Courtside Financial Podcast

William Li said at the ES9 launch that people can now forget about MPVs. Buick — with 27 years of MPV history in China — responded publicly on Weibo and invited Li to sit in their new Century before making that judgment. Today Obi breaks down what's actually happening beneath the brand beef. The numbers tell the real story: 11.88 million SUVs sold in China in 2025 vs just 1.06 million MPVs — a...

Six stories today that connect around a single theme — the companies that survive consolidation own the decade. Nissan's Dongfeng joint venture was caught running a coordinated troll army against Li Auto during a product launch. Leaked internal documents exposed Li Auto's models as explicit targets. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stepped in. This is happening a...

Five stories that paint a clear picture of where the economy is heading — and one from China that you are genuinely not ready for. The S&P 500 closed Monday at its highest level since before the Iran war — fully erasing its losses — while oil surged to $104 a barrel the same day after Hormuz peace talks collapsed. One of them has better information. Historically it's oil. LVMH missed earni...

Four stories today that all connect back to NIO and your portfolio. William Li took the stage at the China EV 100 Forum urging the entire Chinese auto industry to standardize batteries and chips — a move he says could unlock over $14 billion in industry-wide savings. NIO's own ES9 has over 4,000 chips from 1,000+ varieties. NIO is cutting internally to ~400 types. A 36Kr analysis reveals China...

Most NIO investors are focused on delivery numbers. Not enough people are talking about the man leading the company and why he actually has something to lose. William Li founded NIO in 2014 with ~$150M of his own money. When the company was going bankrupt in 2020 he pledged his personal shares to fund $100M in emergency notes out of his own pocket. Then came the Hefei Miracle — a $1B lifeline from...

Last episode I left you with a question. Three years exceeding quota. No raise. No promotion. Do I stay or do I go? Today you get the answer. And then this series changes — because starting next episode we stop with the autobiography and start building your career. In this episode: 🔹 The decision to bet on myself — and the exact mindset I used 🔹 Why the best time to look for a job is while you s...

Friday roundup. Here's everything that mattered this week. NIO unveiled the ES9 — physically larger than a Rolls Royce Cullinan and projected to carry NIO's highest SUV gross margin. Pre-orders from outside NIO's existing community are already running 1.5x the ES8's pre-sale pace. We break down what it means for the business. ALSO THIS WEEK: — Inflation worst reading in 2 years — g...

NIO revealed the ES9 today in Hangzhou. Pre-sales start at 528,000 yuan — about $77,000 — with battery-as-a-service bringing the entry price down to 420,000 yuan. That's 31% lower than the ET9 sedan carrying identical technology — the same Shenji NX9031 autonomous driving chip, SkyRide active chassis, 900V architecture, and 600kW charging. Official launch late May. First deliveries June 1st. N...

GoPro cut 23% of their workforce this morning. Over 1,600 companies have announced layoffs since January 1st as AI eliminates jobs faster than any recovery can replace them. Apple former insiders confirmed this week that Apple had a 5-year head start on AI and wasted it — Siri still trailing ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude in 2026. And NIO confirmed today their in-house Shenji chip is going into the O...

J.P. Morgan put a $145 price target on Tesla today — a 60% drop from current levels. Meanwhile NIO upgraded the Firefly with more power, more features, and same price — giving existing owners the motor upgrade for free over the air. Volkswagen launched a new EV in China built using Xpeng's technology — the 89-year-old German automaker needed Chinese help to compete. BYD's Denza starts pre-...

Three stories dropped today that most people aren't connecting. OpenAI is burning $85 billion in a single year. Pakistan is mediating an Iran truce that could drop gas prices this week. And tomorrow NIO reveals the ES9 — their largest SUV ever at 5,365mm long, bigger than a Rolls-Royce Cullinan, with 697 horsepower, 620km CLTC range, 900V charging adding 155 miles in five minutes, dual Shenji...

On April 1st at the New York International Auto Show NIO's Firefly won the 2026 World Urban Car of the Year — judged by 98 automotive journalists from 33 countries with votes tabulated by KPMG. For the first time in 21 years every single World Car Award trophy went to a battery electric vehicle. Full breakdown of what happened in New York, what the Firefly actually is, NIO's three brand st...

Gas hit $4.06 per gallon nationally this week — up over a dollar from one month ago. WTI crude hit $112 a barrel with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed by Iran, causing what the IEA called the worst energy crisis in history. Analysts warn $150 oil and $5 gas are possible within weeks. Meanwhile America has a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs — the most affordable and technologically advanced vehicl...

I turned my Texas house into a rental property and moved to Scottsdale Arizona to cover Arizona in field sales. Four to six months later they reassigned my territory to New Mexico — a state I could have covered from Texas where I already was. This episode covers the real lessons of field sales, why body language and in-person presence change everything, how showing up consistently in New Mexico le...

Tesla just confirmed the end of the Model S and Model X — the premium vehicles that built the company's reputation — to bet everything on the CyberCab robotaxi which has no steering wheel, no pedals, and no regulatory approval to operate on public roads. Chinese owners who paid 64,000 yuan for FSD watched hackers unlock it with a $35 Raspberry Pi before Tesla patched it in 48 hours. Robotaxis...

Tesla delivered 358,023 vehicles in Q1 2026 — missing analyst expectations of 372,000 for the second consecutive quarter while producing 50,000 more vehicles than it sold. The Iran war is disrupting the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil toward $100 a barrel and prompting Amazon to charge sellers a 3.5% fuel surcharge effective April 17th. OpenAI acquired TBPN — the buzzy founder-led tech talk show — m...

NIO just dropped March delivery numbers and beat their own Q1 guidance. 35,486 total deliveries in March — 136% year over year. Q1 total of 83,465 topped the upper end of guidance at 80,000 to 83,000. The ES8 delivered 16,255 units in March alone — best-selling large SUV and best-selling vehicle above 400,000 yuan in China for three consecutive months. NIO stock jumped 2.82% to $6.20 with Hong Kon...

The Chinese EV price war is over. The infrastructure war has begun. BYD is building 20,000 flash charging stations by end of 2026 using a light-asset partner model that scales fast. NIO has 3,737 swap stations already running and is using battery subscription cash flows to issue bonds in China's interbank market — operating the swap network as a financial platform not just energy infrastructur...

For 25 years Japan dominated global auto sales. In 2025 Chinese brands sold nearly 2.7 billion vehicles — surpassing Japan for the first time since 2000. BYD ranked sixth globally, Geely eighth, both surpassing Honda and Nissan. But Obi gives the honest picture — Toyota still earns more profit per vehicle than every Chinese brand, North America remains almost entirely closed, and sales volume is n...

Someone found a practically new Chinese EV for less than half its original price. The brand that made it went bankrupt. Should they buy it? Obi says no — and the reason reveals one of the most important and underreported stories in the Chinese EV market right now. Over 6 million Chinese consumers are currently driving orphaned vehicles from brands that no longer exist. No commercial insurance. No...

There is a price point in the Chinese EV market that is genuinely dangerous to operate in right now — 200,000 yuan, roughly $29,000. Brands pushing up from below with better technology and lower prices. Premium brands pushing down from above with larger vehicles and aggressive discounts. The companies caught in the middle without precise positioning are being eliminated. Obi breaks down why precis...

Three months after buying his first house in Texas, Obi received a promotion to move to Scottsdale Arizona as a field account executive making six figures. Instead of letting the house hold him in place he cold called a property manager, turned it into a rental, and moved to a city where he knew nobody for the third time in three years. In this episode he breaks down what he learned about enterpri...

BYD just reported a 19% profit decline despite selling 4.6 million vehicles. The price war they started is now eating their own margins. Volkswagen paid Xpeng billions to license their technology — then used that technology to build a car cheaper than Xpeng's own vehicle. Xpeng dropped Motors from their name entirely and rebranded as a physical AI company. Honda is writing off 2.5 trillion yen...

A Chinese consumer just spent $29,000 on a pure electric vehicle to save $15 a month on gas. That sounds irrational — but it reveals something deeply important about the psychology driving the next phase of Chinese EV adoption. Oil is back at nine yuan per liter. EV search traffic is surging globally. But EV prices are rising too — lithium up 130%, memory chips up 300%, aluminum at four-year highs...

Someone just spotted NIO's ES9 on the street, generating significant "nio news" just before its official debut. This sighting comes as discussions around "nio stock" and its market performance continue to be a hot topic in the "stock market". Even figures like "kramer" have weighed in on NIO's trajectory, making this a relevant update for those follo...