Episode #218 - Onvo L90 vs. Li Auto i8 Rivalry, EV Price War & VinFast’s Rise in Vietnam

In Episode 218 of China EVs & More, Tu Le and Lei Xing break down one of the most heated summers yet in China’s EV world — a season of price wars, social media battles, and momentum shifts.

We cover:

• ⚔️ Onvo L90 vs. Li Auto i8 rivalry – aggressive pricing, messy launches, and social media smear campaigns.
• 🚗 NIO’s momentum with Onvo L90 – 10,000+ monthly deliveries expected after a near-flawless launch.
• 📉 Li Auto’s missteps – i8 pricing controversy, heavy-duty truck collision stunt backlash, and slowing L-series sales.
• 🔋 EV price war fatigue – central government scrutiny, “non-price cut price cuts,” and supply chain strains.
• 🌍 VinFast’s dominance in Vietnam – how the VF5 is becoming the Grab/taxi of choice and what it means for Southeast Asia.
• ⚡ Charging networks in China vs. the West – interoperability, NIO swap stations, Li Auto superchargers, and why Xiaomi succeeds without its own network.
• 🤖 Robots & Lidar – Hesai and RoboSense pivoting from EVs to robots at the World Robot Conference.

👉 Join Tu and Lei for sharp analysis on the companies, policies, and global forces shaping the EV future.

🔑 Keywords

China EVs, China NEVs, Onvo L90, NIO, Li Auto i8, Li Auto L9, Li Auto Mega, XPeng G7, XPeng P7, Xiaomi SU7, BYD, VinFast VF5, VinFast Vietnam, EV price war China, Chinese EV market, Southeast Asia EVs, EV charging networks, NIO battery swap, Li Auto supercharging, Xiaomi EV strategy, Hesai, RoboSense, World Robot Conference, Sino Auto Insights, Tu Le, Lei Xing.

Would you like me to also create a set of timestamped YouTube chapters for Episode 218 (like I did for Ep. 220) so viewers can jump straight to the L90/i8 fight, VinFast in Vietnam, and charging wars?

Timestamp

0:00 – Welcome & intro

1:10 – A momentum-shifting summer for China’s EV market

3:00 – Li Auto i8 vs. Onvo L90 rivalry heats up

6:30 – Li Auto’s truck collision stunt & social media backlash

8:50 – Water armies explained & smear campaigns in China’s EV sector

10:30 – NIO’s Onvo L90 launch strategy & perfect execution

14:50 – L90 pricing disrupts multiple segments

18:40 – Supply chain discipline & standardization (fridges, features, SKUs)

20:30 – Lessons from Apple, Xiaomi & BYD on execution and profitability

22:30 – How long can Onvo’s momentum last?

23:40 – Li Auto i8 repricing & Pro/Max/Ultra confusion

25:00 – Emotional value in branding: frunks, memes & AR HUDs

27:30 – EV brands evolving from price to brand identity

30:00 – Launch events compared: NIO, Li Auto, XPeng P7

33:00 – Reflections from Singapore & Vietnam trip (Tu Le)

35:30 – VinFast VF5 as Vietnam’s Grab/taxi car of choice

37:00 – VinFast challenges outside Vietnam vs. BYD competition

40:30 – Why VinFast can’t replicate BYD’s scale in Vietnam

43:30 – Charging network interoperability in China vs. the West

46:30 – Why some OEMs still build proprietary charging networks

48:30 – U.S. charging infrastructure vs. China’s WeChat simplicity

49:45 – World Robot Conference recap: Hesai, RoboSense & the robot pivot

51:30 – Closing thoughts & what’s next

Transcript

Tu Le 

Welcome to the China EVs and More podcast. In the next hour or so, my co-host Lei Sheng and I will go over the week's most important and interesting news coming out of the global EV, AV and mobility sectors. What Lei and I discussed today is based on our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice.

For those that are new to 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. and I are two of the most knowledgeable people doing this. So please help us get the word out about this podcast to others. My name is Tu Le I'm the Managing Director at Sino Auto Insights, a global management consultancy that helps organizations bring innovative and tech focused products and services to the transportation and mobility sectors.

I ran a free weekly newsletter that we pull many of our discussion topics from. You can sign up for that at Sinoautoinsights.substack.com, which of course I encourage you to do. A ‚Åì busy, busy looking at new car launches Lei Can you please introduce yourself?

Lei Xing 

I'd definitely say a spoiled Lei for the last few weeks being in China. I've been in EV heaven. After a two week hiatus, we're back. This is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review. And this is episode 218. We're finally at least on the same...

not the same time zone, but maybe the same continent. Same region, same region. I know you've been traveling a bit and then we'll see you ‚Åì soon. You're already here, but then you have to leave. talk about that. ‚Åì it's been, like I said, ‚Åì what a summer it's been. ‚Åì

Tu Le 

Same region of the world.

Lei Xing 

The trip is about to end for me back in China, but it's probably one of those...

Well, most active ‚Åì and controversial summer in recent memory in the smart EV space. ‚Åì And momentum changing summer.

Wouldn't you agree?

Tu Le 

And I'd add that it's not just Chinese electric vehicles in that sector, it's globally that momentum is shifting, ‚Åì power is shifting, and there's more uncertainty than ever.

with regards to the price war, supply chain challenges in and outside of China. the one company that you and I could set our watches to is getting pushback. So this is really, a, ‚Åì let's say very weird summer so far for electric vehicles.

Lei Xing 

I'll be honest with you, I haven't paid too much attention on what's been happening outside of China, because there's been too much happening inside China, inside the smart EV space. ‚Åì And lucky enough to have attended three different launches and reveals from WeiXiaoLi in July and just a couple of nights ago. ‚Åì And then the kind of the beef.

It's another part of the bloodbath, the involution that's happening, not the price cuts, not the price war, but how people are jumping on each other, dissing each other, and maybe misunderstanding each other. That's the kind of the bloodbath that's happening at the same time. And the Onvo L90 and the Li Auto i8,

Like I said, it's a rivalry. It's becoming a nasty rivalry of how these salespeople and some of the upper management are shouting at each other over social media about the type of smear campaigns that are happening for both companies. And Li Xiang just came out with a video of himself and he's like, you know, we don't want to be the ones doing this.

But then you

You you look at this and it's hard selling a vehicle in China these days. We see the numbers, but the way you get there is...

‚Åì All sorts of ways and tactics. I mean, I've been, yeah.

Tu Le 

Yeah, in...

Companies are being stretched thin, suppliers are being stretched thin, price cuts are being scrutinized by the central government. And so it's more important than ever that when you launch a vehicle and announce initial pricing, you put your best foot forward right away. And...

I think that's not what happened with the Li Auto i8 and it's been getting a lot of negative press in social media. It's more than twice as much as the L90 when you take the battery out of the L90 and so it is getting pretty nasty but that tells you that

this price war almost in year four is really really starting to get to everybody because the central government is complaining about it they're making sure at least communicating to the provincial governments that you know what you guys don't encourage this stuff and i i don't know how the central government

cannot do something ‚Åì more active because this is the environment that they kind of created for themselves. And so it is just an extreme, extreme environment.

Lei Xing 

Yeah

Yeah, and then I talked to some of these PR people, ‚Åì even some of the upper management, they're tired of it. ‚Åì Pointing fingers, he said, she said. then that ‚Åì controversial i8 heavy duty truck collision stunt ended.

with three companies ‚Åì releasing a joint statement with Li Auto apologizing with the China Automotive Engineering Institute, whatever, apologizing. ‚Åì And that saga seems to be done. ‚Åì then now you have.

Tu Le 

Can you tell people what happened?

Lei Xing 

So at the Li Auto i8 launch, Li Auto showed a video of the i8 going at 60 kilometers per hour in a head-on collision with a Dongfeng Chenglong heavy-duty truck going at 40 kilometers per hour.

Tu Le 

Let me stop you there, Lei.

there were a little bit of ridicule by social media because they were saying that the front of the Li Auto i8 was like a ramp and it would cause a severe accident. And so that's why Li Auto came out with this video.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, and all the memes came out, right?

Yeah, so that video came out, the two cars relative speed is 100 kilometers per hour, right? And then it was showing the cabin of the heavy duty truck dipping, which is not supposed to happen. And then the video on the steering wheel of the truck, it was clearly showing the logo of Dongfeng Chenglong. And then that's how they got upset. And I think it was a

Mistake kind of a mistake on Li Auto's part not covering the logo And you know the way the social media works in China things get blown out of proportion in seconds and causing the outcry causing I think it made don't chonglong ‚Åì famous They should thank Li Auto but for making them, know ‚Åì

releasing all these statements and posters, ‚Åì shaming Li Auto and then...

Tu Le 

Well, generally speaking,

they talk about water armies. Can you tell people what a water army is?

Lei Xing 

Water armies that's exactly.

Water armies are people that leave either positive or really negative messages on a post. And this is an industry in China, by the way. There's people actually that do nothing but post all day. And so the reason of the beef between Li Auto and NIO is that

Both sides think the other side is employing water armies to say bad things about

one's product or the other's product. ‚Åì And ‚Åì I think it's still brewing. It's not ended. But speaking with the product itself, I talked about the momentum changing summer. Onvo is going way, way up. And the Li Auto is kind of, I wouldn't say going down, but it's kind of stuck.

because it had a...

The July numbers was down, quite big. And now they're facing this issue with the i8 launch, which they had to ‚Åì reset the pricing and the configuration less than a week after the launch, partially due to the Onvo L90, partially due to the customer ordering feedback, and partially due to

Tu Le 

Hmm.

Lei Xing 

‚Åì the competition in the industry.

Tu Le 

So.

Really quickly, Lei, ‚Åì the Li Auto they have an L7, L8, L9, they have a Mega. The L6 through L9, they're a little bit older. They haven't been refreshed ‚Åì as aggressively as some of their competitors. And then the Mega has settled from a sales standpoint and monthly sales, so it's doing okay, but it's an 800,000 RMB car.

Lei Xing 

What?

Tu Le 

The i8 came out, you know, very much higher price than the L90 and I just don't think Li Auto thought that Onvo was going to go that low.

And so it made the i8 seem extremely expensive relative to what's out in the market currently. So there is a few missteps with Li Auto also the relatively to their competitors, they're not refreshing their vehicles as quickly or as as as fast as some of these other competitors are.

Lei Xing 

Well, the auto just launched the updated L series right around the April auto show time. So all of their L series are actually recently updated. ‚Åì And then the rhythm was the i8 launched first that week on a Tuesday. And then on the Friday, I think, or the Thursday, the Onvo L90 launched with

a shocking, shocking pricing, but that was already decided many weeks and months ago. And then which kind of costs Li Auto to go back to the drawing board and get rid of the Pro Max Ultra and just have one config available. And then you add on 10,000 renminbi to get the screen, I think, the entertainment.

and the better cockpit. And then that's it. When everybody else is going the Pro Max Ultra, Li Auto is like, no, we're going to go back to what happened with the One

So these are things that sometimes they don't... I'll tell you this, it's the rapid iterative reaction to the market. The actions taken by these companies that's causing severe headaches to the traditional legacy brands. There's no way a Volkswagen, there's no way a GM can...

decide on the repricing of the vehicle in a week, let alone a month.

That's the kind of the China speed and the bloodbath and the involution.

Well, we do apologize ‚Åì because we are in China and the internet sometimes causes issues, but we'll have to manage.

I'll continue talking. mean, wow. Yeah, yeah. So just sharing a little bit more about the kind of the rhythm, momentum changing going back to the Onvo L90 was everything that happened with the L90, the planning, the launch, the pre-sale, the getting the vehicles to the showrooms, the test drives.

Tu Le 

Yeah, you keep talking.

Lei Xing 

the launch and then delivery on launch, ramp on launch. ‚Åì

I think it was the perfect launch from NIO finally. And now we're talking about, we're pointing the latest ‚Åì rumors and ‚Åì are pointing to 10,000, at least 10,000 now more, or even the management is expecting or striving to get to 10,000 in the first full month deliveries, which I think will happen.

Tu Le 

So there's a.

there's a eight to 10 week lead time currently for the L90. And that's increased recently. So go ahead.

Lei Xing 

See you soon.

Yeah.

Think about the L90. Let me give you a point of frame of how not only it's disrupting the three-row, six-seat SUV market, but the price range in the BAAS mode, 179,800,000 is cheaper than, let's say, the G7, the XPeng G7, is cheaper than the G9.

which is a five seater. ‚Åì So it's disrupting, I guess, multiple segments. And the rhythm that NIO put this vehicle into has been quite well, unlike the previously what has done. And what is the norm in the industry is you do the reveal.

You do the pre-sale, you do the launch, and that time usually lags. The gap is quite long. But now I think you're going to see these launch more succinct launches where the product availability is going to be different, where the customers, can order the vehicle and then they can get it right away. And it's not the capability, it's the choice.

That was shared at this interview session and they talked about it's a choice to launch delivery on launch, but it's a capability to ramp after launch, after delivery. And that takes planning. I think that's what worked right. But at the end of the day, it's the pricing.

I mean, nothing matters more.

Tu Le 

Well...

To me, it's a synchronized dance because if pricing is aggressive enough, you see crazy amounts of demand. And good examples of the automotive side are Xiaomi recently because the SU7 it's been selling quite well consistently for

Lei Xing 

Yeah, it's a way to put it.

Tu Le 

number of months and you're not hearing really anything about supply chain issues, component issues, and so that's what Li Bin and NIO or Onvo have to hope for that they are really, really ‚Åì experienced now because they've launched so many different products.

at in Hefei and so hopefully 10,000 a month isn't really going to be that much of an issue for them. Now again it takes planning but also Lei when you're working the supply chain sourcing logistics it takes a lot of coordination because you're constantly talking to the supplier

asking them when they're shipping their product or their component, and then you're talking to the truck to make sure the truck is moving and is still going to be on time. You know, just think of it like at the airport, right? Like you can't take off your next flight unless the last flight was there and the passenger off the plane, the luggage is off the plane.

the plane is clean and then you can bring them on board. So that's what the coordination, that's why I say it's more like a synchronized dance, right?

Lei Xing 

Yeah, and then the other important thing is standardizing features, which is a good way to help the supply chain. Because when you do that, and like what Li Auto i8 is going to do is it makes supply, supplying, let's say the fridge inside the car, it's becoming standard. ‚Åì So if we order 10 vehicles, we know there's going to be 10 fridges.

Rather than there's 10 vehicles, there's five that has the config with a fridge. That was shared by ‚Åì Li Hong at the interview session after the launch. I think that's also very important, standardizing ‚Åì to make the supply chain more efficient. Rather than the customer choosing too much options. That's the other thing I learned.

Tu Le 

in

And

that's the key because engineers, technical people, they want complexity. want every feature. Marketing people, want salespeople, they want every feature. But then the manufacturing guys are like, OK, but if we put every single feature in there and the supply chain guys are going like, well, there's all these different things now that we need to order and make sure everything's there and on time. And so.

‚Åì That's why there's always this battle between the engineering folks, the manufacturing folks and the sales and marketing side, because the supply chain people would just want you to have one SKU with no extra features. And then the marketing and sales people, they need to differentiate the product somehow. And so they want more features. They want more ‚Åì bells and whistles. And so... ‚Åì

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Tu Le 

Truly great operational companies like an Apple, like a Xiaomi, obviously, they're able to generate demand and fulfill it. And so that's why they're supremely profitable because they're not giving up sales because lead times are too long, component shortages cause delays, things like that. So I think...

And obviously BYD is also another great example of a company that's able to not only create demand, but then build the supply to meet that demand. And that's not easy, especially when you're growing.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Yeah, what Li Bin shared was he really talked about this Onvo L90 from the very beginning, the cost base it's built on, the pricing, the components that go into it. It's 85 kilowatt hour battery. It's not an 86, it's not an 87. All of these things are part of the synchronized dance that you talked about.

It takes long, long planning and execution, I think, has been well done. Something I think that was missing from NIO for quite a long time. But, you know, this is one model. The question now becomes, how long does this momentum continue? How long can they stay off competition? Can they consistently deliver a model or have deliveries?

over a certain threshold. ‚Åì That has not been the case. So it's something we can look forward to. But at least everything's working up, at least on the onboard part, which means the NIO is going to take maybe some hit, possibly. ‚Åì The Firefly seems to be OK. ‚Åì And who would have thought, right?

Tu Le 

And a quick reminder to everyone, we're rounding the corner heading into the end of summer into Q3 and Q4 when intensity does dial up significantly as we dash towards the end of the year. And people are scrapping for sales, fighting, clawing, elbowing each other for that additional sale. And ‚Åì

Lei Xing 

that this one product.

Tu Le 

I think you raise a great point. Is this a month long thing? Is this a two month long thing? Because we're cutting to the bone with Onvo at 179.8 already. And so if they can't price cut and if they do some non-price cut price cut, we could potentially get into negative margin, couldn't we?

Lei Xing 

I mean, look at the i8, right? The i8, the expected pricing was 350 to 400K. And then when it launched, it was 321,800 to about 370K. And then a week later, the prices were kind of dropped to have one config.

Tu Le 

Yeah. So they, that was to me their way of trying to disguise the price cut because the central government is scrutinizing all that stuff very closely. And I went into a Li Auto retail store in Wukesong We went to the west side, had dinner.

Lei Xing 

It's.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tu Le 

with her had lunch with grandma. So we were at the Wukesong and they have all those retail stores and restaurants now. And there's a Li Auto retail store across from a Xiaomi retail store. Yes. Yeah. I did not because the Nio store was a was far away from the Li Auto and Xiaomi store. So I did not get a chance to go to the Nio store. But

Lei Xing 

And there's a huge NIO store there too, the Huaxi Live. Huaxi Live, yeah. ‚Åì

Tu Le 

I'm not a big fan of the Li Auto i8 exterior. It does look like they morph together an L6, L7, and a Mega. And the proportions are weird.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Well,

the way I describe it is the mega front ‚Åì MPV side profile, ‚Åì SUV rear, a L8 ‚Åì size with the L9 space.

Tu Le 

I actually...

Lei Xing 

That's what it is. And at this

point, I think it really doesn't matter if it's a SUV, if it's an MPV, if it's a whatever you want to call it. I think it's other things. ‚Åì There's this something called emotional value. And that frunk seems to be one of the biggest emotional value that's working for the L90. And then the i8,

will be the table of the Captain Li Xiang holding up that table, which became all the memes. And then the P7 a couple of nights ago was throwing these ‚Åì emojis on the AR HUD. These are all emotional value that you don't think of are that important, but which are quite important, actually.

Tu Le 

But that's part of it, Lei.

That's where they're trying to evolve into what the brand represents. And they're trying to point to the customer to say, look, we value your, you know.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Tu Le 

your wants, your desires, and this is what we represent. that's kind of showing some maturity because it can't be about price all the time because that's just a race to zero.

And if you want to be global brand, you got to have some sort of brand that represents who you are, not only from a positioning standpoint, but

does it also resonate with who you want your customers to be? Because how you get them is not through logic, it's through emotion. And if you think about some of the Western companies, like an Apple, like a Nike, like an Adidas, there's loyalty there because what the brand represents. And so this is where the Chinese EV makers and we, you know, I kind of talked to Sam Livingstone about this, where he was like,

You know, these cars are all similar features. If you squint, they kind of look alike. So the next evolution is going to be brand.

Lei Xing 

Which actually is the point I want to expand a little bit. We talked about this homogeneity quite often previously on the pod, but this time if you really spend time with, you know, going to these events and, ‚Åì and feel these vehicles, I mean, I did a test drive. They're totally different animals. Totally every, what the brand is about, what

what the CEO talks about ‚Åì from many perspectives, I think it would be wrong to just say generally they're all the same. They're not.

Tu Le 

Well, it's as simple as saying

none of the seats feel the same when you're driving.

Lei Xing 

No, right, exactly. mean, the seating of the i8 versus the Onvo L90, they feel totally different. I personally like the i8 seats. They're a little bit more softer, but...

Tu Le 

You know, so.

I will say

this, I'm a big fan of Li Auto interiors. I think they're really well done. I think the finish is super, super nice. I think it's best in class, in my opinion.

Lei Xing 

Yeah,

yeah, no, nobody does the happy family in mobile, a happy home, a mobile home, an AI home. Nobody does it like Li Auto. And ‚Åì but have they reached a point where they're facing some bottleneck?

‚Åì possibly. Especially given Li Bin, his was pretty adamant about now is the right time to disrupt this large SUV dominated by the eREVs and the plugins. And he thinks this is the right time. And Onvo L90 seems to be a proof. ‚Åì Given now they also, what the L60 didn't have.

was now the 2,100 or so compatible power swap stations. When the L60 launched, there weren't that many. So sometimes it's about timing. It's about the product. It's about planning. And whenever everything clicks, then you get the perfect result, which is the L90. Not the same can be said for other models.

Tu Le 

We have to also remind everyone that for years, Li Auto was solely focused on the China market, which really allowed them to create this positioning of ‚Åì being a very family-oriented brand. I think that now we're starting to see that

maybe Li Auto from a branding standpoint is a bit one dimensional, but because NIO and XPeng and these other brands have gone abroad, have taken lumps and learned about how to compete in a foreign market where brands are different than what they would compete in in China. Maybe that's showing up a little bit in the

struggles with the i8 launch.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, and how the launch event, sometimes I really pay close attention, you know, attending these events, what type of guests they bring, what type of stars or big shots they bring in to help with the launch. And the three models were totally different, right? The Onvo L90 was Li Bin having a chat, fireside chat with three different families, very down to earth.

And then the i8 was having this ‚Åì crosstalk, an actor doing some stunts with the vehicle of the AI capabilities. And the P7, it was a bunch of these handsome guys or mostly pretty ladies taking photos and doing KOLs, doing ‚Åì live streamings. Totally different.

Tu Le 

That piece of that piece of looks pretty sharp.

It reminds me a bit of a Dodge Charger.

Lei Xing 

Well, Dodge Charger, ‚Åì the GTR, some point it to the GTR. I first thought of the EQXX. And then was talking to Frank Wu today, former head of design for Jiyue. And I talked about, look at this video showing He Xiaopeng speaking to the car outside of it and with the voice activated functionality. then, know, well, Frank was like, know, we're ahead of time. It also shows.

how difficult it is trying to do innovation and make it work and make it sell. Too bad Jiyue was not ‚Åì saved or ‚Åì did not survive, but sometimes there's a lot of deja vu moments, to be honest.

Tu Le 

Yeah, I think...

Jiyue, unfortunately, or Ji Du, whatever you want to call them, they died for the wrong reason, but ‚Åì that has nothing to do with the quality and design of their vehicles. think ‚Åì Frank did a tremendous job with the Ji Du vehicles that we saw. ‚Åì

Lei Xing 

Yeah. ‚Åì

Tu Le 

Anything else, man? I guess we can talk a little bit about, or I could talk a little bit about what I've been up to.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, please. You be an MIA. A bit.

Tu Le 

So.

Lei Xing 

I

know you're busy, so.

Tu Le 

So last Wednesday, I came back to Beijing and with my family this time, the boys are seeing grandma in Beijing. They actually went to a nature camp for the last couple of days outside of Beijing. It's been hot, but it hasn't been raining that much.

Lei Xing 

Turn around, huh?

Tu Le 

‚Åì And you know this. And so I actually took off on Saturday to go to Singapore for some meetings and to catch up with some friends on my way to Ho Chi Minh, to Saigon, where I currently am. I'm sitting in a hotel room in Saigon. Yeah, so this is my original OG home, which I never really lived here, but it is ‚Åì where I was born.

Lei Xing 

Hey, that's home. That's kind of home, right? That's home.

Tu Le 

And so, ‚Åì reflections. In Singapore, everyone that I met with, friends, potential clients, and some folks that I met with because I'd been pushing out meetings and haven't been to Singapore and Vietnam in quite some time. So a lot of meetings with people that have reached out, potential clients.

‚Åì and every single one of them. Hey, have you seen the BYDs on the streets? Have you seen the BYDs on the streets? so... ‚Åì

Lei Xing 

You know, yeah.

Well, tell them to come over to China, any city, and all you're going to see are sea of BYDs and Teslas, Bentley motors and ions.

Tu Le 

So,

so Lei, I am, I am just outside of District 1, downtown Saigon or Ho Chi Minh. So it's officially called Ho Chi Minh, but I was born in Saigon. I wasn't born in Ho Chi Minh City. Most locals still call it Saigon. So that's what I'm going to do as well. ‚Åì

Lei Xing 

Wait, wait.

Tu Le 

I've taken probably five or six Grabs, is Vietnam's Didi which is Vietnam's Uber. And you can take a moped ride or you can take a car ride. I took a Grab from the airport to my hotel, which is about a 45 minute drive. And guess what picked me up a Vinfast, a VF5. So

Lei Xing 

DD. ‚Åì

Mm-hmm.

Tu Le 

‚Åì I ‚Åì don't think I'm exaggerating. I think one of every five or six cars is a Vinfast

Lei Xing 

So Vinfast is the BYD of Vietnam. I don't know whether that's proper.

Tu Le 

Well, they're trying to be,

but, well, they're going to open a factory in India, supposedly. They were supposed to open a factory in North Carolina. That never really happened, and that's not going to happen. So a lot of fleet vehicles, whether it's... ‚Åì

Grab drivers or taxis are using VinFast vehicles and I was in the car for 45 minutes. You know it's nice-ish. I think the car that I got in the most is a VF5 so it's about it's like a hatchback a little bit bigger. I want to say it's about the size of an Atto 3 maybe a little bit smaller okay or a Yuan plus Yuan plus.

Lei Xing 

Yuan plus, okay, so like a A-class

compact SUV, yeah.

Tu Le 

Yeah, but the current VinFast VF5 is probably like the Yuan Plus five years ago, the fit and finish and everything. So ‚Åì I think it's about $20,000 here. And if VinFast wants to compete in other countries in Southeast Asia,

Lei Xing 

Mmm, yeah. ‚Åì

Tu Le 

That's gonna be a hard sell against a BYD. They're not gonna have home court advantage like they do here in Saigon. And so, I don't begrudge them at all. I want them to win. One thing that is a bit ironic is that Vinfast is run by the richest man in Vietnam, but he's not like...

‚Åì like Elon Musk billionaire, he's, you know, modest when it comes to other billionaires around the world. you he...

launched this company five years ago, seven, six years ago. And the fact that he can build so many cars and Rivian and Lucid and some of these other players are still struggling is, it blows my mind. It's a little bit confusing, to be honest with you. And so ‚Åì part of VinFast's challenge is that they make these cars and then they sell them to entities that the founder owns.

Lei Xing 

Yeah

Tu Le 

So it's like same pair of pants, different pockets.

Lei Xing 

Exactly.

I mean, I think they were all over the news and plays two, three years ago, 2021, 2022. They're all over the map. Right. And now we don't quite hear them, at least on the US side. They try to sell. I think they did deliver some vehicles, but it looks like the whole market home sweet home. But outside of Vietnam, I don't know.

that haven't heard too much, you know.

Tu Le 

You... The

key is that...

We can argue accounting and profitability at a later time. The fact of the matter is they're building cars. The cars are getting mileage on streets in Vietnam. And so those are lessons that if they can actually get an injection of capital and really refine the engineering a little bit, refine the fit and finish of these vehicles, then they got a shot. But ‚Åì

Vietnam is not China, right? Vietnam is about 90 million people, 95 million people. Obviously China is 1.4 billion. So that's why BYD can be BYD. Because BYD is 90%, 85 % China sales.

in Vinfast, if they have 60, 70, 80 % share in Vietnam, it still doesn't equate to.

five million cars being sold. That's not going to happen for Vinfast in the Vietnamese market. So these are the types of challenges that they still need to overcome to be a player, not only in Vietnam, but other parts of the world. And it looks like they're focusing on the smaller vehicles, hence moving aggressively in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Lei Xing 

Yeah,

any Chinese EVs at all? On the roads?

Tu Le 

I

saw some BYDs. When you leave the airport, there's a BYD billboard that you see. You don't see that many, but you see them.

Lei Xing 

‚Åì Who else?

Tu Le 

I've probably taken a picture of three or four. So let me finish that statement of the five or six Grabs I've taken. I think four times has been a Vinfast. So it is the ubiquitous ride hailing and taxi car for Vietnam.

Lei Xing 

Mm. Yeah.

Tu Le 

Any other observations? I fly into Singapore, I fly out of Singapore. Customs? I have carry on, I don't have a check in. 15 minutes. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Vietnam? I flew in at 2.30 and it felt like every single plane that was going to Vietnam flew in at 2.30.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Tu Le 

and customs took two and a half hours. So. And I wrote in this week's newsletter, that's kind of it feels like a microcosm because Singapore is so efficient and you know, they. So my friend corrected me, I wrote that I visited a friend and he has a Maserati, it's eight years old, and I wrote in the newsletter he paid 200,000 for it.

Lei Xing 

Yeah.

Tu Le 

And that's by design because the Singaporean government doesn't want traffic jams, doesn't want noise pollution, doesn't want pollution. And so he, he WhatsApp me and he was like, I actually paid $192,000 for it. So, so I know he reads the newsletter, but

The other thing that they don't want local Singaporeans to do? Drink. Because a beer in Singapore is about $10 or $11 US.

So visited a friend who lives in, won't say because I don't want to get his local watering hole overpopulated, but let's just say that we found a spot where we could buy big Sapporos for seven sing. So that's a win, baby. That's a win. So, and then man Lei the food in Singapore, the food in Vietnam is just, ‚Åì I need to go on a carb

free diet for like six months after this trip because the hawker centers in Singapore man forget it it's just so good

Lei Xing 

Well, you're going to get a lot.

This trip, I feel like there's a lot more options of either vegetarian or healthy kind of. There's that avocado tree that's becoming quite popular for Waimai with the kale and all of these drink places, the Haiti's, they're coming out with these drinks ‚Åì that are supposedly healthy.

Tu Le 

Mm.

Lei Xing 

So yeah, off topic, but ‚Åì yeah.

Tu Le 

Anyways, that's all I have been. Let

me check questions. So here, Speaking of brand differentiation, this is from SPX. SPX, thank you for always being a loyal viewer and watcher. let me see here. Speaking of brand differentiation, how's the interoperability among charging networks, AKA BYD, ‚Åì XPeng?

Lei Xing 

So.

Thank you.

Tu Le 

NIO, charge at Li Auto stations and vice versa. What percent network does plug-in charge?

Lei Xing 

Well, it's very interoperable. You can charge at anybody else's chargers. And NIO has been the only company that has publicly ‚Åì released the data that was it over 90 % of the charged electricity are from other brands at their chargers. So it's quite common to see ‚Åì one brand of EV charging at the charger of another brand.

Tu Le 

Right.

Lei Xing 

I don't think people think about interoperability at all. Wherever you can find one, you just charge. There's taxis that can charge at an XPeng charger. That's a BAIC branded EV. It's a non-issue.

Tu Le 

The

West seems to put up walls. And ‚Åì at least the charging infrastructure folks, the EV goes, the Electrify Americas, they don't have enough charging to go around. But I'll tell you what, Lei I have probably 10 apps on my phone.

for charging, 10 apps. I have PlugShare, I have Electrify America, I have EVgo, I have ChargePoint, I have, oh my goodness, man, I have Red E. So this is why, this is one of the reasons it's so frustrating owning an electric vehicle. To your point, Lei, why can't I just go to anyone? First of all, there's not enough of them, I'm like, oh my God, so.

Lei Xing 

Cause yeah.

Guess which app you use

to charge an EV in China. Guess which app.

Tu Le 

of the WeChat.

Lei Xing 

Exactly. There's no other app.

Tu Le 

Yeah,

so he has a follow-up. If charging networks are not walled off to competitor cars, why spend billions to build promise and promote them for PR? For example, Xiaomi has no charging network but sells just fine.

Lei Xing 

I think it's a business decision. ‚Åì It's like NIO and Li Auto XPeng as well. They've been very ‚Åì adamant about building their own network to not only work with their own vehicles, but the auto 5C charging, probably the best vehicle to charge at the 5C charging are Li Autos themselves. ‚Åì It's a piece of art. ‚Åì

Tu Le 

the user experience is

optimized for the branded vehicles.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, and it's a piece of mind for the owners who buy these brands. ‚Åì okay, Li Auto has over 3,000 supercharging stations that ‚Åì are all over the place. NIO has how many of swapping and combined charging stations. ‚Åì And some other ones like Xiaomi, don't feel like that's their differentiation that they need to work on.

It's something else for Xiaomi.

Tu Le 

I actually think that

also it's a scarce commodity in other regions of the world.

meaning charging infrastructure, charging stations, they're more scarce. So having your own network is a customer engagement thing. In China, at least in the major tiers, the major corridors for the tier one cities, there's plenty of charging infrastructure, you know, probably every few kilometers. So it's not the scarce item that would allow you to differentiate yourself or engage with your customers.

are better than your competitor.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, I mean, at the Li Auto i8 launch, Li Xiang said the biggest asset, the most expensive asset for the i8 is indeed the supercharging stations. That's the way he put it. Yeah. Yeah.

Tu Le 

Mm-hmm. Yes. And that's the other thing. It's super charting. It's not.

these trickle charger type

of level one. So one thing that was pretty surprising I saw and I posted it in the newsletter this week was Inside EVs had said charging infrastructure in the United States increased significantly. And there's this like second round of charging infrastructure folks like Walmart and a couple other companies. And what they're doing is putting level two with max output being, you know, 354 kilowatt hours.

Lei Xing 

Mmm.

Tu Le 

So despite the Biden ‚Åì cuts or the Trump cuts to Biden's EV policies, I think we're still seeing resilience in some of the supporters of electric vehicles. Maybe we'll lose that momentum because that was already happening. So they couldn't have, they couldn't just cancel it, but

there'll probably be a dip in charging infrastructure or at least shrinking of charging infrastructure year over year kind of thing ‚Åì later this year or early next year.

Lei Xing 

Yeah, I haven't been paying too much attention. Like I said, what's happening outside of China? So the only other thing is I went to the World Robot Conference this afternoon in Yizhou. When you come back, if you have time, maybe take your sons to check it out. Man, it's a sea of robots of every shape.

Tu Le 

So, right, man, I don't have anything else. How about you?

Hmm.

Lei Xing 

size, two-legged, four-legged, half-bodied humanoids, ‚Åì automation, logistics, health, companions, ‚Åì and not a single. There's three halls of these robot companies. I don't remember seeing one foreign company.

‚Åì was madness. It was crazy.

Tu Le 

Yeah, I planned on trying to go, but maybe you're right. Maybe taking the boys would be kind of cool for them to see. They'd probably get bored in 15 minutes, but it'd be worth it for them to see it.

Lei Xing 

‚Åì

Yeah, I'll post some videos on social. But it was

interesting. And Hesai and RoboSense were there. They were only showing applications for robots, which is, I think, becoming a huge revenue opportunity for these traditional LIDAR players that are ‚Åì supplying EVs with LIDARs.

Tu Le 

Well, RoboSense had partnered with a food delivery autonomous in the CES, so we saw them there. anyways, everyone, thank you for your patience. If there was any issues, it sounds like my voice was not carrying very well, but...

Lei Xing 

Yeah. Yeah. ‚Åì

Tu Le 

I know for some reason you can hear me fine, right? So yeah, so apologies for that and appreciate your patience. I'm going to be sat still traveling for another week. And so we'll try to still have China even more next week, but we'll post for sure the time and the date. So everyone, thanks for joining us. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. We will try to talk to you next week.

Lei Xing 

was fine on my side.

Goodnight everyone.