BYD’s 1500kW Charging Breakthrough — Tesla & the West Just Got a Wake-Up Call | Episode #240 Artwork

China EVs & More

Electric Vehicle (EV) & mobility experts Tu Le and Lei Xing plug you in to all the latest going's on in the 🇨🇳EV & mobility space that are sure to have effects on the 🇺🇸 and 🇪🇺 regions. Specifically, Tu and Lei dissect the week’s most important news coming out of the China EV/Autonomous Driving (AV), chip, battery, ride-hailing, shared & micro-mobility verticals. Learn more about companies like: #NIO #XPeng # LiAuto #BYD #Arcfox #Seres #Voyah #Xiaomi #Huawei #Tesla #GM #Ford #VW #Audi #Merc #BMW #Didi #Meituan #WeRide #Pony.ai #AutoX #Baidu #Apollo #Hesai #Seyond #RoboSense

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China EVs & More

BYD’s 1500kW Charging Breakthrough — Tesla & the West Just Got a Wake-Up Call | Episode #240

March 09, 2026 • Tu Le & Lei Xing

0:00 | 54:38

This week on China EVs & More, Tu and Lei break down one of the biggest developments of the year in the global EV industry: BYD’s massive technology reset and charging breakthrough.

Facing slowing domestic sales and intensifying competition in China’s brutal EV price war, BYD responded with a sweeping announcement: a second-generation Blade Battery, ultra-fast 1500 kW flash charging, and plans to build 20,000 ultra-fast charging stations to support it. The message was clear—BYD intends to stay ahead of rivals like CATL, Geely, and Tesla by pushing the technological frontier.

Tu and Lei unpack what this means for China’s EV ecosystem, including how ultra-fast charging could challenge battery swapping models and reshape charging infrastructure globally.

The episode also explores the widening gap between China’s hyper-competitive EV market and the West, where Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y still dominate despite limited product updates. They discuss why Tesla remains the benchmark in autonomy and software—even as Chinese OEMs rapidly close the gap with AI-driven platforms and advanced ADAS systems.

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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. for those interested in making a comment or asking a question, just post them into the comment section. What Lei and I discuss today,

are our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice to our loyal listeners and viewers. Welcome back and to our new listeners and viewers. Welcome. We ask that you please help us get the word out about this podcast to others and subscribe and like my name is Tu Le I am the managing director at Sino Auto Insights a global management consultancy that

helps organizations bring innovative and tech-focused products and services to the transportation and mobility sectors. I write a free weekly newsletter that we pull many of our discussion topics from. You can sign up for it at SinoAutoInsights.Substack.com, which of course, I encourage you all to do a newly, a new car owner Lei, a new car owner Lei that plugs in. Can you please introduce yourself?

Lei Xing (01:08)
I'm quite excited to be honest, because it's a totally change of the vehicle ownership experience. So this is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review and a newly EV owner-to-be, hopefully by the end of this month. But this is episode number 240.

So it's, exciting times. It's early March, which means there's a few things going on. There's the February sales numbers. China's Two Sessions going on. BYD, as we've seen the last several years, they seem to put on a show in March. And I myself will remember yesterday as

I kind of posted this yesterday in the Chinese Almanac is the Jingzhe, which means sorry, I'm going to the Chinese thing again. The awakening of insects. And I chose to upgrade, well, not upgrade, but switch to a Tesla from my current hybrid. And on the day that BYD announced this

faster. I think that yesterday was an interesting day to say the least. And we have many topics to talk about. Where do you want to start?

Tu Le (02:22)
Version 2, Version 2.

You know...

I still didn't see...

Lei Xing (02:34)
And you and I

are now both, we both, you have an EV, I'm going to have an EV. So I feel like we're just a little bit more qualified to talk about EVs. It's hard to believe that we've been talking about this for five years, right? And now, yeah, you're on your second. So I'm late, I'm late to the party, but better late than never,

Tu Le (02:48)
Well.

Well, I'm on my second EV, so...

‚Åì

First and foremost,

my initial thought with all the BYD stuff, because I wake up a little early, check my messages and everybody's posting about everybody we know effectively in the space is at the BYD event in Shenzhen effectively. China Driven was there. know, Elliot was there. so one person who was not there. Wheels Boy.

Lei Xing (03:19)
Elliot.

Tu Le (03:28)
Because he is in the United States right now. So he pinged me and he said he's stopping into Detroit. I did not see the message until late. So we did not get to hook up. But he is doing a road trip. So wheels Boy travel safe. He should be making it to LA in a couple of days. so I just wish and

Lei Xing (03:31)
‚Åì okay.

Oops.

Tu Le (03:51)
Maybe I will give them grace because of so many other things going on in the United States, but these BYD announcements, they move the needle, okay? And we're talking about new version of the Blade battery, first in six years, and it's more efficient and it charges faster, but that's not enough for BYD. They build chargers to support the additional speed.

and they're guaranteeing the cells for life. So that's putting your money where your mouth is and it quickly puts the CATLs and Gotions and CALBs and EVE Energies on notice that you better invest, you better have the best and brightest and they better be working harder than we are because you're not going to stay in front of us for very long if you are able to ever get in front of us.

So what are your thoughts?

Lei Xing (04:45)
No, mean, BYD, it feels like this is something due in the sense that the narrative is that they've had six months of consecutive year on year sales drops and the domestic sales are

for the lack of a better word, disastrous, right? Asterisks, disastrous in recent months. And what are they gonna do? Well, I think part of the slowdown may be the deliberate of this refresh of these newer products, 11, right? The 11 across their four brands.

that will be equipped with the second generation blade battery and the flash charging, 1500 kW peak power, right? And at the same time, unlike, I think, being vertically integrated, they build their own chargers. They build their own energy storage systems at those chargers in order to augment the grid because they know

that putting these vehicles charging at that speed will put stress on the grid. So they have a solution for that. And I think it's almost like, okay, we know our sales are not doing well or we're under a lot of pressure, but this is what we're gonna do and continue to push the tech boundary. Will that translate to

a rebound.

I don't know because the blood bath is alive and well, the competition is still cutthroat. They're no longer kind of the darling. They're still at the top, but it's just that harder to continue to separate yourself from the rest of the pack, right? Because others are improving.

And then there's the other narrative that, okay, now the NIO swap station, they're done. It's over. I don't look at it like that. think it's there's two parallels going on right now that there should be, there's a market for both the ultra fast charging, flash charging, and the battery swapping. CATL is expanding the battery swapping.

Tu Le (06:30)
Okay

Lei Xing (06:49)
So I don't think it's one taking over the other or vice versa. The market and the demand is big enough where both should work. So we'll see. And the other two very important things that caught my eye was one slide saying BYD put this on a PPT. The first half of the

Tu Le (06:59)
I'm gonna

Lei Xing (07:12)
transformation defined by electrification has successfully concluded.

Think about that. Whereas the rest of the world, they're still sort of like trying to figure out and at the starting line. And you saw the Xpeng VLA earlier in the week, right? They announced VLA 2.0. It's the age of physical AI where one model will be applied to all of their form factors.

The electrification, what can you do on electrification? The second half will be all about this AI and smartification.

was,

Tu Le (07:50)
I'm going to qualify

statement about swapping and charging together. In China, yes, for sure. I think swapping remains relevant for quite some time. we look at the United States, we look at Canada, Europe to a lesser extent, some of the emerging markets, the charging infrastructure is not robust. It's not really out there yet. So if BYD is able to get in front of

charging infrastructure in these emerging markets in the United States, then it would probably make swapping less of a priority for these countries. Because remember, swapping means buying batteries, inventorying batteries, maintaining batteries. And so you need a financial partner in order to do that.

Okay, CATL on the fleet side, that still makes sense because these fleet vehicles tend to be less expensive. And so I think maybe that's an easier way for them to maintain costs or lower costs. But if we look at the United States and we can get from 5% or 10 % to 90 % in nine minutes during a normal day.

And I believe this is the number in minus four degrees Fahrenheit. It can go from 20 % to 97 % or 95 % within 12 minutes. So I sit, you know, sometimes when I'm driving, I sit at a charger for 30 minutes, 40 minutes to get to, you know, from 30 or 40 % to 90%. So

I think swapping becomes more challenging in some of these other regions who haven't built out their charging infrastructure yet. But the one thing that I am reminded of, I watched Calvin Johnson, who is Megatron, the wide receiver for the Detroit Lions. He always used to say,

We don't feel pressure, we apply pressure. That's what BYD seems to have as a philosophy. Like you're gonna get, I can't believe you got in front of us. We're struggling for the last few months. We're gonna jump right back in front. And that should scare everybody. Not just the Chinese domestic competitors. That should scare every single legacy automaker too.

Lei Xing (10:24)
Yeah, remember back in the days BYD and Wang Chuanfu has said this quite a few times in the press conferences that they almost gave up on the plugin route. Because for 10 years, right, for a decade, BYD sales stayed at about half a million units. And then all of a sudden took off from the pandemic, early pandemic.

It's the resiliency. It's sticking to kind of, his goal was solar, battery energy storage and EVs, right? And how to close that loop.

That's from the very beginning that he founded the company. But that's not to say, right? Again, we stress the competition nowadays that the BYD's early lead in 2022, three, four has dissipated, right? It's much closer. It's because others are catching up, but then you have to go to a next step. So

four or five more years, are we going to have sub five minute to full charging? I don't know, but. And what they showed are all real world vehicle testing, albeit they're still under controlled conditions because it's not real world as as to, you know, just people going to the charging stations like the the spring festival holidays where people crowd.

and you have to wait. And there's always the chickens and eggs. You have to build out these stations and where they're available. So always take a grain of salt. But at least what they showed are incredible, right?

Tu Le (11:58)
They're supposed to be building 20,000 of those super mega charging stations by the end of this year. So they're getting and remaining very aggressive with that. Now I equate what you had just said earlier, Lei, with they had this huge lead and then people started catching up. Think of Tesla. That's a good Western example, except for the fact that Tesla has decided not

to try to jump in front of their competitors anymore and they've decided to pivot their business completely. And so we're not likely to see any major changes to the 3 or Y this year. But, you know, I think BYD, their goal to be a top three or top four, let's say top two is well on its way to becoming a reality.

And those that live in the mass market, if we're being objective about BYD, Denza still struggles, Yang Wang still struggles, Fang Cheng Bao still struggles. So the BYD brand is dominating, which means that in emerging markets, Wuling, Baojuan, Chevy, some of the Toyota products, the Fiat products, those products might get wiped out.

because BYD is entering those markets where in Latin America, South America, Southeast Asia, where traditionally they've been strong players. And so it's going to really, really challenging for the legacy automakers to remain very international as BYD builds more more infrastructure in those regions and countries.

Lei Xing (13:36)
So two numbers, right, for February. BYD, more than half of their sales were outside of China. Chery their five Chinese brands total, nearly 80 % were outside of China. Is that an anomaly or?

Tu Le (13:52)
And

Lei we haven't even gotten to the United States, the second largest market in the world.

Lei Xing (13:59)
I think what I was saying that is that an anomaly for this all of a sudden strikingly high share of exports in February, right? Or are we going to see a rebound in domestic sales? I think that's why I hesitate to, again, we said this quite a few times that let's wait until March.

where numbers are going in March, we have an early indication of the healthiness because we have to look at others, right? Leap Motor, Leap Motor, they're relatively well, but they have a target of 1.05 million. And if you do the numbers, they have to do close to a hundred thousand units per month for the rest of this year to get to that.

Does that make you, you know, right?

Tu Le (14:46)
Well, so this is

kind of the tale as old as time in the automotive space. Because if you add up all the automakers' forecasts for sales for 2026, it doesn't equal 90 million or 75 million global units. It probably equals 110, 120 million. So most of these guys aren't going to hit those targets. I actually think it's a bit concerning.

Lei Xing (15:01)
Right. Right.

Tu Le (15:11)
that BYD is selling more outside of China than inside China. If that continues, that shows weakness of BYD in the China market.

Lei Xing (15:19)
Yes, yes, but eventually, I think every one of these Chinese automakers, longer term, whether they want to get to a few million units or not, eventually, their share of sales outside of China will have to be somewhere around 50%. And some have been on the record saying this.

So that's why we're kind of seeing, did that come early or is it just the February thing where there's 16 working days, but outside of China, things are still going on, right? Then you have to push and push. So yeah.

Tu Le (15:52)
If that were

to be true, there would need to be a lot more manufacturing done outside of China by these Chinese automakers. I don't think they can continue to grow exports in a significant way like they have been the last few years. I think there will be tremendous backlash.

if BYD and Geely and these Cherys these guys continue to stuff channels. But what you're saying is unprecedented. You know, there's not a ton of companies that have that 50-50 type of equal distribution between domestic and exports. So

I think it's challenging for them to reach 50 % because that would likely mean that they're weak in the China market, in my opinion. Because China should be easy for them. It's by far the largest passenger vehicle market in the world. So if they can have 12%, 13%, 14%, 15 % market share continuously in the China market, they should be fairly healthy.

50 % seems really, really aggressive for most, maybe not a BYD, maybe not a Chery who has for a while now shipped more vehicles abroad than they've sold domestically. So, remember there are old companies like

Who's the one that was building in China but only sold, it starts with an A, AIWAYS Remember companies like AIWAYS and there were only shipping exporting. So there's gonna be those types of situations too, but 50 seems like a lot.

Lei Xing (17:22)
By ways, ‚Åì

And then

you currently have this conflict where actually there are vehicles stranded in the Hormuz, going into the Middle East. There's actually vehicles, Chinese vehicles stranded at sea because of the Iran. So these things and plus, I don't know what gas prices in our area. It just went up by over 25 cents the last couple of days here, which is

Tu Le (17:45)
Yes.

Lei Xing (17:57)
kind of another incentive for me to pull the trigger. Unfortunately, and BYD is the most aggressive in building out their overseas manufacturing footprint. The three companies you mentioned BYD, Geely, Chery are probably the most aggressive.

Tu Le (18:11)
But I want to set expectations and realities here because right now Great Wall, Geely, Chery and BYD are the only companies in China that are manufacturing abroad. So they've made that leap. some of these companies, and Leap Motor and Leap Motor yes. And some of this is due to kits. So they're not doing...

Lei Xing (18:29)
with significant volumes.

Tu Le (18:36)
complete manufacturing in these other countries, they're shipping part kits what is called CKD. It's basically a box of parts that ship on a big boat, but it's using domestic capacity. Then shipping to Hungary or shipping to India where final assembly is done.

The factory's sizes in the countries where they're only shipping kits, much smaller. They employ less people, and it's less complicated. And you can still use capacity from the China market. Now, if and when there's a handful of companies that begin to manufacture outside of China, then we should see

Then it'll be interesting because complexity increases substantially. And BYD has been the only one that has been able to show us that they can continue to build and grow share at velocity in a hundred countries. So.

Lei Xing (19:40)
BYD

is just a brute force. The other part of the press conference, they had these heads of their, what, over a dozen units come up on stage called out by Wang Chuanfu. there's material, there's commercial vehicles, there's smartification, there's all sorts of these units, and they have 120,000 engineers across all of these units.

Tu Le (20:06)
let's throw a curveball. Let's congratulate our friends at RoboSense because I think they made a small profit last quarter and. We know that Lucid has confirmed that they're going to be using RoboSense We know. Although it's not been officially communicated that. Rivian is likely going to use Robo sense for the R2 and there is a huge announcement by BYD. Can you?

tell everybody what they're doing with RoboSense.

Lei Xing (20:34)
So, yeah.

So 11, all 11 new products revealed or launched yesterday across their four brands have options of exclusively LIDAR supplied by RoboSense. That's 11 out of the 35 models that RoboSense announced in their Q2 2025 earnings.

But will the rest of those materialize? We don't know yet, but it's at least 11 models currently. And I think with a single customer, and both happened to be in Shenzhen. So it's like a tag team, local tag team, right? I think BYD alone could represent close to a million units volume for RoboSense. That is...

Tu Le (21:08)
from the largest automaker in China.

Lei Xing (21:27)
crazy scale. Well, yeah, and I don't know what the arrangement or the cost to BYD is, but I'm assuming it's only in the low hundreds of dollars.

Tu Le (21:29)
huge win because you hear about

Now that's not to say the Hesai and Innovusion (Seyond) do not have foreign and domestic automakers that are using their technology, but RoboSense was from an announcement standpoint, a little bit behind the Hesais and the Innovusions but this really, really brings them up to the same level, at least from a impact standpoint with the brands because

To your point, BYD is the volume brand in China, or one of the biggest volume brands. So that helps fill the capacity for their factories in Shenzhen or in China. So big, big, big win for RoboSense. And for BYD to emphasize them as part of the unveiling conference is a huge thing too.

Lei Xing (22:33)
it's a huge bet. think it's a, we'll have to see. like one vehicle, for example, the DaTang which means the Big Tang right? There's the Tang there's the Tang L and now there's the DaTong, which is Big Tang all of a sudden there's dozens of models launching in that segment alone. This large six seat three row SUV.

from across every single brand. the Volkswagen ID. ERA 9X just started production.

Just one of many. It's not gonna be easy.

Tu Le (23:06)
I

I feel with every single announcement from a Geely or BYD, I feel...

less confident that the legacy automakers who I want to say have done their best to bring competitive markets (products) and pull them ahead and launch them. The pace at which things happen in China is just unprecedented. Volkswagen Group, for sure, I'm picking on Volkswagen Group. They just seem to be falling all over themselves a little bit.

Lei Xing (23:21)
Yeah.

Tu Le (23:39)
they can get out of their own way.

Lei Xing (23:40)
If I put my stan hat on Volkswagen Group, they just recently crossed the 4 million BEV global delivery mark, half of which are the Volkswagen brands, right? When that photo or series of photo of the interior of the ID. ERA 9X were released, my immediate reaction was this is

Li Auto and Xpeng had a baby. Because if you cover the Volkswagen badge on the steering wheel.

that's completely Chineseified. And then you have the other extreme where I posted about this Shangjie Z7 looking more like a Porsche than a Xiaomi SU7

Tu Le (24:16)
Ugh.

Lei Xing (24:25)
It's just weird, like there's these two kind of extremes where the foreigners are actually copying the Chinese and the Chinese in some ways still are copying the

Tu Le (24:35)
The Chinese

are still copying the Chinese.

Lei Xing (24:38)
Yeah, but

you see like Volkswagen completely go, first of all, They dunked on EREVs many years ago. Now they're producing EREVs And second of all, the interior is like, we got to do what the Chinese got to do two or three years late.

Tu Le (24:46)
Yes.

Li Auto poked

fun at them on social about getting into EREVs because they made fun of Li Auto a little bit so.

Lei Xing (25:01)
Yeah,

Tu Le (25:07)
You

Lei Xing (25:08)
that's the Chinese market. It never ceases to amaze you.

Tu Le (25:10)
‚Åì

Well,

and another Volkswagen group brand, the AUDI Audi is the E5 is selling absolutely none, a few hundred sales in January. So, man, it is still quite challenging for the legacy automakers.

Lei Xing (25:31)
It

wouldn't be out of the question whether that four letter AUDI

try or experiment, let's say experiment, wouldn't be out of the question if that's killed and they go back to the four-ring Audi Right? But

Tu Le (25:45)
This is where this

would be out of character for legacy automakers because normally they will hold on to something and just discount it just because of the capital costs that they've invested to launch the product. But, go ahead.

Lei Xing (25:55)
Yeah.

And yeah, and if

history is any indication back in the days, there used to be these joint venture JV independent brands. I think Baojun is really the one remaining out of all of those. If you remember that back in the days, right, there's the Everus from GAC Honda, no more, right? There's one from Dongfeng Honda (CIIMO). Those are gone.

Tu Le (26:17)
You

Lei Xing (26:22)
So it's not out of question that this experiment fails because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the badge you put on, right? It's the content.

Tu Le (26:34)
I think the conundrum that they're in is that if they can't make these tough decisions sooner rather than later, it creates more challenges for them in the future. And I don't like the oversimplification of comparing the automotive to becoming more tech. But in this instance,

When Apple fails, a product fails, they quickly take it off the market. You would think that they would want to continue to sell 16 Pros and not cannibalize by launching a new product every year, but that's what they do. The gross margin is consistently at 40%.

I am referring to a unicorn because Apple is just very unique. It's one of the few hardware product companies that have huge margins. Some of that has to do with the services they provide and the stickiness of their products. But this is effectively because we don't think of Alphabet as a hardware company, right? We think of Waymo separately.

You know, that's a subsidiary division of Alphabet. But Waymo is it seems to be like its own company. You know what I mean? And they they do something completely different. But man, it's. Because let's let's throw another curveball. You might have seen this Lei, but I was at Scout Motors earlier this week. Scott Keough, who's the CEO and and president.

He updated a few of us on the latest for Scout Motors. They're currently at 1300 employees. They should start building at the South Carolina factory in late 27. so, yeah, the take rate, listen to this, the take rate on EREVs to BEVs 87 to 13.

Lei Xing (28:23)
Yeah. It's very hard.

Tu Le (28:31)
So a few of those numbers really, really did surprise me. I really do like the cars. I really do like the cars that they have.

Lei Xing (28:35)
Imagine Li Auto imagine

Li Auto EREVs currently selling in the US. Big SUVs.

Tu Le (28:43)
He didn't mention anything about Rivian because it seems to me, and we might've talked about this because Scout is a Volkswagen Goup brand. And you remember that he came to Europe, although Scout is not looking to ship to Europe anytime soon, but he came to Europe during IAA to kind of give an update. Remember that?

Lei Xing (29:06)
Yep, yep, yep.

he was at the press event.

Tu Le (29:09)
And so

first of all, that tells you how important the Scout brand is to Volkswagen Group because

Another tale as old as time. We think of Volkswagen and Audi, Porsche and all these great brands that they have. They struggle in the US market. It's a very niche brand, Volkswagen brand. Porsche sells really well, but we don't associate it. And Audi does OK, but it is not Mercedes and it's not BMW in the US market. And as China continues to struggle, as Europe...

sales fall, Volkswagen Group needs to rely more heavily on the US market. And so one of the big reasons to launch Scout is because Americans didn't see Volkswagen brand as an SUV crossover brand. but with Volkswagen Groups, let's let's talk strategy a little bit. I want to hear your thoughts with Volkswagen Groups 5 Billion dollar

investment into Rivian and licensing of technology from Rivian. Do you think that Scout is a direct competitor to Rivian eventually with the, R2 because the Terra and the Voyager, you know, does this make sense to you or do you think they should separate Rivian into only being a BEV brand and then Scout only being an EREV brand?

Lei Xing (30:22)
Sure.

Yeah, sure. It's definitely a competition. Two companies that you one is under your group brands and the other one you invested in. But Rivian seems to be going in the BEV route, whereas Scout is EREVs. So different play. But the type of vehicles are definitely I think somewhat overlapping, although Rivian is going down market with the small R2 where I think the Scout

that the pickup and they also have a SUV, right, are still slightly larger, but EREV. And it remains to be seen, right, that this EREV seems to be, Ford is going over the EREVs, right, extended range. How that proliferates in the American market that's still some years out, right? We have to wait until nearly the end of this decade.

Tu Le (31:14)
or the F-150.

Lei Xing (31:22)
And how fast Rivian, they have 150,000 units capacity plan for the R2. How fast they approach that volume.

not this year or not next year. So a part of the reason, right? I have to, as a consumer, we talked about this, I have to think about the maturity of the product. And I just had to, with the deals, I just had to go with the Y over the R2.

Tu Le (31:34)
E

I'm hoping that my two year lease means that by the time I hand this Mach-E back over, the R2 will have most of the bugs sorted out. And hopefully there will be more products that I'm interested in in 24 months.

Lei Xing (31:59)
Okay. Yeah. So that'll be.

Tu Le (32:08)
You know, maybe even Scout, because they said that they currently have 150 or 160,000 reservations. Now, it only takes $100 to reserve it. But let's assume that they can do manufacturing better than Rivian, because Rivian has been challenged with manufacturing. One of the things that is a bit of a head scratcher to me about Scout is that they built a platform that's EREV friendly and BEV friendly.

which means it's not optimized for anything. But, you know, we didn't really get to drill down on too many questions. And he also leaned into the nostalgia heritage using new technology kind of hybrid thing. And I was like, you know, most of the people that are looking at Scout weren't old enough.

to remember what Scout is. Scout is like a 70s brand. And I would think most of Scout's potential customers are much younger than guys like me, right? let me see here. thoughts on Momenta going IPO?

Lei Xing (33:14)
I think that was the first time I heard about it was even almost a year ago. So I think it's been planned. Good for them. And probably one of the bigger IPOs in the industry this year. There's a robotic side, bunch of new investments recently. But yeah,

It's about time. And with Waymo, with the valuation and...

And potentially what happens is, right, so Wayve posted about expanding to over hundreds of markets, if I remember correctly. How does Momenta expand globally, if at all? I think that'll be looked at because mostly it's in China for China, these customers.

Tu Le (33:39)
It'll be...

Although they did have a significant presence at IAA last year, we went to the booth for a little bit. So they're trying to become international through their partnerships in China.

Lei Xing (34:01)
Yeah, so.

Yeah, because Wayve and Momenta are almost like they're the same kind of the positioned company in the space selling AI driver software to OEM so they can expand.

Tu Le (34:22)
And does Wayve not being in China hinder their growth in their total addressable market? Of course it does. And does it decrease their competitiveness? Potentially, right? Because there are so many other players in the China market. Philosophically, how they approach the problem is different from a technology and AI standpoint.

Lei Xing (34:48)
they don't have the geopolitical scrutiny as Momenta outside of China. So maybe that off-pitch.

Tu Le (34:54)
Right.

And I think...

I think when you talk to folks, they would be much more comfortable with Waymo having one or two competitors that could keep them honest. what I do know about Momenta is that they originally wanted to do Pony and WeRide, an IPO in the US, and then likely have a secondary listing. But it looks like they're going to be listing in Hong Kong.

Lei Xing (35:13)
in the US.

Tu Le (35:18)
and not the US. Yeah. so when that happens, GM and I think Toyota or Mercedes will have some upside from that.

Lei Xing (35:19)
Safe route, safe route.

GM, Mercedes,

quite a few OEMs invested into Momenta. I think Toyota.

Tu Le (35:36)
GM

invested a significant amount, $300 million. So they're going to see some upside from Momenta's IPO. just a reminder, Momenta tech stack is in Buicks and Cadillacs in China right now. So.

Lei Xing (35:53)
Toyotas, BYDs, Nissans.

Tu Le (35:55)
‚Åì the other thing too, our SAIC friends, MG shipped a million units to Europe recently. So MG is a pretty significant brand in Europe. For those that don't know, MG historically is a British brand. It was acquired by a Nanjing Auto Group, which then SAIC

acquired in like 2008 or something like that or 2007. Yeah. And so what we know of MG, especially in Shanghai, is that it's a fleet vehicle.

Lei Xing (36:23)
Yeah, 20 years ago, 2006-ish.

Yeah, so MG is has got the British aura on top of the brand, which helps the brand other than the Chinese brands. But at end of the day, the products are good. How much they're sold for competitively. So kudos.

Tu Le (36:41)
Yeah.

And we talk about this now, like the Geely kind of hiding behind European domestic brands, Volvo, Polestar, things like that. you know, I think if the Chinese are doing a good job, the importance of being Chinese in the next five or six years is going to be a lot less or the controversy.

because you're going to see so many of them in Europe. You're already starting to do that. I talked to someone who recently went to Spain for a month and they were like, all I saw was BYDs. So, you know, that's what ultimately they want to do in the United States because BYD, there's no, by saying it, there's no inkling of being Chinese, right?

The United States, that'll be the interesting market because of the current administration and the timing of Canada and what Mexico's reaction is going to be to all that stuff. Canada is moving forward for sure. They mentioned that they're going to be fast tracking homologation. So we should see a Chinese vehicle.

on Canadian roads within the next 12-14 months.

Lei Xing (38:06)
Matter of time before they're here. How long that takes.

Tu Le (38:06)
Uhhhh

So,

so Lei, what was your calculus on pulling the trigger on this Model Y with FSD?

Lei Xing (38:15)
Yeah, I've recently experienced, so I was in the Bay Area, experienced the Robo taxi twice. And I recently experienced at home a self demo drive where you take the vehicle for two hours and then you just put it on FSD. that was one of the big factors because we do a lot of driving to Connecticut volleyball practice.

Some days of the week we do a hundred mile round trip. And for me and my wife, that takes out of the fatigue in a big way because we tried it, both of us, we tried the self demo and how, not only the capability, how well it works, but how comfortable you as a driver and the passenger sitting in the car, how smooth it is compared with us driving.

That's one of the bigger reasons. The other ones are just, like I said, maturity product, the current incentives that are in place. I got a $16,500 trade-in for the hybrid, which gives me 2000 supercharging miles. I got the 0.99 % APR, which is almost free money. And I get an extra referral, which gives me 60 days of more free of FSD. So I don't have to pay until another three months.

after I get the car. I have a charger 240 outlet at home. So all the pieces are in place for me to move ahead. And I get a lot of questions asked, if you were in China, what would you have chosen? That is exactly the conundrum here in the US because of the supercharging network, because of the majority of the product, because of less options.

it was a no brainer at this point to go with the Model Y. Whereas in China, my wife, I have to listen to her. She probably would have picked the NIO because she liked NIO a lot. And we've experienced the power swapping, how convenient it is to do a trip. That's the disparity between two markets. actually I think in the US,

It's a lot easier to make that decision. Whereas in China, there's way too many, way too many options. And you get kind of FOMO, you're like, okay, I got the NIO but damn, the Li Auto is nice. The Xpeng is nice. The Leap Motor is nice. Whereas here in the US, you don't have that. I got the Model Y. I think I probably picked 90 % likely the best choice.

That's kind of my thinking. And, the EV experience, I probably have to get used to a little bit saying goodbye to gas stations. But also for the fact that if FSD, if Elon Musk says really what he's going to do,

Tu Le (40:57)
I don't miss those.

Lei Xing (41:06)
and put this car in the fleet to make money for you. I don't know how long that takes, but we're living in an interesting time and life is short. So what the heck, right? Get it and see where it goes. I was like the heck with it. I'm going to pull the trigger.

Tu Le (41:24)
Me, I just like...

having new cars every couple of years. And so I wasn't ready to purchase one. And for me also, at the time I made the decision FSD was still gonna be an $8,000 thing. And I didn't really wanna spend $8,000 on something that I was leasing for two years or three years. So that was my biggest.

Lei Xing (41:45)
Yeah, I think the

value that we see, and I have to stress this, we talked about this as being an enthusiast, not expert, enthusiast. We know the limitations of FSD, but also the value that it brings. And for $99 a month,

I think is very valuable. The current capabilities because over in China, Xpeng launching the VLA 2.0, they're claiming to be the closest to what Tesla FSD is. So we're going to have to try it when we go back to China and I can now compare to say whether it's close enough or not.

And I know my driving habits. Yeah. ‚Åì

Tu Le (42:25)
That's so subjective, right? That's so subjective and it's such a

marketing thing. Hey, it's as close, like there's no definitive measurements.

Lei Xing (42:31)
Yeah.

And I know my driving habits and routes, it's fixed or pattern is normal enough for me to understand the EV will work. I think that's important for any consumer.

how far you travel, what options of charging you have available to you, then the decision becomes so simple. But there were a few months of kind of contemplating and waiting to see. once, I think FSD is really, it is a big factor.

Tu Le (43:02)
If I could have gotten it for $99 a month, I probably would have gotten the Model Y.

Lei Xing (43:06)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And the size of it is good enough. You know, it's just the three of us. Right. She's almost 6' now, so. But yeah.

Tu Le (43:13)
Well, not if your daughter ends up being 6'2", dude. She's gonna be cramped back there.

So.

So let me see here.

Lei Xing (43:22)
Yeah, so it's,

we're going to see, hopefully the next volleyball tournament trip, I can just take the Model Y there's a trip coming up in Philadelphia. So it'll be, if I get that by then it's in early April. If I get the car by then, then I put it on FSD and see how it does. It's a three and a half hour or four hour trip driving. It's perfect opportunity. I got the all wheel drive premium.

Tu Le (43:25)
Let's go to comments.

You got the long range all wheel drive.

Pre-bump, OK. I think that's the long range. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.

Lei Xing (43:46)
Yeah, so 327 mile 327 mile range. Yeah,

so which is good enough 327 mile it's

Tu Le (43:54)
the biggest.

concern I have is that the the Mach-E right now range is not great. I mean, it's 30 degrees in Michigan. So I'm hoping once it gets to 50, 60, there's a substantial bump in range. But it's challenging, let's just say. Question here, what will the role of battery swap tech in the presence of fast charging tech? That's from Mer... ‚Åì

We kind of addressed that, think, in the beginning of the show. But my opinion is that swapping is still going to be a thing in China for the foreseeable future. creates uncertainty as more countries build out charging infrastructure, specifically the ones that BYD have entered or want to enter, because I think they'll try to influence policy in order to get more of their mega fast chargers on.

on the roads there in those countries. So, SPX, go ahead, go ahead, sorry.

Lei Xing (44:48)
again, I stress it's not one replacing other or one disrupting other. It's hand in hand parallel. There's a role for both to play, at least in the foreseeable future. And we know CATL is betting big on putting tens of thousands of these stations throughout China.

NIO is building, starting to build their 5th gen swap stations. They want to build another thousand this year. And how much really these stations open up to third parties like BYD's flash charging. They already announced that they're open to other brands and the supercharging network here in, I guess also in China, but they've also opened to most other brands.

It's you have a choice, right? I think, and either will work. Like I said, if it was me or my family and my wife, she would probably pick the NIO. The battery swapping work great. That doesn't mean that there's not that many more customers choosing the BYD route of that experience. So I don't see one disrupting the other at this point.

Tu Le (45:57)
The next question is, hey, SPX, thanks for joining us as always. Happy Friday, guys. Real life functionality wise, how close does BYD Blade 2.0 ecosystem bring the general public to the promised future solid state battery With this, is solid state still needed? Great question. Lei, I'll let you go first.

Lei Xing (46:19)
Solid State has been around ever since we started the show or if not much earlier. And look at where things are now, right? It's whether for show or for dough, we heard about Donut Labs. They put out some test results, still lab results. We heard about sodium ion, right? Sodium ion first announced in 2023, Shanghai Auto Show. And still limited quantity of...

let's say certain ODD application, right? I think the mainstream as we've seen for the foreseeable future is gonna be LFP in China and the rest of the world. Solid state, again, 2030s will see scale, but not anything this decade. And that's where things stand. You still have to push the boundary though, right?

Battery tech and chemistry goes, but it's been a long time coming, sort of, and still not materialized from a commercially volume perspective.

And people, mean, CATL, BYD, any of these battery companies, they're heavily investing on R &D, on solid state, the Japanese automakers, Koreans.

but.

still murky at this point.

Tu Le (47:32)
There's so many ways to

answer this. As long as China has 50 % of mining rights for the minerals that use for the batteries, lithium phosphate, they don't have cobalt nickel, but lithium is still a thing.

Lei Xing (47:45)
Yeah, I mean, there's that, yeah.

Tu Le (47:57)
So I think there is going to be this push to be more independent on the mining and the refining that should continue solid state to your point, Lei, you know, we'll see them in consumer products sooner rather than later. But from a passenger vehicle standpoint, automotive grade solid state, we're still years away, years and years and years. And then to get to mass production of that is going to be a significant investment, capital investment.

for companies. so I think that.

Lei Xing (48:25)
Yeah, so that's a key word

that you mentioned automotive grade versus lab grade. It's a lot in between, right?

Tu Le (48:34)
Yeah, and what I would look at is probably sodium ion and how well it's doing in the commercial side in China, number one. Number two, I would also then begin to really focus more on LMR because GM and Ford are looking at that chemistry. Solid state is, to me, the goal, the ultimate goal that should, in theory, get cars to

the same speed or even faster than gas. we also have to remember that these mega chargers that BYD have, the grid needs to be ready for it. There needs to be batteries attached to those mega chargers. so there's significant investment. BYD kind of has free reign in China in order to build out.

infrastructure for the mega chargers, but they'll run into more challenges from environmental groups, political parties on adding infrastructure in foreign countries really quickly. think that'll throttle some of their ambitions a little bit in these European countries and some of these emerging markets because unless, because think of it this way, if you're in an emerging market and

You have a bunch of chargers that take up a lot of electricity. It raises prices for electricity for everyone else because, and so I think there's going to be a lot of NIMBYism, like not in my backyard. This idea of fast charging electric vehicles is great, but the data, when you combine data centers and all these things that consume so much electricity,

electricity price is going to go up. And I think there's gonna be a lot of pushback because of that.

Let me see here. Jeffrey, good morning, good day, good evening. Same to you, Jeffrey. He says, battery swapping is much more. No surprises there. We go through this rinse and repeat every time new tech is introduced. You're absolutely right.

Lei Xing (50:36)
Yeah.

Tu Le (50:37)
SPX Nomad, congrats on your new ride, Lei. Speaking of sensible decision, NIO recently signed a five-year MOU with CATL this week. NIO established a battery R &D center in Shanghai. What gives vertical integration? Wrong item.

Lei Xing (50:42)
Thank you.

No, mean, right? This is a dynamic that CATL and NIO are essentially, they're customers and suppliers. At the same time, they're competitors because of the power swapping. But at the same time, they want to use each other's, right? The fireflys were supposedly be capable of swapping at the Choco swap stations. And they have to work with CATL to kind of develop

Tu Le (51:07)
Frenemies, man, frenemies.

Lei Xing (51:22)
these standardized battery tech. So you talk about vertical integration, but at the same time, there's that you often say that the make or buy, that's still in play, which is what NIO is doing.

Tu Le (51:38)
For sure. And CATL has

much more economies of scale. So NIO's trying to take advantage of that.

Jeffrey also writes, we all know about the over promise and under liver. Congratulations on the Tesla, Lei. Time to get a NIO in China. Happy wife equals happy life.

Lei Xing (51:52)
Thank you.

So we have this still this China 4 gas vehicle that nobody's there to drive it. Only friends are able to drive it. So we'll leave it there for now. So when I go back to Beijing, I have a vehicle. No, no, no. Yeah, right. don't want to like the plate itself is so valuable and it doesn't make sense for me to spend money to change it because we're not there.

Tu Le (51:57)
‚Åì goodness.

That's because you don't want to give up the plate. That's because you don't want to give up the plate.

Lei Xing (52:21)
You know.

Tu Le (52:22)
I applied

for a plate for over 10 years in Beijing and it never got.

Lei Xing (52:28)
Yeah, you know

how it is. That vehicle worth nothing, but the plate on it worth more than the vehicle.

Tu Le (52:35)
Dang Rang dang rang (of course) every, well, we got one more comment here.

ET9, Lei, it's only money. It's only money.

Lei Xing (52:41)
it cracks me up. No, not the ET9. I'm going for the ES9. Bigger than bigger.

Tu Le (52:42)
Everyone.

Yes, nine. Yes, the

electric Tahoe basically the electric Tahoe anyways, everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Lei and I always seem to fill this, hour. I thought it was going to not be a long episode, but, thank you for joining us. Looks like quite a few people did today. So, we will talk with you all next week. good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

Lei Xing (52:51)
Yeah.