China EVs Are Moving Faster Than Ever — Tesla, Rivian & the West Running Out of Time? | Episode #242 Artwork

China EVs & More

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China EVs & More

China EVs Are Moving Faster Than Ever — Tesla, Rivian & the West Running Out of Time? | Episode #242

March 23, 2026 • Tu Le & Lei Xing

0:00 | 49:17

In Episode 242 of China EVs & More, Tu Le and Lei Xing break down a pivotal week in the global EV industry — one defined by accelerating innovation, new partnerships, and intensifying competition across China, the U.S., and beyond.

XPeng reaches a major milestone with its first quarterly profit, joining NIO, Li Auto, and Leapmotor in demonstrating that China’s EV startups can achieve profitability — even amid one of the most competitive markets in the world.

Meanwhile, Rivian secures a $1.25 billion partnership with Uber, signaling a major push into the robotaxi ecosystem and raising questions about whether EV startups can remain viable without tapping into autonomy and mobility platforms.

The hosts also dive into Xiaomi’s refreshed SU7 launch, the growing wave of EV announcements ahead of the Beijing Auto Show, and how Chinese automakers continue to iterate products 2–3x faster than legacy competitors.

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China EVs & More, Tu Le, Lei Xing, XPeng earnings profit, Rivian Uber partnership robotaxi, Xiaomi SU7 refresh, China EV market 2026, Chinese EV competition, BYD EV technology, EV industry trends, robotaxi market growth, autonomous driving China vs Tesla, NVIDIA autonomous driving platform, EV startup profitability, future of mobility, electric vehicles global competition

⏱️ Chapter Timestamps

00:00 Intro and episode overview

01:10 XPeng achieves first quarterly profit

03:30 Why EV startup profitability matters

06:00 Xiaomi SU7 refresh and competitive landscape

10:00 China EV innovation speed vs legacy automakers

14:00 XPeng’s “physical AI” strategy explained

18:00 NVIDIA’s growing role in autonomy

22:00 Rivian–Uber $1.25B partnership breakdown

26:00 Robotaxi economics and competition

30:00 Can EV startups survive without autonomy?

34:00 Large SUV EV battle in China

38:00 Global EV competition outlook

41:00 Q&A: LiDAR, Rivian strategy, autonomy

45:00 Final thoughts and wrap-up

Tu Le (00:00)
Hi everyone and welcome to the China EVs and More podcast. Where my co-host Lei Xing and I will go over the week's most important and interesting news coming out of the global EV, AV and mobility sectors. What Lei and I discuss today is based on our opinions and should not be taken as investment advice. For those that are new to the show, welcome and to our loyal listeners and viewers, welcome back. We ask that you help us get the word out about this podcast to others.

And of course, tune in again next week. Hit those smash, smash those like and subscribe buttons! everyone. My name is Tu Le. I'm 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 Sino Auto sinoautoinsights.substack.com

which of course I encourage you all to do. Lei, a traveling father, a volleyball, soccer, a volleyball dad, Lei, can you please introduce yourself? I am super tongue-tied this morning for some reason.

Lei Xing (01:06)
‚Åì Yeah,

a Midwestern Lei. ‚Åì I have to remember, I'm an hour behind you, so it's actually 8 a.m. here. So I have to remember that, otherwise we miss the show. I'd miss the show if I did 9 a.m. here. This is, yeah.

Tu Le (01:17)
that's it? Okay.

And I must apologize for

the live audience because we're a few minutes late. That's on me. I had some morning stuff going on that I couldn't avoid.

Lei Xing (01:34)
Yeah, morning

tongue tight. Yes, this is your co-host Lei Xing, former chief editor of China Auto Review, and this is episode 242. It's March Madness, and I'm not talking about college basketball, although it's part of the March Madness. So congrats to Xpeng on achieving first quarterly profit.

Tu Le (01:37)
That too.

Although there were couple upsets last night.

Lei Xing (02:00)
Congrats on NIO delivering 80,000 ES8s six months after its launch. Congrats to Rivian getting a $1.25 billion check from Uber. We'll get to that. you know, and then Xiaomi, think SU7 was the launch of the week. Although I think the limelight compared to two years ago,

I wasn't nearly as high as back then. I think it's lost some luster. Although it was still the top selling sedan above the RMB 200,000 last year, beating the Model 3. And then we had a couple of other launches or reveals, the ZEEKR 8X, AISTALAND GT7.

A new brand, a new brand. So that's part of the March Madness. And we can begin... I don't know.

Tu Le (02:52)
New brand.

This is all

leading up to third week in April, last week in April to the Beijing Motor Show. So I'm getting, I'm starting to get excited. I'm starting to figure some things out. And as always, Lei, it is so difficult to really stay in front of everything that's going on.

Lei Xing (03:04)
it's... Yeah.

Tu Le (03:21)
especially when we're not here, once we get there, it all kind of hits us. It punches us in the face because we actually see the cars, we talk to the people. You and I talk to them regularly anyways, but it's different when you're face to face and you're kind of like, man, it's so nice to see you. And one of the things that I think we could both observe is that their level of optimism from

five years ago to today is completely different. I think they have much more confidence in the companies that they all work at, the products that the companies are building. And I think that they are starting to really understand how to connect or at least get that feedback loop from the consumer to improve their products. And they improve them 2 or 3X faster than the

legacy automakers.

Lei Xing (04:17)
Yeah, so the new SU7, I think we start there a little bit because one of the viral moments was Lei Jun bringing these big shots, right? I posted a photo of the photo op with Wang Chuanfu, He Xiaopeng Li Xiang. William Li noticeably is missing this time around. Two years ago, he was in that crowd. The chairman of BAIC Group,

Tu Le (04:27)
Yeah

Lei Xing (04:43)
Also, Wang Xingxing the founder of ‚Åì UNITREE which just got approval for their IPO. think the preliminary approval for IPO, they were part of the commotion or guests of honor. Lei Jun just knows how to put up a show, right? But back to the model itself, I think that's two steps.

Tu Le (04:47)
Yes.

And

they're friendly. They're friends. Some of them are friendly. Some of them are friends. But Lei Jun also, yes. And Lei Jun also knows how to kind of not pressure them, but pressure them into being a part of his celebrations.

Lei Xing (05:09)
They're false and they're competitors.

Yeah, no, but back to the SU7 itself, right? So the only number they've revealed so far is a locked in order of 15,000 in the first 34 minutes. Yeah, I don't have the updated or they haven't published the updated data, but I don't know what to make of it because last year it was the firm orders, right? Not the locked in orders. That was kind of wild & viral

Tu Le (05:31)
34 minutes.

Lei Xing (05:47)
88,000 in 24 hours. But I think this time around, the competitive environment is much, much more complex compared to two years ago. Even though the SU7 was the top selling model in the 200,000 RMB sedan, top selling sedan, EV sedan last year.

We know the competition, right? Once we get to March Madness, once we get to the Beijing Auto Show.

It's hard to keep a thunder, if you will, right? You're not the only one making a thunder. There's tons of new product launches starting from this point on all the way to Beijing Auto Show. Try to push for that kind of the rebound, right? The spring rebound, the summer, early summer rebound. So I think I sense a little bit of

Even among the industry circles, even among the media, the KOLs, the chatter wasn't as high as the first time around. It's the maturation of the product, but it's also the competition.

Tu Le (06:48)
And I think that...

first time around, was just, well, I don't know if we can compare first and second time because the first time around, the SU7 was the first product full stop for Xiaomi in the automotive space. Now, I think the second car or the second iteration of the SU7 is actually more important because it'll tell us what they learned over that timeframe.

It's not only incorporating SU7 learnings, but some of the YU7 learnings. And what I can tell you, Lei is that there are quite a few of these SU7s in the United States. And, let me just say that there are many companies and organizations kicking the tires on them. And, many of these people that are looking at these cars for the first time.

Lei Xing (07:27)
Yeah.

Tu Le (07:41)
And it's not only the SU7 there are other cars, Chinese cars here.

They are really, really amazed, shocked, fearful. I think these are all the right descriptions that I would use in talking to these people who have seen driven for the first time with these vehicles, these Chinese vehicles. we're going to pat ourselves on the back because from day one, you know, when I got into these vehicles, I knew that there was a gap.

But then the year after that gap closed significantly. And I would say in 22 ish, they got better just full stop. Okay. Because you and I were in early NIOs, early Xpengs, early Li Auto So Li Auto to me was probably the leader at the very beginning with the L9, the fit and finish was great. Everything was great. And then everybody else.

is on equal par in my opinion. Now we can debate about design, whether or not it's friendly or the user experience is good or not, but we can't, I don't think we can debate about the level of quality and finish of these products now.

Lei Xing (08:53)
Yeah, we can also debate about how much they look like Porsches. Because we have the AISTALAND GT7 and most recently the Shangjie Z7 all having some kind of resemblance to the Porsche silhouette. With the SU7 being the kind of the copycat. Lack of a better word, but the Porsche Taycan, right?

And there seems to be a bunch of these new car models that when you look, when you squint, right, you love to use the word squint. You see some kind of Porsche, but on the flip side, right, I also posted a picture of three upcoming foreign brand EVs, the ID. ERA 9X, the ID. UNYX 08, the Nissan NX8. Their interiors, how they've

now fully turned into the Chinese style cockpit that you wouldn't recognize if you cover the badge on the steering wheel you wouldn't know that it's a Nissan or you wouldn't know that it's a Volkswagen. It's completely turned. So the opposite extreme is happening which is kind of weird.

Tu Le (09:57)
Mm-hmm.

You know, it's actually a bit unfortunate because...

I appreciate what Ferrari is doing with Joni Ive, trying to be a little bit different. Now with Ferrari, it's a huge, huge risk because they only build a few thousand cars a year. The, the, one of the reasons that Toyota is successful Volkswagen Group or Volkswagen brand is fairly successful historically is that they try to find the lowest common nominator in design.

meaning that a grandma would understand it and like it and a 17 year old boy or girl would still understand it and like it. Unfortunately, those types of designs because they are trying to be acceptable, not even

Delighting but acceptable. It creates bland design. Okay. And this is where the technology takes over for the Chinese automakers because you and I think we agree that generally when we look at a B segment crossover, the silhouettes are very similar in general. You know, unless we're talking like the boxy style, Fang Cheng Bao Bao 5 kind of thing. But

but that's where the technology needs to take over.

Lei Xing (11:21)
No.

I think in the case of the cockpit, it's something that you must do, that you need to do. Whereas on the other side, the extreme kind of the exterior designs of these newer brands from China, it kind of turns me off a little bit because they lack, they do have originality, but when you look at them and you see the kind of the Porsche silhouette design language.

It kind of turns me off. kind of goes back rather than forward. I really don't like that. But yeah, I just wish that they'd done a better job in terms of design. But that's how it is. I wish it could be different, that they could do better.

Tu Le (11:55)
Hmm.

So, what do you think of Xpeng's announcements?

Lei Xing (12:09)
Well, think XBUN, first of all, here's a wrinkle. For the first time in history, in the same quarter, NIO, Xpeng, Li Auto, LeapMotor, they were all profitable.

I think let that sink in a little bit because just a while ago, I think people in the industry were still questioning the viability of these companies. Okay, so now they're profitable. Li Auto and LeapMotor, they're profitable full year, whereas Xpeng and NIO, they were profitable for the first time on a quarterly basis. But how they got there,

are slightly different because XPeng, okay, they have some more of a benefit of Volkswagen, right? If you look at their sales from other or service or other revenues, there's a huge balloon of that. It's because of Volkswagen. And now Volkswagen is going to be the first foreign automaker utilizing the VLA 2.0 and the chip, the Turing chip, right? Think of

Tu Le (13:15)
Yes.

Lei Xing (13:17)
that kind of helping offset the pressure on sales this year. mean the first quarter right they gave guidance was 60 some thousand units. That's far

Tu Le (13:27)
Well, the

Volkswagen CTO also talked about using Horizon as well.

Lei Xing (13:31)
Right, right. That's the CARIZON joint venture that they have on different tiers of products. So Xpeng has the benefit of Volkswagen, same as Rivian has the benefit of Volkswagen's investment, whereas NIO's or Li Auto's they don't. the other thing, I actually listened to a bit of the earnings call before we jumped in.

He Xiaopeng said their kind of the future mission is to be a global leader in the so-called agentic, what was it? physical AI agents, to be a global leader in physical AI agents. Okay, because now they're applying this VLA to their EVs, their Robotaxis, their ‚Åì Iron

Tu Le (14:09)
Chrome.

humanoids.

Lei Xing (14:18)
humanoid robots and the eVTOL, flying cars. And this comes on the heels of NVIDIA GTC. We've heard about what Jensen said. This agentic AI, this OpenClaw is the next ChatGPT moment. Not only generating things for you, but doing things for you.

And Xpeng's products are those type of things. Same with the Li Auto's Li Xiang said for their Livis right? So think about that a little bit.

Tu Le (14:51)
And, and XPeng is one of the companies that is really, really, really to your point for the last two minutes, they're really trying to broaden who they are to the public, to the media. We're an AI company, we're an EVTOL company, we're a robotics company. That is a complex set of, of seemingly disparate sectors and

differentiator needs to be the silicon design because everyone else is doing that as well. And silicon design is such a capital intensive kind of process that if they're not careful, if they're successful and the Turing chip seems like it's one of the leaders in the Chinese domestic silicon design sectors because

I've not heard too much about the Horizons, although they did say that they're launching some silicon that is going to rival Thor. And that's pretty bold to me.

Lei Xing (15:51)
Yeah, he also mentioned something about, so in the robotics world, there's something called the three B's, the brains, the brauns and the batteries, right? So we know the batteries, we know the brains, but the brauns the middle part of it is what actually He Xiaopeng said, they're kind of unique in how that Iron robot moves, how their joints move. I think they have advantage over there. We'll see, but that's his kind of the comment.

I think that's also the middle part of it is also the majority of the, I don't know, trillion dollar opportunity in robotics, right? So they're figuring that out and they want to be different than the rest of the competitions. And he did mention that gradually you go from kind of the commercial industrial to home.

evolution of where these robots are going to be used. So, I mean, yeah, that's what I heard this morning.

Tu Le (16:47)
And not to be outdone by their other, let's call them hobbies for now because they haven't really commercialized any of them. They've gotten eight consecutive months of 30,000 units, which is tremendous for them. Let's hope that that's their floor from now on. They're going to be launching two products in Mexico next week. so I don't see it as long as companies like Xpeng

Lei Xing (16:48)
But yeah.

Tu Le (17:12)
and BYD continue to push, everyone else is, especially in the China market, is going to have to try to keep up.

Lei Xing (17:18)
So Xpeng, yeah, they're launching 4 new products this year. Two of them, one of them will be the GX that we talked about quite a few times. They lack this large ES8 like SUV. Now they're gonna have it. The six-seater

Tu Le (17:31)
I think SOP

is this month or next month, next month, next month, next month. Yeah, next month.

Lei Xing (17:34)
Yeah, it's Q2 launch, Q2 launch. Yeah, Q2 launch.

And then the MONA compact SUV based on the MONA MO3, right? This is the cheaper. I think that the first quarter, the first two months, the numbers weren't quite good. If we're being pessimistic a little bit, 20,000 in January, 15,000 in February. But he did say month on month.

Tu Le (17:42)
SUV.

Lei Xing (17:59)
roughly close to 100%. So we're expecting, right? So 30,000 in March. then I don't know what they're going to say about annual, because we did hear NIO, and NIO is one of the world 40 to 50%, and Li Auto 20%, which get them to about 470,000, 480,000. Xpeng did 430,000 in 2025. How much further can they grow this year? I think there's a lot of pressure.

Tu Le (18:29)
The biggest part of Li Auto NIO Xpeng continuing to grow significantly year over year is the weaker players needs to leave the market. I don't know if, go ahead.

Lei Xing (18:49)
Yeah, also, Neil

NIO and Li Auto in particular, they have the better SUV moat. Whereas Xpeng kind of lacks a little bit. Their G9 and G6 are old. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

Tu Le (19:00)
I think they make it up in the pricing because the G9 and G6 are a

step function cheaper. And I was really impressed. It's still a head scratcher that it's a five seater, but I was really impressed with the G9 over a year ago that we drove.

Lei Xing (19:17)
Yeah, so, but that's pretty much. And we also saw the numbers, I think in the CPCA gave some guidance about 1.7 million passenger vehicles, 900,000 NEVs in March. It's still over 50%, right? Take rate, but the volume, the absolute volume seems to be still trying to get back to where it was at the end of last year.

All right, Rivian, my question to you, Uber's check. Is that a smart move or a dumb move?

Tu Le (19:53)
So I just look at it like similar to what Amazon had announced with Rivian with the ‚Åì commercial vans. So the first check is actually gonna be $300 million. And it's not, so in order to get that at $1.25 billion, there are escalators and there's KPIs that they need to meet. so.

I always love the fact that if there's a volume play that they take advantage of it, you know, these startups, because it fills the factory and it puts, it decreases the pressure tremendously on selling to the private customer. Now, if you and I buy a Rivian R2 for $50,000 to $60,000, Lei, are we going to want to see that car picking us up?

as a Robotaxi in San Francisco? Because it'll need to be decontented and simplified, obviously. But as Western consumers, can we reconcile that? Because it's like in Europe where there's Mercedes Benz taxis. So that's kind of a risk, how they want to

the R2 Robotaxi versus the R2 for private passengers. I think that's important to kind of really, really figure that out and make it a clean break.

Lei Xing (21:21)
Yeah, I think

that's just going to be a big question mark from a consumer perspective. volumes, I mean, they're nowhere near what they want. 50,000, right? robotaxis over the next five years in USA, Canada, and Europe, right? Three regions. I think we look at this from two perspectives, right? One from the perspective that you just talked about, let's say a Rivian and Lucid's perspective is that the only viable

US American smart EV startups are now both depending on Uber play. It's quite interesting to get the robotaxi as a major part of their strategy going forward. That's number one. And then from Uber side, it feels like that they're now trying to rapidly catch up on what they tried to do before.

but in a different way, which is to utilize these assets that have the tech and the platform and architecture, and then say, Uber, we're going to be at the center of this AV revolution, but we have these partners helping us. ‚Åì

Tu Le (22:32)
So I think you're referring to

Uber's old division, the ATG, Advanced Technology Group, that was based in Pittsburgh. And then one of their vehicles ran over a woman and killed that woman. And they effectively closed that division down and sold it to Aurora.

Lei Xing (22:38)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so Uber is ready to spend, They're ready to work with every single, I mean, you talk about WeRide, Baidu, you talk about Wayve. I mean, Uber is all over the news ever since the year of the horse started. Right? AVs in general, but.

Tu Le (23:06)
And if you think about it, Lei, like

one of the biggest things is people think robotaxis are going to be a high margin business. If there are a lot of competitors in the market, it's going to depressed margins. And even in the United States with Lucid and Rivian, ZOOX and NURO all coming on board with the 800 pound gorilla Waymo, how do they gain share? They have to

decrease the price and so all these multi trillion dollar forecasts and these market caps for a Tesla at over a trillion and a half dollars are they are they going to be warranted because of we went from like Waymo to now there's five six seven including Motional now too and I'm all here for it because that'll bring prices down but now it's not clear to me that these are

Lei Xing (23:49)
Yeah, I mean it's...

Tu Le (24:02)
trillion dollar companies unless they clearly, clearly.

Lei Xing (24:06)
Yeah, it's like you're you are at a poker table, right? So Uber, everybody's sitting there. They're going all in, right? Who's going to be a winner? We don't know. Not at this point. But it feels like that Rivian and Lucid are almost like, how can they be viable as a standalone smart EV startups? Let's not talk about the robotaxis but

Let's just talk about producing, selling these EVs that the consumers will buy. I feel like they don't have confidence in that. So they add this on to, right? They invite Uber or actually Uber talk to them. I don't know how that works, but it just feels like a little bit overly independent.

Tu Le (24:50)
Well,

I just think that reality set in because they spent all this money, this capex on building factories and these factories aren't full. so shareholders are like, my goodness, there's zero margin. You're not making any money. You can't sell these cars. And so in order to stay independent,

As opposed to like a Lucid being acquired by Mercedes or BMW or something like that. Or a Rivian being acquired by Volkswagen Group. They're like, you know what, we're going to, these are to me, they almost feel like these are bridge loans. know, with Uber, they, they, they're being the pick and shovel people, regardless of whatever region you're in, let's say ex China. You can use our Uber app. We're going to have Wayve in the UK. We're going to have.

Baidu in Germany and we're gonna have Waymo in San Francisco and LA. And so I totally get Uber's strategy and it makes a lot of sense. But if you start owning cars like Uber has kind of pivoted towards, then that changes the entire balance sheet for them, which is a little weird and I'm trying to still reconcile that part.

Lei Xing (26:07)
Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's big bets from all front and Uber, especially it feels like they're just, just like all in, they're just trying to invest or partner up with everybody. Like almost it feels like that. then at the same, yeah. I was just going to say at the same time, the GTC when, ‚Åì NVIDIA is another kind of the component in this ecosystem, how they want to be a player, right? They.

Tu Le (26:21)
And I feel like going.

Lei Xing (26:37)
signed the partnership with BYD and Geely on the Robotaxi-ready kind of the Hyperion platform with all these OEMs. mean, right, he mentions the 18 million production number across the four OEMs. And he's like, right, I think that he threw out that number just to give you kind of a potential of all of these vehicles on the road somehow, like what?

He Xiaopeng talks about, right? He thinks that in a one to two years, next one to three years.

The fully, the era of fully autonomous driving, what exactly that is, I'm not still clear, but he says it's coming, right? The kind of from L2 to L4 that you can own, a personal consumer can own, Level 4 versus a robotaxi Yeah. Is there another hype or is just a process of scaling? I'm not sure at this point, but right.

Tu Le (27:30)
And

I look at the partners that Jensen announced at GTC as I was gonna go, but I'm traveling next week. so, there's obviously...

Lei Xing (27:41)
Try to get a sweater, $178

sweater, the green sweater. You saw that, right?

Tu Le (27:47)
Yeah, but ‚Åì

Yeah, so I have a few friends at NVIDIA, a few senior friends that I keep in touch with here and there. know, I look at Geely and BYD partnering with NVIDIA because you wonder, right? Like, because Geely has its own system and BYD has its own system. To me, that's going to be their partner, ex-China. You know, in case US type restrictions come to Canada, come to Europe.

US type restrictions, meaning no connected software, no connected hardware, no Chinese connected hardware and software. This is their way of, you know what, we're going to qualify the NVIDIA system. We're going to continue to use our system until they tell us we can't. And to me, that's kind of their plan B a little bit. Now, if NVIDIA gets to the point where Alpamayo is better,

Lei Xing (28:35)
Yeah.

Tu Le (28:41)
maybe it's reason for them to swap whole hog, but I think it'll be difficult for them to do that in the China market. Everywhere else, I think that's a realistic option.

Lei Xing (28:51)
I think the future to watch is the generalization of these Chinese systems, ADAS or L2++ systems, how they're generalized in the rest of the world. So one thing that Geely did was their G-ASD system recently got certification in Europe, right? And then

He Xiaopeng talks about the globalization of their VLA system, how they can be launched in other markets outside of China within a shorter amount of time. That's something to watch. A Chinese system on foreign regions versus, let's say, NVIDIA Alpamayo That's exactly the...

that the case in point is Mercedes uses Momenta, whereas the rest of the world, they have to use Alpamayo with NVIDIA And it looks like they did a drive recently in San Francisco, two and a half hours, with Wu Xinzhou who former head of autonomous driving at Xpeng He's right now.

Tu Le (29:43)
I eat.

Lei Xing (29:55)
So.

Tu Le (29:55)
You know,

I...

The Europeans, we can't lump the European OEMs into like the rest of world, Japanese, Korean, and American. I just think the European OEMs still are so dependent on the China market that they lean, they're going to favor Chinese technology partners in an effort to regain some share in the China market.

Lei Xing (29:56)
and

Tu Le (30:18)
And so I just look at the European strategy having to be a lot different than everybody else's.

Any let me see here. latest I've heard about Canada Lei. we might see Canadian vehicle in the next, you know, before the end of this year. yeah. And then Stella talked about what, do you think about Stella in Sao Paulo saying no JV, we can do this alone. We're looking at Canada. We're looking at.

Lei Xing (30:36)
You mean a Chinese vehicle in Canada? Yeah, okay.

Tu Le (30:50)
buying a foreign brand. And we're looking to enter F1.

Lei Xing (30:52)
I think it's

well I mean that's from her perspective right it's it's it's obviously you want autonomy at the same time what does Carney want what does the local politicians and and and the lobbyists want right and then you try to balance that

Tu Le (31:09)
Right. to me, she's starting the negotiation process in the public. And this is her starting point, line in the sand. And I actually think it would benefit them to have a joint venture partner. I think the Chinese also believe that it would benefit them. So let's look at

Lei Xing (31:15)
‚Åì yeah. Sure.

Tu Le (31:34)
buying a weak foreign brand and joint venture in the similar vein. I'm not a Chinese standalone company. I have revenue that's generated by a European brand or American brand or a Japanese brand. And we have to remember in Canada, Toyota and Honda own a large market share of that market. They build locally.

in Canada, so they employ a lot of Canadians. I'm not saying that BYD is looking at a Japanese joint venture partner, but it would make the entry into a market a bit less friction, create less friction for them. it creates, it helps them with dealer networks, service networks. And I think the biggest negotiating point or the biggest

sticking point would be who's the big dog? Who's the little dog? Think Daimler-Chrysler, right? And BYD has a lot of leverage in that negotiation with a foreign OEM trying to enter North America. Because what's also important, we're talking three distinct countries. So it wouldn't make sense for BYD to partner with Toyota in Canada.

and then partner with Hyundai in the United States. I know I'm not saying that that's who they're talking to. I'm just saying it would have, it would make, it would need to make sense in my opinion for them to have a North American joint venture partner, not three different partners in three different countries.

Lei Xing (33:04)
Right, right. And then, so as you predicted, I think a couple of episodes ago, the Xi Trump meeting looks like it will be delayed. Delayed at this point. So maybe, I don't know, depending on how the Iran war turns out or progresses or I don't know when it ever ends, Trump may be visiting while we're there during the auto show. Who knows, right? Because he's maybe...

Tu Le (33:28)
I think that might, I don't know.

I think that's pushed out more than a couple of weeks. Yeah.

Lei Xing (33:31)
I don't know, right? So even farther, yeah. Yeah.

It doesn't look promising at this point, but it'll end any time soon.

Tu Le (33:39)
I feel

like collectively a lot of our friends in China kind of breathe the sigh of relief because that was another pressure point for them. The auto show is like all hands on deck all the time for our friends. And then in addition to that, a foreign leader coming, knowing that there is a decent chance that some sort of deal was

Lei Xing (33:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tu Le (34:08)
going to be announced or attempted to be negotiated and agreed to during his visit. So I think there was a sigh of relief from some of our friends.

Lei Xing (34:17)
And then the other thing, few more minutes. What do think about the i3?

Tu Le (34:17)
‚Åì

Lei Xing (34:21)
We'll have another long wheelbase edition just for the Chinese market launching, well, revealing at the Beining Auto Show. I think BMW is okay. I'm not sure about the design, but I think they try to exceed themselves. try to kind of, right?

I

Tu Le (34:40)
I think, think, I think, man, they're twisting themselves into a pretzel because they culturally in their DNA is nickel and dime you for every additional feature that goes into a vehicle and, you know, a Porsche vehicle, a BMW vehicle. So let's lump these premium brands together. And let's say five years ago, six years ago, they got

anything they wanted asking price for an ICE vehicle, you know, an S-Class, a, a 7 Series, you know, an Audi A8 to a lesser extent. Audi was always a little bit weaker, but just five, six, seven years ago, these companies were making boatloads of profits on these cars. Now it's like, I have this i3, it looks kind of cute, a little bit distinctive, but I'm trying to still put all this margin into it.

And that's just not going to sell. It's not going to work. Because my assumption is that none of the features exceed the best of what China has on offer in China market. OK, do you agree with that? Yeah. And so if you're matching and your price MSRP is still higher, it doesn't make sense for a Chinese consumer. One that doesn't really focus on brand anymore.

Lei Xing (35:47)
No, right. Sure. Yeah. ‚Åì

That's why I said before that now the Audi AUDI E7X that's launching, the ID. ERA 9X that's launching. Okay, the interior cockpit, the designs are all very Chinese looking, inspired. They're right there. But how do you price them? I think it's gonna be the most headache.

Tu Le (36:13)
Inspired.

Lei Xing (36:20)
leading up to the launch. Cause right, we have the.

Tu Le (36:23)
There are so many challenges. There's so

many challenges because there's two things, right? If you price it and then you reduce price, now that does damage to your brand. But now there's an additional thing. If you price it and then reduce it, the Chinese government is like, no, no, no, no, no. ‚Åì So, ‚Åì man, it is.

Lei Xing (36:39)
‚Åì Yeah, so it's gonna be tough sell

anyhow. I think it's easy to, yeah, to on the look part on the tech, on the architecture, on the design, styling, those are easy, but.

Tu Le (36:45)
I think

Lei Xing (36:55)
Yeah, it just, just the mark.

Tu Le (36:56)
And that's the thing to me, like,

cause like, can the, we hire a bunch of Chinese designers, software engineers and manage them? Yes. But if the BMW culture doesn't change, if the General Motors culture doesn't change to adopt faster, decision-making more risk-taking, then these engineers are going to be underutilized. These engineers aren't going to be able to unlock how.

these companies will be competitive for the next 2-5 years in China. you know, how, cause, cause in my opinion, BYD, these companies in China are going to run into similar challenges when they start managing tens of thousands of employees outside of China. Okay. Because one of BYD's biggest

Lei Xing (37:38)
Sure.

Tu Le (37:42)
assets or biggest reasons for being able to scale so quickly, most of everything they do is in China.

‚Åì Now, this is going to break certain companies. It's not going to break BYD, but it's going to break others, these other Chinese companies. You and I both know this. We're not going to speculate yet on which ones we think won't be able to successfully manage teams internationally, but we've already seen hiccups, right?

Lei Xing (38:11)
Yeah. Well, Beyonca is done. It's gone. Right. I think they're done. That's from what I heard. ‚Åì

Tu Le (38:16)
‚Åì okay.

So what, those 300 million flushed down the toilet? I need to catch up with our friend, Weiming Maybe we'll see him. Maybe we'll see him in Beijing. Because he's still Renault GM, isn't he? China GM?

Lei Xing (38:29)
Waving, yeah.

Yeah, it's yeah, what

Renault is all all in on the ACDC in China.

Tu Le (38:41)
So anyways, that's all I have, man. ‚Åì I know you're gonna have to go to some volleyball. My kids are off today too, so it's.

Lei Xing (38:49)
Yeah.

You know, last

night, interestingly enough, I was having some beer with the parents and the team. And guess what we were talking about? We're talking about the war. We're talking about China EVs. Can you believe that? It's surprisingly, some of these parents, how much knowledge they have, they actually know a lot. So I was quite surprised. So that was an interesting conversation.

Tu Le (39:05)
Well...

Hey, again, Lei,

thanks to us. I think people owe a lot. I think people owe a lot to us being the OGs in this, right? I don't care who else is trying to steal our thunder, but I believe there's this handful of people that you and I know, some of them still in China, that have really, really tried to be objective.

Lei Xing (39:25)
Yeah, well...

Tu Le (39:37)
in how we communicate what's going on, who are the players, what are the real reasons things are happening, and correcting a lot of bad takes with the narratives that certain media outlets and certain people and individuals want to try to push. So anyways, it is funny though, isn't it, Lei, that people...

will always want to talk about this stuff. And you're absolutely right. Most people, because I've only been back four years, so most people still don't know what I do when I go to these parent things, you know? But then once we get to talk, it's all, know, BYD this, BYD that, once they find out. And I'm like, no, dude, no, that's not how it is. But, you know, it is what it is.

Lei Xing (40:04)
Yeah, because...

No, I think it's definitely

gone mainstream. Whether it's the mainstream reporting, Western mainstream reporting, or the people are, it's in the headlines every day.

Tu Le (40:33)
Well, it's going to be north and south of us in a year. So let's go to questions and comments. Good morning. So this is from SPX. Hey, SPX, thanks again for joining, man. Appreciate the consistency. Good morning and happy Friday, guys. Happy Friday to you, sir. Uber soaks up L4 consumer cars again with R2. It means it's...

Lei Xing (40:46)
Thank you.

Tu Le (40:59)
the LIDAR version, how will it affect the price and availability of the LIDAR R2 to retail customers?

Lei Xing (41:06)
Well, first of all, RJ is a big proponent of LIDAR. He's made quite a few recent comments on that. And second, so the LIDAR edition still

coming. We haven't heard too much about it but...

Tu Le (41:21)
And I don't think Rivian

has officially announced who their LIDAR partner is.

Lei Xing (41:26)
But third, think about, I think Hesai just signed, was it Hesai or Robosand signed like with a Lawn Mower brand, 10 million units of LIDAR. It was Hesai, right? 10 million units. The commoditization of LIDAR has come to the point. I think this is also what RJ mentioned that it's an important given their current architecture.

Tu Le (41:36)
‚Åì I think it's a sigh. I think it's a sigh.

Lei Xing (41:53)
so that when this comes out it shouldn't be at too much price hopefully. It's more of what they do on the subscription side of the Autonomy+ but it looks like it's going to be a necessary component at least on the Rivian side.

Tu Le (42:09)
So, so...

Lei Xing (42:09)
I mean,

you look at SU7 as an example, right? SU7 is standardized with Hesai LiDAR

But obviously, I mean, they got the volume, whereas Rivian does not have the volume currently.

Tu Le (42:20)
I think that's the key. Even that, you know, at its best, let's say R2 sells 150,000 units in the next, you know, a year in five years, right? That's still kind of a drop in the bucket for volume. But I'll answer it this way. I'm not an expert on their stack, but we have to remember that there's redundancies here.

Lei Xing (42:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tu Le (42:43)
And then there's going to be sensor fusion. So how important is that LiDAR into identifying and creating a visual world for the autonomous system? I think that plays a role in price. Is it a high level RoboSense LiDAR? Is it a fairly simple RoboSense LiDAR? I don't know. If there are details, please let us know.

That's one thing. The other thing is if I'm Rivian, I'm trying to push other automakers to buy a similar one, right? Because that will bring the price down for everybody. And if it works well, my thought is that it becomes standard in the third revision of the R2 five years from now. That's how I look at it, because you'd mentioned.

RJ is a proponent for LIDAR, so he's on the LIDAR team. know, Tesla, XPeng are not on the LIDAR team, so.

Lei Xing (43:41)
Well, currently, at least on maybe except Tesla, everybody else on a Level 4 side is kind of like LiDARs are must. The content per vehicle increases for these LiDAR suppliers. When you go to these L3 and L4, some of these vehicles that are launching in China, supposedly.

Tu Le (44:03)
So the next question, Lyft is much quieter in RoboTaxi. What are their plans, if any? So ‚Åì SPX, look up a company called Flexdrive. They're a Lyft subsidiary, and they're the ones responsible for partnerships with RoboTaxi companies. The CEO's name is John Parks. I'm a friend of his. So look up what Flexdrive is doing.

They're pretty active. They're just not as upfront about it yet. I think there's going to be an opportunity for them to really roll out and communicate a strategy in the next 18, 20 months. So look them up.

Lei Xing (44:38)
Yeah,

Lyft to a much lesser extent compared to Uber is also signing up partners. I think they're working with Baidu in some certain markets, but just not as active as Uber recently and as big-pocketed as Uber recently.

Tu Le (44:56)
And I think what's really important here is that remember that Lyft also acquired FreeNow, which is a European taxi company, or not a taxi company, but a platform like Uber. So yeah, ride hailing Again, I can't think this morning. But that made them international because Lyft was just a North America-based company and FreeNow really, really

Lei Xing (45:03)
Well, yeah.

Light hair, yeah.

Tu Le (45:24)
helps them enter the European market. ‚Åì

Lei Xing (45:26)
Remember 10 years ago GM invested $500 million in Lyft. And what did they want to do back then? They want to launch an autonomous vehicle ride hailing network of AVs. And 10 years later that has not happened.

Tu Le (45:41)
So what do you guys think of the Q4 earnings of NIO? This is from John Francois Bergeron.

Lei Xing (45:49)
‚Åì I think we talked about that maybe the week before or last week. Yeah. Well, like, know, Q4, I think that was expected. Everybody was expecting ‚Åì that to happen. They worked their asses off to get there, Cost wise, but also getting that more profitable ES8 out of the lots.

Tu Le (45:52)
last week.

Yeah.

Lei Xing (46:14)
and making it a little bit more competitive and at almost at the expense of their other large SUV because you comparison shop and the ES8 is a great deal, right? Now full year profitable. think they've made that official. I believe that that's what they're trying to achieve this year with the 40 to 50 % in volume growth.

and they have three more SUVs coming so these are support for them to get there but again the competitive environment is a lot more cutthroat especially with the large SUVs I think we've talked about that so I think this is gonna be hard

Tu Le (46:58)
They're, they're, they're,

NIO is ascending just like Xpeng, you know, but again, we know that this is also very cyclical because BYD was, on the downward trend, but they then freaking pulled themselves to the forefront with all their announcements over the last.

Lei Xing (47:11)
Well, BYD supposedly

is have another event specifically on autonomous driving features or Level 2++, I heard like the what the God's Eye thing, maybe they have another 2.0 or something. I don't know.

Tu Le (47:28)
Lei, don't be surprised if BYD will have a major announcement during the Beijing Auto Show.

Lei Xing (47:33)
Well, everybody's going to have a major announcement pretty much or ahead of it.

Tu Le (47:35)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Anyways, that's all I have man. So why don't we end it there? I'm late, four minutes late for another call. Everyone, thanks for joining us. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. We will talk with you all next week. Bye-bye.

Lei Xing (47:44)
Same here, same here.

Yeah.