China EVs & More

Tu and Lei start the chat with a discussion on Tesla's major fall in 2022 and give their opinions on whether or not Tesla should've ever been a $1.2T company.Tu then talks briefly about a happy hour he attended and gives his reflections on what's happening in Detroit and the US after having spent the last 4 months there.Lei moves the conversation over and outlines what to expect from the upcoming NIO Day. Tu and Lei they then unpack the ECarX IPO and what it really means for the IPO market for Chinese EV/AV/mobility related companies.They close out the pod with a discussion on some of the SAI newsletter posts including CATL's German factory producing its first battery cells. 

Tu and Lei start out the podcast with a discussion on rumors of Ford building a battery factory that CATL would use to fab cells for Ford vehicles. This evolves into broader discussion about CATL & Huawei's ambitions.Lei then talks the broader China economy for 2023 and how exports will likely continue to be strong next year.Tu and Lei move the pod over to Li Auto's ambition and current sales of the L8/L9. Tu and Lei then discuss some of the topics they discussed for their Deutsche Bank investor call including how they would rank who would be the most successful in 2023 out of ABB (Audi, Bimmer, Benz).Tu ends this pod with a brief update on the product rollout for XPeng in 2023 with three new or refreshed products on their way.

The pod starts out with the latest news on the ground in China re: COVID and how it's ripping through the country since the Zero COVID strategy was abandoned. Lei then transitions the conversation over to what he anticipates December sales to look like. Tu details how competitive the sub-¥300K segment is in China and warns any EV makers about entering that segment. Both Tu & Lei move their attention and conversation to Tesla and their reads on Tesla's current situation in China including the rumor that Elon has found a new CEO to replace him. The pod ends with Lei talking about seeing a stimulus from the Chinese govt in 2023 to spur consumption and help get the Chinese economy out of its slump. 

Tu and Lei begin the podcast with a discussion on the complete turnaround by the Chinese govt. on COVID policy, how it's completely changed everything on the ground, how long it might take for COVID to spread throughout the country and if it'll have any damaging effects on business. Lei reflects briefly on Jiang Zemin's death and the impact he had on China's modern automotive sector. Tu and Lei quickly move over to a broad discussion on November sales and what caught their attention including a deeper analysis on China's Big 4: Li Auto, XPeng, NIO, and BYD. The podcast ends with Tu and Lei talking about the latest developments in the global autonomous vehicle space starting with Cruise Automation's 100 robotaxis recently being deployed in San Francisco and contrasting that with the strategies for Baidu and other China AV Inc. 

The podcast starts with a brief update on the COVID situation in China and how its affected production this time around. Tu and Lei then move onto a BYD update - namely the news that BYD will be increasing the price of their products and the rumors of BYD launching production sodium ion battery cells early next year. Tu then brings up the announcement by Mary Barra that GM will be launching 10 electric vehicles by 2025 in China that will all be built off the Ultium platform.  Tu emphasizes that this is what's called a 'blitz.'The conversation moves over to Polestar reaching 100K production units which Tu and Lei both congratulate Polestar for achieving.They move onto an update on Baidu's Apollo program and that both Pony.ai and Baidu received approvals from the Beijing govt for (Phase 2) robotaxi services where the safety driver can be in the back seat. Tu and Lei close the pod out with why they are thankful this Thanksgiving. 

The pod begins with Lei having just returned from LA while Tu was still  there after they'd spent the last few days doing a NorCal & SoCal trip.Tu and Lei begin with a detailed discussion about their (two) rides in the GM - Cruise Automation's driverless robotaxis in San Francisco.  They went from Japantown to Sunset at ~10pm in the evening.Tu and Lei move onto congratulating Henrik Fisker and team for getting the Fisker Ocean to Job #1 in Austria (with a lot of help from Magna) and then Lei highlights some of the people that he & Tu caught up with at the LA Auto show events. They then have a broader discussion on the LA Auto show and some of the breakout rooms and events they attended during that week including the Motor Trend documentary 'Coding the Car' and Tu shares his 'review' of the documentary.

Tu and Lei start the podcast out with a discussion on NIO's Q3 earnings and bullish Q4 outlook, specifically what it'll take for NIO to hit 20K units for the month of December. The discussion moves onto Geely's big week that started with the Farizon commercial vehicle launch moving onto the Geely & Renault powertrain tieup, then the Volvo EX90 unveil to finally the Radar RD6 camper launch. Tu pushes into a deeper dive about Renault and their announcements that week including its doubling down on the Google partnership and how they will become digital, connected and electric via their Ampere entity. The podcast closes out with Lei talking about pricing inflection point where NEV sales volume drops off significantly and what it says about the China market. 

Tu chews on the latest EV startup to throw its hat in the ring - BeyonCa. Lei and Tu take the first several minutes of the show discussing in detail how the company came about and how Weiming Soh, the current Renault China CEO & BeyonCa founder, was able to pull everyone together. The conversation then moves onto two China-fornia companies having problems in the US, TuSimple and Faraday Future. Tu and Lei discuss what they'd heard which has now mostly been substantiated by the recent articles about the two company's challenges. Tu and Lei end this week's podcast with a discussion on what it takes to be successful in the global EV space, something they feel that only two companies can really claim for now - BYD & Tesla. 

In this latest MAX episode, Tu & Lei catch up with former journalist and current author Henry Sanderson whose recently launched book, Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green - is one of the most compelling and insightful books about the previously little known rare earth metals that are key for building the battery cells that power electric vehicles and which are forecasted to be in much higher demand as the world begins its massive transition to EVs. This book is a must read for anyone that’s in or follows the battery or EV sector. Just over a year ago, Henry left the Financial Times after over 7 years of covering commodities and mining and is now the Executive Editor at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, one of the leading providers of data and information on the battery industry.

Tu and Lei begin the podcast with their thoughts on the Jidu Auto ROBO-01 production model unveil. They both seemed pretty impressed and detailed that Jidu Auto is going directly after Tesla customers once the ROBO-01 hits the streets in 2023. They then get into how fast Jidu Auto has been moving in order to get their product into production and think it's even faster than what is commonly known as 'China speed.'Lei then asks Tu - Lotus Eletre or Polestar 3? A discussion follows on about Geely and the two competing brands within Geely's own stable.The discussion moves to Argo closing up shop - some Monday AM quarterbacking is done as to why it happened and why now.The show closes on unpacking how Tesla slashing prices on its MIC Model 3/Y will affect the rest of the market and which companies are likely to follow suit.