Episode #230 - Rivian’s AI Moment, China’s L4 Push, and the Race for Affordable EVs

In this episode, Tu and Lei dive into a week dominated by autonomy, AI, and a widening gap between China’s EV ecosystem and the rest of the world.  

The episode opens with a deep reaction to Rivian’s Autonomy AI Day—why it felt like déjà vu for anyone following China’s smart-EV space, and how Rivian’s announcements mirror what Chinese players like XPeng, NIO, and Li Auto have already been deploying. The hosts debate whether Rivian’s approach represents real leadership or simply entry into the top tier.

From there, the conversation expands to L4 autonomy momentum: WeRide launching passenger rides with Uber in Dubai, Mercedes partnering with Momenta in Abu Dhabi, and Waymo accelerating multi-city deployments while publishing safety data others still keep opaque.

Tu and Lei also tackle the LiDAR vs. vision debate, Volkswagen’s unusual dual bet on Rivian (US) and XPeng (China), and why silicon strategy—not just batteries—will decide winners. The discussion closes with affordability: why 300-mile EVs under $40K are existential for Western OEMs, and why China’s cost structure makes that challenge unavoidable heading into 2026.

Candid, comparative, and forward-looking, this episode explains why autonomy and AI—not just electrification—will define the next phase of the global auto industry.

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China EVs & More, Tu Le, Lei Xing, Sino Auto Insights, Rivian Autonomy AI Day, Rivian R2, Rivian silicon strategy, personal L4 autonomy, autonomous vehicles China, robotaxi expansion, WeRide Uber Dubai, Mercedes Momenta Abu Dhabi, Waymo expansion, LiDAR vs vision, RoboSense LiDAR, Hesai LiDAR, XPeng autonomous driving, NIO smart EVs, Li Auto embodied AI, Volkswagen Rivian partnership, Volkswagen XPeng partnership, affordable EVs 2026, 300 mile EVs, global EV competition, future of mobility

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China EVs & More, China EVs, Tu Le, Lei Xing, Sino Auto Insights, Rivian, Rivian AI Day, Rivian R2, autonomous vehicles, robotaxi, WeRide, Uber robotaxi, Waymo, Mercedes Momenta, XPeng, NIO, Li Auto, Volkswagen Rivian, Volkswagen XPeng, LiDAR vs vision, RoboSense, Hesai, EV silicon, affordable EVs, 300 mile EV, future of mobility, EV autonomy, global auto industry, China vs US EVs

Transcript

Tu Le (00:00)
 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. 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 get the word out about this podcast and subscribe and like so you don't miss anything from us in the future. My name is Tu Le I am the managing director at Sino Auto Insights, a global management consultancy that helps organizations bring innovative and tech focused products and services to the transportation and mobility sectors. I write a free weekly newsletter that we pull some of our discussion topics from. You can sign up for it at sinoautoinsights.substack.com.
 
 which of course I encourage you all to do. Lei, a still moving in Lei with a bunch of boxes around him. Lei, can you please introduce yourself?
 
 Lei Xing (01:06)
 You are exactly right. My boxes are hiding in my closet. ‚Åì This is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review, this is episode number 240. I had a feeling that ‚Åì autonomy was going to be a major topic that we're going to talk about because the past few days there's been a lot of autonomy news. Just this morning.
 
 WeRide announced ‚Åì they're starting passenger rides in Dubai with Uber. So that's going online. And then of course, yesterday was the big Rivian Autonomy AI day. I watched a little bit of that and we can talk about that. Earlier Mercedes and Momenta is going to launch
 
 They're sort of the robotaxi in Abu Dhabi with a local partner called Lumo.
 
 ‚Åì So a bunch of autonomy news we have some updated NEV sales numbers ‚Åì So those are what's on my mind ‚Åì Where do you want to go first?
 
 Tu Le (02:22)
 I want to hear your thoughts on Rivian's AI day.
 
 Lei Xing (02:24)
 I tweeted that it was deja vu. Because no, meaning that we've watched tons and tons of ‚Åì EV launches and whatever, xx days from the startups, from the legacies. And what I meant by deja vu is I feel like Rivian is almost as close
 
 Tu Le (02:29)
 all over again.
 
 Lei Xing (02:53)
 to a Chinese smart EV startup. ‚Åì Because of the jargons that they talked about.
 
 end-to-end, LLM, LIDAR, personal L4. Personal L4 is interesting because now I think we have Xpengs, the first I believe, ‚Åì talked about a personal L4 versus a shared RoboTaxi. And then GM seems to be going to that route as well. By the way, GM stock price going up more than 50 %
 
 year to date was not in my bingo card somehow, right? And then now you have Rivian ‚Åì talk about all of these jargons and most importantly, perhaps the Rap1 their own kind of in-house developed SOC following the footsteps of Wei Xiaoli. So that's my initial reaction. mean, it's, they're talking about
 
 everything that the Chinese smart EV startups are talking about. So it seems that they kind of, was what leap and bounce? All of a sudden they're closer now. But besides Rivian and Tesla, we really can't find anybody else in the Western world, at least in North America, that we could have
 
 multiple number of these startups talking about these things. It's really, it's a handful. One of few. ‚Åì
 
 That's my, you know. Yeah, please. That's why we're here.
 
 Tu Le (04:30)
 You want to know my thoughts?
 
 I am with you. It is deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra said. you point to what the Chinese companies are talking about. But a lot of what the Rivian had talked about with their three or four speakers yesterday.
 
 are already being implemented in China. That's what I mean by deja vu. So everything that they've announced is not revolutionary. It's not moving the needle. It's just putting them into the top tier. And I think that's what you're saying, right? They weren't from, I don't know what their strategy is to, okay, if they implement all these things, then they become in the top tier of EV makers.
 
 I'm going expand this out because I think also what you were referring to is maybe some of the humanoid stuff, some of the silicon design stuff and the legacy automakers aren't really talking about that. The Chinese EV companies, Tesla's talking about it. You know, a handful of other companies are also talking about it, but there's this.
 
 The legacy automakers have unions. have tens and hundreds of thousands of employees. So as they're closing factories, as they're writing off investments, a la GM, SAIC, Ford, and some of their EV investment write-offs, Stellantis as well, I think it's hard for them to go and have an AI day and say, are investing in all these things and then closing factories.
 
 So I think it would send a weird message and I do agree with you. don't know. So three or four people pinged me in the last couple of days asking about why do I think GM share prices over $80. So it, it, that's the interesting thing. didn't hear anything during yesterday's, ‚Åì event that was like, Hmm.
 
 And I'll go a stack further. tweeting or I'm not tweeting. I'm talking to somebody about this while it's happening. And I looked at some of the voice commands where they're making recommendations for restaurants, talking about changing range. That's an integration. I don't think they're creating that. They're integrating existing apps and existing features into their ecosystem. That's different.
 
 than actually creating it from scratch. So still significant, still significant, but not as significant as building this from the ground up without using Google Maps, without using all these other ‚Åì tools that help them create the seamless or what they hope to be a seamless experience.
 
 Lei Xing (07:19)
 Yeah, about GM.
 
 So I was actually even talking about GM with my wife. know why? think one of the reasons, maybe a couple is first of all, we saw the Tesla numbers, what? Three year, four year low in November in the US. Yeah, 39,000 versus like 50,000 what? A year ago, that's one. Two, the policy changes from Trump, EPA. I think that's a major.
 
 Tu Le (07:53)
 November,
 
 Lei Xing (08:07)
 booster. But back to Rivian, you mentioned about that voice assistant, right? This digital AI assistant. I did notice something interesting, which makes them still behind the Chinese is every time you speak to it, you have to press a little button to wake it up. They don't have, they don't have continuous language yet.
 
 Tu Le (08:30)
 No, I think...
 
 Lei Xing (08:35)
 which is probably already standard on many of the Chinese. And the latency is still, I think for us being spoiled, the latency is still way too long if you compare it to XPeng, right? But it was impressive. I think it was impressive. I think I heard a lot of wows and I was like, yeah. you know, it's impressive, but I think... ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (08:47)
 That was something that was noticeable, yes.
 
 Exactly!
 
 Lei Xing (09:04)
 integrating the simple thing, I think, as a Google calendar in the car to your phone and the phone gets updated. ‚Åì I think that's where for the legacies it's hard to achieve. And they did it. But they're still somewhat behind the Chinese. If we talk about speed, speed, right? Reactions and continuous language.
 
 Tu Le (09:29)
 Well, this thing isn't going to
 
 launch for another quarter, quarter and a half. So that's the other thing that's to your point about speed.
 
 Lei Xing (09:37)
 Yeah.
 
 And the other thing that I'm not sure about you, but I did not like, but I understood why they had to do it is the $2,500 subscription fee for the autonomy platform. Which in, again, we go back to China is nowadays they try to make everything standard standard. One number about LIDAR, a quarter of the new NEV sold in China now has LIDAR.
 
 That's the latest number I've heard. Yeah, and ‚Åì I think a quarter of the models launched, not sales, I think already has lighter standard in China.
 
 Tu Le (10:04)
 It's going to be standard within 18 months. It's going to be standard except on Teslas.
 
 And I was told it's
 
 RoboSense that's supplying that LIDAR.
 
 Lei Xing (10:26)
 Well, Luminar stock actually went up a little bit because of, we don't know exactly who yet, but not surprised if it's, know RoboSense supplies Lucid. That's public info. So, I mean, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (10:43)
 One thing, Lei that I will disagree with you on is that, so if you watch the video again, when he tried to do, Rivian, it didn't respond the first time. And so he had to say it again, the very first time they interacted, they moved to the guy in the car. So I think that's why he's pressing the button, because he wants to make sure that it doesn't stutter. It doesn't not acknowledge him.
 
 Lei Xing (10:59)
 I saw that.
 
 Tu Le (11:11)
 I actually think that's why. Now, the continuous, that's something different, the button thing, I think it was because there was a bug that didn't hear him the first time, and I think that's why. But also...
 
 Lei Xing (11:26)
 Yeah, so I mean, it's still
 
 early. then LIDAR, think what they announced was it won't go on until later, 2026. So we're still a year out. But.
 
 Tu Le (11:34)
 Right. While to your
 
 point, 25 % of all cars being shipped ‚Åì in China have LIDAR. And this crosses the ICE-EV boundary too, because there's LIDAR on ICE vehicles in China as well. And so I look at the demo that they gave as logical steps into
 
 the seamless user experience. I don't look at it like, wow, Rivian was really novel and innovative with this approach to how they... I would love to be able to say, hey, car, conserve as much energy as you can while I'm going down to Detroit, order me a Starbucks on the one on 12 miles so that I can just... And then use my level...
 
 three to take me to Starbucks, go through the drive-through, pick that coffee up. To me, that's all logical. it's like, and ‚Åì I'll be frankly, the ooohs came from the KOLs because they want to keep on getting invited to those events and the employees. That's where the ooohs came from. Because if you've been to China, you're not ooh'ing.
 
 Lei Xing (12:55)
 Well, that's where the other part of Deja Vu is, that even the Chinese launch events, you have a group of people wooing and wowing. They're probably not the KOLs, they're probably the fans or their owners or users. Yeah, they do that. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (13:05)
 You
 
 Same same,Â∑Ɖ∏ç§ö right? But honestly,
 
 this is the whole thing. If you're media and you're oooh'ing then that means that you need to get out from under the rock and start listening to us on China EVs and more ‚Åì every week because you'll be educated on what's going on in China, you know, minute by minute. For instance, Bronco, hybrid.
 
 Lei Xing (13:29)
 Yeah, ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (13:39)
 rolling off the line December 31st, right? So, and we can talk about it later, but I was on a panel discussion in Detroit and I talked about all these things that most people don't know. So.
 
 Lei Xing (13:50)
 Yeah, we.
 
 We always look at things with the lens of China, know, the back of our mind, because we've seen those, we've experienced those. So we may be hard or critical, let's say on Rivian, for example, ‚Åì because we compare against Tesla actually is still the benchmark because He Xiaopeng, sent out a message, moments saying he's currently in Silicon Valley, I think touring.
 
 and he made a bet that by August, end of August next year, they want to achieve the same capability as Tesla FSD v14.2 in Silicon Valley with their VLA 2.0. If they achieve that, he's going to open up a canteen or a cafeteria at their Silicon ‚Åì Valley office. If not,
 
 Tu Le (14:44)
 Hmm.
 
 Lei Xing (14:50)
 one of his lieutenants in charge of autonomous driving is going to have to run naked at the Golden Gate Bridge. He posted this. It was funny. So that to me is saying, wow, I mean, he's impressed about FSD because they're probably still not there yet. They want to be there. They want to be the China's FSD. ‚Åì But Rivian is somewhere behind still, but they obviously showed
 
 the potential and their goals with the autonomy idea. And really, I think the...
 
 Tu Le (15:26)
 But here's what's important,
 
 I want to be clear. I'm not poo-pooing FSD. What I'm upset about is that it's so ubiquitous that it creates risk for people on the road. And there are people that aren't very diligent about keeping an eye on what's going on on the roads. It is an amazing, amazing, amazing accomplishment.
 
 for them to be able to do it without LIDAR. Philosophically, we'll figure out in the next three, five, seven years whether that was the right move or not. Long term, probably it is. But the Rivian woman ‚Åì said that LIDAR is now hundreds of dollars. So if it's a new...
 
 Lei Xing (16:14)
 compared to tens of
 
 thousands of dollars 10 years ago. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (16:18)
 in 2016, I
 
 think she said, or she showed the two pictures side by side, 2025 versus 2016. And so those innovations are coming from the Robosenses from the Hesais from the Innovusions while they're still driving down costs. And ‚Åì I don't believe that those three will go out of business. Some of the LIDAR players will go out of business because of them.
 
 Luminar struggling because they wanted to be the premium end of the lidar now Innovis is our friend ‚Åì from Innovis He seems to still be doing okay with the Germans but I Don't know
 
 Lei Xing (16:58)
 Yeah, well he's, I mean BMW
 
 and Volkswagen, they're working on that Mobileye Robotaxi, which is coming to the US, I think. That part of it. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (17:06)
 Mm-hmm.
 
 Well, Mobileye is probably the weakest partner in that partnership.
 
 Lei Xing (17:14)
 But again,
 
 the thing is Xpeng, they went through this putting LiDAR on first among anyone. And then they asked, yeah, with the P5, which is, it's weird because the P5 is already, it's gone from our vocabulary of China NEV stuff because it's so far out.
 
 Tu Le (17:23)
 with the P5, with the P5.
 
 Lei Xing (17:38)
 And then when they went as fast as ditching LiDAR, remember we talked about this, going to a vision approach. ‚Åì yeah, some other ones are not there yet, but that's where the evolution, we're going to different paths, right? The LiDAR is going onto vehicles, but XPeng, Tesla are the vision AI kind of the proponent.
 
 Tu Le (17:47)
 I do too.
 
 One thing that I think is important, and I tweeted about this, Lei, is Volkswagen is partners with Rivian and XPeng. It's kind of coincidental that we met this.
 
 Lei Xing (18:14)
 Which is the other thing that's
 
 interesting because after watching yesterday, you kind of understand. I think Rivian is more like the XPeng of America. And it so happens that Volkswagen invested in both of these companies. One for the East, one for the West.
 
 Tu Le (18:33)
 But what
 
 I tweeted about was now Volkswagen's going to use Rivian silicon in the US. They're going to use XPeng, the Volkswagen brand at least. It's going to use XPeng silicon in China. What is going to be used in the EU? Who are they going to source from in the EU? So it doesn't make sense for them to use Nvidia because they'll have already qualified
 
 Lei Xing (18:46)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (19:03)
 Silicon from Rivian. And that's my thought. They did not say that they were going to sell their Silicon. But here's the thing. The amount of investment that Rivian has to be making on the Silicon design team, with volumes that they have, they'd be upside down forever. In order to get a return on that investment in Silicon design, they would have to
 
 sell tens of thousands of them. And that only happens with, even if they sell the R2 and it's a smash hit, you know?
 
 Lei Xing (19:34)
 Yeah.
 
 Yeah, but you know,
 
 as a consumer, I'm in love with R2, especially how the lidar is integrated, how the vehicle size is, how the design is. I'm going to be a little bit torn because like I said, you know, I'm ready to switch. I also do want to experience FSD and I'm sure Tesla, they're offering 0 % APR on the standard. Why? And I'm really close to pulling the trigger.
 
 if they do that on the premiums, because I don't like the standard. And if I get a Tesla, I definitely get FSD. think for a kind of a wee talking about this, think owe it to myself, maybe you as well, to really actually own one and experience and talk about it. And then, sure.
 
 Tu Le (20:31)
 I plan to. Not necessarily FSD, but either GM, Tesla or Ford.
 
 Lei Xing (20:37)
 ‚Åì But ‚Åì R2 is really, you know, ‚Åì I think it should sell well. ‚Åì But I think it's a bet. So there's a lot of questions raised. ‚Åì Again, the volumes, right? For the rap, one.
 
 Tu Le (20:55)
 What? I'm...
 
 I'm not concerned about Rivian's design. I'm not concerned about their innovation, technology, software side, and UX design. I don't know if they know how to build cars. They obviously don't know how to sell them. And so that's the challenge. The cars are too heavy because the ranges are too small. And then if you get the
 
 the high-end versions with the dual motors and the larger batteries were getting into a hundred and some thousand dollar vehicle. So they want to be the Patagonia, but Patagonia, they have a lot of variety of, you know, and so.
 
 It I'm sure they'll get themselves out of this, but I. I don't know. They does that window close for them because you saw Jeep with the Recon now. It's got 200 miles of range, which is terrible. 250 miles are terrible, but the low end are ones they also have less than 300 miles range so.
 
 The legacy OEMs in North America need to offer affordable cars with 300 miles of range. need to, and whether they use LMR, whether they use LFP, whether you use Chinese cells, that's what needs to happen in 2026. If it doesn't happen by middle of 27, they're going to be taken out of the market because the Chinese will be here probably in some way. And I think
 
 Lei Xing (22:23)
 ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (22:35)
 And the legacy automakers will figure out a way to make an affordable EV with over 300 miles of range.
 
 Lei Xing (22:43)
 Yeah, well, affordability is the key, I think, word for we can talk about Ford and Renault because Ford did have that Ford's wagon. Now they're going to have the what Ford-nault Ford-nault or. Ren-ord and the key key to that is affordability in the small EV segment, and that's where Renault is good at and hence Ford is.
 
 Tu Le (22:59)
 Hmm
 
 Lei Xing (23:12)
 teaming up. Yeah, I got, well, I got one in my box. I gotta put a little shelf here, but.
 
 Tu Le (23:20)
 Yeah, you have an excuse.
 
 I'm going to build a shelf right here too with all my.
 
 Lei Xing (23:23)
 Yeah,
 
 and speaking of Renault, they just launched the Twingo, right? Kind of a 20,000 euro vehicle. And guess what? Close to 50 % of the procurement comes out of China for that vehicle. That's the cost. That's affordability. And at the same time, we heard about
 
 What was the organization in the US that I think there was a Reuters articles about not allowing the sales or manufacturers, Chinese automakers to set up manufacturing in the US.
 
 Right, so these are all intertwined when it comes to affordability and why Ford is working with Renault and also Ford, mean Jim Foddy is smart, he's know, light asset, whatever. I think these are two companies are both, they're not actively building in, if at all, in China, but they're utilizing the localization ‚Åì capabilities of China.
 
 to their benefit.
 
 Tu Le (24:28)
 So I've bookmarked, Lei an article in the New York Times about Doug Field Ford to doing what they're doing in LA. Have not read it yet. I've had about 15 people send it to me. But yeah.
 
 Lei Xing (24:40)
 Yeah, yeah. This skunk works.
 
 He
 
 will be a CES. I think he's doing a talk. So it'll be interesting to attend that.
 
 Tu Le (24:55)
 Yeah, I, I, it is. Wow. What an interesting time, you know, in, in let's talk about the AV stuff. You said a big, big important week in AV you talk to root. Okay.
 
 Lei Xing (25:09)
 Well, Rivian was the major one.
 
 talked about Rivian and then Mercedes and Momenta, right? mean, was kind of Mercedes is an investor in Momenta. Mercedes using Momenta in ‚Åì China for the L2++. So I guess it's only natural that they're now using Momenta in a, let's say a ‚Åì
 
 geopolitical immune environment which is the Middle East. They don't have to think about what's happening in Europe, not in the US. They're doing something else in the US. And Mercedes I think is the one of maybe not the only but few that are betting on the L2++. They're betting on L3. They're betting on L4 with multiple partners.
 
 Momenta being a key one. And ‚Åì the other part about Momenta next year is also they're running the Uber robotaxi in Munich. Now it's announced at Munich Auto Show, right? ‚Åì Yeah. ‚Åì IPOing, yeah, I heard about that even earlier this year. They're trying to prepare. Probably one of the bigger IPOs.
 
 Tu Le (26:11)
 Mm-hmm.
 
 Momenta is going to be IPO-ing in 2026 too, so.
 
 Lei Xing (26:29)
 in the EVAV space in 2026. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (26:34)
 Coming at a particularly interesting year as Waymo moves aggressively in the United States, because they're probably going to be IPO-ing very soon as well.
 
 Lei Xing (26:44)
 Waymo Yeah.
 
 Waymo ‚Åì announced a ‚Åì full year 14 million rides and they're now fully autonomous in 10 cities and there will be 20 cities including Tokyo and London next year. I think just within the last few months and weeks we saw that kind of scaling go up rather significantly.
 
 And I did nine rides all in Phoenix when we had the volleyball tournament in June.
 
 Tu Le (27:19)
 while...
 
 While Lei, there was that accident in China with the Baidu robotaxi. ‚Åì did you read anything else about what was going on? I just saw a couple of posts, but I didn't dig into it. It had run someone over or something. I need to find out more.
 
 Lei Xing (27:33)
 Yeah.
 
 is yeah there was
 
 I saw that ‚Åì I haven't seen that much being reported ‚Åì but I think there's on bystander had to lift the vehicle up to have the person ‚Åì dragged out or something but I think these episodes are probably gonna be ‚Åì remain part of
 
 Tu Le (28:18)
 Sure.
 
 Lei Xing (28:20)
 you know, here and there. ‚Åì And that's why, right, Elon Musk, he's like, you know, that's why we want to be, what's the word he used? ‚Åì Paranoia, right? We want to have that paranoia of ‚Åì taking all these safety drivers, ‚Åì you know, for whatever, you know, if takes his word.
 
 Tu Le (28:43)
 I don't know. Like, he says all these things and quotes all these numbers and volumes and they just don't happen the way.
 
 Lei Xing (28:52)
 He did
 
 tweet that replied to you. said ‚Åì Waymo has no chance against Tesla, right? It'll become evident ‚Åì in hindsight.
 
 Tu Le (29:05)
 Fair enough, whatever. The one thing about Waymo setting the pace, not only from a launching in multiple cities, cities with four seasons, but also they are virtually the only company that's publishing their data about accidents. So that is going to really become an important
 
 Lei Xing (29:28)
 Safety.
 
 Tu Le (29:33)
 difference between Waymo and everyone else. The Chinese generally aren't going to be doing that either. They're going to be on the same side as Tesla. We want to keep it a secret. We don't want to give you any details. Now, you and I living in China for so long, the number of deaths on Chinese roads, especially in early days, is enormous. It's a big number.
 
 I don't know what exactly is, because I don't even know if they report it. And it's probably not accurate when they do, because up until, what, seven, eight years ago, there were still people riding bicycles on major highways. Right? So yeah. And tier two, tier three cities. And then in the 2010s, I remember going off.
 
 Lei Xing (30:13)
 There still are. Once in a while.
 
 Tu Le (30:25)
 an exit ramp and seeing someone drive in reverse because they took the wrong exit. Like I'm passing them by on an exit because they're going reverse the wrong way to try to get back on the highway. And I'm like, what in the, this person has a death wish. So.
 
 Lei Xing (30:43)
 You
 
 Then again,
 
 safety is all these Chinese automakers talk about these days at launch events. Geely just announced their global safety center today.
 
 But yeah.
 
 Tu Le (31:02)
 Well,
 
 China social is so unforgiving. Whether that's real, whether that's paid water armies, we don't know. And don't get me wrong, the resilience of Xiaomi is very, very impressive because of that tragedy. then because the Mega has really...
 
 gotten a lot of bad press, still no answers for that. No data, no updates on what really happened. And ‚Åì the challenge for the Chinese is as Pony launches in Europe, as Pony and WeRide launch in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Singapore, they're not going to be able to manipulate things the way they want to.
 
 Lei Xing (31:33)
 Yeah.
 
 How transparency plays a role? How transparent can they be? think, yeah, something to watch.
 
 Tu Le (32:06)
 Yeah. so, ‚Åì especially, unfortunately, I have to say this, especially when, and if, probably when there's going to be a fatality involved with one of these companies. I think you and I both agree that there's probably a certain inevitability to it. The chances are very, very high. Because when you look at Singapore, there's still bikes.
 
 Lei Xing (32:31)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (32:35)
 parts of the road. Now, Singapore is much more mature. Hong Kong also, not many bikes on many roads unless you're in the city, which bodes well for the autonomous vehicles because you're not going very fast. And so I would think that fatalities would happen more so on highways and freeways than they would in the city.
 
 ‚Åì That's all I had, man. I think we should save it for our blockbuster year in review. ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing (33:07)
 Yeah, I mean, we
 
 can do that next week, I think. And then the following week is Christmas. And then it's 2026 already. I can't believe it.
 
 Tu Le (33:13)
 Yeah. And then before
 
 you and I had to Las Vegas, we can do a Predictions 2026 episode. Because you and I will be in Vegas on the 3rd, right? So maybe we try to do something on the 2nd. Maybe we record it in Vegas. Maybe we record it in Vegas.
 
 Lei Xing (33:27)
 Yep. Yeah. I'll be there for a few days. We can.
 
 Definitely
 
 try the Zoox because Zoox is available and we have to add it to the bucket list. We've done virtually almost every. Tensor is going to be in Vegas. I think you can sign up to get a ride.
 
 Tu Le (33:42)
 Hmm.
 
 That thing is enormous. It's like the size of a Mega It's that big. It's 18 feet long.
 
 Lei Xing (33:59)
 It's bigger than
 
 a Waymo I-Paces. Is that correct? looks, yeah, okay. right. All right. Well, then we have the Zeekr RT, which is even bigger, but that's a robot van not a taxi.
 
 Tu Le (34:03)
 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's huge. It is huge.
 
 Yeah, yeah.
 
 So this week for me, I just did a panel discussion. MichAuto is a advocacy group for the automotive space in Michigan. And I'm good friends ‚Åì with the person that runs MichAuto. So he invited me to be on a panel discussion, frank panel discussion. He loves that I don't sugarcoat things and he appreciates it. And so.
 
 You know, we still need to educate Lei because there's someone on the panel who, I don't know where half of the data that they were referring to came from. I Googled some of it after the panel discussion that evening and it was not accurate. So there are still narratives being pushed by probably the people that you and I know that have not been to China recently in our
 
 Fishing for clicks, fishing for projects, fishing for consulting. it's important what we do, Lei. So let's continue to do that. let's get to ‚Åì questions, comments. OK. SPXMoma. SPSNomed. ‚Åì Thanks for joining again. Good morning, guys. With L4 and AI coming.
 
 Would it make sense for Rivian to enter the China market? No, not at this time. What do you think?
 
 Lei Xing (35:40)
 Well, they gotta get their act,
 
 well you talked about manufacturing, they gotta get manufacturing right here in the US because they're gonna have another plan, right? So every, once they get that through, then, no, yeah, forget about China for now. Yeah, too much on the plate.
 
 Tu Le (36:01)
 Yeah, I agree. Let me see here. So this is referring to a question I just posted. And I'll ask you first, Lei, and I'll read the comment next. Is Rivian able to stay independent, or does the legacy end up swallowing them up, or someone end up swallowing them up? What do you think?
 
 Lei Xing (36:23)
 Well Volkswagen invested what five billion dollars? It's part of the answer. I don't think they can be independent. Meaning ‚Åì even Volkswagen for XPeng is XPeng independent?
 
 ‚Åì we can debate. ‚Åì So it's murky. I think it's never an absolute ‚Åì answer that they're independent. But at this point, ‚Åì it's harder to remain independent. Maybe that's the kind of answer.
 
 Tu Le (37:00)
 What I'm curious to see because the ID Unix, is going to be built using a lot of XPeng IP, that's going to start production in January. So once Volkswagen uses Rivian IP,
 
 Lei Xing (37:14)
 It's coming in soon. Yeah, it's coming at the end of this month. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (37:26)
 I'm wondering how the user experiences for a Volkswagen in China versus a Volkswagen in the United States is going to be. Because it inevitably it will be. And what Rivian probably needs to figure out is that latency issue that you talked about. Because that would
 
 Lei Xing (37:34)
 Mmm.
 
 Yeah, it'll definitely be different.
 
 think what the ‚Åì customers are used to here versus China and demanding the kind of, whether it's speed, whether functionality, ‚Åì it's totally different. Age of people using these products is different. The ecosystem that they're used to, buying on Meituan, DD,
 
 All of the stuff is different, right? Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (38:12)
 Xiaomi.
 
 The one thing that you and I can...
 
 confidently say is that Chinese consumers would not accept that level of latency that we saw yesterday.
 
 Lei Xing (38:26)
 It will not sell
 
 in China based on what they showed. No. Because other people are offering better experiences.
 
 Tu Le (38:36)
 What if Rivian and Lucid I think that would be the worst idea. Not a good idea. They both need help, financial help, number one. They both aren't able to sell and they both don't know how to manufacture or mass produce things. now I've actually been told by a few people now that I...
 
 was considering an R1 because they have some incentives, but it's still too expensive. And I'd spoken to a couple of Rivian owners and it's weird. A few of them told me that they have a ton of quality issues, but a couple of them told me that it hasn't, they haven't had any issues. I haven't heard that much quality problems with Lucids, but Rivians, have heard people complain.
 
 Lei Xing (39:22)
 Yes.
 
 Yeah, I was talking with one of our other fans offline about picking between a Y and R2. The difference being, I think the Y is established mature product that are built in three locations in the world. Whereas R2 is a new, new product with new architecture, new hardware. So you have to weigh out even maturity versus
 
 that newish aspect which could be a of a question mark for quality. So that's something that I as a consumer will have to wait.
 
 Tu Le (40:13)
 You don't necessarily always want to be first in line to buy a brand new product from anybody, even if they have well-known reputation for high quality, even a Toyota. Maybe it's better to be the second mover as opposed to the first. And I also think it's important to note that the R2 still has an instrument panel, digital cluster, where the Model Y is basically a center stack
 
 Lei Xing (40:24)
 Yeah. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (40:42)
 OK, so manufacturing, the simplicity of manufacturing a Model Y versus an R2 is going to be a lot. And rule of thumb, general rule of thumb, the more times it's touched, the more people that touch it, the more pieces that it has, it increases the chance and risk of quality issues, full stop. So.
 
 Lei Xing (41:05)
 Yeah, yeah,
 
 so, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (41:08)
 So yeah, anyways, everyone, we will be early with our announcement on ‚Åì the year in review episode so that you don't miss out. Next week is the last full week of December for most people before Christmas. So.
 
 Lei Xing (41:22)
 Yeah, so
 
 I think that's next week is the best time to do it because now it'll be CS and then we go into January. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (41:30)
 And also a plug for the other platform on Tuesday, I'm going to be ‚Åì hosting with Joe a year in review, more focused on North America, Europe a little bit. ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing (41:44)
 I'll send you some photos. I was looking for some photos when BYD attended Detroit Auto Show for the first time in 2008. And that photo has some familiar faces in it. You'll recognize them. It's bunch of people standing behind the F6 DM. ‚Åì One very well-known reporter that we've...
 
 Tu Le (41:52)
 I'd love to see it.
 
 nice. OK. So.
 
 Lei Xing (42:09)
 have mentioned on the show standing. Yeah, I said it to him. I look so young. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (42:11)
 Right on, okay. So.
 
 Everyone
 
 have a terrific weekend. ‚Åì Was it snowing there in Mass?
 
 Lei Xing (42:24)
 No, we only had that one storm last week, but not so much. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (42:28)
 It's snow. It's there's a lot. There's probably three inches of snow and it's cold now too. So the snow got a little hard. But anyways, you got any volleyball this weekend?
 
 Lei Xing (42:38)
 No, actually, thankfully no. Starts in January.
 
 Tu Le (42:39)
 Good for you, So
 
 get that office set up,
 
 Lei Xing (42:45)
 I it's better than last week and I'm sure next week will be better than this week. So bear with me.
 
 Tu Le (42:51)
 OK. Everyone,
 
 thanks again for joining us. Have a good weekend. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
 
 Lei Xing (42:59)
 Bye, bye.