Chinese EV Tech Is Powering Western Cars Now — The Auto Industry Just Changed | Episode #239

In this episode of China EVs & More, Tu and Lei unpack a rapidly changing global automotive landscape where Chinese EV technology is increasingly powering the future of the industry — even outside China.  

The discussion begins with a major shift: European and global automakers are increasingly adopting Chinese EV platforms, batteries, and autonomous driving technology. Stellantis is now exploring LeapMotor technology for Europe, Ford is integrating Chinese battery tech into its upcoming affordable EV, and even German brands are leaning heavily on China to stay competitive.

Tu and Lei argue that “China for China” has evolved into “win in China to win globally.” German automakers remain deeply dependent on China for growth, while American automakers face a different challenge: how to remain competitive as Chinese innovation accelerates.

The episode also dives deep into the global autonomous vehicle race. Waymo continues scaling robotaxi operations across multiple cities, while Baidu, Pony.ai, and WeRide expand internationally and rapidly accumulate real-world autonomous miles. Meanwhile, new players like Wayve are emerging as potential challengers in the autonomy software space.

The hosts explore whether Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions can disrupt the existing ecosystem — and why platform players like Uber could ultimately become the dominant intermediaries in autonomous mobility.

Finally, Tu and Lei reflect on the future of robotics, automation, and autonomous logistics — from robotaxis to autonomous snowplows, delivery robots, railcars, and even wheelchairs — raising an important question: will autonomy create abundance or major labor disruption?

This episode captures a pivotal moment in the EV and autonomy revolution, where the competition is no longer about powertrains — it’s about technology ecosystems, speed of innovation, and global scale.

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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 space. For those that are new to the show, welcome and to our loyal listeners and viewers, welcome back.
 
 What Lei and I discuss today is based on our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice. My name is Tu Le. I'm the managing director at Sino Auto Insights, 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.
 
 Left Coast Lei, can you please introduce yourself?
 
 Lei Xing (00:50)
 Yes, early good morning from my side. This is Lei Xing, your co-host, former chief editor of China Auto Review. And this is episode 239. Yeah, I'm, quick trip. I'm actually right close by Stanford. I'm in Menlo Park. I was attending an event yesterday where this company asked me to talk about the AVs.
 
 So just completed and heading back today. And this morning we're going to talk about a lot of AV stuff and also Merz German Chancellor Merz's visit to China. But I just took a quick Tesla robot taxi ride this morning. I still had a bit of a jet lag. was a quick five minute ride. ‚Åì
 
 Kind of boring, nothing, no surprises, but there's still a safety driver. yeah, we are 10 days into the year of the fire horse and it just feels like things are galloping ahead, pun intended on all fronts. AVs, collaborations.
 
 I mean, it feels like a lot has happened recently.
 
 Tu Le (02:04)
 Yeah, and now we hear that Stellantis is also looking at LeapMotor technology to incorporate it into their European vehicles. So the word is predicted is becoming real.
 
 Lei Xing (02:05)
 You
 
 Yeah, the minute that this was announced, October, 2023. So three months after Volkswagen invested into Xpeng we have two European companies are now depending on Chinese tech.
 
 They're heading this pack, right? We saw Merz saying, it's amazing when he sat in the S-Class with Momenta inside. And it's a new era. It's a new era, I think, right? If people have not realized that yet, where...
 
 I was thinking about this in China for China thing, but I think that's new. That's old. This in China for China. Now, I think it's if you want to win in the world, you have to win in China. I think that's the kind of the stance from all of these. We've heard some comments from these German carmakers, right? Oliver Zipse Ola Kallenius
 
 Oliver Blume that are they just left yesterday but they'll be back for the Beijing Auto Show. I mean it's how times have changed. We talk about German engineering and Chinese innovation but how long does German engineering last?
 
 That's their brand, right? Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (03:32)
 Well, I look at the US automakers as looking at this as a different game because the Germans rely so heavily on the China market, whereas the Americans do not. so do the Americans or the Detroit two and a half want to have a big piece of the China market? Of course they do. But
 
 Now, and we should look at it as the legacy automakers using Chinese technology in China. And now with Ford and Stellantis, or Ford formally using Chinese technology for its UEV that's supposed to launch next year. And then Stellantis looking at the battery technology, the vehicle technology of LeapMotor for their
 
 mass market vehicles, this really kind of articulates that more more legacy automakers are looking at the Chinese technology for outside of China. And Stellantis is of course in a big hole. They reported $26.5 billion loss in 2025 and sales are down 3 or 4 % from
 
 from year over year in 2025. Filosa is the new CEO. So he has a blank slate. He has a clean slate. And you know, this is only a matter of time before LeapMotor IP is in Dodge vehicles, entry-level Dodge vehicles and Ram vehicles. So mark it down. I'd said this before.
 
 And I'll say it again, it's inevitable. So whether or not Chinese EVs are actually hitting US roads in the next 12, 18 months doesn't matter because Chinese technology will hit US roads within the next couple of years.
 
 Lei Xing (05:21)
 Yeah, cutting China out is
 
 just impossible on many fronts. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (05:30)
 It's it's it
 
 and that's that's where we should be very clear. Lei. It's impossible. It's not very expensive. It's not it's not. One of those things where we could find alternate suppliers for X, Y and Z in in this world currently in the automotive space, there are only only Chinese suppliers that can mass produce things. Now we can.
 
 Pick, you know, there's going to be people that pick and nick but I'm saying that there are European and Western suppliers that can provide e-motors and things like that, but not at the scale and not at the costs. So when we say impossible, what we mean is that unless we want $50,000 cars to cost $70,000, it's impossible.
 
 Lei Xing (06:20)
 I think there is still a role to play, for example, if you look at some of the signings or the partnerships that were signed. So actually it's both ways, right? So BMW and CATL on that kind of the battery passport, right? The carbon footprint. And then on the other side, NIO with Bosch is not new because
 
 Interestingly enough, NIO already has the ZF Steer by Wire. But interesting that they signed this new partnership with Bosch, also encompassing Steer by Wire technology. So these German companies still have a role to play. The AUMOVIOs right, previously Conti, they're very active in China. Magna.
 
 So, ‚Åì you know, right? Hello. Whether it's for show on paper or whether it's serious, we can debate about that. But the German or the European suppliers are no longer where they are. I look at the spin-off that have happened over the recent few years, right?
 
 Tu Le (07:09)
 You
 
 Lei Xing (07:26)
 Even SKF, I think SKF just recently spun off the automotive. We know Conti right now is AUMOVIO
 
 And more often than not, he's right. Yep, yep, yep.
 
 Tu Le (07:35)
 Aptiv is spinning off their wiring harness and new
 
 company is called Versigent.
 
 Lei Xing (07:42)
 Right? And then the, the, was the other one that happened last year?
 
 I forget but anyways and also interestingly enough we can compare during the Li Keqiang and Merkel days how busy the Sino-China-Germany kind of the relationship I mean every once in a while you see this huge signings of deals those are gone those days are gone because now Merz he's
 
 The geopolitical landscape is different. He's pressure from home. He's pressure from the US. He's pressure from the European Union. At the same time, you have to balance of interest of all of these German companies investing more and betting more in China.
 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (08:25)
 Now, that's not to say that they're not also relying on the US because companies like Porsche are relying even more heavily on the US market because although Porsche can't make up the $45,000 unit loss or 45,000 unit loss in the China market over the last few years by selling more into the US market.
 
 they're going to do everything they can while keeping prices high, which if we think about current consumer confidence in the United States, it's at very, very low. And so if Porsche tries to sell high margin vehicles and raise prices, there's going to be rich consumers that still buy it, but this could really, really backfire on them. And again,
 
 Once we get into the electric vehicle space in the United States, eventually, Porsche's advantage is going to be taken away. Now, branding and heritage and loyalty is still there. It's something that the United States and Europe have that they don't have in China. But how many people want to buy the 15 different variants of a 911? Because at the end of the day, the driver
 
 they're sales drivers of the Macan and the Cayenne.
 
 Lei Xing (09:48)
 Yeah. And then you saw, we saw some numbers, know, BYD up big in Europe, right, in January. The people that were in that economic committee meeting in Beijing, right, so Li Bin was there, Eric Li or Li Shufu was there, LeapMotor's Chairman Zhu Jiangming was there, Lei Jun was there. Lei Jun, they're currently preparing this secret supercar launch or reveal.
 
 Apparently, I don't know if you saw the photos at the MWC in Barcelona.
 
 And while at the same time, interesting, the accident, now there's a verdict of what happened in that accident, the fiery accident that caused the death, right, last year. now, yeah, and now it looks like Lei Jun's under pressure to recall about 370,000 SU7s They recently already did recall, but
 
 Tu Le (10:33)
 for the SU7
 
 Lei Xing (10:47)
 There's an issue with how the voltage shut down in that incident, which could not open the doors, right, or something. So there's always good and the bad, right? These things that you have to face and opportunities. What's gonna happen? The companies that they represent when it comes to Germany and Europe.
 
 Right? We think about Xiaomi is going to enter Europe next year.
 
 Geely is already there, LeapMotor is already there
 
 Tu Le (11:14)
 I said this to like last episode or two episodes ago, the Xiaomi brand is going to do really, really well in So I'm telling you that right now. So, so mark this down on February 27th, Xiaomi. Will it replace 911? No, but it, you know, E-Class, 3 Series, 4 Series. Yes, it's going to.
 
 have people move over from what would traditionally be Audi, BMW and Benz's early, early buyers.
 
 Lei Xing (11:48)
 And the amazing thing about Xiaomi is not so much kind of the Porsche killer or the products. Anything I think is it's immunity over these negative publicity. Unharmed to this point.
 
 The fan base is just huge enough where it doesn't matter.
 
 Tu Le (12:07)
 Well, this is going to be really important for them to understand that the China market is going to be a lot or the European market is going to be a lot different. So communication strategy once there is some issue or challenge, hopefully nothing too major for them, but how they deal with it will go a long way in understanding.
 
 how they want to portray themselves in foreign markets.
 
 Lei Xing (12:34)
 Yeah, and also in Europe, right, there's much lesser friction in terms of walls being set up. So in the US, there's several different types of walls. We have the 100 % tariffs, we have the ICV ban, you have the dealer franchise laws that just does not work the same in Europe where you can have two different brands on the same roof, which Xpeng does. Very nice that on a very cost effective basis.
 
 You can't have that in the US. At least, I don't know if it's ever possible,
 
 And then there's the other.
 
 Tu Le (13:06)
 It's gonna be tough.
 
 there already dealers trying to line up to represent these Chinese brands. We know that in the United States anyway. And we also know that Trump is going to China at the end of March. And so I think folks are anticipating that there's going to be some sort of announcement. Do I think that...
 
 Lei Xing (13:25)
 Happy.
 
 Tu Le (13:26)
 Do I think that there's going to be a formal announcement about some sort of joint venture or partnership between two OEMs, a Chinese and a US OEM? I think that's too short of a timeframe, but maybe some sort of announcement that says we've negotiated some arrangement that allows for that.
 
 Lei Xing (13:46)
 Yeah, I definitely see the, in Chinese it's called the Xi Te Hui, which means the Xi Trump meeting. For short, I think there's gotta be something that comes out of that related to autos or trade, right? Generally in trade, because Trump, think the Trump card is a card that's, you only have a small window.
 
 Once it's gone, that Trump Card is also gone, I think. So there's three years left to get something done, I think. Because I feel like Trump and the Republicans somehow, they seem to be more favorable than the Democrats toward China. Because all the current wall set up was under the Biden administration, The tariffs are obviously
 
 Tu Le (14:30)
 I don't know, man. think there's a fair number. I think they're not openly vocal about it because Trump will slap them publicly. But that's not what I'm being told. I'm being told that there's some major internal fights going on about how to approach this.
 
 Lei Xing (14:31)
 Trump, right, the previous, yeah.
 
 Yeah, and also the recent,
 
 there's several companies that were on the Defense Department list. It was put out and then it was taken back and then it was put out again.
 
 NIO, Baidu, think ‚Åì Alibaba are all on that list, Xiaomi, right? So, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (15:08)
 Xiaomi? Xiaomi's on it.
 
 But you almost
 
 look at that as like a negotiating tactic. you're on this list. We'll take you off if you do this. And let's just be honest with our audience, If there are no Chinese vehicles in the United States in the next three years, I'm very, very concerned for the US automakers. They need that push.
 
 Lei Xing (15:17)
 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (15:35)
 You know, Ford talks about the UEV and Rivian has the R2, but.
 
 Lei Xing (15:36)
 Yeah, I'm hearing you.
 
 You have your connections and resources. I have mine. I'm hearing there's some tension. know, putting up a, it's easy to put up a shop in Silicon Valley and think you can.
 
 be innovative and be fast. But all of these legacy automakers, the cultural, it's difficult to change. it doesn't work as simple, just putting up something here and you think it works, right? It's gonna be tough.
 
 Tu Le (16:11)
 But I will say this living in Detroit, when we first landed back, or just outside of Detroit, if you want to get technical, when we first landed back in August of 2022,
 
 Lei Xing (16:14)
 Detroit, yeah.
 
 That's a long time ago. Crazy.
 
 Tu Le (16:24)
 There was, yeah, I mean, shoot, dude. There was
 
 no mention of the Chinese. People almost looked at me like I was an oddity because of the things I was saying in social settings, in formal meetings, in conferences, in potential client meetings.
 
 There was always one or two people that seemed to... You know, when you're presenting something, Lei, and then there's shocked people, there's people that are like, I don't understand what Lei just said. Like, they can't compute it in their minds. And then there's people that are nodding their heads like, man, you know what I'm talking about, or I know what you're talking about because I experienced that now. And so...
 
 Lei Xing (17:09)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (17:13)
 the people nodding their heads has grown significantly over the last three and a half, almost four years that we've been back. And so they're getting it. But to your point, Lei, is it, is it creating a reaction and is that reaction fast enough? Is that reaction drastic enough? I think Ford is doing everything they can to get that UEV out by next year.
 
 And but if we look at Rivian with the R2, that is so linchpin because it's not just important for Rivian. It creates the first domino of the affordable era of EVs without subsidies.
 
 Lei Xing (17:53)
 Like I tweeted, right? Make American EVs great again. Rivian's trying to do that. I think that they're on the forefront. Ford is trying to do that. that video that put out by Ford recently of, know, was the single key word in that video was efficiency.
 
 to build something with kind of the stack with the platform that Rivian talks about.
 
 batteries, e-motors, manufacturing processes.
 
 right? This, this mega casting that they're doing and they're just learning, right? It's not new. It's not new, right? It's, it's the
 
 Tu Le (18:22)
 But again, let's stop there.
 
 Well, that's what I want to emphasize. We got to stop there. This gets them to the starting line. It doesn't get them ahead. OK?
 
 Lei Xing (18:28)
 Yeah.
 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (18:34)
 And in order to get to the starting line, they need Chinese technology from CATL. Let's get that straight. Now, I'm not criticizing for this needs to happen. And I'm actually very, very bullish on
 
 the vehicle being something that'll be good for the market.
 
 I think it's great. But the unfortunate thing is that there's only two or three of these things. We need five, seven, ten of these things.
 
 Lei Xing (18:57)
 Yeah.
 
 think what Jim Farley is not saying out loud is, yeah, he says, in order to compete China, we have to be innovative. But in order to compete with China, you have to work with China. He's not saying that out loud, but it is happening with the CATL of LFP, right?
 
 Tu Le (19:19)
 And let's break this down. So Ford has walked through that door. Stellantis has walked through that door. And the door meaning working with Chinese partners, okay, for technology. GM has not walked through that door in North America yet, but they've walked through that door in China, through their investment in Momenta and the use of Momenta.
 
 technology, intelligent driving technology for Buick and for Cadillac, which they have launched this year. So when we think about GM in North America, we think about Super Cruise. When we think about GM in China, we should think about Momenta. I don't know what it's called. Do you know what it's called in Chinese? The system?
 
 Lei Xing (20:00)
 Momentum,
 
 Well, it's just the ADAS. There's no... Yeah, it's just the Momenta know, the Driver Assistance System.
 
 Tu Le (20:12)
 Yeah.
 
 The one thing that is
 
 interesting, Lei, is I wonder how on a Mercedes versus a Buick, if there's any real difference between the feel of how the system works, or is it just basically the same exact system? Because if I'm Mercedes, I would want a premium feel. How do you make a premium feel in intelligent driving? I'm not sure.
 
 But I wouldn't want the same system as a Buick, right? So.
 
 Lei Xing (20:46)
 Mm-hmm.
 
 Yeah, well, obviously Mercedes and Buick, have different, let's say, from an engineering perspective, tolerance for error, right? Whereas the Germans are probably very, very strict. And whereas as the Americans might be a little bit less. So I think the system will
 
 how he feels will be definitely different because you have to do it at the Mercedes standard versus at a GM standard. And then the fact that you have a small car like a CLA and a big car like a S-Class all using Momenta is across different form factors. That'll feel different. So that's something that you and I, when we go back, we need to check out.
 
 Tu Le (21:30)
 Yes we do. So we should be...
 
 Lei Xing (21:30)
 Yeah, not only the Chinese, right?
 
 on Monday, yeah, so on Monday, Xpeng is announcing their VLA 2.0, which is their answer to the current Tesla FSD capability. And Volkswagen is the first foreign customer to adopt this.
 
 Tu Le (21:35)
 We should be careful on who we pick for our drive.
 
 Lei Xing (21:53)
 That's, another example of
 
 in China working with the Chinese companies to be able to sell.
 
 and see how that works.
 
 Tu Le (22:02)
 The fact of the matter is that everywhere we go outside of North America, we're going to see more and more Chinese vehicles.
 
 Lei Xing (22:06)
 it
 
 An Xpeng just had Richard Hammond put out this video, right? mean, of the VLA 2.0, so.
 
 Tu Le (22:11)
 That's the reality.
 
 Yeah, I saw that.
 
 The
 
 one thing I was kind thinking about this Lei, kind of looking at sales numbers or something, I was looking at some report. You know what we haven't heard or what brand we haven't heard of or sub-brand we haven't heard about recently is Mona.
 
 Lei Xing (22:36)
 ‚Åì
 
 mean, Mona, I say, well, we'll see how I think their peak kind of the is probably in the rear view mirror because now Mona is going to launch an SUV. So a cheaper priced, let's say a G6, right? A cheaper priced G6 is going to be Mona something.
 
 Tu Le (22:54)
 She's six.
 
 Lei Xing (22:59)
 Yeah.
 
 Right, I mean, in terms of products, we're getting close to the Beijing Auto Show and these are tsunami coming, right? NIO recently talked about their schedule for the ES9 and the ONVO L80 launching in around May, June timeframe. ES8 is still pretty doing well. 70,000 units just delivered.
 
 Yeah, and the bloodbath, right? I tweeted the bloodbath is alive and well.
 
 Tu Le (23:24)
 Yeah, well.
 
 Yeah, I don't...
 
 Lei Xing (23:28)
 What stopping the
 
 price war? Nobody's stopping the price war. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (23:32)
 Now there's seven years, zero percent
 
 financing. It's unbelievable. It's a free car, basically.
 
 Lei Xing (23:36)
 Yeah. Yeah.
 
 And then Buick, right. They put out this promotion. 24,000 for Envision Plus.
 
 $24,000 starting price.
 
 Tu Le (23:50)
 Well, I think people should double click on the CLA being as cheap as it is in China as well. After only having launched for what, three months, four months or something like that, less than that.
 
 Lei Xing (23:58)
 What?
 
 I
 
 think CLA, Mercedes not saying it, but the CLA is their kind of the test bed of their next generation of new platform based EVs. Mercedes, think they're just going to say they said that it's rather niche in the current Chinese environment. It's more niche than the CLA will be in Europe. But it's.
 
 It's basically another way of saying ‚Åì not competitive. And now they want the GLC, which is more they feel like it addresses the bigger market.
 
 Tu Le (24:29)
 ‚Åì
 
 Well, the CLA is a sedan number one and it can't compete. It can't compete against the small sedans coming out of Xpeng, BYD, Geely, NIO. It's getting beat up. I think in other words, what you're alluding to earlier, is this is...
 
 Lei Xing (24:39)
 Small sedan, yeah.
 
 Yeah, beat motor, all of it.
 
 Tu Le (24:59)
 Mercedes Neue Klasse kind of first attempt at rebranding or redefining what they are in the China market. the communication back from the market is back to the drawing board guys. So.
 
 Lei Xing (25:14)
 Yeah, the
 
 numbers are not pleasing, to say the least.
 
 Tu Le (25:18)
 So we're getting into years of underutilized capacity in these factories for the legacy OEMs. We saw GM already right size with a $5 billion right down. And so we should likely start to expect more exports from Mercedes, BMW, Audi. And this is where it's key. Keep an eye on Europe.
 
 because the pressure to ship more units abroad, maybe to Japan, to Korea, to Australia, Chinese built ABB is gonna be tremendous because they're not gonna make up those sales this year, in one year, in less than one year. So we always talk about Chinese exports into foreign markets, but the pressure on Tesla,
 
 on Mercedes, BMW, and on Audi specifically is going to be enormous.
 
 Lei Xing (26:14)
 We heard about Volkswagen Anhui getting that approval. think most recently BMW was the next one possibly getting something. Right. The dominoes have fallen. And then what happens to the other Chinese brands? But yes, export is going to be a very important tactical way for not the Chinese automakers, but the foreign automakers in China exporting out of China.
 
 ‚Åì Hyundai and Kia are huge already doing that.
 
 Volkswagen started doing that.
 
 Tu Le (26:45)
 And if you're European, if you're a German, and you buy an E-Class that's built in China, how are you gonna feel about that?
 
 Lei Xing (26:55)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (26:55)
 Now, I'm not implying that the quality level of a Chinese built Mercedes and a German built Mercedes is different. There's a Delta. I'm not implying that at all. But as a German, you probably want the German built E-Class.
 
 Lei Xing (26:57)
 I looked at my face.
 
 Yeah, I think that's definitely a psychological barrier. Even not mentioning the geopolitical.
 
 Tu Le (27:16)
 And we haven't even talked about technology, right? Because AI is disrupting everything. The United States and Europe have strong unions. whereas China, now it's pretty well known that a lot of China automotive factories have a great deal of automation.
 
 Lei Xing (27:17)
 You
 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (27:38)
 First of all, how are the Chinese going to deal with that when they start building in North America, when they start building in Europe? Because the US government, I'm certain, won't allow them to be much more automated than their domestic competitors building also alongside them in North America. So that's going to be kind of a challenge for them initially. For those that haven't seen it yet, there's that documentary, Made in America. ‚Åì
 
 about the one shout no no no Fuyo Fuyo Glass.
 
 Lei Xing (28:05)
 Yeah, Foo Yow. Foo Yow Class.
 
 Yep. Yep.
 
 Tu Le (28:10)
 So, and for those that are old enough, there's a movie in the 80s, I want to say called Gung Ho. Did you just watch that movie Lei or no? No, have you've heard of that movie?
 
 Lei Xing (28:20)
 ‚Åì
 
 yeah, I heard of that movie. I haven't watched it, but yeah, I know what you're talking about.
 
 Tu Le (28:24)
 Yeah.
 
 So it was Japanese, it was Michael Keaton when he was much younger and it was about a Japanese factory in the United States. And so it was comedy, but it was kind of apropos nowadays. And so like I've said this in the newsletter and I'll say this again, this is not a powertrain race. This is not a powertrain competition anymore. It's a tech competition where
 
 the legacies in their domestic markets still have a chance as if they're able to catch up really quickly. And with the restrictions that will inevitably be thrown upon them, already thrown upon them in the US market. even when there's not 100 % tariff, there's the Biden restrictions on connected software, there's the Biden restrictions on connected hardware. So that will constrain them from selling into the US market.
 
 does do to your we're pointing back to the culture thing, right? Will they be able to Detroit two and a half specifically? Will they be able to build this culture of technology speed, risk taking and innovation in order to compete in the next 24-30 months? Rivian, it sounds like with their AI day, look, excuse me, look like they were ready to do that, but.
 
 Ford, we'll have to just wait and see.
 
 Lei Xing (29:47)
 Yeah, I think you have to pick your battles and the Germans and the Americans are great contrasters where the Germans are all in in China and they move fast. They try to move fast in China because there's still a big market Ford, GM. GM is still big. Buick is still big, but they're not the same as the Germans, right? In terms of we're going to go in and try to do this. For the Americans, they're more like we have to pick and choose.
 
 if not leave, right?
 
 Tu Le (30:16)
 The irony for GM, Lei, and this is coming from a GM alum and someone whose family, many of them worked at GM. The irony is that GM is a truck, SUV, big truck, big SUV provider in North America, but their sales volume is driven in China by small cars, by Wuling, by Baojun, you know, by...
 
 Lei Xing (30:38)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (30:40)
 the smaller Buicks and things like that.
 
 Lei Xing (30:40)
 I mean, there's
 
 all this debate about we look at the global automaker rankings. If you put Wuling into GM, you get ridiculed.
 
 But GM counts those in their global sales numbers. And then SAIC Motor, but Wuling and Baojun, they're Chinese brands, but they're sold by the joint ventures. So there's always that debate of what's correct in putting what kind of volume into which conglomerate. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (31:08)
 Baojuan is a very young brand. was specifically created for the China market by GM and SAIC.
 
 Lei Xing (31:10)
 Yeah.
 
 Yeah. ‚Åì
 
 But also interestingly, Shanghai GM, the current joint venture contract is up next year. And there's still no announcement yet what happens to that one. ‚Åì Yeah, I assume it will continue, but it's just how they're right sizing and putting what type of investment. Because remember, they
 
 Tu Le (31:16)
 and
 
 They're deep in negotiations right now.
 
 Lei Xing (31:39)
 pulled out some investment. What's the financial term? Last year or the year before on the joint venture, GM, What's the term? It's not a write-off, but right, it's...
 
 Tu Le (31:45)
 ‚Åì yeah, it was last year.
 
 Lei Xing (31:50)
 Yeah, a lot of decisions to be made.
 
 Tu Le (31:52)
 Yeah. ‚Åì
 
 Lei Xing (31:54)
 So
 
 a little bit, we still have some time, a little bit on AVs. A lot of AV news, right? Wayve getting that investment funding secured. Surprising to me, this is a UK company, right? Because when we talk about these tech innovators, we don't think of Europe or the UK. We think of China and the US. This Wayve is just seems like they're just coming on very strong because their idea is to put these AI software into all of these vehicles.
 
 different brands, different automakers, whatever. They're closest to being a Western Momenta, I feel like. I don't know whether you agree on that, but... Because they play in both RoboTaxis and the level 2++, right, the 8S.
 
 Kudos. And then you have this heavy, heavy giant Waymo now in 10 cities, 200 million miles. They want to do a million rides per week by the end of this year.
 
 Tu Le (32:40)
 So.
 
 And they have their new driver. They have their new driver system. I think it's version six. They've reduced the number of cameras by a significant amount. And so the hardware stack costs have been substantially reduced through their technology. Now with Wayve they have a philosophical difference in how they look at things. And they do...
 
 Lei Xing (32:51)
 Scaling.
 
 6th generation Waymo driver,
 
 Tu Le (33:15)
 Wayve does use LIDAR, but it doesn't need maps. And it uses a predictive technology as opposed to existing infrastructure in order to move around the world. I think that's a big difference. The other thing that I want to point out about Wayve is they raised $1.2 or $1.8 or something like that billion dollars. But if we look at Pony and WeRide,
 
 Lei Xing (33:39)
 1.5 billion.
 
 Tu Le (33:44)
 that values Wayve higher than both of those companies. And I'm sure We Ride and Pony would have something to say about that.
 
 Lei Xing (33:48)
 Yeah, but.
 
 Wait,
 
 Right, and then some of the numbers I remembered because I just talked about this yesterday. Pony is now doing in Shenzhen per vehicle per day over 26 rides. And supposedly the break-even economics is if it's above 20 rides per day per vehicle, they can get to break-even in the big metropolis like Shenzhen.
 
 And then Baidu announced their numbers, right? Their numbers, they're entering South Korea. They've done 190 million kilometers, which is over 110 million miles of autonomous miles, driverless miles. They're in Hong Kong, right? And all of these Chinese AV companies are heavily expanding, rapidly expanding in the Middle East, in the Gulf region. And Uber announcing this
 
 platform facilitating autonomous driving companies, right? UAS.
 
 All of a sudden, have these.
 
 Tu Le (34:49)
 And to really,
 
 to kind of put some context to this, Waymo has about 14 to 1,500 vehicles on the road. Baidu has around 1,000. And then,
 
 Lei Xing (35:06)
 Well, the three big
 
 three in China all have over a thousand now.
 
 Tu Le (35:10)
 O'Pony and Weeride do? Each?
 
 Lei Xing (35:12)
 Pony and radar,
 
 yep, they're over a thousand.
 
 Tu Le (35:14)
 Okay, because.
 
 Lei Xing (35:16)
 I think
 
 Waymo latest number is 3000 if I remember correctly across their six cities not counting the new the four ones they haven't launched that recently launched.
 
 Tu Le (35:22)
 Mmm.
 
 Lei Xing (35:28)
 But what I was trying to say is now we're clearly seeing this battle of the verticals. So we have the Tesla and the Xpengs, the OEMs. We have the platforms, the Ubers and the DiDis. And then we have these tech companies, the Waymo, the WeRides. I think jury is still out. Who's going to win this race? Because it's
 
 Tesla's FSD, Tesla's robotaxi, still a huge question mark, but once that happens, is it going to disrupt the Waymos? I don't know. That's ambition. That's Elon's ambition.
 
 Tu Le (36:05)
 Well,
 
 I think we should acknowledge the fact that the most valuable company in the world, Nvidia, now throwing its hat into the ring. I don't think that we can underestimate Jensen Huang and his ambition. I think that they went from nowhere on the map except for supporting the sector through providing some of the best silicon.
 
 to now, I believe they are trying to bully OEMs into using Alpamayo And at least that's what I've been told. GTC is happening next month, which is their technology developer conference.
 
 Lei Xing (36:39)
 At least, ‚Åì
 
 At least outside of China, right? So in China, for China, outside China with somebody else, with somebody else.
 
 Tu Le (36:49)
 But that's the thing, and
 
 let's be clear, Waymo is the only one that is publishing any of its intervention data. It's required to by California. Tesla has kind of pulled away a little bit because they got slapped by the courts in California with their intelligent driving. And so to me,
 
 You the the and you know, it's been a little while obviously for for me and you drive in riding in some of the Chinese ones, but it's not the distance between them. It's not that far from a look and feel standpoint. Do I feel safe to you know, like how is it reacting to certain conditions? You know, I still think Waymo is the best, but that might be recency bias because I've ridden in Waymos in the last couple of months or whatever.
 
 Lei Xing (37:38)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (37:39)
 ‚Åì but
 
 Lei Xing (37:41)
 I think that, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (37:42)
 you
 
 Lei Xing (37:43)
 For me, apartment.
 
 Tu Le (37:44)
 Uber, I don't
 
 think we should underestimate Uber's role in this.
 
 Lei Xing (37:50)
 Yeah, right, right. Being a facilitator, right? Because they have the users, they have the demand, they have the operations experience, fleet management. What I was going to say is that the robots taxis, once you do enough of these, I think the issue is not how it feels. It works. All of them, work. The technology part of it, it's hard to differentiate.
 
 But at the end of the day, how much savings for you as a consumer? How can that be disrupted? A Waymo currently costs much more than a Tesla robot taxi. When Tesla robot taxi, when those asterisks are gone and the real robot taxis, if I can get anywhere, if it flows like water and it costs me much less than Uber or Lyft or Waymo.
 
 Then we may have a disruption. How long are we from that point?
 
 We're pretty far. me, right after this, let's say I need to go somewhere. I need a robot taxi and it comes. I don't have to wait one hour, 20 minutes for the ZOOX I don't have to wait 20 minutes, 30 minutes for Tesla. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (39:04)
 Well, it's going to be, I mean, these rides are going to be rich people's kind of service for a long while because honestly, mean, at the end of the day, unless we get to the point where Waymo can provide rides for multiple people in one vehicle, then it won't be affordable to most.
 
 Lei Xing (39:11)
 Yeah. And then, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (39:26)
 unless it continues to be subsidized.
 
 Lei Xing (39:29)
 Yeah, and then there's, what is the data on how many single or how many people ride alone on on ride hailing? Maybe that's why Tesla is doing the cyber cab, there's only two seats. That's one way of doing it. And then you have this Ojai with a van that can seat multiple people.
 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (39:49)
 Yeah, I really look at it like, so Alphabet is as evaluation of four billion, four trillion dollars. NVIDIA is 4.5 to 4.8 trillion. These are the leaders to me. know, Baidu is not close to a four trillion dollar company. So they're going to need a lot of help. And then.
 
 pony and WeRide you would think that.
 
 They might be acquisition targets because how do they compete? With multi trillion dollar companies that are willing to continue to lose a billion dollars, $2 billion a year in. What feels like perpetuity, right? Now we we also know that Waymo is trying to line themselves up for an IPO, but right now the.
 
 The market for an IPO is not great. Will Waymo be oversubscribed? Probably, but will they extract the most value? Maybe not in this current environment. So how long do they wait?
 
 Lei Xing (40:48)
 And then last thing we touched a little bit about this. I think the world is still a marveling myself included over the Spring Festival Gala. "WuBot" Last year was the "YangBot" This year is the "WuBot" So there's four companies, right? Unitree, Galbot, Neotix and MagicLab. MagicLab is incubated through, who? DREAME
 
 And I just feel like at this moment, it feels like 10 years ago for AVs, this hype on robots, this show, right? Much more show than dough. We're now talking about millions, hundreds of millions of miles, hundreds of thousands of robot taxis hitting the streets and the unit economics. What metrics should we measure the robots by?
 
 It's unclear at this point.
 
 Right? So that's kind of what I feel that we're starting this journey where the AV started 10 years ago. Almost this hype, right?
 
 Tu Le (41:51)
 I also think it's really important, Lei, that we don't look at the humanoid and robotics as the same as EVs because I think there will be a lot of losers in the China market just because there are so many robotics companies that in the
 
 International trade environment is a lot different too now. You know, whereas
 
 when EV started being exported, there weren't tariffs. Now there's starting to be tariffs. And so the solar industry, the steel industry has really, really... And the EV industry has really kind of created this, we're going to reshore, we're going to manufacture again. So unless Unitree, again, is able to...
 
 build domestically in any market that it wants to outside of China. If it's willing to keep all the data in that country on servers and it doesn't bring it back, but that creates constraints as well because all of the data is one of the biggest advantages are for these companies. If I'm not able to combine it in any way to train the algo, then
 
 Lei Xing (42:57)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (43:09)
 It creates challenges. so I think the humanoid in China, I think we're going to see companies in the next five years that you've heard about and I've heard about probably go away and a few really big ones kind of stand out.
 
 Lei Xing (43:21)
 Yeah.
 
 The other thing to note about is all these four companies that I mentioned on the spring festival Gala, they're lining up for IPO. Unitree being at the top and reportedly they each spent close to a hundred million RMB just to appear on the show. Okay. And they were designated different partners on the show, you know, designated embodied AI robot or something.
 
 designated this partner and that partner. Right, Unitree getting this visit from Merz all ahead of this IPO this year. Probably going to be one of the major IPOs.
 
 Tu Le (44:01)
 Yeah.
 
 for sure. So I got my Mach-E
 
 Lei Xing (44:04)
 So you finally pulled the trigger.
 
 Tu Le (44:05)
 Well, it wasn't me. was. There's delivery challenges and then Hyundai had some challenges with my IONIQ 5 and so but but it's two days old. I've put 30 miles on it so I'm going to reserve one thing that did freak me out. Lay the the range said 100 % or the battery said 100 % and the range said 237 miles.
 
 Lei Xing (44:10)
 Waddup
 
 right, right, you talked about that, right.
 
 Tu Le (44:33)
 It's like what? Anyways, it is like 30 degrees in Michigan like like probably similar to Massachusetts So I'm hoping that spring and summer that gets closer to 270 but Yeah
 
 Lei Xing (44:34)
 So now...
 
 So now we,
 
 yeah, we.
 
 Now we put our consumer hat on. What I'm going to talk about, don't look at us as kind of the China EV mobility experts or enthusiasts. Me being a consumer, I test drove the Rivian R1S this past weekend. And actually the Universal Hands Free was working on the local streets. Did pretty well. Because I've reserved an
 
 Tu Le (45:07)
 Nice.
 
 In California
 
 or in Mass?
 
 Lei Xing (45:15)
 No,
 
 no, in Massachusetts, Western Mass. I'll post some videos. No, it wasn't stoning. ‚Åì I have an R2 on order, but at the same time, I'm really inclined for the Model Y for a few reasons. That others at still to this point have not overcome this moat or this competitive advantage. First of all, the supercharging network. Second,
 
 Tu Le (45:18)
 Was it snowing?
 
 Okay.
 
 Lei Xing (45:39)
 the 0.99 % financing. It's almost close to free money. It's 72 months. You can choose, but the monthly payment will be higher if you go lower on the month, I have already a plug at home. If you trade in a used car with Tesla, you get 2,000 free supercharging miles. So all of these in place,
 
 is for me myself as a consumer still very much leaning over to the Model Y also because it is an established mature product versus R2 which is still starting production. The initial builds, how good are they? So I'm very close to pulling the trigger.
 
 Tu Le (46:20)
 Well, you might you
 
 might have to wait 12-14 months to get to that $45,000 R2 price point. The initial set.
 
 Lei Xing (46:27)
 Right, right. So all of these in place, ‚Åì
 
 I think it's going to be a matter of weeks before I pull the trigger. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (46:34)
 So as a consumer,
 
 but as a consumer who's looking to the future, I got a two-year lease. And the cool thing, and I will give Ford kudos to this, is because I had originally tried to order this in August, remember, of 2025, before the $7,500 credits went away. And they honored the same deal.
 
 Lei Xing (46:53)
 It's already half a year, more than half a year.
 
 Tu Le (47:01)
 So they froze the pricing that I was supposed to get in August, which is awesome. yeah, I'll spend a little more time next week after I've kind of gathered my thoughts a little bit. I really liked the IONIQ 5. I think the UX was not great, but generally the car is big and the kids fit in the back pretty well.
 
 Lei Xing (47:10)
 Yeah, but.
 
 Tu Le (47:20)
 So anyway.
 
 Lei Xing (47:22)
 And I just like what the RJ is doing as a ‚Åì being an American EV startup, really rooting for him to get over that hurdle of R2 being a possibly a mainstream good selling EV like the Model Y. But there's still questions.
 
 Tu Le (47:22)
 And then, ‚Åì
 
 So here are the biggest asterisks, right? Because at $45,000, the price is right. The feature set is rich. The vehicle looks great. It's about a foot smaller than the R2, R1. So it's probably more practical for a lot of people in the United States.
 
 Lei Xing (48:00)
 For me as a family, yes,
 
 definitely, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (48:02)
 And now it's can they create the demand and then can they build to that demand? Because they haven't proved that they can do either with the R1. And so that's really.
 
 If they could do those two things, it's going to be a hit for sure.
 
 Lei Xing (48:16)
 Yeah
 
 You look at Lucid's numbers, you look at Rivian's number, they're still stuck in the low five digit volumes. Yeah, what is the problem? Is it a demand problem? Is it a production problem? Maybe both, but.
 
 Tu Le (48:28)
 It's terrible, it's weird. I mean, but they have hundred thousand dollar cars, but...
 
 Well,
 
 is a little bit of a demand problem because the charging infrastructure outside of California is just not great. So there's that.
 
 Lei Xing (48:42)
 Yeah, but R2 already has a
 
 native NACS So many of these new EVs are going to have, even Hyundai are going to have native NACS
 
 Tu Le (48:51)
 So I like you, I'm rooting for Lucid and for Rivian because I do want more competition to drive those prices down. And I think that Ford has shown us that they're willing to go low with the UEV, the Equinox, I was told is selling pretty well for General Motors, Stellantis, they said, screw it, we're just gonna build really, really big.
 
 V8 trucks that have that just drink gas and then rely heavily on LeapMotor technology to get us on the low end but All moving the the crazy thing is they're all moving in the right direction despite Trump gutting all the EV subsidies Are they moving fast enough? Are their products compelling enough? Do they have enough?
 
 product in the pipeline to stack really good vehicles six months later, six months later, six months later, or are they going to rely heavily on just one vehicle, on one product, on two products? Because the R3 is supposed to be coming out right after the R2. hopefully, we cannot have delays. We cannot have delays.
 
 And I've mentioned that to Ford. You say this date, you got to hit that date and you got to hit that number. Okay. The, the, the pricing, the MSRP. So anyways, let's go to comments and questions here. Jeffrey. Hello. What's going on, buddy? SPX who is always a loyal, loyal viewer and listener. Thanks for always joining us, man. How much market demand for transportation does the robotaxi industry create?
 
 Or do they largely replace existing models, aka getting rid of the human factor in piloting vehicles?
 
 Lei Xing (50:40)
 So there's a good report from Barclays on physical AI. So physical AI, they define physical AI as autonomous vehicles, drones, industrial automation, and humanoid robots. They predict it's going to be a 0.5 to $1.4 trillion market by 2035. And half of that are AVs.
 
 So $550 billion roughly.
 
 It's hard to say right at this point. But again the robotaxis, the AVs, there's no longer show or dough. Now it's dough. It's scaling.
 
 unlike robots right now are more show.
 
 Tu Le (51:22)
 But part of that show, Lei I think...
 
 Lei Xing (51:22)
 And then we haven't
 
 even talked about the NEOLIXs and the ZELOS NEOLIX recently gone through 100 million kilometers of global logistics, unmanned logistics delivery vehicles. Tens of thousands running in multiple countries and cities.
 
 Tu Le (51:39)
 Well, that's the fun part, right? We only talk about the passenger vehicle in robotaxi companies, but there's this on the commercial side, man, there's so many companies trying things. I told you I Moonlight as a venture partner for a couple of VC firms and
 
 Lei Xing (51:52)
 Yeah, so much more.
 
 Tu Le (52:03)
 I see pitch decks for an autonomous snow plow company for airports. I've seen a good friend of mine or a friend of mine, I won't say good, a friend of mine. He's the founder of Parallel Systems who is doing autonomous rail cars. There's so much and we won't be paying attention to it, but
 
 Within the next five to 10 years, there's going to be rail cars where there's nobody operating them, that they're going to pass bias. And we're already starting to see in Michigan in the summer and springtime, there are autonomous lawnmowers doing the highway ‚Åì stuff. So it's already happening.
 
 Lei Xing (52:45)
 Well, during the recent
 
 snow storms, think the autonomous snowplowers became a hit, think, right? I saw some posts. Yeah, yeah, I saw their posts. Yeah. Yeah. then I just recently was talking and some idea about airports. You mentioned airports. There's a huge need of wheelchairs and you don't believe how many people are hired.
 
 Tu Le (52:54)
 Tom Malogny was doing a big thing, time-lapse thing. And...
 
 Lei Xing (53:13)
 just for bringing these wheelchairs to the door of the airplane to pick up people who have these needs. And there's some idea that these could be autonomous. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (53:23)
 So it's funny you mentioned that because there's
 
 an Italian company who just opened a sales office in Michigan and they're doing that. They're doing autonomous wheelchairs. But again,
 
 In the West, anyways, when we think about this stuff, we have to think about the jobs that it's taking away, at least politicians will. So is the regulatory environment going to be right for the technology to ramp? That's the question, an important question that you should pay attention to because listen to what politicians are saying, because when we talk about automation in factories,
 
 Lei Xing (53:36)
 Yes.
 
 Tu Le (54:01)
 I'm living in UAW country. That's probably an antithema to all the labor unions. So when will we see North American factories and European factories look more like Chinese automotive factories? That could be 15, 20 years from now. you know, these unions really, really have a lot of influence because of the voters and things like that. And honestly, man, you know, like,
 
 I'm concerned as someone who have friends that could be displaced because of automation. mean, AI is really creating uncertainty on the white collar stuff. But to answer your question, SPX
 
 Lei Xing (54:35)
 Do a lot.
 
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (54:43)
 Right now, the market demand is kind of artificial, but because trips are being subsidized, CyberCab, Waymo, now if they're to charge fully burdened rates, then it would probably like crater demand, but...
 
 Lei Xing (55:03)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (55:05)
 You know, that's why they need that scale too, right? To drive down those costs. And Waymo, Baidu, they're reducing the cost of their stacks, which should help the path towards profitability, but it's still going to be a number of years before real demand comes. And unless we get to the Ojai, where multiple people can take one trip, the...
 
 these services are really just for rich people.
 
 Jeffrey, the Taycan was a huge miscalculation by Porsche. It's been very costly. So the first few years of the Taycan super good. And then people figured out.
 
 Lei Xing (55:42)
 I've seen more
 
 I've seen more Taycan's here than I've seen the last couple of years. There's so many EVs here. Every other vehicle is a Tesla and it seems like one out of every three or two other vehicles is a Rivian.
 
 Tu Le (55:51)
 Yo, it's California.
 
 I think the Taycan is great. It's just the range wasn't great and the software sucked. Porsche couldn't make major improvements through over-the-air updates and demand just fell off a cliff and the price was high for what you got. Changing with the times is very hard compared to Chinese EVs which move at light speed. The bang for the buck is huge in the Xiaomi brand. ‚Åì
 
 I think that refers back to what we were talking about when I said that Xiaomi is going to do well in Europe. Let's see, depends on, well, he's talking about Trump now, Trump's visit to China. Let's see, depends on how much McDonald's hamburgers they feed him from to get him to agree. So, and then he said, too, Tu, you're way ahead without CATL is like going to a party without alcohol. won't last. And Diane.
 
 Thanks also for always joining the show. Congrats Tu, on the Mach-E Thank you, Diane. And Lei, she says, we have a 2023 R1T. Was expensive, but works well. And ‚Åì I think finally, well, no. So Mike, the car geek, did you get Ford Power Promise? I did, Mike. So I'm going to get installation, and I'm going to get a
 
 Lei Xing (57:05)
 Mm, mm, mmkay.
 
 No.
 
 Tu Le (57:18)
 I think it's a Ford Pro charger. I don't know what the speed is, but that was one of the reasons I kept at the Mach-E because of the Ford Power Promise.
 
 Lei Xing (57:27)
 See, we all love a good incentive as consumers.
 
 Tu Le (57:30)
 Yeah, dude.
 
 Diane has like 70 cars. Diane's like, I have an IONIQ 6, but I like the blue Nissan SV and want an R3 used someday.
 
 Mike, good vids on donut labs. My pleasure. So anyways, I thought this was gonna be like a 30 minute freaking show, we're.
 
 Lei Xing (57:49)
 Yeah.
 
 It never, it never is a, we
 
 can never do 30 minute shows. We're just go on and on, right? It's hard to be compact.
 
 Tu Le (58:01)
 So.
 
 But we're back on schedule. We took a week off because of Chinese New Year, but we are back on schedule. We will see everyone next Friday morning at 9 AM Eastern. Thanks again for joining us. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
 
 Lei Xing (58:09)
 9am, yeah Fridays, yeah Eastern, Eastern.
 
 Bye.