China EVs & More

Tu and Lei begin this week’s pod with a discussion and what led up to Hesai’s recent IPO and capital raise of $190M. Tu speculates that there are likely companies that have traditionally been suppliers to the OEMs that, due to the current disruption will look to move upmarket to compete directly with the OEMs. The discussion moves over to the launch of the 5-seat Li Auto L7 and what the prospects...

In this latest MAX episode, Lei catches up with Junwei Bao, Co-founder & CEO of Chinese LiDAR startup Innovusion while they both attended CES.  Junwei was one of the now many former Baidu mafia that left to start their own technology company whose LiDAR just happens to be part of NIO's HW/SW stack.  In 2022, Innovusion delivered more than 50,000 image-grade long-range Falcon LiDAR units f...

This podcast starts with Lei’s headlines but because of the break, there was ALOT to update.  Tu then moves the convo over to January sales and they both agreed that it’s hard to tell who did well because the month was shortened by CNY but NIO’s numbers were a pleasant surprise. Tu and Lei then talk a bit about expectations for Tesla and what it’ll take for them to regain their sales growth I Chin...

Tu and Lei start out this pod with a brief discussion on China's economy and what the govt may do after Chinese New Year (CNY) to stimulate the economy if they see any signs of weakness including re-upping on subsidies for NEVs.  They then spend a few minutes reminiscing about their earlier days in China and the wild CNY celebrations that included many fireworks usually in the middle of high...

Lei and Tu start the podcast out with a brief celebration of hosting their 100th episode. They then move to reflecting on 2022's final China sales numbers.  Tu articulates how amazing it actually was that China was able to achieve sales of >6.7M units despite all of the challenges including a complete shutdown of Shanghai, the automotive market's single largest market.  The convo move...

Lei begins the episode with his experience so far at CES including updates on the BMW & Volkswagen unveils and the media events he attended. Tu and Lei speculate that due to the huge number of LiDAR companies in the space, there will be consolidation in the near future. They will not ALL be winners. Tu jumps on his soapbox to complain about how he thinks SDV - software-defined vehicle is a ter...

In this latest MAX episode, Tu & Lei chat with Zack Anderson, Co-founder & CTO of ClearMotion.  ClearMotion's mission is to transform the quality of time in motion and its solution uses a combination of hardware and software to drive comfort, productivity, performance and safety to new limits for modern vehicle platforms. Zack shares with Tu and Lei his journey from Darpa Grand Challe...

Tu and Lei begin their 100th episode with a discussion on the muted Guanzhou auto show and how it was affected by COVID.  After a long discussion about all the happenings at the Guangzhou auto show, Tu and Lei move onto a discussion about NIO Day and how NIO seems to be one of the few automakers outside of BYD that is looking forward to 2023. After a chat about NIO, Tu and Lei give out their end-o...

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 f...

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 cu...

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 th...

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...

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 e...

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 Henri...

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 Futur...

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 ca...

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 t...

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 k...

The pod starts with Tu and Lei talking about Tavares' comments about doing business in China and how Europe should place import tariffs on Chinese imported EVs into Europe. They discuss whether his comments were controversial or not.  Lei then takes a few minutes to discuss his time at the Paris Motor show and the Chinese brands that both directly and indirectly attended and how it seems that...

In this latest MAX episode, Tu & Lei chat with John Voelcker, one of the most well-known & respected US journos and one of the first to cover hybrids and EVs in the US while he was  Editor in Chief of Green Car Reports for over 9 years. John talks about car reviews, EV test drives, domestic & foreign competition, China EV Inc coming to the US and his newest venture, the Tempting Fate T...

Tu and Lei immediately get to the biggest news of the week - the Volkswagen Group investment in Chinese chip design startup Horizon Robotics.  They both articulate what they believe the implications are from this transaction, especially at this sensitive time.  Tu moves the discussion over to the increased restrictions posed on China for chips and chip making equipment by the US govt and what this...

The podcast starts with Lei asking Tu about his thoughts on the NIO event in Berlin launching its products into 4 European countries. Lei and Tu discuss their thoughts on the subscription pricing that NIO announced during the event. The discussion shifts to BYD and their pricing announcements for the three products being introduced to the European market as well as the partnership announcement bet...

In this latest MAX episode, Tu & Lei welcome Dr. Jun Pei, Co-founder/CEO of Cepton, one of the world's leading LiDAR companies. Jun talks about the personal journey that led him to co-found Cepton, how they were able to get that design win with GM and how Cepton's LiDAR technology is different from their competitors.    **We apologize for some of the audio issues with portions of thi...

Lei starts this pod out by talking about the MOVE America Conference in Austin, TX that he and Tu attended the previous week and move that onto their chat with Hesai at the conference.  Tu then highlighted a discussion they had with a representative for Culver City who attended the conference in order to learn more about technology and startups that would be able to make his city safer.  Lei moves...

In this episode, Tu and Lei start the pod out with a brief recap of their time at the Detroit Auto show with a quick pivot to reports that Chinese battery maker Gotion (Guoxuan) will be investing up to $3.6B in western Michigan.  Lei moves the conversation over to GM's Durant Guild that is set to import higher end GM brand vehicles into China including the electric Hummer with the conversatio...