Episode #217 - Tesla Out on Top of ADAS Test, Hopeful about L90, BYD Sponsors Sports

In this episode, Tu and Lei focus on Tesla's recent earnings, the results of an advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) test conducted by Dong Che Di, and the ongoing price war in the EV market. 

They analyze the implications of these developments for the industry, including the challenges of intelligent driving systems and the strategies employed by various EV makers to gain market share. 

The conversation also touches on global expansion efforts, sponsorships, and audience insights, culminating in a comprehensive overview of the current state of the EV landscape.

Keywords

EV, ADAS, Tesla, Dong Che Di, intelligent driving, price war, global expansion, sponsorships, market strategies, audience insights

Digital Disruption with Geoff Nielson
Discover how technology is reshaping our lives and livelihoods.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Chapters

• 11:39 [Ad] Digital Disruption with Geoff Nielson
• 12:18 (Cont.) Episode #217 - Tesla Out on Top of ADAS Test, Hopeful about L90, BYD Sponsors Sports

Transcript

Tu Le 
 to the China
 
 EVs and More podcast. In the next hour or so, my co-host, Lei Xing and I will go over the week's most important and interesting news coming out of the global EV, AV and mobility sectors.
 
 What Lei and I discuss today is based on our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice. For those that are new to the show, welcome. And to our loyal listeners and viewers, welcome back. We ask that you smash those subscribe and like buttons so you don't miss anything from us in the Future. Lei and I are two of most knowledgeable people in the world doing this. So please help us get the word out about this show to others. My name is Tu Le.
 
 I am the Managing Director at Sino Auto Insights, a global management consultancy that helps organizations bring innovative and tech-focused products and services to the transportation and mobility sectors. I write a free weekly newsletter that we pull many of our discussion topics from. You can sign up for it at sinoautoinsights.substack.com, which of course I encourage you all to do. A Thursday evening Lei Can you please, or Friday night Lei.
 
 Can you please introduce yourself?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, a TGIF, Beijing TGIF. This is your co-host, Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review. And this is episode 217. So actually, it's been a rather muggy, soggy, rainy Beijing the last few days and going into next week, which is kind of this.
 
 sentiment around the industry these days because we've had the Tesla earnings come out and then we had that I think you tweeted about it the Dongchedi ADAS test that has been the talk of the industry or been on the news constantly the last few days. I think we should talk about that a little bit.
 
 Tu Le 
 Let me stop you there, Lei.
 
 My first question that I've gotten this from several people. Have you heard of this media outlet? Since you're a media veteran in China, do you know the people running it? Is it legitimate? Any biases that you think? So let's start with this. Can you tell us what happened? So here's my tweet to kind of set you up. I tweeted that
 
 Lei Xing 
 Go ahead.
 
 Well, that's...
 
 You
 
 Tu Le 
 combine motor trend, road and track, automobile magazine, car and driver, all these road tests into one, oh, consumer reports, inject some steroids, and you have the tests that, which media outlet, Dong something?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Consumer Reports.
 
 Tu Le 
 Which media outlet was it?
 
 So which media outlet was it? So I will hand it off to you. Combine all these tests with Consumer Reports, and you have this mega, mega intelligent driving slash ADAS test. You take over.
 
 Lei Xing 
 It might be my answer, apologize.
 
 Tu Le 
 just start describing this test then?
 
 Lei Xing 
 So Dong Che Di, the name literally means the God of Knowing Cars, Dong Che Di. believe it or not, Dong Che Di, well, Dong Che Di is an entity under ByteDance. And for those that might not know, Sequoia Capital invested into Dong Che Di, I think a few hundred million.
 
 Tu Le 
 Don't you D.
 
 Lei Xing 
 dollars. And there were talk about somehow Dongchedi, Sequoia Capital, and Tesla. Yeah, yeah. Well, Hongshan, ‚Åì Sequoia, yeah. And somehow these are connected also with Tesla. So when you talked about the bias, one of the things that ‚Åì there's been a ‚Åì debate about Tesla getting high scores raves
 
 Tu Le 
 But you're talking about the Chinese Sequoia capital.
 
 Lei Xing 
 scores ‚Åì was that kind of bias. ‚Åì It's something worth pointing out. I can't say for sure whether that is. ‚Åì But the results, basically what happened was ‚Åì this Dongcheon-D, they have been doing this since ‚Åì I think 2020. Every year they would bring
 
 dozens of the latest smart EVs, including some ICE vehicles to test out all kinds of ADAS scenarios, emergency braking, how these ‚Åì vehicles will perform. they actually, I think they pay probably a lot of money to have a stretch of 15 kilometers of expressway to do this test.
 
 And there were, in one of the tests, there were about 36 vehicles, all sorts of the latest and the greatest smart EVs, including obviously Tesla's. And one of these ‚Åì tests was basically you have a car in front of you, suddenly veering, merging to the left, and all of a sudden there's a stopped car. It's a dummy appearing in front of you. And the point was to see
 
 the capability of AEB or actually the emergency maneuvering capability. And what happened was that Tesla, the Model X and three, and there was, I I think one of the NIO models, one of the Wey models and I forget the other one, 36 models, basically 30 out of the 36 models failed the test.
 
 and including ones with lidar. So this has been kind of debated on the last few days in China, throughout the industry, throughout the media circles. So that's basically what happened. And even Elon Musk, tweeted, one of the ‚Åì Sawyer, I think, ‚Åì who tweeted about this, that Tesla got the high, passed the test, even though it used ‚Åì vision only and actually
 
 Tu Le 
 Right.
 
 Lei Xing 
 a 2023 model X and model 3, which has a older version of the so-called FSD software. So that's basically the background. I'm kind of interested to know your take on this. I can share mine. But yeah, mean, I think there's a
 
 Tu Le 
 with the software.
 
 Lei Xing 
 comments from both sides of the fence. think ‚Åì some saying, you know, whether there was bias about, ‚Åì you know, Tesla getting the score because there was, there was even talk about, ‚Åì the way the vehicles kind of moved over, allowing a longer distance to break, you know, things like that. ‚Åì so, so it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's still being debated right now.
 
 Tu Le 
 Mm-hmm.
 
 Lei Xing 
 I think in the industry.
 
 Tu Le 
 First of all, I think it's great. And to your point, 15 kilometers is a long stretch of highway. 15 kilometers is around eight miles, I want to say, eight-ish miles. So not insignificant. 36 intelligent driving systems, some from the same brand. I think that's pretty significant. And it just reflects China, how they...
 
 Lei Xing 
 Same here.
 
 Mm-hmm. Yup.
 
 Tu Le 
 tend to go all in when it comes to almost anything. And the amount of effort, the lift in order to be able to do this. And I've only gotten a day to really chew on things. So that being said, a lot of people had asked me if these were legit. So I'm still trying to figure this out myself, because I wanted to get
 
 your objective opinion and I didn't really want to ask you through WeChat DMs. wanted this recorded, but
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 We
 
 knew that Tesla's system is good. I didn't think it was going to be first and second place, to be quite frank. And we're talking older versions too. So that gives me pause a little bit. But to your point,
 
 I'd still like to learn more before I say one way or another. It was skewed from a testing standpoint, but nonetheless, 36 cars. So, so let's be clear. The model three and the model X were first and second place, was it?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, I think so. First and second.
 
 Tu Le 
 And so,
 
 and there are videos online that you can watch, ‚Åì but I knew that there was gonna be a huge uproar in Chinese social. Have any of the brands, the Chinese brands chimed in and said, you know, unfair or not accurate?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Aito has, Aito had three vehicles in the test that all failed. And Aito basically said, no comment.
 
 Tu Le 
 So Aito is Huawei, effectively. And Huawei has been one of the most vocal brands versus FSD.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 Yes. Yeah. So the surprising thing, think it was not so much that Tesla won with the vision only. I think the surprising thing was rather these latest and the greatest that have the lidar, that have all sorts of 30, 33, 34 sensors on the vehicles when they launch these cars. How
 
 they were communicated the capabilities of ADAS, the so-called point-to-point capability of the ADAS, even some of the AEB functions. I think this was rather a yeah. But the other point was this is quite extreme stress test of the system capabilities.
 
 Tu Le 
 Hmm.
 
 AEB is emergency braking, automatic emergency braking. So just just for our audience.
 
 Lei Xing 
 that normally the automakers and the brands will not show you. They will only show you the instances where the system performed well. So I think that's the central debate.
 
 Tu Le 
 But this is the precise reason.
 
 This is the precise reason that we know level two, level three, point to point is not ready for prime time. Because we can expect that.
 
 Lei Xing 
 in this video.
 
 Tu Le 
 Go ahead.
 
 Lei Xing 
 This video came out right at the moment when the Ministry of Public Security Transportation Bureau chief commented. What he basically said was intelligent or so-called smart driving in China is not autonomous driving. This was reported by the media quite a lot right around when this video came out. So when I said earlier it was a rainy day in Beijing,
 
 day and week in Beijing, this is kind of pouring some cold water on the industry about safety, about the capability of over ‚Åì propagandizing or over marketing of the capability of ADAS as well as users abusing the systems. We talked about this earlier in our earlier episodes. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le 
 Lei
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 We've experienced this driving hundreds of miles in two vehicles. They're generally very safe, but there have been moments that you and I have experienced together in the vehicles where it's like, not sure what the decision was. So we took over. Now hasn't happened a lot in the test cars that we drove, but also AEB
 
 I want to separate that from actual intelligent driving. another really important thing to point out is that you can have 30 plus sensors, but this is where software comes in, sensor fusion comes in, because if it doesn't give you an accurate picture in almost real time, that's where you get these delays in decision-making. So you can have as many sensors as you want.
 
 Radar, sonar, lidar, camera. ‚Åì And if it can't build an accurate picture and the software can't make the right decision, this is what happens.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, and the other interesting thing ‚Åì was the Xiaomi vehicle actually started pressing the brake, and then actually the system exited, which basically means asking you to take over, which was even more surprising and kind of ‚Åì points to what happened in that accident that killed the three young ladies earlier this year.
 
 So I think my conclusion, my personal conclusion is that in that specific test scenario, Tesla won. But if we can't conclude for 100 % that the safety of one is better than the other, I think to me, you mentioned about our trips, long trips the last two years of having
 
 had NOA on expressways for an extended period of time. The keywords that come to mind is one common set.
 
 Tu Le 
 We're talking.
 
 Hours, not minutes, we're talking hours of NOA.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 Yeah, and one, common sense, and two, trust.
 
 We never took those NOA for granted because we had to be paying attention. they did allow, it was less tiring when you're, if you had to put on the brake or the gas pedal. And then when do you achieve that trust of the system that you know that it will do what the Model X and the Model 3 did? ‚Åì
 
 I think it's trying to more educate the consumers. The capabilities are not what you think they are. that ultimately, going back to what the director of the Transport Bureau said is that you are a driver, ultimately, in any of the systems on the market today. Ultimately, you the driver are responsible.
 
 I think that's the point that we stress here.
 
 Tu Le 
 and
 
 that there seem to be a few EV makers, XPeng BYD, that are now pushing forward with certain use cases that will allow for level three, which clearly puts the onus and responsibility onto the EV maker.
 
 Lei Xing 
 I BYD announced something a couple of weeks ago, right? We talked about it. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le 
 to smart parking.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le 
 So, Lei.
 
 Lei Xing 
 So
 
 I think that the conclusion is basically take any of these tests with a grain of salt. For those ones that did not pass, that does not mean that, I mean, they bad? No. Is Tesla that much better? Probably, maybe. But at the end of the day, you have to be at the current stage. I can only trust myself.
 
 as a driver. And I can't put the trust on the vehicle yet, at least not yet. That's the conclusion.
 
 Tu Le 
 I think another
 
 way you're saying this is it reinforces the fact that level two is a supervised system. in order to be completely or in order to mitigate any type of risk from the system, you have to be alert as the driver at all times.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 So one other thing, Lei, I should mention, ‚Åì I was part of the analyst call with General Motors a week or two ago. They had invited me to talk about their ‚Åì mineral strategy, their battery strategy. So got to learn a little bit about that. ‚Åì I told them that my lease ends.
 
 Lei Xing 
 And yeah, I mean, that's.
 
 Tu Le 
 on my Ioniq 5 at the end of this year. So what shows up a week later? Well, it was only a year, but what shows up a week later? A Cadillac Optiq So I am driving a Cadillac Optiq for a week with super cruise.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Already? bad.
 
 Tu Le 
 So I haven't been able to stretch Super Cruise's legs that much yet, but overall in the couple of days that I've been able to drive the Optiq very impressed, full charge around 325 miles. It's around the same size as an IONIQ 5, maybe a little bit smaller. overall I'm pretty impressed and...
 
 The fri my friends at Auto Pacific Ed Kim, Robbie, Degraff, Paul, Waitti, they told me that that's probably one of the best deals right now for EVs and, ‚Åì you know, bang for your buck kind of thing. So I'm considering an Optiq, ‚Åì as a replacement for my vehicle. The unfortunate thing is that if I want to lease an EV, I probably will have a.
 
 lease payment for two or three months because the subsidies end on September 30th. So I'll have to get a lease a couple of before my IONIQ 5 ends, which is unfortunate. I'll be double paying for cars, but here's what it is. What else is on your mind, Lei?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Well, I mean, we talked about Tesla, Tesla versus GM. They both had earnings this past week. ‚Åì Tesla, mean, right, speaking of pouring cold water, ‚Åì all the numbers were there. They were down. ‚Åì We do know that finally this so-called Model YS, we have the Model YL. Now the Model YS is coming. S meaning small.
 
 ‚Åì That'll be interesting. I something to look forward to. The other one is autonomy. Elon's saying that by the end of this year, half the population in the US will have access to the so-called robot taxi. Interesting to watch and ‚Åì see what the expectations will be. If he's just juicing it or that's going to happen, I think it's quite significant.
 
 ‚Åì
 
 In China, I think Tesla still, I mean, this Tesla again, this Dongche D, I think at least from a marketing wise for the average consumer, it's huge, right? I think all over the world, if not in China. ‚Åì And then GM, you talked about Cadillac, right?
 
 Tu Le 
 Can you?
 
 Mm-hmm.
 
 Lei Xing 
 ‚Åì I just think cattle.
 
 Tu Le 
 The one thing Lei that I think maybe you could ‚Åì
 
 give us a little bit more understanding on, especially on the Chinese media and Chinese social, Xi Jinping got out front this week or last week and started talking about how ‚Åì at the provincial level, they need to stop trying to incentivize the EV makers to build more. Can you talk a little bit about that? What you've heard, what you've read?
 
 Lei Xing 
 I think speaking of it, I have a few Tesla salespeople. When you go into the showrooms to check out the cars, they add you on the WeChat, but it's ‚Åì their work WeChat. And they keep sending information about in Beijing. What you can do is if you want to get a Tesla and enjoy actually out of Beijing ‚Åì extra incentive, those are ending.
 
 many provinces are ending. So I keep getting those messages basically asking you to say, what's happening in the US is that September 30, the $7,500 credit ends. So please buy. BUY BUY BUY Right?
 
 Tu Le 
 You
 
 I'll experience it soon enough, let me ask you, does there seem to feel like some finality to the price war or does it just seem like it's pausing for a little bit as we get out of summer?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, that's it. ‚Åì
 
 I the price war is just being masqueraded right now. I mean, we saw the launch of the lead motor B01. I tweeted that we're dangerously close to getting EVs with lidars under maybe 100,000.
 
 Tu Le 
 Right.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Is that a price war I think so BYD launching the sea lion 06 yesterday 150,000 let me be around. I mean that that's a big SUV
 
 So I ways, I mean.
 
 Tu Le 
 So I'd written in the newsletter that the price war will never go away. It'll lose some intensity, but not likely until early 26 because China just doesn't automatically not compete.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, I know.
 
 Tu Le 
 The price war has bled into food delivery, Meituan versus Alibaba versus JD, know, a lot of different industries.
 
 Lei Xing 
 ‚Åì yeah. ‚Åì
 
 I was just talking about that over dinner with some of my daughter's kindergarten parents and about JD going into waimai about e le ma providing extra incentives. ordered e le ma yeah, which is, you hungry? For those that don't know, I ordered a couple of coffees on e le ma from Luckin and after incentives, it's
 
 Tu Le 
 Yeah, sorry.
 
 Lei Xing 
 to ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le 
 40 cents 40 cents
 
 ‚Åì man,
 
 free rides for like a week, two weeks.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Right? It's
 
 starting to happen all over again in the Waimai, the food delivery ‚Åì sector. So.
 
 Tu Le 
 So peeling
 
 layers of the onion back. ‚Åì These things happen, okay? Price wars in a familiar frame from people that have lived in China that have experienced China significantly, especially over the last 15 years is a race to the bottom. Regardless of sector, if someone's making money, more companies will enter and then they'll...
 
 create a price war, whether it's solar panels, whether it's whether it's food delivery. What's really important here is, Bloomberg had written about this, is when it's state-owned enterprises, the central government has a lot more control with reducing overcapacity, closing factories. But when it comes to EV makers, battery makers, some tech consumer products companies, they don't have control because they're private enterprises.
 
 So at least not direct control.
 
 Lei Xing 
 I think case in point you mentioned about battery makers. Aito M8, Richard Yi, he put out a Weibo today basically saying that Aito M8, ‚Åì the battery electric version, the CATL is the sole, the exclusive supplier. And he says something in Chinese called Wu Hun Ba, which means ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le 
 Hell no.
 
 Lei Xing 
 We're not launching this model with the mixed suppliers of battery suppliers. CATL is the only supplier for this. It's kind of a selling point these days somehow. And that's kind of the price we're in. If you come back, you go into the showrooms, the two, the biggest rivalry right now is the Li Auto i8 and the Onvo L90.
 
 And if you talk to these showroom people, they will have tactics of saying something bad about the other competitor. And we are better. That's all part of the price war. It's not only reflected in the prices. It's more of the bloodbath that we kind of talk about everywhere. Competition is everywhere.
 
 Tu Le 
 Huawei and CATL have a partnership with Chang'an to build the AVATR So it would make sense that Huawei would endorse CATL.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, I mean, it's called the CHN, right? With Chang'an, it's Chang'an, Huawei, and the Ningde Shizhai, which is but it's CATL.
 
 CHN also means China.
 
 Tu Le 
 So what do you think about, I think the biggest news last week in the West was Uber Lucid Nuro
 
 Did we talk about that last week a little bit?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah. Yeah. mean, that's, uh, it's interesting. It's almost like a, a Lucid got a, got a lifeline from Uber.
 
 Tu Le 
 Nuro too
 
 Lei Xing 
 That's how I kind
 
 of look at it. Yeah, Nuro yeah. And it's interesting that now we have the Baidu RT6, the US version of the Baidu RT6.
 
 Tu Le 
 except it's not a $35,000 vehicle.
 
 Lei Xing 
 wow. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 It's still going to be over $100,000 easy. ‚Åì One of the things that I wanted to also ‚Åì talk about really quickly was Japan has a trade deal with the United States now. The Detroit two and the UAW aren't very happy about it. And I just wish that they would get to building cars that.
 
 American consumers want.
 
 There's never going to be this Goldilocks moment where the market is just right. They just need to sit, put their heads down and start grinding and building and designing better cars, That's what's going to win. That's what's going to allow them to win.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah. And the other thing we should talk about is speaking of American. Faraday Future announced the FX super one, which is heavily being ridiculed by Chinese media because it's basically a Wey Gaoshan MPV. And right now it's not confirmed, but everything is pointing to being a great wall motor being one of two.
 
 Tu Le 
 You
 
 Yeah
 
 Lei Xing 
 kind of the, not the contract manufacturer,
 
 body supplier, if you will, of these upcoming Faraday Future vehicles ‚Åì for the US market. And one of the things that people are talking about was this image on the website of Faraday Future of this Super One. It literally had the Gaoshan in the Chinese. So yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 They should have photoshopped it out.
 
 They didn't even photoshop it out.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, yeah. And then the other thing, speaking of that, the other thing I tweeted about this Beijing ending the completely ICE vehicles from ride hailing platforms. The sub branch posted something about it and then they posted something else saying, no, that was a mistake. ‚Åì So.
 
 Tu Le 
 goodness.
 
 Lei Xing 
 That's why we try to not to jump into conclusions too quickly. It becomes folly. And one of the follies that's also happening is, I don't know if you heard that BYD was supposed to ‚Åì sponsor the Chinese Football Association. But there are reportedly some other automakers against that.
 
 Tu Le 
 So this is.
 
 Lei Xing 
 So it looks like that will be off for now. They were supposed to invest or sponsor 75 million RMB for a five-year term. But it looks like BYD is kind of under pressure from competitors to not do it. They just sponsored Inter Milan. Inter Milan.
 
 Tu Le 
 But yes,
 
 I'm sure that costs more than ¬•75 million.
 
 Lei Xing 
 The thing behind this is because the Chinese football, men's football team ‚Åì suck. It has been the joke for many years, So I don't know.
 
 Tu Le 
 So
 
 my good friend and your good friend Mark Dreyer, who is a sports journalist ‚Åì and specifically covers the Chinese sports, ‚Åì all kinds of sports. He's a Brit, lived in the United States, ‚Åì and he wrote a book that kind of chronicles
 
 the Chinese sports with a heavy dose of Chinese soccer or Chinese football and kind of how Xi Jinping really, really leaned into ‚Åì trying to make the Chinese football national team one of the most competitive. So for those that are interested in learning more about how the Chinese sports scene has evolved.
 
 Then look up Mark Dreyer, D-R-E-Y-E-R. He has a book that's really, really good. He's one of those encyclopedias of knowledge. He's a really good dude. yeah. That was pretty cool to see BYD sponsoring Inter Milan. Does that mean that BYD is going to be on their jersey? The kit?
 
 Lei Xing 
 I'm not sure what the exact arrangement is, it's a partner, right? Partnership.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yeah,
 
 so, so.
 
 Lei Xing 
 It looks like
 
 BYD also announced something with the Chinese youth football. There's an entity that they're working with. So who knows? But it seems that after the Euro 2020, was it Euro 2024? Yes. The Copa America, I think BYD is pretty big into football or soccer sponsorships now. Kind of worked out well for them.
 
 Tu Le 
 Hmm. Well, also,
 
 also FIFA, Olympics, things like that. Lenovo is also a huge sponsor of the Olympics and stuff like that. what will be interesting is in 2028 when the Olympics comes to Los Angeles with Lenovo as the cloud sponsor.
 
 Lei Xing 
 ‚Åì you could, yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 So how's that gonna work?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, I definitely think BYD will be a part of it by the time LA Olympics comes around somehow. It's too big of opportunity.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yeah, man, I don't think there's any doubt in my mind.
 
 It
 
 would be a terrific coming out party for them. And you know, there are sharp elbows because when the Olympics was in Japan, Toyota was the vehicle sponsor, believe, and they wanted to have autonomous shuttles and things like that. So.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 We're going to start to see on the global stage as events, global events occur in the United States. Some, we'll hear a lot of behind the scenes lobbying and movement, but, and we'll cover it as long as we can confirm it's not just some crazy. ‚Åì But.
 
 So.
 
 Lei Xing 
 And then speaking of going international, XPeng started CKD production in Indonesia already. Click.
 
 Tu Le 
 These-
 
 CKD, for those that ‚Åì are kind new to following automotive, they're basically knockdown kits. And they ship in a big box from China to Indonesia. And then in Indonesia, they put them together into the final finished good vehicle. So that's for tariff purposes, that's for ‚Åì trade ‚Åì requirements.
 
 So the bulk of the work component manufacturing is still done in China. And then they'll ship a big box to Indonesia. so Indonesia is not a huge, huge passenger vehicle market. So we're probably looking at a few hundred CKD a month for the first few months, tops at most.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 And...
 
 Tu Le 
 So
 
 Lei, that's all I have. So I'm gonna go to questions.
 
 Lei Xing 
 We do know that this September, there's ‚Åì the 80th anniversary of, what's the word, the fascist?
 
 Tu Le 
 Mmm.
 
 Lei Xing 
 You're here, right? I mean, there's going to be a military parade to, you know.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yeah
 
 Lei Xing 
 I don't know whether that's causing the issue already, but.
 
 Tu Le 
 Chang'an Ji'e is
 
 going to be very, very limited.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah. Other.
 
 Tu Le 
 So hey, I'm
 
 gonna go to questions.
 
 So Riz, thank you. Riz called us legends. Nice, dude.
 
 Lei Xing 
 TGIF, TGIF.
 
 Tu Le 
 So, and then Riz has another comment.
 
 How they pulled together that is remarkable. He's talking about the big test with 36 vehicles, SPX Cross. So here.
 
 Lei Xing 
 ‚Åì I mean, that's
 
 that's that that involves heavy investment. I mean, not a typical media outlet can do it unless you have the cofers. I mean. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 So Lei, from your experience with it, what area does L90 need to improve on for its intended customer group, if at all? Is embargo over?
 
 ‚Åì
 
 Big L90 video, from your experience with it, what area does the L90 need to improve on for its intended customer group?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Alright.
 
 Well, it's what the it's they're going after the Li Auto customer group. There's no, no, no, you know, no doubt about that. Families, two kids.
 
 Tu Le 
 Do you think it compares?
 
 Lei Xing 
 ‚Åì sorry?
 
 Tu Le 
 Feature and quality wise, do you think it can compete?
 
 Lei Xing 
 definitely competes. ‚Åì Feature quality pricing. I will say that I actually got to check out i8 the interior. Although as weird as it looks, interior, if you know about Li Auto, it's a typical the auto interior, but I would say it's more a tidy, cleaner look.
 
 interior, ‚Åì which I think might be slightly better done than the Onvo L90. But if you think about pricing, think at the end of the day, the pricing I think is the best. Pricing, maybe the power swapping is the biggest killer here in terms of drawing customers. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le 
 Right.
 
 Lei Xing 
 new M8 is 370,000 expected pre-sale pricing. The Li Auto is 350,000. An Onvo 90 with BAS is below 200,000 as we talked about. we've seen the videos of these cars being shipped and produced. Speaking of the 800,000s
 
 Tu Le 
 What's crazy, lady?
 
 Is that?
 
 Lei Xing 
 NIO produced was an Onvo L90 just yesterday, right? I will say this, that the Onvo L90 is a vehicle that cannot fail. That's how significant it is. I will say that.
 
 Tu Le 
 So I was there for vehicle number 500,000.
 
 Lei Xing 
 based on what I've seen and experienced. is, yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 So. ‚Åì
 
 So SSJJ005
 
 says some EV fans are expecting big number from L90, like 10,000 a month. But there's no way Pure EV 6 seater SUV could sell more than 5,000 a month. Only EREV 6 seater SUV exceeds 10,000 a
 
 Lei Xing 
 That's
 
 a very good point. That's a very good point. ‚Åì
 
 But yeah, mean, but if you look at Onvo trying to achieve 20,000 sales, I'm expecting L90 to be a big part of that. And you can kind of do the math of the possible numbers it can get to.
 
 Tu Le 
 Lei, here's another question. Riz asks us, you read it.
 
 You first.
 
 Lei Xing 
 I just saw the BYD question.
 
 Tu Le 
 Yes.
 
 Lei Xing 
 I mean.
 
 I'll say this, BYD will try everything, to get there.
 
 Tu Le 
 I don't think they're going to have any problem getting to 5 million this year. ‚Åì If we saw export numbers into Europe, those are growing. There are some Chinese brands now and Chinese products that are in the top 10 in Europe. So that is going to be a pretty reliable market. And it's the third largest market in the world, unless the EU.
 
 is going to ‚Åì increase the difficulty of exporting to Europe, number one. Number two, what's important is that this week, the EU commission is now in Beijing ‚Åì talking with Xi Jinping. So ‚Åì here's a few more questions.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yes.
 
 Yeah. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le 
 Although I don't think the L90 will sell 10,000 has to outsell existing Tang L, C16 and new I8, LS9 and 9X in order for them to say it was successful. Tongyi ma?
 
 Lei Xing 
 the
 
 Tu Le 
 You agree with that?
 
 Lei Xing 
 So I didn't catch the last part.
 
 Tu Le 
 ‚Åì Let me reread it. Although I don't think L90 will sell 10,000 a month, it has to outsell Tang L, C16, the new i8, LS9, and 9X in order for them to say it was successful.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Ugh.
 
 So here's another way, basically, let's talk about I8 because I8 is the direct better and the biggest rival to me, maybe also the industry. That from LiAuto's perspective, don't think they will, because they learned from Mega that the I8 is not something that expect huge volumes anyhow. So Onvo L90 beating the I8.
 
 is something that's kind of a foreground conclusion. It should be.
 
 But I just think among all of these, at least the pure electrics, Anvail on the 90 has the best, it's best primed to do well.
 
 at this point.
 
 Tu Le 
 An easy indicator
 
 is all of these vehicles are new. I don't think the 9X has started shipping yet. But how quickly do they incentivize sales of the i8? Because Li Auto is trying to stay above the fray. L90 really, really, really put pressure on all the incumbents that have
 
 Lei Xing 
 What?
 
 Tu Le 
 these large SUV six seaters Now with Xi Jinping in the background saying, hey, let's end this price war. How long is the L90 gonna be in the market without a battery under 200,000 RMB before I8, before all these other companies create incentives or price reductions to try to combat that low price? I think that's gonna be an easy indicator.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, think also for the L90, think remember the bigger picture is the break-even target by the end of the year. And L90 doesn't have to sell significant number of volumes. We have to look at they're also launching the actually the new ES8, which is actually, believe it or not,
 
 being produced at F3. F3 will SOP in September in Hefei already. mean, NIO has the capacity, I'll tell you that. yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 Hmm.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Sydney Roosters. ‚Åì just, although L90, just have to execute well for what it's trying to do and not worry about competition. think that's the line. And this showed this round of ‚Åì planning and pre-launch was rather different than what happened with the L60.
 
 Tu Le 
 Riz, Riz, I'm gonna ask a friend that...
 
 Riz, I'm gonna ask a friend to ship me a Sydney Rooster's jersey with the BYD logo on it. ‚Åì And if I get it in the next few weeks, month, I'll wear it on the show.
 
 Last question.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Well, that's the question on the BAAS network. Well, I mean, that's the billion dollar question, right? Because they've signed up partners. I think right now, NIO and LiAuto are probably NIO should be ahead in terms of supercharging network, not the battery swapping. But LiAuto is rapidly catching up because they're launching these I series. And they're closing in on 3,000
 
 supercharging networks or stations in China. That's pretty fast. And they're betting on the 10 minutes you get, what, 500 kilometers or something on the 5C charging network. We have to see what the partnerships with NIO materialize versus the competition from CATL adding on their own. So that halo effect is not something easy to reach, I think.
 
 at this point. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le 
 Here's my two cents.
 
 Lei Xing 
 I mean, they, ‚Åì yeah.
 
 Tu Le 
 This is gonna be unpopular for the NIO fans, but when does swapping become unnecessary? Because with mega chargers, we're talking 400 kilometers in five minutes. And so you and I did the gen three and gen four, that was three and a half minutes for new battery. Now there's a burden that...
 
 NIO bears other that other car makers don't and that's the whole battery swapping station investment. Now to Lei's point, they are one of the largest charging infrastructure owners in China, NIO is, ‚Åì which is pretty funny because they also have to spend a lot of money on battery swapping systems. know, ‚Åì I feel like
 
 the law of diminishing returns as ‚Åì the mix in chemistry changes in batteries, the battery management systems are better, charging speed is better, and the resiliency of the battery pack due to cycles is also improved. And I think long term, swapping has its place, but maybe on the commercial side. And again, this might be an unpopular take.
 
 ‚Åì I don't know if we need swapping if I can charge to 75 % within three or four minutes.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Well, we know that the government encourages battery swapping. We know that CATL is in on the game. We know that they're building tens of thousands. But at the same time, we have these competitors, Li Auto, saying we're going to do it on our own. We have the Tesla Supercharger Network, the BYD with the flash megawatt charging. Currently, from our experience,
 
 You tell me if I'm wrong. Sure, mean, we have the trip, battery swapping is sweet. saves time, definitely. But does that mean that it has the complete advantage? Alluding to what you may have not said, maybe not, right? ‚Åì But that's the kind of the dynamic that we're seeing. I think this strong versus the strong, that it's not exclusive
 
 to anyone's advantage at this point. At least it's not exactly a
 
 Tu Le 
 So I
 
 think if we look at NIO as charging and swapping, this is their advantage. It's not just swapping. It's that if we wanted to Lei, we could have gone to a charging ‚Åì rest stop and charged it without a swapping station. So I think that's their advantage.
 
 Lei Xing 
 and many of the swap stations have
 
 partners next to them.
 
 Tu Le 
 So, but again, the mega chargers are very cost prohibitive right now from that standpoint. So NIO is still going to have a ‚Åì advantage on swapping. And if it allows them to get vehicles like L90 undercutting the market by several thousand ‚Åì RMB or several thousand dollars, then the advantage is still very clear.
 
 You know, ‚Åì but I don't know outside of Xiaomi, none of these other players that we've talked about, whether it's AITO, whether it's NIO, XPeng have had runaway hits with their product launches. So I don't know if it's fair for the L90 to have that type of burden on it, especially because there's going to be some competitors in the six seat.
 
 ‚Åì SUV Bev Market segment.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, mean, L90 is so far the most hyped up NIO model.
 
 I mean, period.
 
 Tu Le 
 It's not even a NIO
 
 That's a lot of pressure and pressure burst pipes. ‚Åì So hey, ‚Åì Lei, that's all I have. So want to end it?
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah, sure, same here.
 
 Tu Le 
 So everyone, thank you again for joining us. ‚Åì Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Please ‚Åì stand by on X. We'll give you an update on what we're gonna do next week since I'll also be in China. So have a good weekend, everyone.
 
 Lei Xing 
 Yeah.
 
 Have a good trip. Looking forward to seeing you back.
 
 Bye bye.