China EVs & More

Tu and Lei begin with briefly discussing their latest MAX episode with Gansha Wu, Founder & CEO of UISEE - an autonomous driving startup based in China.  Tu and Lei then transition over into a detailed discussion about Tesla’s earnings and the role that the China market plays in their earnings and operations and how most analysts miss how important the China market is to everything that Tesla...

Lei throws a curveball to begin the show and talks about some of China’s societal challenges, namely the aging population and shrinking number of babies born. Tu chimes in with his experience coming to the US at a very early age.  They broaden the discussion out a bit to bring in a few more noteworthy challenges to round out the discussion.  Tu & Lei get into some of the discounts that were an...

Tu and Lei dedicate this episode to the sights and sounds coming out of Las Vegas CES 2024. Lei spends the first half of this episode unpacking all that he saw and thought about the technology he experienced and the people he spoke to.  Tu and Lei then go onto some of the macro sales numbers that came from China for 2023 and unpack what they all mean, including GM's slide since 2017.  Tu clos...

Tu and Lei begin the podcast out with a look back at how Tesla ignited the price war in the beginning of 2023.  They move onto a discussion about Xiaomi and CEO Lei Jun's strategy for entering the market and building up excitement for their first vehicle that's due to launch in the next year and finally making guesses on what their vehicle's price will be once announced.  They move...

Each year this episode is HIGHLY anticipated and is ALWAYS one of the most downloaded epsiodes of the year. If you want to hear what they think of 2024 in China and around the world for the EV, battery and mobility space, you have to listen to this episode. 

Tu and Lei begin the podcast and take quite a bit of time to share their thoughts on NIO Q3 earnings and how to look at the numbers. They back out of the earnings to briefly review the announcements that NIO has made over the last several months. Tu moves out a few thousand feet to talk about the China market and some of the players in it and then the discussion quickly moves over to the Stellanti...

Tu and Lei start out the podcast with a quick review of the November sales and a broader discussion about the difficulty of and pressure on the EV makers to grow sales in an ultra competitive environment. They both then spend a few minutes unpacking the announcement & implications of  VW developing an EV platform called the China Main Platform (CMP) based on the MEB platform for the China mark...

This episode starts with Tu and Lei unpacking the significance of NIO partnering with SOE Changan to expand it's swapping services.  After a significant deep-dive into the NIO swapping news, Tu then asks Lei about the announcement that Stellantis will use CATL to supply them batteries for the EU market. This in addition to the recent investment that Stellantis had made in Chinese EV company L...

Tu & Lei begin the podcast with an explanation of what Single's Day is in China and how some EV brands are participating, namely by launching promotions to help sell their vehicles.  They both then begin to talk about Q4 and the mad dash by all the automotive players in the China market to finish out the sales year on a high note. Q4 alone can sometimes make or break a brand's annual...

Tu and Lei begin this podcast by discussing the layoffs announced at NIO and how this could help them and why it was potentially overdue.  Tu and Lei educate on what Single's Day in China is and how even EV brands have gotten in on promotions during the biggest digital commerce day in the world.  Tu and Lei give a quick update on BYD sales for 2023 and posit that they are really the ONLY comp...

Tu and Lei start out with the big news of the week. Stellantis acquiring a stake in Chinese EV / EREV maker - LeapMotor. Tu asks Lei to give a brief history lesson of DaimlerChrysler / FCA / Stellantis. They then both dive into the transaction, giving more background about LeapMotor and the opportunities and challenges ahead for both sides.  The conversation shifts over to the events happening in...

Tu starts with a brief update and discussion with Lei on Tesla in China and the overall slowdown in the EV space around the world.  The conversation quickly moves to Bill Ford's comment about Chinese EVs 'coming to our shores' and a brief discussion on Ford's recent moves.  Tu and Lei move onto discussing European brands Citroën, Peugeot and Mini and how they continue to be bui...

The pod starts with a brief update on the UAW & US Three situation but moves quickly over to a brief disussion about Li Auto's openly stated and ambitious goals of selling 3M vehicles in China by 2028.  Tu then pushes the chat to Porsche and the struggles they may beginning to see in the China market, a market they've only seen growth in since entering in 2001.  Tu and Lei move the d...

Tu and Lei begin the podcast with a brief discussion about the double holiday being celebrated in China - National Day & Mid-Autumn Festival. Lei then transitions the discussion to September sales and it wasn't very pretty for many EV companies. Tu reminds everyone that new vehicles were just launched by some brands and that those sales vehicles sales wouldn't be reflected until Q4&a...

This week's podcast begins with BYD jumping Ford to become the 4th best-selling automotive brand in the world for the month of July which should be a wake-up call to Ford management, if they've not been woken up yet. Tu jumps on his soapbox to explain how the narrative about the foreign legacies entering the China market is incorrect and does his best to set the record straight about the...

Tu and Lei start this podcast out with a brief discussion about the Chengdu Motor show. Both comment on the trend towards plug-in hybrids and MPVs which includes the Li Auto MEGA that was announced that week.  Tu and Lei then have a broader discussion about how hybrids weren't being focused on until Li Auto's success and now there are EREVs being launched by BYD's Yangwang, JAC, GAC...

Tu and Lei begin with a discussion about all the recent moves made by XPeng and whether it moves the needle for them or not.  They turn their attention to August sales, specifically the top of the leaderboard which sits Li Auto, XPeng and NIO, the three US publicly traded Chinese EV companies who also happen to get the most attention by western media.  The conversation moves over to the significan...

The podcast starts with Lei being a bit nostalgic about leaving Beijing after visiting for the last 2 months.  It quickly moves to a discussion about XPeng earnings with Lei summarizing the earnings call and Tu giving his readout on what it all means.  This discussion evolves into a broader discussion about the price war and overalll economy that continues to struggle in China with both Tu and Lei...

Tu & Lei had such a great response from their MAX episode with Founder of carwow James Hind it ONLY made sense to sit down and chat with Philipp who's running the show for carwow in Germany.  carwow is an online marketplace for buying and selling new and used cars and started in the UK but have since launched in Germany in 2016 and Spain in 2018.  For those of you outside of Europe that a...

Lei kicks off the podcast with how he randomly bumped into Frank Wu at the Jidu, now JiYue Experience Center in Beijing.  Tu believes that after seeing the features on their first vehicle, that if executed properly - could push the entire sector into the smartification phase of the EV transition.  Tu moves the conversation over to Zeekr’s price cut while Lei then talks about their recent subscript...

Lei sits down with autonomous vehicle pioneer, Gansha Wu who's autonomous driving startup is competing against heavyweights in the robotaxi space.  But it's not just robotaxis, Gansha's team is also working on last mile delivery, cleaning and logistics vehicles that are being used at shipping ports. That's why we've differentiated the autonomous vehicle and autonomous driv...

Lei starts this pod out with a brief history lesson about Vitesco which was spun off from Continental’s powertrain business that had some roots at Siemens. Lei pivots to talking in detail about his time behind the wheel of the new-ish XPeng G6 including letting the City NGP function take over for parts of his journey.  Tu then points out that as the price war has heated up, more and more complaint...