Episode #229 - Who’s Rising, Who’s Falling, and Why China Still Matters Most

In Episode 229, Tu and Lei unpack the November China EV sales inflection point and what it reveals about the next phase of the global auto industry.  

With subsidies set to expire in 2026, November marked the real start of China’s year-end “mad dash.” The numbers show a clear split: Xiaomi, XPeng, Leapmotor, Geely, and NIO accelerating, while BYD and Li Auto lose momentum and Tesla slips into negative growth territory in China.

The hosts explain why Xiaomi’s YU7 and SU7 have proven unusually resilient, how XPeng’s AI-first strategy is paying off, and why Leapmotor and Geely are now knocking on the million-unit club—a threshold that even legacy premium brands have failed to reach in China.

They also tackle the bigger strategic question facing Western automakers: Is it still worth competing in China? Tu and Lei argue that China remains irreplaceable as the world’s largest single passenger-vehicle market—and that exporting from China, leveraging local tech partners, and embracing “China-for-China” design is no longer optional.

The episode closes with a deep discussion on embodied AI, smart glasses, silicon strategy, and why companies like Xiaomi, XPeng, and Li Auto are no longer just carmakers—but ecosystem builders trying to define the future of mobility.

Insightful, data-driven, and grounded in real market dynamics, this episode explains why 2026 may be the most decisive year yet for both Chinese EV leaders and global legacy automakers.

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Tu Le, Lei Xing, Sino Auto Insights, Xiaomi EV, Xiaomi YU7, Xiaomi SU7,
XPeng, XPeng AI, Leapmotor, Geely Auto, NIO, BYD, Li Auto, Tesla China,
China EV sales November, China auto industry, EV price war, EV subsidies China,
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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10.858)
Hi everyone and welcome to the China EVs and More podcast 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. We will open the room up at around the 40 minute mark to anyone who's keen to ask us any questions. 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 help us. Don't forget to subscribe and like so you don't miss anything from us in the future and 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 and Global Management Consultancy that helps organizations bring innovative and tech focused.

products and services to the transportation and mobility sectors. I 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. new in the hood, Lei can you please introduce yourself?

a sleep deprived Lei. Yeah. Good morning from my side, from a new place. This is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review. And this is episode 229. I think it's 229, yeah. Last week was 228, yes. And yeah, and you hear me okay, right? Everything's good? So I am in a new place. I recently moved.

Speaker 1 (02:02.457)
to be closer to my daughter's school, that's the primary reason. just selling down, I literally moved yesterday. I don't have it set up yet except the internet, which is the first thing that you set up. Because without internet, you can't do nothing, right? And

I really did get internet.

Speaker 1 (02:30.798)
We were kind of discussing that how this has involves what we are talking about, because as you and some of the readers or listeners may have heard or saw me tweeting that I am considering an EV in the near future. And one of the

Good things that this new place has is already have a level two charger. The charger is gone, but the 240 outlet is there. So I'm not a professional, but I believe I could buy a level two charger and just plug it in. I'm not sure if that's the right way to look at it, but it's almost like chickens are eggs first, and I pay for eggs first if the EVs are the chicken, right?

I don't have an EV, but I do have a peace of mind that it's setting me up to be ready. And we were kind of discussing about something of buying an EV in the US. And I was thinking in China, the decision is between whether to swap or

supercharge. But in the US, we're still back thinking about where the charging is. I think that's the disparity that we always kind of compare and contrast. But yeah, new place. So the

The only thing that I would suggest, Lei, is that you make sure your box, your circuit breaker, is probably 200 amps and not 100 amps.

Speaker 1 (04:34.286)
Yeah, I'm gonna have an electrician probably look at it anyways, because we're gonna install like a purifier for water and stuff. So what we did yesterday, for those of you who know, my wife's a little bit superstitious. So in China, when you move into a new place, some of the things you do,

So what she did was pop balloons.

which is like crackers, right? Firecrackers. And then you boil hot water, meaning that you have to have the stove on.

Some of things we did. It was kind of Chinese superstition or culture or whatever you want to call it. enough with the new place. Thanks, man. I'm going to sell my own kind of

Congratulations, Gong Xi

Speaker 2 (05:35.082)
This one. I'm left-handed, I cover my... I'm left-handed, so I cover my... One thing I did learn, and maybe our listeners do not know this, is because the reason you do this, or for most people it's this, is because this is a fist for fighting. And you do this to cover it up, to mean friendly, to be friendly. So I didn't know that until I moved to...

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (06:02.818)
to China. And so, you know, it's these little things that I think are important about understanding cultures. You know, I have a Vietnamese culture as well, but you and I are really, really also very influenced by our American culture.

Speaker 2 (06:19.49)
So I think that gives our kids awesome, awesome exposure to a lot of different things. anyways, we can make this a quick one because it feels a little bit like the calm before the storm because December is going to be this mad dash, I think.

Yeah, and also recently I've been kind of swamped so I haven't followed what's going on even close to home or in back in China, but we did have the November sales come out.

Let me summarize November sales. there are tax subsidies that are going away starting in 2026. so let's look at October separately because it's a holiday month. November is really, really the mad dash when the mad dash begins. And we are now into five days into December. BYD was down 5 % year over year from November.

And we'll talk about that a little bit after summarizing a bit more. Li Auto was down 33%. So pretty significant. And their annual sales volume, I think we'd mentioned this last episode, is going to be pretty low. And it's going to shrink. It's going to be negative. So put them in the Tesla boat, because Tesla is also going to be negative. But you look at Xiaomi, they're over 40,000 units. If we annualize that, that's half a million they're shipping.

Okay, XPeng is up quite significantly as well. I didn't get a percentage from them, but Geely is up 24 % year over year from November. Okay, Leap Motor, they've hit their annual sales target in 11 months, 70,000 units last month, and then NIO is plus 76%. And this gives you a quick snapshot of who is on the ascension, who is descending.

Speaker 2 (08:22.766)
Let me quickly turn back around on that 5 % number, negative 5 % number. Wang Chuanfu comes out and says, you know what? Our technology Leap has dissipated. We have 120,000 engineers. So what you're going to see is we're going to take that Leap back because we're focused on R &D, we're focused on technology, and we plan on taking that back. So you should see growth from us in the near future. So Wang Chuanfu actually came out and said that.

I think that's very important and it goes to when we talk about XPeng's AI day, when we talk about LiAuto and the glasses that you wanted to outline and talk about in more detail. All of these companies are leaning, they can be car companies, but they're leaning into technology. Whereas if you look at a Tesla, they talk about technology, they talk about AI, but you don't really see any products being launched. And so that's the...

dichotomy or the difference between Tesla and these Chinese companies. So what do you think?

Yeah, well, that's a great summary. mean, November, I called it up and down because we saw some BYD was actually up because compared to October and they were actually getting back to closing in on the half a million unit that they did. Each of the three months, final months of 2024 and but obviously they that we know they're going to do 4.6. They're right there.

mostly gonna happen, but year on year, yes, still down, but then increased a little bit. I think Li-Auto also improved slightly. We did see dips from NIO and XPeng So NIO specifically, when he mentioned about the ending of the scrap subsidies having had some effect on the Onvo models.

Speaker 1 (10:25.656)
But ES8 mean, recently 20,000 units. I think all of these Xiaomi is the most, I would say, less vulnerable of all of these because they seem to just continuing to run away despite the controversies. no controversy, but you know,

and and both of their products.

Speaker 1 (10:55.992)
But there are.

Let me add really quickly about the Xiaomi. Both of their products seem to be hits. Now the SU7 because it's a sedan, is not going to sell as many as the YU7 which has become pretty popular despite these challenges that you had just mentioned.

Yeah, so the YU7 is actually probably now they're taking the majority share of the Xiaomi and they say 40,000 units, but it's probably closer to 50. So it won't be surprising to see the number five in December when the sales come out. But and then I think you also see even I think a wider, bigger picture is

BYD and SAIC Motor, it's not Apple's comparison because SAIC Motor includes the joint ventures. In terms of total sales, they're right next to each other. So 4.5, 4.6, but SAIC Motor, more than half of their NEV sales come from Wuling, right? SGM Wuling. I think Geely, I would say Geely is probably the closest.

Geely Auto

Speaker 1 (12:18.152)
the feeling BYD is feeling the most pressure from I would say it's gotta be Geely Auto because of the Xingyuan, right? The smaller EV that's the leader. And then Leap Motor, yeah, I Leap Motor, think what's interesting is this one million unit club. If we look at the rankings that I post always,

Speaker 1 (12:50.584)
It'll be interesting because some of these emerging players, they're about to enter the million unit club, Leap motor being one. Theoretically, Xiaomi given their current pace, they're going to do more than probably 400,000 units this year. If everything clicks.

It's going to get to a million units, close to a million units in 2026.

So the rankings, if you get into this one million unit club.

That's gonna give a lot of pressure, even more pressure to BBAs. They have not done a million units in China. They've done as high as 800K units. And then this global cloud, right? Entering the global top 10. We think about Xiaomi, Lei Jun, he said four years ago, our goal is to become the top five automaker in, I don't know, in five to 10 years or something like that.

Speaker 1 (13:55.532)
That's a lot of things to take for these traditional legacy autos and Tesla. Tesla has not done a million units in China, even they've been since 2020. They've been the probably most, maybe you won't disagree me, relatively consistent in terms of their EV sales, despite the pressure. They're losing market share definitely, but.

I think the prospect of this million unit club, maybe one or two players joining next year, I think that's another turning point. That's something that maybe we thought about when we started doing this show, the prospects of these emerging players doing million unit, that was not something.

that we could foresee then, but they played out and right in retrospect, it's pretty amazing.

This is despite a brutal, brutal four year price war.

It creates a lot of risks to your point, not just to ABB, but the legacy automakers, what questions I've been getting a lot recently from media, from clients is, it even worth it for legacy auto to be in China? And I mean, let me tell you my answer to them and then you spin it or you agree or disagree.

Speaker 1 (15:36.034)
Well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:44.27)
I basically said there's no other market that GM can get 2 million units out of in the world because they're investing in Latin America. But again, this is a collection of countries that have different cultures, different tastes, and things like that. Whereas China, it's a single market. We can say Dongbei. We can say the greater Bay Area have different tastes. But it's still the same country, still the same currency.

And it's the largest passenger vehicle in market in the world. How many countries would they have to have 10%, 12%, 5%, 7%, 12 % market share to add up to 2 million units? Probably 10, 12 countries at least. And so yes, it's still worth it for the legacies to be there. And to your point, for GM, it's Wuling But I want to.

Also point back to the fact that you talked about Geely Auto with the Xingyuan, you talked about BYD losing, and then you talk about Wuling, but also Leap Motor. Those companies all play in the sub $20,000 price point. BYD actually has more expensive vehicles, but the Atto, the Sea Lion and all these things are sub $15,000. So that's the meat of the market for China. And with the Xingyuan and Leap Motor doing so well, that's why BYD is on its heels a little.

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't the answer is it doesn't make sense for the ones that are already out. They've already made their choice. It does make sense. It makes a lot of sense. It has to make sense. It makes too much sense to not be in China. And this is, think, the last round of getting it right. The Volkswagen's, the Mercedes's.

If they don't, because they have a huge pipeline of what, 20, 30 NEV models coming, starting with recently the, For example, the ID, it will be called the ID 08, ID UNIX 08 based on the XPeng And then the ID EVO from Shanghai Volkswagen, the large EREV, launching next year. They basically follow what the Chinese have done.

Speaker 1 (18:09.166)
and they hope that it'll be successful. So it makes a lot of sense. They're making sense. They're trying to make sense.

And here's the other thing. Here's the other thing that I think is really important to call out. Most of the legacy automakers, with the exception of some of the Europeans, they actually have a decent amount of capacity still in China. they're using that capacity like Ford is using that capacity to export. They're selling domestically, but and we can talk about some of the challenges they're actually having.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:45.696)
with the vehicles that the few vehicles or products that they sell in China. But that always creates opportunity. If you can keep your utilization rates high for your Chinese factories because you're exporting and then get fit, meaning localized design, localized marketing and understanding of the Chinese consumer, you can always point that capacity back to China.

You think you can build a competitive vehicle. And I think a lot of legacy automakers that have capacity in China are hopeful that they can figure out the local market and build products that will have demand. And you talk about Lexus a couple of episodes ago, they built a 250,000 or 200,000 unit factory in Shanghai. So they're hopeful. So the foreign direct investment into China is has

really, really waned, but it's still there, at least from a manufacturing capacity standpoint.

Yeah, again, I say everything with a question mark, but right there, they don't have any other choice to be. It makes sense to have to be relevant and in order to be relevant, you have to be like the Chinese because they flip the script of standardizing on what works in the market, what sells. So you have to produce what sells. But then

It's not an automatic formula that they will sell. Because what the Chinese, I think they are talking about, again, going back to the Li Auto, XPeng, NIO, in terms of becoming embodied AI companies. I don't know, maybe GM to a certain extent, but I don't think we hear Volkswagen Group talk about.

Speaker 1 (20:49.09)
being an embodied AI company. We don't hear Ford, we don't hear some of the other ones. It almost feels like the competition is moving away from electrification and even smartification into a broader sense of...

this ecosystem play that Li Auto right? We're gonna talk about Li Auto, why it's kind of doing this smart glasses I think we're playing on different levels while the foreign legacies are trying to catch up. Just the products, they don't have the products. First of all, they have to have the products, the right products.

Yeah, that's the baseline. That's the baseline.

And they've utilized the Chinese tech inside.

the Momentas the Horizons even employing some of the LiDAR companies in China.

Speaker 2 (21:54.52)
This is why, Lei, Xiaomi has such a huge potential upside because you talk about humanoid, you talk about embodied AI, you're basically talking lifestyle brand where I can help you clean your house. I can help you entertain yourself because we do TVs, we do laptops. I can help you

maintain a healthy lifestyle because we have water purifiers, air purifiers, and we have battery chargers. so Xiaomi could be the blueprint because they already have this established brand on the lifestyle side. Now they just need to integrate it. Whereas a NIO is moving into this space. Xpeng is moving into this space. Xiaomi is not really talking about

humanoids for commercial use or anything like that, but it's complimentary, isn't it? And so to your point, it feels like the Chinese EV companies are now trying to live and breathe the technology part and become those technology companies. Now, I believe that some of these companies are going to get spread thin from a capital.

and investment and R &D standpoint Because if you look at humanoid, you look at EVTOL, and the capital expenditures and the investment needed to make really great products is going to be super high. And you can only really support that if you're generating tons of revenue and working capital. And so that's where I think looking closely at XPeng and a NIO because we know XPeng is selling silicon to Volkswagen.

Who is NIO going to start targeting? And the silicon only really works if you get a high sales volume partner. Volkswagen is a high sales volume partner for XPeng. So licensing revenue, and basically it's no additional cost to XPeng because they've already done the R &D for their own products. So selling 100,000 units more of their silicon is gravy effectively for them.

Speaker 2 (24:19.112)
And this is where the challenge is going to be because Nvidia is not going to give up. And then outside of China, Nvidia is going to play hardball and probably try to lower prices for the legacy automakers to continue to have its silicon in their vehicles in Europe and the United States. We're getting off track a little bit, but this is a great conversation. It's probably something that we can talk about looking into 2026 episode.

Yeah, I mean, which is good segue into Li Autos Livas So, you know, you know, do you know the story behind the naming of this?

Yeah. Combination of Li Auto and Jarvis.

Jarvis in Iron Man. So they call it LiVis

Yeah, it's a of

Speaker 1 (25:12.856)
Very kind of cheesy, but it also, I think it also stands for the vision. So, Yeah, I think that that's what I thought first, but yeah, I mean, the smart glass in itself is an industry where it's almost like the car industry where you have the legacies, you have the Xiaomi's and then you have the Huawei's.

That makes more sense.

Speaker 1 (25:41.634)
The smart glass, have four. Now you have four kind of players playing in it. You have the startups. There's tons of startups doing smart glass in China. You have the Oppos You have the Xiaomi's going into the smart glass. You have the Metas, right? These internet companies. I don't know if Baidu is doing one, but they may be, but.

I'm sure they are.

And now you have an automaker kind of going into the smart AI, almost like NIO went into the phone. I think back to the earnings call that Li Xiang talked about, one of the goals he mentioned was that in three to five years, Li Auto wants to be one of the best embodied AI companies.

So think this LiVis is only one aspect of what they're trying to become.

And I think in terms of the TAM, first, by the way, congratulate Li Auto on getting to 1.5 million customers.

Speaker 1 (27:01.038)
1699 RMB multiplied by 10 % of their customer base. I don't know what that number is, but it could be a significant opportunity if we compare the smart glass industry, what these companies, the revenues they get.

For those wondering, that's just under $300 for those LiVis glasses.

So 10%, 150,000 of their customers buy this glass. And then me, I'm not a particular fan of smart glasses because I read that I'm, you know, I wear it because I'm near sighted. If you had to put in, if you're near sighted, I think that the cost of that glass goes up to almost 3000.

because you have to get prescription, right? So, but I think-

Just so the audience can understand and compare side by side. It's a 12 megapixel camera so you can take pictures, 12 megapixel. You can do video at 4K. So it's a pretty decent set of features.

Speaker 1 (28:23.458)
Yeah, I think Li Auto decided to sacrifice.

some, you know, like when you wear a smart glass, I mean, there's, right, you put the batteries, the cameras, and then the light speakers, there's so many components involved on the side of it, right? I think they sacrificed some performance features for longer range. And then just the ability for it to be part of your car, you know, opening or, right, anything you can do with the glasses.

So, call it because Li

That's facial recognition and it's about 19 hours of battery life.

Yeah, so he thinks that the future interaction is about this Jarvis, right? You just speak to it and let him or her do these things for you. You can do a chat GPD stuff, ask your questions, open your doors, turn on the AC, whatever.

Speaker 2 (29:36.854)
Ladies.

I'm not a big fan, it's.

Taking a step back, brother, our kids are around the same age. When they're our age, what kind of

I'm not saying this right. It'll be such a different life when they're our age for them.

Sure, sure.

Speaker 2 (30:02.19)
And I don't know. I would think that they're not going to be driving themselves. I think that they could think about things and make things happen. unlock. They don't even say it. They probably just think it. Unlock the door. Things like that. I don't know if there's going to be physical work.

Speaker 2 (30:30.594)
let's say 35 years, because I had my first kid when I was 36. So in 36 years, excuse me, you think about this stuff and I think about it not because of the innovation that's happening in the US, I'm thinking about it because of the innovation that's happening in China.

It goes back to the competitive landscape and nature between the emerging brands and the legacies because one of the reasons that legacies can't compete is because they're not willing to take that risk or they can't take that risk. Whereas the emerging ones, they're a lot more ready to take these risks and just say, you know, we're going to launch something entirely new outside of our comfort zone.

outside of what we're known for. then fails, then we reiterate if not, you and who talks about the neo phone.

way to say that is

Speaker 1 (31:32.142)
Right? mean, what happens to the levers?

Speaker 2 (31:44.766)
An easier way for me to think about this is the legacy automakers, whether they're American, German, or Japanese, they're having troubles keeping up with the present. Whereas these EV companies, whether it's a Tesla, a Rivian, a Lucid, they want to write the future. And it's more the Chinese have

much more outsized ambitions than the Rivians and the Lucids. But it is just to your point, the legacy automakers are treading water, whereas the Chinese EV companies are really trying to dictate the pace of change and they're winning right now.

Yeah, that's why I said the script is flipped, right? Not only in terms of leading in the EV or in Li Auto space, but trying to branch out and become not an automaker. Maybe Tesla is one of the

I know that the benchmark is where I work, but Tesla is doing a lot of other things outside of EVs, right? Xiaomi, right? They already have that base and then they moved into EVs. And now the EV emerging brands are branching out.

So the jury is out, right? Who, which model is gonna work? We don't know yet.

Speaker 2 (33:21.934)
In in

I did the, the complexity of the legacy automakers operations.

We should point that out because the Chinese are still primarily shipping from one country. although we see BYD, Chery Great Wall to a lesser extent, and then the battery makers, CATL and Gotion, AESC, starting to build presence outside of China, does this, when they establish those factories, let's say in 26 and 27, when job one rolls off of

the CATL factory in Spain, the Gotion factory with Inobat and Volkswagen and PowerCo, all those factories, when they start making product outside of China, does that slow down the Chinese innovation? I don't know. And is the rest of the world ready for it, I think is also an important question that needs to be answered because

How many people in Spain are going to glasses, smart glasses? And so I think that's kind of the most interesting thing or one of the most interesting threads that I'll keep an eye on. China continues to have this, and I think you and I agree that 26 is probably going to lead to dialing down of the price war and the intensity of the competition here a little bit. Although,

Speaker 2 (35:03.886)
I say that and last week you said WM Motors back in play and a couple of other brands are gonna start back up. we are in year four of a price war and there's still brands that either want to become players again or reestablish themselves or new brands popping up here and there. 26 is such a pivotal year. We say this about every year.

than every following year, but 26 is important just because what's the United States going to do with the Chinese? What's Canada going to do? Because there was an article in the New York Times yesterday that said the USMCA or NAFTA, however you want to call it, it might get blown up. And if that gets blown up, the free trade agreement between Canada, United States, and Mexico, it's every man for himself. And I tweeted that

If they can't renegotiate it, Carney, Trump, and Scheinbaum can't renegotiate it, Canada's going to drop tariffs to zero, invite Chinese imports in. United States is going to invite China EV ink to build in the United States. And then Mexico could be kind of odd man out. So anyways, let's save this for the

the what to look forward to in 26 episodes.

Yeah, in 2026, I think two things. Among the emerging brands, runs away further from the rest of the pack? For the legacy brands, their first iteration of their first products under this in China for China model, what kind of a market reception are they going to get? Because that'll give an idea of they have so many products coming. If this initial

Speaker 1 (37:06.966)
reception isn't good, then I think they are in a lot of trouble.

Speaker 1 (37:18.138)
So it's, yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:24.27)
Scary.

I also don't know where Porsche goes from here in the China market. Their superpowers have effectively been defanged the performance aspects of their vehicles, the brand heritage. It's kind of been ripped away in the China market.

I mean, where Porsche is going, we can think about a niche German premium luxury sports maker brand selling 10 to 20,000 units a year, but they still want to have China tech inside because they announced, this is R &D center, the only one outside of Germany that want to put in China developed infotainment stuff in the vehicles that are going to be imported.

to make it work, to at least retain some of the attractiveness, showing that they want to be local without being local. Renault, they have an R &D kind of setup in China to have that translate back to what they sell the rest of the world.

Lexus is doing their own WOFFE right these different kind of

Speaker 2 (38:57.736)
Allah Tesla, Allah Tesla. Similar to Tesla in China.

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:08.48)
I don't really have anything else, man. I know you've been busy so, rather than, there's no comments or questions either, but let me look through the.

Okay. 40 minutes. short one. Relatively short one.

Let me look through the newsletter real fast. So Jim Farley had a really informative interview. He was visiting Argentina. I did not know this, but he was born in Argentina. lived there too. He's nine years old.

No, I did not know that.

Did you know that?

Speaker 2 (39:45.484)
And then I in newsletter I spotlighted wheels boy Ethan Robertson. He had done a quick review of the GL 8 the GL eight. Americans.

Well, the Buick just the Electra MPV, so the Buick version of, let's say, the Denza D9.

I think it's over like 400,000 RMB so quite expensive, but I mean, that's where that segment is played.

The other important thing to Lei is that they've they've kind of broken the the GL 8 into. Commercial yeah yeah variations and you can see the front facias completely different on the ones for executives that are using it as cars for the business and then family. I think features are different and and all these different things. So you know I applaud Buick.

several different

Speaker 2 (40:44.894)
I applaud GM for really, really taking into consideration all the different opportunities within the MPV sector or segment in China. So actually, there is one comment here, Lei, and let's answer this. Unless anyone has any other comment, we can end it on this. Which players from China EV Inc have the product portfolio suited for the USA?

This is coming from SPXNOMAD2187.

The answer is simple, all of them. No, I'm just kidding. I mean, if we look at the current market landscape, the large SUVs, the NIOs Li Autos, the XPengs Leap motors, all of them have the large SUVs.

show me would sell, sell like crazy here.

Tell me the U.S. was all crazy if they were here.

Speaker 2 (41:44.372)
BYD would sell crazy here. Crazy. You know, I don't know how popular the Xingyuan's would be, but the Atto 3 those would be. Yeah, not the Tiny Tiny, not the Wulings. But any...

the small vehicles.

That's your view.

SPX I'm looking at it more from a price standpoint because in the United States the MSRP of passenger vehicles full stop is going the wrong way and so if the Chinese can come in at a $35,000 price point with the features that they exist that that exists in current vehicles that cost $25,000 in China they'll do quite well. I.

I believe the design of a lot of these Chinese electric vehicles is going to be very attractive to Western tastes. the Zeekr vehicles, think those things look great. Generally speaking now, there are certain design aspects that I don't like about them, but if I get nitpicky, I'll pick them out. I've driven two or three of the Zeekrs earlier this year, and I'm like, wow, this is super nice, super nice.

Speaker 2 (43:04.11)
And it was a $45,000 Zeekr in China. If it can come in at 50, 60, which is tough, it's impossible with 100 % tariff. But if they eventually build it locally and or if they want to eat some of the margin in order to build a share in the United States, then they could win a lot of market share, unfortunately, because we won't know.

If Legacy Auto and US EV Inc. gets it until we see the Baby R2, the Baby Gravity, the Slate, Ford's new truck that's supposed to come out in 27, we won't know how far along they are in competitiveness until those products come out.

You know, so definitely looking forward to the Rivian Autonomy AI Day next Thursday, I think, which we probably can talk about next episode. But I mean, going to what sells, look at me as a consumer. just guess what I purchased for the new condo. I purchased the Dreame robot. Nice vacuum robot. And I

on

Speaker 1 (44:24.238)
Until I think I've never used that before. I've never used a vacuum robot before, you start using it and you kind of understand what kind of this smartification, the smarter life means. And then you think about, right, you go out to Costco, you shop for these appliances. Hisense is here. TCL is here. GLANS is here.

Midea D is here. How long does it take for you to see Chinese EV brands selling? It's not.

I'm gonna go a step further, Lei.

I'm in San Jose two weeks ago and went to the mall to pick something up. There's a Dreame store in the mall. For those that are wondering, Dreame is like the Dyson of China, but also they have EV and we're talking ultra luxury EV ambitions.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:31.206)
there's an outside chance we may see something from Dreame or CES based on what I understand. They might show something from their EV business. But we won't own multiple Chinese brands, DJI, right? The pockets. Those are not as scrutinized as being Chinese brands because

I think people all over the world buy them for the capabilities that they offer to the consumer and they don't think this is a Chinese brand.

Well, there are no Western alternatives either. that that pack as much features the pricing. But DJI Pocket is now unattractive because it's much more expensive. It's like a thousand dollars. So anyways, hey, man. Again, gongxi on the new. You have to send send me some pictures.

Ugh.

What an awesome tracking to do

Speaker 1 (46:36.31)
I'm looking at boxes, which I'm not going to show.

Well, do this, Take a room and set it aside and make it the China EVs and more room.

I I'm trying to make it.

So this is my office. we'll be back. Maybe next week we talk year in review. I don't know. We've got to figure that out. But a week after that is Christmas, so I don't think we should have an episode during the week of Christmas. So maybe next week, everyone, is going to be our year in review. I'm going to try to use chat GPT, because let's see if that works really well. Or we can do the 19th.

Yeah, I mean it was.

Speaker 1 (47:17.592)
Cause 19th, it's the week before Christmas. We can do that.

Okay, yeah, that works everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. We will talk with you all next week.

Bye bye.