Episode #227 - Xiaomi Surges, Tesla Slows, XPeng Flexes, and GM’s Supply Chain Shock

In Episode 227, Tu and Lei break down a massive week in the global EV industry — one where China’s innovation pace keeps accelerating while Western automakers scramble to respond.  

Xiaomi’s YU7 officially outsells the Tesla Model Y in October, marking a symbolic shift in China’s most competitive EV segment. Meanwhile, Tesla’s domestic sales slump to 26,000, signaling that aggressive price cuts and financing perks may not be enough as Chinese challengers tighten the pressure.

The hosts also unpack XPeng’s viral AI Day, featuring the “Iron Lady” humanoid robot, new L4 capable RoboTaxi prototypes, the Turing chip’s rising importance, and XPeng’s “physical AI” strategy — positioning the company as a vertically integrated mobility+AI platform rather than just an automaker.

On the U.S. side, GM sparks headlines after reportedly urging suppliers to “de-China” their supply chains by 2027 — a massive, risky reshoring effort that could reshape cost structures across North America. Tu and Lei discuss the feasibility and geopolitical backdrop, including the Nexperia crisis, ICE tariff pressures, and USMCA uncertainty.

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They also hit:

🚗 China’s EV sales still climbing globally despite misleading “EV slump” narratives

⚠️ Li Auto’s Mega fire, quality issues & employee discipline fallout

🔥 Another Xiaomi fire incident and the scrutiny on China-speed development

🧠 Volkswagen’s growing reliance on XPeng + Rivian for AD and software

🛰️ XPeng eVTOLs, land aircraft carriers, and new robotics demos

🔋 CATL’s stunning 1,122 GWh of battery output YTD

📉 Tesla incentives in the U.S. as Q4 softness appears

🛠️ Battery-swap wars: CATL Choco-Swap vs NIO’s network

📈 NIO surging past XPeng in monthly deliveries inside China

Fast-paced, brutally honest, and packed with first-hand insight — this episode explains the power dynamics shaping EVs, autonomy, supply chains, and the global auto industry’s next decade.

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to the EV Landscape
02:08 October Sales Insights
06:03 Global EV Sales Trends
08:36 GM's Supply Chain Strategy
12:36 Challenges in Reshoring Supply Chains
14:31 Volkswagen's Chip Strategy
20:31 Xpeng's AI Day Highlights
25:19 The Launch of LS9 and Its Features
26:52 The Evolution of Chinese Flagship Vehicles
28:04 Understanding the Tuhao Culture in China
29:14 Recent Events and Quality Issues in the Automotive Industry
31:16 The Rise of Autonomous Vehicles and Global Expansion
34:28 Insights from the Florida Autonomous Vehicle Summit
36:29 The Competitive Landscape of Autonomous Driving
39:33 The Future of Autonomous Vehicles and Market Trends
43:51 NEO vs. XPeng: A Shift in Market Dynamics

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SEO Keywords

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Transcript

Tu Le (00:01)
 Hi everyone and welcome to China EVs and More, where 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.
 
 Don't forget to and like to help us get the word out about this podcast to other enthusiasts and tune in again next week. My Le 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 sticking around home for the rest of the year Lei, but being a volleyball dad, can you please introduce yourself?
 
 Lei Xing (01:05)
 Yes sir, good morning to a traveling Tu I know you're to be busy traveling in the next week or so. ‚Åì I'm skipping so sticking around. I'm definitely sticking around. ‚Åì And this is your co-host ‚Åì Lei Xing former chief editor of China Auto Review. And this is episode 227. We're back.
 
 after a brief hiatus. The government is back, thankfully. Hopefully those flights will be coming back and ‚Åì I hope you didn't have to deal with when you traveled the week before. okay, good.
 
 Tu Le (01:49)
 I did not, but Florida traffic
 
 is not great. ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing (01:57)
 So my sister and brother-in-law, had to drive to Wisconsin last week to visit my nephew from Massachusetts, yeah, because they got affected by the flight delays. Anyways, ‚Åì the weekly sales numbers are not coming back. Staying on the back theme here. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (02:03)
 From Mass.
 
 Lei Xing (02:24)
 Maybe that's something that we can start off with since it's already middle of the month. So the sales numbers have come out for October. ‚Åì There's been quite a few headlines. I'm sure you've seen many of those. One of those was Xiaomi YU7 selling more than the Model Y in China.
 
 Eventually that was going to happen, but it happened. ‚Åì And then crazy, crazy numbers for all of the ones that are in the front running in the beginning of the pack, ‚Åì Crazy numbers. ‚Åì And then we had the ‚Åì XPeng AI day, which has gone viral with the robot.
 
 Tu Le (03:09)
 Right.
 
 Lei Xing (03:22)
 for like a whole week, still going viral, I think. ‚Åì Those are some of the things that we can discuss about. And then GM, we should mention GM, which is trying to do something that I'm not sure is possible, pulling out all of their suppliers, all of China, for outside of their supply.
 
 Tu Le (03:24)
 Yep.
 
 Well, for North America.
 
 Lei Xing (03:45)
 But not North America. So those are some of the headlines.
 
 Tu Le (03:49)
 We can talk about that,
 
 one thing I wanted to mention, about October sales was that ‚Åì Tesla October sales, retail sales was really, really low, I think 26,000 units. So maybe we are starting to see a pullback finally for Tesla sales. Now, if we peel the layers of the onion back, we know that they've been giving historically price cuts and then non-price cut price cuts through the...
 
 form of 0 % financing through the form of charging. So I think some of this competition, the YU7 to your point is really, really starting to wear on the Model Y in China.
 
 Lei Xing (04:35)
 Yeah, first all, the weekly sales numbers, those are gone. I'm glad those are gone because I never paid too much attention to those anyways. ‚Åì Other than, you know, using them as a marketing purposes, I never tried to conclude anything from that. So I'm glad they're gone. And then we can focus on the monthly. Monthly, obviously we have the
 
 seasonality part of it, especially with Tesla. So we still put a grain of salt on that early in the quarter, what happens in November, December. And so I hesitate to make too much conclusions considering, I mean, we've been doing this for many years. And, you know, definitely,
 
 They've been facing pressure. They're just chugging along, but it's difficult to see them growing like LeapMotor like XPeng like NIO with lack of really true new products. ‚Åì And eventually, it was just a matter of time that YU7 surpasses Model Y.
 
 So I don't make too much of it at this moment. ‚Åì But I do know in the US trying every which way to entice me included. Right, you mentioned about the free supercharging. I'm going to wait until the last minute and see what happens because I get a call every other day from the sales associate.
 
 Tu Le (06:27)
 What are you gonna do?
 
 Lei Xing (06:36)
 ‚Åì And you know that it's end of the year, I also received a mail in a letter from Hyundai, which is willing to give me over $20,000 to trade in this one for a new Hyundai. And ‚Åì I think people are just trying to make sure they keep you as a customer, that that's all there is. And then you make your decision, right?
 
 Tu Le (06:48)
 Mmm.
 
 Lei Xing (07:06)
 For me, I'm just standing my ground. I'm not going to do anything. Yeah. So, but that's kind of my view.
 
 Tu Le (07:10)
 Right.
 
 Lei Xing (07:18)
 again.
 
 Tu Le (07:21)
 Yeah, there was an article in Electrek that talked about some of the misleading headlines about EV sales falling off a cliff. let me go through some numbers really quickly. Globally through October, EV sales are up 23 % year on year. In the EU, they're up 32%.
 
 In the United States, they're up 4%. So let's say that's flat. But in the rest of the world, they're up 48%. And if we look at export numbers from China, we're seeing that huge growth in exports from China. And a lot of it is from a Chery from an SAIC, from a BYD. So that growth in EVs is largely due to
 
 Chinese EVs being exported to foreign markets. I don't see too many foreign legacy players that have runaway hits. And we also have to remember that the Model Y ships out from Shanghai Giga. So that is included in some of those export numbers for China. But what I do expect to see is that after October, November, December,
 
 Yes, the NEV sales or the EV sales will taper off quite significantly. But to your point, Lei, there are incentives still in play through the end of this year likely to try to combat some of that sales falling off a cliff because they still have capacity. There's probably a lot of ‚Åì oversupply on battery cells because those orders
 
 were put in six months ago. So they still need to build electric vehicles. They can't just start canceling things, although the GMs and the Volkswagens and Mercedes Porsches are doing everything they can to try to mitigate some of that over capacity on the EV side. So it's going to be a mess on the balance sheets for a lot of the legacy automakers through the end of this year. hopefully, with GM,
 
 and the Bolt and a few other products, the Equinox, they should still see decent sales from those products because they're at such a competitive price point in North America. ‚Åì the tariff uncertainty, the USMCA is still not being renegotiated. That is going to add to a lot of that uncertainty. And we should talk about, what you had mentioned earlier about GM communicating to their suppliers. Can you?
 
 To expand on that, let's talk about that a little bit.
 
 Lei Xing (10:18)
 Well, ‚Åì this was reported by Reuters, right? ‚Åì In an article about trying to get all of their kind of the supply base back. Reshoring, I guess, is the one word that we can think about ‚Åì by the end of 2027. I think that was a timeline that was given. ‚Åì It's...
 
 Yeah, I mean, it was a bit shocking to see that, especially it is still a global game, right? And then, it has become more regional, more, you know, because of the US, China, what's happening with next barrier, the influence of the US on the rest of the world in the global supply chain. But I don't know. I mean, you're the expert here. I mean, you've worked in the supply chain. I question.
 
 whether that will ever happen ‚Åì to do it. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (11:25)
 So they've spent.
 
 20 years, 30 years trying to get more components, raw materials from China. And the OEMs didn't force their suppliers to do that, but they tacitly forced them through pushing price cuts ‚Åì onto the suppliers, right? Where they need to do cost downs, glide path to the cost downs. And so...
 
 ‚Åì This kind of tells me that GM doesn't see this trend changing in the long term or at least the short term. it wasn't some official notice from General Motors or the sourcing and supply chain team. It was Mike Collias from Reuters that you had mentioned wrote an article that effectively said, De-China your supply chain. And when
 
 We say De-China when I say De-China, meaning, if I'm General Motors and you supply seats to me, it's your sourcing, where are you getting the foam from? Where are you getting the cut and sew? Where are you getting the tracks from? Where are you getting the control units from? And then pushing that to figure out, okay, do I have an alternate source for this control unit that I currently source from China?
 
 And the real constraints are, do they have alternate sources in Europe or the United States that don't have Chinese supply higher up in the supply chain, number one? Number two, at the quality level and at the pricing that they needed to be in order to not become out of whack on the pricing side, because GM is also not going to accept, OK,
 
 If I take China out, this piece cost for the seat that you're shipping me Lei, you tell me that it increased by 20%. GM's not going to take that either. So suppliers are in a really, really, really precarious position. And the fact of the matter is, let's say for instance, 40 % of all seats, 30 % and I'm making up this number. I don't know what the exact number is, but 30 or 40 % of all seats are built in China.
 
 If you take that supply chain out now, but we have the same amount of demand, what's going to happen? Price is going to go up. So, and this is a North America thing too. So it's not a rest of the world thing. If there are legacy tier ones and tier twos in China building, they're still probably going to ship those to Europe. And so there's two, there's going to be two separate sourcing strategies, which
 
 For some OEMs is kind of part and parcel and normal business, but for others who want global reach and economies of scale, this is going to be challenging.
 
 Lei Xing (14:38)
 Yeah, so it's going to be ‚Åì more of a headache for the upstream suppliers because they have to deal with their upstream suppliers. So it's not really a GM, right? That's what you're pointing to, Which is difficult, which puts everybody at a bind, right?
 
 Tu Le (14:57)
 And if GM is doing this, you better believe that every other OEM is also doing this. And for companies like Volkswagen, who build here, Mercedes who builds here, BMW who builds here, it's really different than what their European strategy is, probably.
 
 Lei Xing (15:16)
 Yeah, I for these ones that want to still be relevant and ‚Åì they're, like I said, right, they're going deeper and deeper into the China ecosystem to survive and to be successful. GM's doing that, Volkswagen's doing that, BMW and Mercedes, I think the Japanese are definitely doing that. ‚Åì
 
 You know, but it's such a huge contract, right? ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (15:40)
 And we should remember and.
 
 And at a time where Porsche is very vulnerable, we should point back to that boat that got stopped in Miami with Audis and Porsches in it because there's a Chinese component. And we're talking tens of millions of dollars worth of inventory, hundreds of millions of dollars, I think, of inventory of vehicles, finished vehicles that were stuck at a port because it used a component from China that was restricted.
 
 for entry into the United States. So the threat is real.
 
 Lei Xing (16:20)
 Yeah, then, know, Porsche, speaking of Porsche, right, they open up their China R &D hub, even though they're not producing in China.
 
 ‚Åì Which tells you the importance of If you want to be successful successful in the local market you don't have to localize
 
 ‚Åì What I'm trying to say is you don't have to be localized in order to localize. They didn't have to do that because they needed to bring these features into the vehicles that they're launching imported. And then you have Volkswagen, which is localizing China, and they're even localizing more. And they want to do their own SOC with the help of Horizon Robotics.
 
 and with their joint venture.
 
 Tu Le (17:25)
 Which is, this is what, let's unpack that for a second because the Volkswagen brand vehicles, certain Volkswagen brand vehicles will now in 26 and beyond use the Turing chip.
 
 Lei Xing (17:26)
 Yeah.
 
 Yeah, that's their first foreign customer announced by XPeng.
 
 Tu Le (17:43)
 So this
 
 Cariad joint venture with Horizon will also have a different chip.
 
 So there's going to be a layered approach from Volkswagen Group in usage of the AI chip. And we also have to remember Qualcomm is already in play, NVIDIA is already in play. So we're talking four different pieces of silicon now. Now Qualcomm is specifically for infotainment, but for...
 
 An example is the Shenqing chip by NIO. It's going to replace the Orin chip or the Thor chip and then the Snapdragon. And so it's going to get really messy really quickly if Horizon can in fact design silicon. SMIC can in fact fab that silicon because
 
 NVIDIA and Qualcomm are going to be the odd man out on a lot of that stuff.
 
 Lei Xing (18:54)
 And that's almost like, it's almost in relation to GM trying to pull out the supplier base. It's almost like the other way around that we needed to be ‚Åì in China, not only depending on the not the established players, but the new players like XPeng and Horizon Robotics. But at the same time, we needed to do something on our own.
 
 Still murky at this point because they're going to have what two chips one developed on their own and why using XPeng's Turing Okay
 
 Tu Le (19:36)
 I don't know
 
 why they would do that, but...
 
 It seems odd. ‚Åì Now, you play devil's advocate, why does that make sense?
 
 Lei Xing (19:49)
 Well, I think from the point of view of the WeiXiaoLi all of them, except Li Auto haven't taped out yet. They're all going to do their own chips. So Volkswagen is simply acting like I'm a new startup in China. I'm the next NIO I'm the next XPeng And I also need to do my own chips.
 
 maybe moving that earlier into the development process of their next generation EVs.
 
 Tu Le (20:20)
 But are we,
 
 should we assume that Volkswagen brand in China will use XPeng.
 
 Lei Xing (20:27)
 It's Volkswagen brand.
 
 It's mostly Volkswagen brand from my, my understanding. Yes.
 
 Tu Le (20:31)
 Only.
 
 And then Porsche, Audi, some of the other brands, Bentley, will use the Horizon Cariad Silicon. Is that the ultimate goal? Right.
 
 Lei Xing (20:43)
 That is not clear at this point. But
 
 I know what XPeng announced in their VLA 2.0 and the Turing that's for Volkswagen brand only. With respect to Volkswagen's own SOC, that's not clear yet. I don't think they explicitly said which brand is going to be used. That's not clear.
 
 Tu Le (21:07)
 And on the other side of the pond, I was unable to attend, but RJ Scaringe had a media event where he did a fireside chat with Joann Muller, who's the Axios Automotive journalist. And he said that Volkswagen and Rivian are moving deeper into their collaboration. So Volkswagen is really, really relying heavily.
 
 on third parties to get them into the 21st century with regards to connected and intelligent driving systems, connected vehicles and intelligent driving systems. Is that?
 
 Beneficial is that short sighted? that going to put them in a bind? Because if I rely heavily on Lei motor company's intelligent driving and software and hardware stack, am I ever going to be fit enough to build my own?
 
 You would argue maybe not, but it's interesting.
 
 Lei Xing (22:23)
 Well, the fact of the matter is Jim Farley, he was in the headlines because of this teardown of Model 3 compared to the Mach-E. And he found out the length of the wire harness, how long that was compared to, right? Right? Yeah. And then you think about what Volkswagen is doing with Rivian. I think they announced that they're actually currently testing proof of concepts.
 
 Tu Le (22:37)
 There's like a mile or something like that.
 
 Lei Xing (22:51)
 with different brand and models within Volkswagen Group in anticipation for, I think, 2027 launch. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (22:59)
 Yes, so they are going to be launching
 
 a 30-ish thousand dollar truck in 27. Right on the heels of Slate Motor or Slate Auto launching their analog sub-30,000 dollar truck.
 
 Lei Xing (23:05)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (23:23)
 So there's going to be pain in 26 and 27 for most automakers. think GM could be the bright spot for the North American automakers because I think they're really, really hopeful that the Bolt will be a hit for them. The Equinox and the combination of the Equinox being a sub $40,000 car and then the Bolt also.
 
 launching in early 26. They're hoping that that'll stem the tide until they can get more affordable vehicles, but also the Escalade IQ in 2028 that has level three autonomy. hands off, eyes off. Yep. But let's circle into XPeng's AI day.
 
 Lei Xing (24:09)
 Eyes off.
 
 Tu Le (24:20)
 And can you summarize some of the things that they talked about? Because the humanoid, the woman, the female-shaped humanoid sucked a lot of the air out of the room.
 
 Lei Xing (24:24)
 Wha- It's-
 
 I called it the
 
 Iron Lady.
 
 or Lady Iron or something. I think it's difficult to summarize because there's so much information from the AI day. Because that's their kind of the NIO day for XPeng. Because the biggest thing they announced with this VLA, will be the central kind of the system in all of their robots, autonomous driving, robot taxi, flying cars.
 
 Tu Le (24:41)
 Yeah.
 
 Yes.
 
 That's their NIO Day.
 
 2.0.
 
 Lei Xing (25:10)
 This is kind of the central system. Yeah. Yeah, and then I think obviously the iron lady was compared a lot. Well, Zhongwen is iron. They don't have actually a Chinese name. It's called iron. Yeah, they don't have a Chinese name. Just iron.
 
 Tu Le (25:11)
 It's like Apple having a single operating system for Macs, iPhones, and everything else.
 
 How ‚Åì
 
 Iron, iron, no, okay.
 
 ‚Åì okay. I saw that.
 
 Lei Xing (25:38)
 Yeah. And then some of the RoboTaxi
 
 plans, right? They talk about ‚Åì three. I think they're launching three.
 
 Tu Le (25:46)
 A five, six, and seven seater? Was it?
 
 Lei Xing (25:49)
 Yeah,
 
 and then they announced this basically the Robo. There's the Max Ultra and Robo, which is a private L4 capable vehicle. And then that X9, that X9 RoboTaxi concept with the, what do you call it, the visors.
 
 Tu Le (26:09)
 with three.
 
 ‚Åì
 
 Yes, yep. With the three Turing chips.
 
 Lei Xing (26:18)
 that can speak to you, Or yeah, basically.
 
 Three Turing chips and then four, I think we're gonna have four on the robo, if I remember correctly. And.
 
 Tu Le (26:31)
 Three Turing chips
 
 that have 2250 tops.
 
 Lei Xing (26:35)
 Yeah. And then their valuation have gone up or their stock prices gone up like by 25 % or something. And yeah, I mean, they're trying to be centered as a what was the name? ‚Åì I mean, they're trying to be everything that Tesla is wanting to be. Not a traditional EV manufacturer, but a kind of a tech.
 
 ‚Åì AI company, right? That's what they're, this physical AI that they talked about, not digital.
 
 Tu Le (27:14)
 Yeah, physical
 
 AI, AI being used to, yeah, to control and manage physical robots.
 
 Lei Xing (27:18)
 embodied. ‚Åì
 
 Yeah. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (27:29)
 So, and then they also highlighted a museum that has their land, air land cruiser and stuff like that.
 
 Lei Xing (27:39)
 Yeah, they also announced this new 898 tilt rotor, kind of the eVTOL. And then they're starting production of the aircraft carrier, right? Let's ‚Åì see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (27:53)
 Land aircraft carrier, yes. And they have
 
 4,000 orders or 5,000 orders. So yeah, man, in a lot of ways, they're out Tesla'ing Tesla.
 
 Lei Xing (27:59)
 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
 
 Yeah, for now.
 
 Tu Le (28:18)
 Who knows when Optimus goes into production? knows? Elon says it. Who knows about robotaxis? Tesla has not unveiled or launched any EVTOLs or land aircraft carriers. So mean, there's that, but.
 
 Lei Xing (28:28)
 ‚Åì I mean.
 
 Yeah, mean, same for XPeng I mean, there's a level of hype ‚Åì there, I think. ‚Åì Their plates are definitely full, to say the least. ‚Åì Unlike a, I don't know, unlike a NIO or, I NIO is not into robotics. Humanoid robots, at least not yet. Right? I mean, NIO was into phones, but nobody talks about the NIO phone anymore.
 
 Tu Le (28:57)
 But
 
 But as you and I know, going to FE2, it's very automated with a lot of humanoid arms and things like that. So NIO in practice uses a lot of robots for manufacturing.
 
 Lei Xing (29:24)
 Yeah, mean, that's kind of norm in factory automation these days. Xiaomi, same at the Xiaomi factory. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (29:34)
 Yeah, I ‚Åì
 
 Yeah, so Kevin Williams texted me from Inside EVs. He went to the XPeng event and then he went to a Zeekr retail store.
 
 Lei Xing (29:46)
 Yeah, I saw a video that was posted
 
 with some of the KOLs writing the E7.
 
 Tu Le (29:51)
 Yeah, he said that the
 
 9X was actually really, really nice interior. Yeah, the no, the Zeekr 9 9 X or X. Yeah.
 
 Lei Xing (29:58)
 Or the X9?
 
 No, Zeekr and 9X. Yeah, I mean, I was at the
 
 launch. Sure, yeah. mean, it's the Rolls Royce, right? Of, you know.
 
 Tu Le (30:09)
 So, ‚Åì
 
 yeah. And then ‚Åì one other recent launch was the LS9.
 
 Lei Xing (30:21)
 ‚Åì
 
 the only thing I will say about the LS9 is it's the only model that has a heated floor.
 
 Tu Le (30:30)
 Which makes sense because that's where the battery is.
 
 Lei Xing (30:34)
 Which makes sense because they're from south of Yangtze and you know in South China there's no heat. So people put in a heated floor in their rooms, in their house, in their apartments.
 
 Tu Le (30:38)
 Yeah.
 
 ‚Åì yes, yes, yes.
 
 Normally heated rooms and heated homes are like in Utah and in Denver for like skiing and stuff like that. It's very luxury. But what do you think of the LS9? Because it's got a 1600 kilometer range, I want to say, which is like 900 miles. It has a 64 kilowatt hour battery, and so we're talking. You know, next level battery packs for an eREV.
 
 Lei Xing (30:55)
 Yeah.
 
 It's a lost count, It's many of these nines that are coming that are trying to just have more features that tops the one that came before it. And LS9 is one of them.
 
 Tu Le (31:36)
 For the newbies who have only recently started following the automotive industry, the Nine represents, for the Chinese companies anyways, their flagship vehicle. So whenever you hear Nine X, LS Nine, it's normally going to be a large SUV or a large sedan. BMW, go ahead.
 
 Lei Xing (31:56)
 And the only way
 
 to top that is to add an additional L. Case in point, the M9 seems to be coming out with an M9L.
 
 Tu Le (32:05)
 you
 
 So it adds a meter and a half, two meters of room.
 
 Lei Xing (32:13)
 I don't
 
 And Li Auto
 
 supposedly come out with the newer, larger SUV. And we still have the ES9 from NIO yet to launch.
 
 Tu Le (32:30)
 We're getting into American sizes for cars. In China.
 
 Lei Xing (32:33)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (32:37)
 And so I
 
 I think those are going to be semi-popular in tier 1 cities, but it'll still be hard to get those big boats around in some of the lower tier cities, especially when there's the traffic that we know the lower tier city have. We'll always go to a lower tier city and probably see one or two, because there might be some Tuhao that wants to...
 
 own these big, big boats so they can show off in the lower tier cities.
 
 So Lei, since you're fluent, can you tell our audience what a tuhao is?
 
 Lei Xing (33:31)
 To how the best English translation I can think of is Beverly Hillbillies.
 
 Tu Le (33:38)
 Hehehehehe
 
 Lei Xing (33:40)
 For those that understand the American idioms, think that's probably the best way to... It just means they're bloody rich. They're dirt rich.
 
 Tu Le (33:49)
 Yeah, normally from like coal or something like that. And they were a lot of brands. And what's funny is that our friends at Jing A, you've been there a bunch of times now. They have a beer called Tuhao Pils, So it is a pils and yeah, it's a it's one of my favorite beers. But you know, it's all about making fun of ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing (34:03)
 Yeah.
 
 ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (34:19)
 some of these things that we hear, that we've heard. yeah, anyways, anything, let's do this because we're gonna have a year end show in the next month, are there anything, is there anything going on through the end of this year, any events? Because NIO Day is not gonna be happening in December now because it happened in September, yeah.
 
 Lei Xing (34:45)
 It already happened.
 
 Tu Le (34:47)
 Are there any other events in China that I can't think of any?
 
 Lei Xing (34:50)
 Uh, not, not any
 
 major ones that we can think of, but certainly the fireworks are never stopping, right? Um, and we can talk about, mean, Li Auto just, um, uh, announced their 14 of their employees got disciplined due to the recent fire on the Mega and also some quality issues involving the,
 
 Tu Le (35:15)
 Mmm.
 
 Lei Xing (35:20)
 the new 2025 L Series front suspension. So there's some quality issues and they just announced some of these employees are, ‚Åì they've been disciplined. ‚Åì That's one.
 
 Tu Le (35:40)
 This is a signal to the media, the market, the Chinese government that they are doing something about what happened with the Mega.
 
 Lei Xing (35:50)
 Yeah, lacking this final kind of the conclusion on what exactly happened, even though they've recalled, right, 11,000, 11,000 Megas And then yet we, I mean, these things still happen on a, not day to day, but I think there was another fire involving Xiaomi, but I mean.
 
 Tu Le (36:17)
 Mmm.
 
 Lei Xing (36:21)
 And then recent, yeah, the recent regulations also, I mean, speaking of not coming back, the zero mileage, they're probably not coming back exports because several departments just announced specific regulations requiring, if the cars are registered less than 180 days, and if you wanna export these cars, you have to have special permit and certification.
 
 Tu Le (36:21)
 The last thing we can talk, go ahead.
 
 Lei Xing (36:52)
 This was just announced today. Just trying to rein in some of practices that's been scrutinized globally.
 
 Tu Le (37:05)
 The last thing that I want to bring up to you, is there was a Wall Street Journal article this week where a Western journalist from the Wall Street Journal got into a Baidu and he wrote about it.
 
 Lei Xing (37:15)
 We should talk about the robot
 
 accident. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (37:18)
 So
 
 we're going to pat ourselves on the back. I'm going to pat you on the back. I'm going to pat myself on the back because we've been doing this since 2021, know, 20, 2019 actually. I've tested RoboTaxis in China since 2019, 2018 I want to say.
 
 Lei Xing (37:35)
 Yeah, first, yeah, 2019, mean, you and I both were on the early versions of We Ride, I believe, using the Lincoln MKZ, the sedan, right? I mean, those were, even, I mean, when Baidu started back in, I mean, they started the autonomous driving R &D in 2013. I think one of the first I got to ride on.
 
 Tu Le (37:42)
 Yeah.
 
 Yep.
 
 Lei Xing (38:02)
 was 2017 maybe at one of their first Baidu World events, which happened yesterday. They had their event yesterday, right? And we saw some, yeah, yeah. One of the famous ones that happened was Robin Li got doused with a bottle of water when he was speaking. I don't know if you remember that or not. he was like, what's your problem? That became a meme.
 
 Tu Le (38:11)
 Yeah.
 
 I've been to a few of those.
 
 yeah, I do, I do.
 
 Lei Xing (38:31)
 and kind of back in the days. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (38:32)
 You
 
 Well, remember
 
 Baidu World, had that weird shaped robotaxi, probably in 21 or 22 during COVID. They launched that and like, yeah, so you and I have tried out most, if not all of the major services, Pony, we ride AutoX at that time, DeepRoute, Qcraft, we've tried them all. so the West is again, finally catching up.
 
 and getting a better understanding that these companies are much closer than realized to their Western competitors.
 
 Lei Xing (39:17)
 And we're seeing, ‚Åì so recently, think there's been an extra level of ramp in terms of these going global, right? So Baidu, they talked about in Abu Dhabi and ‚Åì Dubai that they're launching this with their local partners. Baidu is launching in Switzerland, right? With the post-bus, right? That yellowish ‚Åì robot taxi.
 
 As here Waymo, I mean you tweeted right? They're expanding into your neighborhood. And they just expanded in the Bay Area. There's a lot of highways, right? Freeways. And they're probably gonna expand into additional airports. Even Austin, right? And Elon tweeted rookie numbers.
 
 Tu Le (39:53)
 Hmm. New York.
 
 Now they're gonna be on highways?
 
 I think, I think... So...
 
 Lei Xing (40:15)
 You saw that, right? With the fleet in different cities that Waymo had in the US.
 
 Tu Le (40:17)
 Yeah.
 
 ‚Åì
 
 So I should talk about my trip last week because it segues really well into what we're talking about right now. I was a guest speaker for the Florida Autonomous Vehicle Summit, FAV Summit. And I had met a former Senator of Florida at a conference, Jeff Brandes.
 
 Lei Xing (40:33)
 Yeah.
 
 of all places, right?
 
 Tu Le (40:49)
 who has been hosting this event for the past seven or eight years. So he is a pioneer in Florida. And if you think about it, Florida is a great place to do pilots for autonomous vehicles because the weather is so predictable.
 
 Lei Xing (41:06)
 But I'm surprised that Florida is not like Phoenix, that they don't have like a city that's been doing what Phoenix has been doing. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (41:15)
 I think
 
 they're trying to move in that direction, but we also remember, we also have to remember before Governor DeSantis was elected, Florida was a fairly purple state. Now it's very red. And I don't know if autonomous vehicles are politicized in Florida, but you know, that could be one of the reasons.
 
 The FAV summit has now expanded into EVTOL and UAV. So there were policy people, were ‚Åì government and politicians. And I had a fireside with ‚Åì Reilly Brennan, who's a venture capitalist in the mobility space. And I only talked a little bit about the China part. And what I did talk ‚Åì a lot about, I think I talked a lot about was how the US or the West,
 
 can be more competitive because I don't want to dwell on the fact that, you know, the Chinese trying to correct bad takes about the Chinese not being competitive subsidies, you know, that's settled. Now it's all about looking ahead and seeing how the US companies or the Western companies can compete.
 
 Lei Xing (42:36)
 And the question is how Waymo can be as global as maybe a Baidu or WeRide or Pony because they're expanding in multiple markets. I think at this point, I know that Waymo is trying to be in London, right? But they are already in London. ‚Åì Data, right? ‚Åì Can Waymo be in China? Or do they need to be in China? Should they be in China?
 
 Tu Le (42:53)
 They're collecting data.
 
 So
 
 that's the open question about Tesla too, right? Because if Tesla is to become an $8 trillion company, how much does China play a role in that valuation? Exactly.
 
 Lei Xing (43:06)
 But yeah.
 
 huge, right? FSD,
 
 when is that approval? ‚Åì Yeah, I mean, and at the same time, you have not only the traditional robotaxi companies, you have Xpunks, right? Who are trying to kind of compete or add into the picture. You have the DDs, right? And then here you have the Ubers and the Lyft, which are working with the Chinese robotaxi companies outside of China.
 
 Tu Le (43:23)
 Well, he said Q1 of 26, didn't he?
 
 Lei Xing (43:48)
 ‚Åì So.
 
 Tu Le (43:48)
 We can say that
 
 the ride-hailing companies, the Western ride-hailing companies, namely Uber and Lyft, they're being non-political. They're the picks and shovel people. We're going to partner with everybody.
 
 Lei Xing (44:04)
 And at the same time, the lidar companies, Hussai, they're supplying the lidars to one of the robot hax companies in the US.
 
 Tu Le (44:15)
 You know, here's the irony a little bit, Lei, because let's give a little bit of a history lesson. When Didi IPO'd, they were really aggressive on partnerships outside of China. because the CEO and the COO kind of IPO'd when they shouldn't have, they were forced to abandon international operations and focus solely on
 
 China market. if that hadn't happened, DD might be much, more international. Well, I won't say might. They would be much more international than they are
 
 Lei Xing (44:58)
 Yeah. And now they just signed something DD Autonomous Drivers signed something, something in UAE as well. You know, entering that market. It seems to be that that region is, I think Baidu is doing some demos at the final leg of the Formula One race, which is at the Abu Dhabi, right? Yeah. And then, then,
 
 Tu Le (44:58)
 Do you remember that?
 
 Cause they had acquired. Go ahead.
 
 Mm, yep.
 
 The one thing that's interesting, that Waymo, because Detroit, you know this, it snows in the winter. seems, Baidu is in Beijing, but it doesn't snow in Beijing like it does in Michigan. And so...
 
 Lei Xing (45:28)
 Yeah. ‚Åì
 
 It doesn't snow that much. rarely does. Yeah. So that would be interesting,
 
 like if it runs in snowy conditions and what happens there.
 
 Tu Le (45:51)
 When will
 
 Baidu, Pony, or Weirai be in Harbin, Shenyang, those cities? That'll be like, okay, the Chinese are now going into four season cities as well. London, it doesn't snow as much either. But Waymo with New York and Detroit, I think is very telling. It seems like they're trying to set the pace now globally.
 
 because they've made a lot of announcements and they're much more externally marketing focused now. So it looks like they're really, really trying to ramp up commercialization efforts. And then on the backs of all these Waymo announcements, you hear the Neuro announcement, you see We Ride and Pony ‚Åì do the secondary listing in Hong Kong. So...
 
 Lei Xing (46:37)
 Lucid.
 
 Tu Le (46:43)
 You know, I'd mentioned this ‚Åì earlier or I'd mentioned this in the newsletter this week that we're seeing this autonomous vehicle renaissance. And I think this time it's going to stick because people are now sharpening their pencil, investing heavily. And I think it it pulled back a lot because of the Uber ATG fatal accident, the cruise stuff, but now we're starting to see it. ‚Åì And so anyways, I don't have anything else, Lei.
 
 Lei Xing (47:04)
 Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
 
 Tu Le (47:13)
 to you.
 
 Lei Xing (47:14)
 No, I don't have anything else either.
 
 Tu Le (47:16)
 Okay, so there is one question. SPX Nomad 2187. First of all, thanks for joining us again, man. Always appreciate your support. ‚Åì Happy Friday, guys. Can you confirm expand on the Ion UT Bass swap time at 88 seconds? Is that real world? How is it much faster than NIO swap time and what are the implications are when Choco network expands?
 
 Lei Xing (47:34)
 Yeah. ‚Åì
 
 We can't say for sure because we have not personally, I mean this is still fresh. Just happened a few days ago, right? We do know they now have over 800 chocolate swap stations throughout China and the process is definitely faster given what they've communicated and what's been shown on the internet. think they officially is 99 seconds where NIO is anywhere between three, three and a half, four minutes.
 
 I mean, we've done quite a few of those, right? It's within four minutes, definitely. ‚Åì So it's faster. But at the same time, I think the vehicle, the complexity that goes into the swapping is a bit different. And then when you talk about the fleets and the smaller vehicles, what goes into ensuring safety, what goes into monitoring, ‚Åì you give and take.
 
 ‚Åì That's probably the reason why you could do it faster.
 
 But.
 
 Yeah, I don't think I don't want to say one is necessarily better than the other Right It's fast I mean it's yeah, and it's a 500 kilometer range car not not small range so
 
 Tu Le (48:57)
 Yeah.
 
 Under two minutes is pretty significant. So.
 
 But the other thing too is the last thing I'll say is, how many different types of swapping systems can work outside of China? Not many, there's too much investment involved.
 
 Lei Xing (49:20)
 Okay.
 
 I think
 
 long term, so CETL, I believe, NIO are both part of this consortium that are actually, I think that it's being worked out or this being discussed, the national standard, right? Yeah, for quite a few years now. So can we think of one standard across different brands? ‚Åì First of all,
 
 Tu Le (49:40)
 Yep. With Geely too, so.
 
 Lei Xing (49:56)
 Firefly, right? There's been some chatter about Firefly. The current generation of Firefly, the current model does not work on the chocolate swap. With the next generation, I think based on the March collaboration announcement between NIO and CTL, that was the plan, which we won't see until next year or the year after.
 
 ‚Åì those are some things to watch out for.
 
 Tu Le (50:26)
 We should also note that I think this week was the first time NIO closed a swapping station. It was in Norway, I want to say, or it was in a European country. They closed a swapping station. So, you know, they're course correcting. And I think that's important because maybe there's not enough capacity or supply to support that.
 
 Lei Xing (50:27)
 you
 
 European country.
 
 Tu Le (50:53)
 that swapping station in the European, I want to say it's Norway, but I could be wrong. Anyways, thanks for your question. And I think we should be okay next week, ‚Åì but I will confirm.
 
 Lei Xing (51:07)
 Well, next week, I know you'll be
 
 on the road. ‚Åì Friday, you'll be back? Because I know the auto... ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (51:15)
 No,
 
 I leave Friday, but let me figure this out. And then I'll, we'll try to do a better job of communicating earlier in the week when the show is going to be so that the live folks, the folks that want to be part of it live.
 
 Lei Xing (51:18)
 Yeah, so.
 
 So yeah, so I'm good. I'm
 
 good until the end of the year, Friday mornings. So you just let me know.
 
 Tu Le (51:34)
 Okay, we got one more.
 
 Okay, so SSJJ005, man, many people not noticing that the NIO has surpassed ‚Åì XPeng in monthly delivery volume, specifically in China. ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing (51:53)
 Yeah, mean, NIO was due, right? We said many times NIO was due. we, I mean, think about this. They can be doing 30,000 a month just with two models, the ES8 and the Onvo L90. At least that was kind of their plan. We could potentially see that for the longest time, they couldn't get over 30,000 units. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (52:07)
 Yes.
 
 Right.
 
 Lei Xing (52:24)
 It's...
 
 I mean, they say it's the accumulation of 10 years of R &D and the right timing these products that are come out. The consumer habits have changed, right? They've gone through the EREVs That's what the auto is facing while they transition to the BEVs yeah, so you could call it the right time at the right place of the
 
 Tu Le (52:50)
 as more EREVs hit the market.
 
 Lei Xing (52:55)
 location or you could call it the accumulation of 10 years, but it's worked out. again, again, I stress at this point, I think just a few days ago, Li Bin was still communicating that it's going to be difficult, but their goal remains to be breaking even by the end of the year.
 
 Tu Le (53:21)
 Well, and
 
 I think, you know, I think it's cool to talk about one outselling another, but ultimately both of those companies need to grow faster than the market is growing. Because is it really growth? If you're growing faster than you have historically, but you're still short of matching growth in the market. You know, I think.
 
 Those are two different things that need to be looked at. yeah, so everyone, thank you for joining us and have a good weekend. We will talk with you hopefully next week. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening.
 
 Lei Xing (54:05)
 guys. Bye bye