Chinese art makers, especially a state-owned one like JAC.
 
 Tu Le 
 So from a US perspective, when Jill was talking about pickup trucks, they're the size of like Rangers and Colorado's, Chevy Colorado's. F-150s and Sierra's and Chevy Silverado's, they're not street legal on the main roads in China.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 side.
 
 City centers so you any pickup truck because of the open bed is considered a commercial vehicle and so they're not allowed to go into the city centers and in most major cities which
 
 Tu Le 
 So you can still buy them, but you can't really drive them on.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Also, Baofei, 15 years, right? You to Baofei, you have to scrap them after 15 years on the road. you can, right now, you can get a 2011 Ford F-150 Raptor for like pennies because it's just a couple years away from when you have to literally destroy it, prove that you destroyed it.
 
 Tu Le 
 And you guys call them utes, right? So they're fairly popular in Australia. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, didn't, know, pickup trucks, we saw a few, right? The, poor? Poor. Poor.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Or nobody knows how to say it. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yeah, four. And ten.
 
 Lei Xing 
 How?
 
 Tu Le 
 So, so Ed, what about you,
 
 Ed White 
 I think the other side of this coin is the last maybe six or seven months we've been reporting pretty hefty write downs from major European and American companies. Basically, a large part of those write downs have stemmed from losing a massive chunk of the Chinese market over the course of four or five years.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Ford actually,
 
 man. Ford.
 
 Tu Le 
 In the China market.
 
 Ed White 
 But the trend is people have been burning money. these are mostly listed companies. And investors just don't put up with that. These are institutionally held stocks. just not sustainable. for me, company that I think is really interesting is Volkswagen. There's been one company that have acknowledged the problem, done what people suggest you should do in terms of putting
 
 lot of investment into China. They've tried to make the Chinese operation as Chinese as they can, you know, with a few like checks still from to Germany. But they've got a kind of make or break period coming up towards the end of this year, early next year. And so if that goes well, then, you know, they've got a real shot at a successful business here again. If it doesn't go well.
 
 It's a tough one. So I think those kind of moments are coming up and there'll be lots of them for different companies going ahead.
 
 Tu Le 
 So really quickly, I was at an AmChem event. I was on the panel this morning. I gave them the scenario without saying the brand. said, if you were the board member of a brand whose market share shrunk for the first time in 22 years, year over year by 3 % one year, by 15 % the next year, and then the first quarter of the current year,
 
 by 42%. Would you still want that person to be the CEO of your company? And, you know, people are like, hmm, basically I'm talking about Porsche, right? But not only is Blume the CEO of Porsche, he's the CEO of Volkswagen Group. So I don't know how you square that circle because to your point, and this is what just drives me nuts. They don't like write downs, but they accept mediocrity.
 
 And like Porsche, if you'd have asked anybody in the world in the automotive space four or five years ago, they were like, this is probably the only bulletproof brand in the automotive space. And they screwed that up in the China market. And bad enough to where Blume said, we might not even sell EVs in China. Porsche, you meant Porsche. And I'm like, so.
 
 That's what's frustrating to me because change needs to happen at a lot of these legacies, but it's not.
 
 Ed White 
 Investors won't put up with it forever. think this is, know, the companies for a little while were sort of, you know, four or five years ago, still trying to make the argument around, is it EVs? Is that the right technology? Should we be kind of spreading ourselves a bit thinner, looking at hydrogen and other things? Those arguments are all gone now, right? It's just, it's what are you doing in the market right now to survive? And that's, you know, this point is coming that you either make or break.
 
 Tu Le 
 Lei any final thoughts?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Well, a few models I'm looking forward to, the Xiaomi YU7. XPeng G7 was also an MIA, but I think it's another Model Y killer. Firefly. Since we're at NIO, I think it's one of the most controversial models. Because of their strategy of launching this brand, originally planned in Europe, they have to launch it in China, and then with the tariffs and...
 
 Tu Le 
 Shout out to NIO for letting us.
 
 Lei Xing 
 delayed BAAS pricing, the availability of a swapping network. I think these are a few models I'm looking forward to Onvo obviously, but also just to continue how brands play with the pricing pressure, the price war, what Tesla does in coming weeks, months. I think that's what I'm looking forward to.
 
 can you still pull out from your bag to survive, to compete?
 
 Tu Le 
 So let me close this out by asking. Oh my.
 
 Jill Shen 
 What is your answer?
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 You
 
 can't get off, you're not off, not off the field like that.
 
 Tu Le 
 I'm actually curious to see how the EU comes around with the tariffs and the manufacturing locally, because I think it's BYD, who's partnering with Magna Steyr in Austria? Was it doing kits, shipping kits? Leap? It was Leap, no. GAC. brand. Are kits enough?
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Leaps is full in me. ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing 
 one
 
 Tu Le 
 Does that count as manufacturing locally?
 
 Lei Xing 
 We
 
 may be seeing or hearing an official announcement.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yeah. then, you know, so I is coming up in Munich. So I think let's see what the Chinese presence there is, how big it is. And is it, you know, because me being just outside of Detroit now, what was really apparent to me at the auto show was there wasn't that many Americans there, you know, that were wanting to do business. And obviously for obvious reasons, but you would think that if
 
 these companies, these people feel it as an extent as extensional threat. They would want to go kick the tires and check out, OK, what's real here? You know, how bad are we? How behind are we? So kind of reconciling and I'm jumping around a little bit. So my apologies. So there's a startup that just launched in the United States called Slate. Yeah, the Bezo backed and they have a 25. They launched a twenty five thousand dollar
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 like DIY car, like a truck. And it has 150 miles range. It has analog windows. And the five of us know what you can buy for $30,000 in China.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 And so they're not they're not manual windows. I'll tell you that.
 
 Tu Le 
 And there's no infotainment. And they're counting on the $7,500 from the US government, which is likely going to go away because of Trump. And so I guess that's where I'm looking more globally than just what's going on in China, because I know the acceleration is going to continue. think we're going to start to see, in the China market, we're going to start to see cracks. April, May, Jun, not April, May, like September, October, November, start to see cracks in some of these companies, probably.
 
 And then the one ask I have of you, and Jill is why hasn't media really been more curious about the silicon coming out of XPeng and NIO? Because remember, Nvidia is a $3 trillion company. if you look at Qualcomm, most of their
 
 Lei Xing 
 Wei Xiaoli, out.
 
 Tu Le 
 Clients are EV, foreign EV and Chinese EV. And so that hits right at the heart of the foreign dominance on the EV side, right? Cause they don't dominate batteries, but they still dominate on the Silicon side. And so, you know, how capable is it, you know, versus an Nvidia Orin, the next version of Orin is called Thor. And so next version of Snapdragon. So just kind of curious, like that's actually a huge thing.
 
 Right? Because outside of the battery, the chipset is going to be pretty expensive and kind of like the software hardware stack. So if you guys could maybe look into that and write an awesome article about it, I think that'd be pretty cool.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I would read it. I'll even pay for an FT subscription if you do.
 
 Tu Le 
 I'm sure it's going to get right on it. Thank you. yeah, I just I try to be hopeful about what's going on in the West.
 
 Lei Xing 
 China and the US are talking in the coming days.
 
 Tu Le 
 Bessent and
 
 one of Xi Jinping's lieutenants.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Let's hope so.
 
 Jill Shen 
 And
 
 have you heard that Nvidia is probably setting up a joint venture in China? to probably sell and make chips locally in China. that's probably...
 
 Lei Xing 
 Many things on the
 
 Tu Le 
 Well, so there are so many loopholes right now, selling through Singapore, selling through all these different countries. I don't know if that... I think that's more symbolic than anything. Like, hey, we're leaning into our relationship with the Chinese. That's probably a signal to the Chinese market. Because mean, Silicon is all over the place here.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I want to one thing before we wrap up, because I know we're probably going to get a chance for plugs.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yes, right. So yes. So as I'll give a quick roundtable and we'll start with you, Ethan.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 So if you want to understand what is happening in the Chinese car market, you should listen to China EVs and more. I think we can all agree on that. If you want an opportunity to come to China to get a chance to be hands-on with Chinese cars, including going to some of the most important Chinese auto shows, which makes them the most important auto shows in the world, I recommend the Wheels Boy EV Tour. So if anybody's watching and they want an opportunity to come here to check out the cars in person, to drive the cars, because there's a
 
 Tu Le 
 nice! Thank you!
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 tour part of it, a driving portion of it. We have now, just our second event in Shanghai. So we have 15 people from the United States, Canada, Egypt, Australia, other places that came. We put them behind the wheel of the cars. We took them to the Yangwang dealership and they got to check out all the cars. So if there's anybody that wants to hear, if you want to see, listen to me, know, babble on and on in person, I do attend these events. I'm the host, so.
 
 You can reach out to tour@wheelsboy.cn if you would like to join. Everyone is welcome. Everyone here is of course welcome to.
 
 Lei Xing 
 You need an assistant I'd be happy to help.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 If you're in the country, I'll hire you.
 
 Tu Le 
 So Jill, how do people hear about your articles? Are you on social? Like how do they follow you and find you in your content? Go to TechNode. You're on X too, right?
 
 Jill Shen 
 What am I going to do right now?
 
 Yeah, I'm on Nax, but I don't really be on that very often. we've been like connected for a very long time, but I barely know you until today.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 This first time you met Ed in person.
 
 You want to, where can people read your articles?
 
 Jill Shen 
 Okay, yeah, number one, please very welcome to read our website because we don't, we not only cover EVs and autos and we also have reporters writing about semiconductors and smartphones and all the hardcore technologies in China. And number two, I've been studying Japanese for like two years.
 
 and I talked to four Japanese journalists at this year's Shanghai Auto Show. So I'm really welcoming people from Japan or analysts, experts, business people from Japan. If you have any questions about China Autos, you can reach out to me and we can talk more.
 
 Tu Le 
 I'm gonna give them your email or anything.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 Yeah, how can they reach out to you?
 
 Jill Shen 
 please visit our website www.tecnode.com and you will find my reporting there. Thank you.
 
 Tu Le 
 Any plugs that you have in?
 
 Ed White 
 I'm pretty simple, I'm at ed@ft.com
 
 Tu Le 
 Nice,
 
 that's a good
 
 Ed White 
 You
 
 can find me if you want to. I think the FT's take is kind of helpful in that we have a relatively big presence of on the ground reporters in China. We see the story in China as self-evidently interesting from the Chinese point of view. And we try to give voice to the Chinese business executives, the audience, the users, all of these sorts of people. And I think that's something that we don't always get as outsiders.
 
 Often things in China are seen through a lens of US China or big bad China or scary China or something. We've kind of missed trends that are in the same way as the EV trend was a little bit missed by everyone overseas. And what you're talking about with chips and the level of indigenous chip manufacturing and design technology in China, that's a story that's really live at the moment. And it's the sort of thing that we try and focus on in China from the FT's point of view.
 
 Tu Le 
 And I applaud you all because you're here locally on the ground and, you know, doing all the reporting because as we all know, over the last five, seven, eight years, there have been a lot of Chinese EV experts or China experts that have popped up. But unfortunately, a lot of us have not met them here. And so I think that's important to acknowledge as well that follow the people that are boots on the ground or that are here.
 
 testing out the vehicles, talking to the people because there is a nuance to it. It's not black and white. always this coming from America now, we got to separate the governments from the companies and the individuals. So, hey, everyone, thanks for joining us. I'd like maybe to do this again. So maybe there's an excuse next year to all do this in Beijing.
 
 Ethan Robertson 
 I'll be there. I'll be in the middle of the Wheels Boy EV2 or Beijing event. So I will probably have a lot more gray hair than I have now.
 
 Tu Le 
 And you make sure to miss it so that we can kind of start from the same spot again. Everyone, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. We will catch you all very soon on the next Max episode.