NIO Just Hit a Major EV Milestone — And the Global Auto Industry Should Pay Attention | Episode #237

In this episode of China EVs & More, Tu Le and Lei Xing break down one of the most eventful weeks in the EV industry — from NIO reaching major milestones to new rumors of partnerships between Chinese and Western automakers.  

NIO is on the verge of two historic achievements: its first profitable quarter and its 100 millionth battery swap. For a company that helped pioneer China’s smart EV startup movement, the milestone represents both redemption and a new beginning.

The hosts also unpack a series of industry-shaking developments:

• Rumors of potential Xiaomi–Ford and Geely–Ford collaborations
• Canada’s evolving EV policy and the implications for Chinese automakers entering North America
• The ongoing EV price war in China and how it’s reshaping the global auto market

Tu and Lei explain why Chinese automakers are rapidly becoming global competitors — not just through vehicle exports, but through technology partnerships, battery supply chains, and software ecosystems.

The conversation also highlights the next wave of EV competition: affordable electric vehicles. Rivian’s highly anticipated R2 SUV, Ford’s upcoming EV platform, and the Chevrolet Equinox EV could become critical in determining whether U.S. automakers can compete against Chinese EV makers in the next decade.

The episode concludes with a look at China’s fast-changing regulatory environment — from new vehicle safety rules to battery technology innovation — and why the Beijing Auto Show could reveal the next major shift in the EV industry.

From battery swapping and profitability milestones to geopolitical trade dynamics and the future of affordable EVs, this episode captures a moment when the global auto industry is rapidly transforming.

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China EVs & More, Tu Le, Lei Xing, NIO profitability milestone, NIO battery swap network, China EV startups, Xiaomi Ford partnership rumor, Geely Ford collaboration, EV price war China, global EV competition, Rivian R2 electric SUV, affordable EV market, EV industry trends 2026, Chinese automakers global expansion, BYD EV competition, battery swapping technology, EV innovation China, Beijing Auto Show EV news

Transcript

Tu Le (00:00)
 Hi everyone and welcome to the China EVs and More podcast where my co-host Lei Xing and I will go over the week's most important and interesting news coming out of the global EV, AV and mobility sectors. What Lei and I discuss today is based on our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice.
 
 for those that are new to the show, welcome. And to our loyal listeners and viewers, welcome back. We ask that you hit that subscribe and like button so you don't miss anything from us in the future. My name is Tu Le, I am the managing director at Sino Auto Insights, 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. Lei, can you please introduce yourself?
 
 Lei Xing (00:57)
 Good morning. This is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review, and this is episode 237. So it's been a crazy week. when we got off last week, the Saturday, the Xiaomi Ford rumor broke. And then just a few days ago, the Geely Ford news broke.
 
 And as of this moment, NIO is about, I'm looking this countdown, less than 1500 swaps from 100 million swaps. So how cool is it that when we're doing this, actually a milestone is happening in real time. And there's obviously other much more happening. I thought it was a pretty busy week since we last talked.
 
 so there's a variety of topics that we can touch upon. The Canadian updated EV subsidy scheme, Stellantis getting that $26 billion write down on EVs. There's so much happening all of a sudden. As we come to the end of the year of the Snake and
 
 about to ring in the year of the Horse And obviously we got to talk about January "bad" sales.
 
 Where do you want to begin? I'm looking at this countdown on the NIO app, which has the countdown.
 
 Tu Le (02:21)
 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. I was going to check it out. I was going to check it out. But, um, well, since
 
 we're talking, since we're talking, NIO, let's first of all talk about their profit. and some of the history they'are An 11 year old company. They started, established themselves in 2014 in, Shanghai, but they've effectively moved their headquarters.
 
 Although they still have a presence in Shanghai, a home office and the largest delivery center in Shanghai, they effectively have moved to Hefei. And so we can talk a little bit about the history and maybe you can drill down a little bit on the profits and the swapping milestone that they're about to reach.
 
 Lei Xing (03:08)
 Well, so this profit announcement, they're projecting a profit, right? Technically, number one. And then number two, they're getting to this hundred million power swaps. I mean, these for company like NIO are monumental, monumental achievements because battery swapping. think there's still a lot of people that don't believe in it, that believe that it works.
 
 but it's worked for NIO and profitability is what we've talked about for many of these smart EV startups. Now when can they be profitable? And NIO has proven they can do it. It's late, but it's finally happening. But it's not an endpoint. It's a new starting point, which is
 
 How can they keep this momentum? How do they become profitable annually as a company and continue to be profitable? I think there are still many, including us probably, we question if they can do this. But at this point in time, they've reached these new milestones, which I'm genuinely happy for as long as we covered these companies and how close
 
 we are with a lot of their people. just nothing but happiness and kind of right, a little bit of redemption for a person like William Li, who is one of the most hardworking, down to earth, care about you CEOs among the startups. And I'm just happy for him.
 
 Tu Le (04:37)
 Yeah, I don't have anything but you know, gongxi, congratulations for NIO. We think about the Chinese EV companies, we automatically think about BYD. think NIO is there, think XPeng is there, Li Auto to a lesser extent from the West standpoint. But for the guys that were there on day one in 2013, 2014, 2015, when
 
 Lei Xing (04:39)
 Yeah. Exactly.
 
 We can talk about Li Auto.
 
 Tu Le (05:05)
 that first crop of EV startups were founded. And I'm talking Xpeng, NIO, Li Auto and WM Motor. Any other you can think of? Faraday Future was there, but right.
 
 Lei Xing (05:15)
 Well, there's other ones that are dead, right? The zombie
 
 WM motor, there's Byton, there's Neta. Neta is dead. Evergrande, Youxia.
 
 Tu Le (05:20)
 That's right, Byton, that's right. so, yeah,
 
 Neta, Neta, Neta. In the early days, I used to always get Neta confused with Leap Motor. But now that we don't talk about Neta and Hozon anymore, Leap Motor is very, very clear in my mind. I say that because they're almost 12 years old and these companies are very, very resilient.
 
 Lei Xing (05:26)
 Right? Hi-fi!
 
 Tu Le (05:46)
 What's weird is that it has taken NIO this long, plus two brands, multiple, multiple products. And we all know that the higher price vehicles don't really help on the volume and utilization for factories and they have three of them. So getting to firefly, getting to ONVO help them fill that capacity for those factories.
 
 2026 looks to be a very challenging year already because component pricing is increased. If we think about tech companies, we think about software and things like that, but tech companies are also very, very capital intensive on the data management side. So different from automotive companies who invest in capital for building factories and stuff. But if I'm
 
 a technology company, the biggest thing, the biggest currency, the biggest asset that I have is the data from my users. And so we see data centers popping up because of AI. So technology companies are writing huge, huge checks to invest in data centers and the data centers have servers and servers have memory. One of the things that car companies and tech companies share is the need for using data centers and memory.
 
 and the technology companies are jumping ahead of them in line in order to buy more memory for their data centers, for their products. And that's pushing up component pricing. And in a market that has celebrated now its fourth year of a price war, margins are razor thin already for the ones that can be profitable. Most companies aren't profitable. And so 2026,
 
 Lei Xing (07:18)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (07:34)
 is going to be another year of resiliency for NIO, for XPeng, specifically for Li Auto. Even Xiaomi is going to have to mine their Ps and Qs in order to manage their cost structure.
 
 Lei Xing (07:47)
 Yeah, one of the data from NIO's January sales is probably that jumps out at me at least is two thirds, almost two thirds of the deliveries are ES8s. It's both good and bad, Good ES8 is more profitable. I think there are probably over 20 % margins. But I think there's this purchase tax reduction, which is affecting
 
 some more than others because of the percentage of how much you get on a purchase tax. Not a fixed, but a percentage, right? Xpeng was tremendously down, compared to December, even down against January of last year. Yeah, yeah. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (08:30)
 They were down 30 % year over year. BYD's
 
 down 50 % year over year.
 
 Lei Xing (08:35)
 Tesla is up 9%. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (08:40)
 Yeah, but to me, that's basically
 
 them manufacturing and exporting. I don't think there's a huge increase in domestic consumption.
 
 Lei Xing (08:49)
 Yeah, yeah, yeah,
 
 But I mean, going back to NIO, I think one of the other things that we don't talk as much about is what NIO did to change the industry, not only the original ES8, but this user community.
 
 is redefining the OEM to the customer relationships and how you bring the customers back into the feedback loop about what kind of products they come out, the design. Now, this is normal for all of these Chinese Smart EV startups, even some of the foreign brands. How do you utilize your user base to both be the "stans," market your products and
 
 be kind of the voice, important voice. I think that's also a very important change that NIO brought, aside from the power swaps.
 
 So yeah, NIO Houses, right? So.
 
 Tu Le (09:39)
 and the NIO Houses.
 
 I think that actually
 
 confused customers early on that they tried to become this lifestyle brand instead of leaning into their product.
 
 Lei Xing (09:53)
 I every time I've gone to the NIO Day three times, every time they have a wall put up of all the clubs, their own clubs in different regions of China, right? these type of things. you know, but again, right. I said, it's a new starting point. there's much challenges ahead. No one's out of the woods. Even.
 
 Li Bin himself, right? Yeah. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (10:15)
 Well, let's move over to Li Auto think congratulations to NIO again for
 
 likely generating a profit. Now, that's likely more on paper, an accounting profit than anything else, but it's a significant milestone for them. They're going to hit 100 million swaps. In my newsletter yesterday, I posted some pictures of myself in Hefei.
 
 when they built the 500,000 vehicle. So.
 
 Lei Xing (10:47)
 And
 
 we, among the two of us, we've contributed a few of the 100 million swaps.
 
 Tu Le (10:53)
 under 10, I think, probably seven or eight swaps.
 
 Lei Xing (10:55)
 Yeah, 708,
 
 7 or 8, yeah, this is last year.
 
 Tu Le (10:59)
 That's right. That's right. So what's going on with Li Auto man?
 
 Lei Xing (11:02)
 Li Xiang is not messing around. He dropped the all new L9 and just when you think everything is at the peak and then it seems like things are getting even more crazier, right? He sends out two Weibo posts about the L9. And even announced the pricing.
 
 Tu Le (11:21)
 For folks that don't know, Weibo is
 
 Lei Xing (11:25)
 Yeah, the
 
 Tu Le (11:26)
 like Twitter or X.
 
 Lei Xing (11:27)
 Chinese, very popular social media platform. And he dropped the price of this Li L9 Livis, the ultimate edition. That's what he calls it. $80,000. And then he posted about those cross-generational features, right? This surround view 360 LiDAR.
 
 And then for the first time, he dropped the news of their own Mach SoC, right? was it 2,500 tops? Something like that, right? I mean, he's just waiting to pounce because of the bad, this over the last year that Li Auto has gone through.
 
 I mean, you can feel it.
 
 Tu Le (12:09)
 Which makes me wonder, because this year's auto show is in Beijing, what they'll have in store for us, what type of announcement they'll make in April. Because this Li Auto L9, which is their flagship EREV for those folks that are wondering, it was the first vehicle that, well, the L1, it was called the L1 first, and then they changed it to L9. It's a large vehicle.
 
 but it's a little bit smaller than a Tahoe. And I've always thought the Li Auto interiors, the fit and finish was really, really, really good. So, and it was in our backyard. I've been to Li Auto a few times now, but man, they're really, really struggling. generally speaking, share prices for these EV startups and EV companies that are traded in.
 
 Hong Kong and Shenzhen, they're not doing well. BYD is down $60 billion since May of last year. so lots of, lots of pressure to manage costs, to really, but in these situations, ideally, poor performing companies would leave the market. So we should keep an eye out on
 
 Lei Xing (13:04)
 ‚Åì yeah.
 
 Tu Le (13:24)
 rumors that we hear or things that we see that would point to any of the brands that we follow leaving the market or exiting the market.
 
 Lei Xing (13:35)
 Yeah, so January, like I posted, I don't want to make too much conclusions even after February. February is going to be even slower volumes.
 
 Tu Le (13:43)
 Well, the year over year is going to be crazy just because this year it's Chinese New Year. Yeah.
 
 Lei Xing (13:45)
 Yeah, it's flip-flop. Yeah. So
 
 we look at maybe Q1 together, March. We see how far, how these numbers jump in March. Then we have some kind of early idea of the well-being of these companies. And then you have Leap Motor, the sales guy, he posts on Weibo and he said, we're going to move our sales target up by 50,000 units. We're going to try to do 1.05 million.
 
 So what does that tell you? I'm not,
 
 Tu Le (14:14)
 Yeah, it's a-
 
 Well, so the NIOs and the Leap Motors, seem pretty confident. I think BYD is in between product refreshes, so I think they're a little bit more quiet about certain things. Although, pictures of the new Tang L have leaked. ‚Åì I think about it, and I'm like, I was just in a
 
 Lei Xing (14:34)
 Song, Ultra, know, all those type of, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (14:42)
 or refresh Tang L in April of last year. So less than a year later, they're refreshing it again. It's crazy, crazy, crazy.
 
 Lei Xing (14:45)
 Yeah.
 
 Yeah. It's
 
 going to be about these large SUVs at the Beijing Auto Show, right? So Xpeng teases the GX. I don't really like the way that the naming convention, I hope it's, they could call it the G9L, but right now it's called the GX, right? BYD, right?
 
 Tu Le (15:08)
 which is
 
 if you squint, it looks a lot like a Range Rover.
 
 Lei Xing (15:11)
 It's a...
 
 Yeah,
 
 I call it the Greater Bay Area Range Rover Sport or something.
 
 It's not the Cullinan It's not the Hangzhou Bay Cullinan, but it's the other one.
 
 Tu Le (15:24)
 And these vehicles, these 9 series large vehicles, they're not meant for the European market. They're meant for China and guess where else they're meant for? They're meant for North America. So I'm gonna call this right now. People are wondering about GM and Ford being these truck and SUV companies. They're going for that too. Okay, so that's not a safe.
 
 Haven for the US automakers to Dodge Ram, the F-150, the Sierra Silverado. Look, the trucks now the US 3 have an advantage specifically on the truck side, but the SUV side man, forget it. 9 X that thing would sell today and in the United States, this GX from Xpeng I'm sure it's very well appointed. So
 
 people love their Tahoes and stuff like that, but
 
 if and when it enters and we can talk about we can move to Canada in a second. If and when it enters that puts an immediate threat on the top end Mercedes, the X7, it puts immediate threats on the Q8 and then every Tahoe, every Escalade, every Navigator, it puts downward pricing pressure. So the US3 talk about profitable trucks and SUVs, dude.
 
 Look what's happening in China. The price war is getting exported to Europe. That's inevitable in the United States and in North America over the next few years. So if the US two and a half can't create competitive vehicles across the board, small car, medium size, and then large vehicle, ‚Åì man, this does not portend well for them in the future.
 
 Lei Xing (17:19)
 And Canada's announcement yesterday is like a
 
 how would you describe that if we talk about USMCA, right? I mean, it's like a direct shot in the face. Wasn't it?
 
 Tu Le (17:31)
 So I, did you see
 
 what I tweeted? I said, not only will we kick the door down and we'll kick the door open for you, we will write checks for you to walk through it. That's what Carney said.
 
 Lei Xing (17:41)
 Yeah, yeah.
 
 So I think I look at this combined with the Xiaomi and Ford and Geely and Ford. It just points to one thing. These three things happening, Canada, Xiaomi, Geely, Ford, Xiaomi, Ford. The West needs China's help. That's it. One way or another.
 
 Even though it was interesting, I think it was the first time that I saw Xiaomi's official Twitter handle.
 
 denying. that's like the first time how serious this stuff is because usually the PR is not that, you know, transparent on at least on the Twitter platform. But I guess, yeah, and even the Ford spokesman, right. He tweeted. these things are not out of the blue, right?
 
 So I think a lot of things, everything is on the table. I mean, you can deny it, but find what works and we'll see what happens.
 
 Tu Le (18:30)
 Well, I wrote in the newsletter
 
 that it's their duty. It's management's duty, fiduciary duty to have conversations. Whether they turn into partnerships, whether they turn into acquisitions or investments, that's a completely different conversation. But it's their duty because one of the things that I pointed out in this week's newsletter was that
 
 Lei Xing (18:34)
 Yeah, so.
 
 Tu Le (18:54)
 I think I mentioned it last week, Lei, maybe that there were less than a hundred thousand vehicles sold retail by the Ford Chang'an joint venture last year, less than a hundred thousand. In 2016, was, in 2016, it was almost a million units.
 
 Lei Xing (19:07)
 Yeah, Charlie Ford was, yeah, yeah, was less than 100,000. A
 
 million, yep, yep.
 
 Tu Le (19:15)
 So Ford could really, really get themselves back into being a global automaker in China and Europe through a partnership with Geely or a partnership with someone else. And why wouldn't Jim Farley think about it? Again, whether something actually happens, it has to be his duty or his lieutenants have these conversations, you know?
 
 I don't think BYD would be a good partner for Ford because Ford couldn't handle Chang'an.
 
 Lei Xing (19:43)
 like Ford hasn't worked with BYD before.
 
 Tu Le (19:47)
 Right. so
 
 the West has no idea how. So think of us being in the US and having all these conferences, automotive news and all these things, right? There are twice as many of these conferences in China. so Ford people, BYD people, they go to the same conferences. So they see each other all the time. It's not like.
 
 They never talk. They never see each other. Right now it's a buy sell. BYD sells them batteries. But why wouldn't they just say, by the way, since we have the teams here, why don't we have a quick conversation about Y or Z or X? It's not as far-fetched as I think some people are making it out to be.
 
 Lei Xing (20:32)
 Yeah. So I think the conversations are continuing to be had. that next it could be somebody else. It could be another American companies. So really not surprising anymore that these conversations can be had. And Xiaomi itself, right? part of the reason for Xiaomi is they're switching the SU7
 
 because they were launching a refresh. So that affected the sales a little bit anyways. But they still did 39,000 units in January.
 
 Tu Le (20:57)
 Well, nobody
 
 wants the Ultra anymore. So they canceled that. But in the same vein, they're launching a YU7 Ultra with like 1,000 horsepower.
 
 Lei Xing (21:03)
 They even disbanded the team or something. ‚Åì
 
 U7GT, yeah, U7GT.
 
 And then, Europe, right? There's producing in Europe, utilizing the brownfield. Stellantis is talking about producing Leap Motors right? These are not something that's, strange. It's, on the table.
 
 Tu Le (21:30)
 Yeah, for sure, One of the things that I did want to talk about because a few media outlets pinged me was the fact that
 
 the flush door handles that the Chinese government put restrictions on. It's China effectively, informally dictating standards to the rest of the world.
 
 Lei Xing (21:38)
 yeah, that's very important to talk about.
 
 Tu Le (21:46)
 I looked really quickly, there isn't a brand that's pretty well known, foreign or Chinese domestic that is not affected by this. And on my Weixin feed, there are already like glue on solutions that door handle solutions that you put that now can pull out. So within days, there's a 3D printed solution where you just glue it onto the door handle and
 
 Lei Xing (22:03)
 Yeah. ‚Åì
 
 Tu Le (22:12)
 Now it's mechanical, but it goes deeper than that because some of it is software. I know you had posted about the JIDU 01, but so that would not be able to work. You would need to have a mechanical. I think that's the key here because a lot of this is software driven where there's a button or there's something that creates
 
 A connection to the actuator that opens the door. Now it needs to be mechanical inside and out.
 
 Lei Xing (22:44)
 inside and
 
 correct. And there's the important thing is there's this grace period until January 2029 of models that are already submitted for the cataloging. So let's say IDERA9X from Volkswagen. I mean that had the flush door handles. So what do you do there, right? So there's still some time. Even though I think the regulation says that January 2027 is everybody needs to meet it, but
 
 There's also a grace period, but the part of the reasons is because moving fast and these accidents happening just most recent one just came out of this EPi 007 vehicle. This video, I'm not sure if you've seen it. This happened in March of 2025, but this video just recently emerged on social media of how this car was kind of spun around, hit some guardrail and then
 
 the passenger on the front got trapped and got killed while the other ones got out. But people had to break in with a rock or something because they couldn't open the the door. So, yeah, it's always case where I think even this relates to what happened this past week when Tesla and Waymo was testifying on the Senate commerce.
 
 committee of similar things about regulations and falling behind. And China just responds. think sometimes things, technology goes much faster.
 
 So the regulations have to keep up. And that's one of the things that has happened.
 
 Breaking news, 100 million passed. Congrats, congrats. Anyways, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (24:20)
 Nice. NIO gong shi, gong shi, gong shi. ‚Åì Congratulations, NIO team. So,
 
 but back to the flush door handle. So.
 
 I believe it was the Tesla Model S that started it in 2012.
 
 Lei Xing (24:33)
 ‚Åì Tesla is definitely
 
 the one that began it,
 
 Tu Le (24:36)
 So, Kia has them, Mercedes has them, Xiaomi has them, you name it, XPeng has them, pretty much everybody's involved. Couple of things that I'll, observations that I'll try to make. No problem from the Chinese. They'll probably be able to do an engineering change within months, correct the supply chain, and we'll see it by next year, no problem.
 
 the US automakers because here's the crazy thing. Their supply chains are more complex because they build in multiple regions. Now the decision is, do I do this engineering change for the door handle for all regions or do I just do it for China? These are real, considerations because we had mentioned earlier that this is a mechanical change.
 
 The guts of the door needs to be updated somehow some way. And so it's not like you flash software and it starts working.
 
 Lei Xing (25:33)
 Yeah, and the specific regulations when your hand goes in to open that door handle, there's actually specific regulations on how much space your fingers have to, it's very, very specific numbers that that's in that regulation.
 
 Tu Le (25:49)
 And it points to number one, the Chinese government being very definitive about something they feel is a risk to safety. And compare and contrast that to NHTSA, who knows that people using FSD have gotten into accidents. Nothing's been done that I can tell that I know of. And so the other thing too is that
 
 There was a statistic that China was 36 % of the global automotive market in 2025. And again, I'll point to them informally dictating standards to the rest of the world because number one, they're out in front from a technology standpoint, from an NEV standpoint. But then number two, we have the largest market in the world. The players that play here need to abide by our rules.
 
 And so this is what we want. And it goes back to, will we see these changes in the United States and Europe? My guess is yes.
 
 Lei Xing (26:48)
 And also the regulations on the flush handles. I could be wrong. I remember Geely NIO and possibly even Tesla were actually involved in actually drafting, putting input of this new regulations. And then the other part about safety is this more recently, the requirement on the R and D process. I think there's
 
 We talk about China speed, but China speed could be both a good and a bad thing. And the door handles is one of those things. That's double-edged sword, which requires the R &D lead time to be a specific amount of time. And they don't want you to put out a product. But those are some of the peculiarities that are starting to happen.
 
 to kind of put some kind of control of you want China speed, but you want the right China speed. You don't want to go too fast.
 
 Yeah. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (27:47)
 I don't know. don't know. To the
 
 competitors, I don't know if there's such a thing.
 
 Lei Xing (27:54)
 That's the thing. That's, you know, it just, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (27:57)
 But the crazy thing
 
 is, if you think about China Speed, it's affected everyone. It's affected NIO, it's affected Xpeng, it's affected BYD, it's affected Geely. it's created...
 
 a very fast innovation cycle, but I think you and I agree that it should settle in because it's unsustainable, especially as the Chinese more of the Chinese brands go abroad.
 
 Because I think US and European consumers would just get whiplash if every six months there were new features. would be backlash from consumers because I just bought this thing six months ago. Now you're changing features on me. That's how the China market is very, very, very different.
 
 Lei Xing (28:38)
 speaking of that, did you see the testifying Waymo and Tesla something that was revealed that got mocked was using Philippines, these operators, remote operators in the Philippines for Waymos. I don't know what to make of it, but I think using tele operators at this point in time is still pretty normal for the robotaxis.
 
 Tu Le (28:38)
 else, man?
 
 I
 
 think everyone uses them. To a degree.
 
 Lei Xing (29:04)
 Yeah, even by do. So,
 
 To a degree. So that's why it goes back to the CES when I was at the Professor Shashua's speech and he talked about eventually on the L4 robotaxi side, removing completely the teleoperators we're still not there yet. But that's an end goal to really call it truly driverless.
 
 But at this point, no, not yet.
 
 Tu Le (29:30)
 I don't know if that'll ever be the case where there will never be one teleoperator. I don't know if that could ever happen because there could be a mechanical failure. There could be a number of things that would, outside of the safety aspect of it, where a teleoperator would be needed. now, and this is where I don't have a clear understanding and it's
 
 Lei Xing (29:46)
 Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (29:52)
 I don't know if you do, but what's the ratio currently? Now the ratio of vehicles to teleoperators, that'll shrink, ideally. So.
 
 Lei Xing (30:01)
 It's yeah, it's been coming down. Yeah, it's been coming
 
 down. Let's say it could be one to 20 where the goal is you want to go to one, one person can deal with a hundred, something like that, you know? Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (30:15)
 And obviously Waymo is saving costs where it can since they have their operators in the Philippines.
 
 Lei Xing (30:24)
 think the more of it
 
 is really the cybersecurity, who's watching what, that part of things is very sensitive. It's not so much that because when we call tech support, more than likely, they are probably not in the US for any of the electronic gadgets we have.
 
 Tu Le (30:31)
 Well, Waymo got slapped on the wrist.
 
 they're definitely in India,
 
 India, Philippines, Bangladesh. It could be Vietnam, whatever.
 
 Lei Xing (30:43)
 Yeah. So,
 
 yeah, so that's not new, right? But really the sensitive thing is that these are robotaxis running. who's spying on you.
 
 Tu Le (30:55)
 Yeah, yeah.
 
 so.
 
 Man, the world has changed over the last month, huh?
 
 Lei Xing (31:00)
 Yeah, very, I mean, like we said, right, juicy start to the new year this first whole month, right? Of these controversies and rumors and breaking, I think a lot of the country is breaking with Trump and Trump himself.
 
 Tu Le (31:07)
 Yeah, it's
 
 Lei Xing (31:15)
 saying we have a great relationship with China and Xi.
 
 Tu Le (31:20)
 yeah, there's a call this week.
 
 Lei Xing (31:22)
 It's hard to tell sometimes of, you know, we're gonna make a trade deal with China, but you cannot.
 
 Tu Le (31:30)
 Carney doesn't care.
 
 Lei Xing (31:31)
 Yeah, the Carney, the document that he posted, I think two things stood out to me. One is that the subsidies are only for EVs with countries we have free trade agreement with. Which Canada does not have with China, right? At this point, not yet, even though there's an EV thing. And then the other one was the recently announced China EV thing is
 
 The eventual goal is set up joint ventures. We talked about this. And if they're made in Canada, there's no price cap of the $50,000 Canadian dollar price cap. can be as much as it can. You still get the $5,000 Canadian dollar subsidies. All of this is pointing to, please produce locally, invest in us.
 
 Then you get the benefits.
 
 Tu Le (32:23)
 Well, then you look at
 
 Chery is buying, I want to say an African factory. And so there are, you had mentioned this earlier, there are brownfield sites or factories in Europe and the rest of the world that are underutilized and have historically been underutilized. The factory, the Ford Geely
 
 Lei Xing (32:28)
 Nissan, Africa, yeah.
 
 Tu Le (32:47)
 potential partnership is in Spain. so Spain has become the de facto ground zero for EV production recently in Europe. Yeah. So Volkswagen Group that they're going to be producing all four of their inexpensive EVs. I think see it was it Gotion or CATL that's open in
 
 Lei Xing (32:57)
 Chery is there, Harry produces to JAECOO
 
 Urban EVs.
 
 Tu Le (33:13)
 battery factory there. anyways, really that's all I had, man. So John Francois asks, and we talked about this earlier, Lei, what do you think of the recent news of profitability for NIO Q4 earnings?
 
 Lei Xing (33:13)
 Gotion Shin.
 
 Yeah, we talked about it kind of. I think the management, they probably internally expected this to happen. Given the product mix, given their efforts over recent months and quarters to reduce cost, to get the right products out. I mean, right, they talk about through this years of building
 
 this resiliency and persistence. And even Li Auto, Li Xiang, he said, right, what we're launching today, the new L9 is built on 10 years of what we have been doing. So I think it's not that surprising that they can announce this at this point. But the question is, if I'm being more critical, we always talk about the consistency.
 
 Tu Le (33:51)
 and learning.
 
 Lei Xing (34:16)
 Can you remain profitable every quarter from here on?
 
 Tu Le (34:19)
 That's the next milestone. So this is an enormous milestone, being profitable for a quarter. Now can they stack multiple quarters together? And that will tell me that management is able to understand their business a lot.
 
 Lei Xing (34:21)
 Yeah. Right.
 
 So annual.
 
 So far, BYD we know is profitable. Li Auto we know is profitable, although last quarter they swung to a loss, Q3. And then Leap Motor is profitable. That's it. We can count Geely in, but I mean, Geely is more of a conglomerate. All the other Xpeng, we haven't heard about Xpeng because they were projecting a profitable quarter in Q4. They haven't announced anything yet.
 
 And I'm seeing, the street is, oh, OK, NIO is up almost 10 % today at this point. So good for them. But yeah, so there's a lot of work left to do.
 
 Tu Le (35:12)
 This is going to be.
 
 This is gonna be a tough year for all the EV companies. And we've seen the US three, what is it close to $40 billion of write downs between Stellantis, GM and Ford now. So that's an enormous number. That's a gigantic number. But everyone, unless you have anything else Lei.
 
 Lei Xing (35:32)
 Yeah, but.
 
 No, I think we covered a lot today in this amount of time, which is quite good. Quick one. Okay.
 
 Tu Le (35:44)
 hold on. We do have a comment here.
 
 Hey, guys, any news on the NIO CATL Colab on the BaaS standards and networks?
 
 Lei Xing (35:53)
 Well, we certainly should hear some more updates this year because that was announced March 2025, I believe, of firely possibly utilizing.
 
 But at this point, you pick your battle, right? I think William has always been on the record saying that part of the, with several Chinese automakers, the power swap friend circle, right? It's gonna take longer, whereas their focus is getting as much ES8 as possible and getting to breakeven. And then those other things will be.
 
 kind of in the backburner a little bit. So, but I'm certain there will be some announcements this year. Updates. Yeah.
 
 Tu Le (36:38)
 What looms large for
 
 the Chinese domestic automakers and suppliers is now the Beijing Auto Show. What they're gonna be announcing because we'll have by that time, go ahead.
 
 Lei Xing (36:52)
 Well, we
 
 have the CATL sodium ion battery for the Chang'an vehicle that was announced, right? It's not new. mean, this was at the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, the CATL, they showed their sodium ion and they went into some of smaller Chery vehicles. Volumes are very small, but really the sodium ion, they're kind of the...
 
 Tu Le (36:58)
 Right.
 
 Lei Xing (37:19)
 application is more for range, less range degradation in extreme weather. I think that's the primary.
 
 Tu Le (37:24)
 in extreme weather.
 
 Lei Xing (37:31)
 selling point for that technology,
 
 Tu Le (37:34)
 Thanks for your questions. And we will see you all next week. Thanks for joining us again. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
 
 Lei Xing (37:40)
 Yeah, so think next week I think is the last one
 
 before the Chinese New Year. Maybe we have a break after that, but we should still have one next week. It's right before the Chinese New Year.
 
 Tu Le (37:51)
 Okay, cool man.
 
 That's right. Chinese New Year this year is February 17th. Yeah, so. Okay, everyone, we'll catch up with you next week. See you later.
 
 Lei Xing (37:56)
 17 17 ‚Åì
 
 All right.
 
 Bye.