Australia BEV Sales Feb 2026: and Chinese Cars Overtake Japan Overall

Music

Let's get this right one day.

Hello everyone, I am Tom and this is Joy.

Hello.

Hello and welcome to Ludacris Feed Live.

Hope you're all doing well today.

It's Wednesday the 4th of March 2025, the first live stream of

2026 I should say, the first live stream of March 2026.

Yes, we are living in very interesting times indeed.

Binks go coming up, how are you Joy this evening?

I'm very humid.

Is that a word?

I mean the weather is humid, but can you say you're humid?

I don't even know how to describe it.

We know what you mean.

I'm feeling quite warm as well.

It has been quite muggy in Sydney and we just have a storm

through as well.

But nevertheless, we are here to hopefully educate and entertain

all of you as well.

So thanks for joining us, nice and early this evening.

Let's say hello to our co-hosts as always.

Hello to Riaz and hello to Roland.

Gentlemen, so nice to see you both.

Start with Riaz, how are you my friend?

Man's not hot because I'm down here in Victoria.

It's not as muggy.

I was up in Sydney yesterday and it was very muggy.

Big storm brewing, which I think that's what you guys have got now.

Yep, just experienced it, yes indeed.

And Roland, how are you going?

Going good.

I've got the air con blasting now, so I'm happy.

Roland's got his personal power station in the northwest.

We all know you can pump out 100,000 kilowatts at any time

once, so no problem at all.

But glad to see you've got the battery on board, Roland.

That's great.

Thanks for sharing that with us.

Yes, it was a long time coming.

Of course, check out Roland's YouTube channel, Zapt.

And of course, check out Riz from CarLube,

who is sponsoring the channel as always.

Thank you, Riz.

Data to empower Australia's EV revolution.

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Alrighty, well, thank you to our guests who have joined us.

Nice and early this evening.

Let's say hello to Murray.

Yes, large storm hit Sydney an hour ago indeed.

Lots of chat about the war, of course, in the Middle East

and petrol prices and so on.

So we'll get to that later on in the show.

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Hello as well.

Yes, lots of talk about the reserves of fossil fuel,

petrol, diesel.

We'll talk about that as well.

So stay tuned.

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Hello as well.

Yes, we did see Roland's massive power plant

pump out lots of power this week.

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Team SEAL going strong.

It's good to see going the torch there.

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Keep those comments coming.

Lots of chat about Big Show.

Big, big show indeed.

Hello, Queer Pair.

Nice of you to join us.

There are lots of members, lots of guests,

lots of viewers joining us this evening.

All right.

Well, it is the first show of the month.

And as always, we always talk about the EV sales

for the previous month.

And who better to talk about than Riz, of course.

Let's put up Riz's LinkedIn post from today.

And Riz, it's a record for Australia.

11.83% of all vehicles are now battery electric vehicles.

How great is that?

Yeah, it's going well.

I think we've got a pretty solid sort of

January and February now.

And it sort of goes to show, obviously,

the dominance that Tesla has had.

And Tesla, of course, had the Model Y

as the best seller this month, which is great.

And then, yeah, BYD's Zika.

Before we get into sort of the details around those numbers.

So 11.83%, over 11,134 electric vehicle sales in total

out of a market of about 94,000, which is pretty interesting.

A unique factor that I didn't touch on in this post today,

but it was in the driven article, which is,

for the first time ever, the Chinese manufactured vehicles

overtook the Japanese manufactured vehicles

that were sold in the country during that month.

This is all cars, not just electric cars,

but it sort of goes to show the shift that has occurred.

Well, yeah, it's big news that the Chinese manufacturers are

just getting started after 28 years.

They've overtaken Japan.

That's phenomenal news.

That's certainly nothing to show away from.

That's a huge deal for China after 28 years.

Something that Japan, I don't know how many years they took,

but I'm sure it was more than that.

China is just, as we know, China time.

That is phenomenal, honestly.

That's probably the headline, I reckon,

that headline story of the month.

Yeah, and if you look at sort of the top sellers there,

they're pretty much all Chinese in the EV space anyway.

Yep.

You want to say something, Joy?

Yeah, no, I think that actually speaks really well

for the general Australian public as well,

that they're sort of recognising where the really good value

trustworthy cars are coming out of,

because people aren't going to buy something

that they feel is going to fail them in a couple of years' time.

So I think this is actually a really big tick of approval

from the general Australian public that Chinese cars

are reliable enough to actually purchase now,

and that they're going to be able to still have it in a few years' time

and not worry, because isn't that what everyone

always thought about Japanese cars?

It's like the reliability of the Toyota, isn't it?

It's like that was the big key thing.

So that's what I take.

I agree.

No, we like to think that Australian buying public

are quite educated overall as a population.

So cheap is one thing,

but it's got to be cheap and good quality as well.

So certainly that's coming through in the buying process.

So as Riz said, all the cars here,

every single car is made in China,

and I think that stigma is finally starting to disappear, right?

That is almost a mark of quality now.

At least it's not cheap and nasty anymore by any means,

as we all know.

I think it's time to take a treatment.

Tell us this.

Here we go.

Maybe I will.

I'll do one too.

China time.

Probably big.

Indeed.

And yeah, Riz Tesla making a comeback for this month.

They were a bit down last month,

but BYDC Line 7 consistent performer as always.

Yeah, it's very consistent in terms of,

they've had the 1,000 to 1,400 sales a month

for quite a few months now.

Of course, they've got their driveway offer that's still on.

So basically you pay with the recommended retail price,

and that's your driveway price.

We're saving about $3,000 to $4,000 there on the C-Line 7 premium.

Very popular.

There's a lot of things,

BYDC is doing really well in terms of partnering

with big leasing companies, getting it out there.

Of course, the dealership network is growing so quickly now as well.

It's funny, a couple of months ago,

you drive past the BYDC Line,

and it will be probably the size where it could fit

two or three cars at the front.

And that same dealer you drive past six months later,

it's like pretty much all of the dealership.

You know, like the whole building is theirs.

So, you know, as they're growing their number of models,

Addo 1 and Addo 2.

Of course, Addo 1 outdid the Addo 2 in February.

So that's its first big month.

Addo 2 seems like it's starting to stabilize a little bit

after the first couple of bumper months.

I think January was over 500.

So, yeah, BYDC is very strong.

They've got a whole lot more models coming in as well later this year.

And then, you know, GLEX 5, very consistent once again,

416 sales, and they've just got the new version

that's about to sort of pop out as well.

Indeed, the extended range,

which I'm looking forward to seeing how extended that range is.

400, I'll just pop up the image here.

475, here we go, kilometers of WLTP.

So that's pretty good.

But just back on the sales figures, just Roland,

I mean, you know, being in the North West,

you're seeing a lot of dealerships pop up as well in your area.

I think the key, I know that you guys agree with me,

but the key to a new brand entering Australia is,

I think obviously, dealership presence, service presence.

People want that.

And the reliability as well in the new brand.

Would you guys agree, Roland?

Yeah, totally, especially in my area.

Oddly enough, so there's no Tesla dealership or showroom

anywhere close to this area.

BYD have a massive presence.

I drove past this morning, and before they even opened,

I did not, the entire parking lot is filled with BYDs.

You could easily, just driving past,

there's at least 20 vehicles there

for people to look at and everything.

Zika's got one in our shopping centre,

which again, massive presence for people to be around.

And then Julie's opened up around the corner here too.

So really, from that list there,

it's MG and Omoda.

Otherwise, they've got retail presence quite heavily here.

Yeah, I agree.

And there's brands that are here that,

I know are growing their dealership quite quickly,

and they're sort of,

I'd call it a bit under the radar at the moment,

because they're not really talking about the sales numbers yet,

because it's so new to the market.

But if you take GAC, right,

Guangzhou Automotive Company make over 2 million cars every year.

They've got three models, one's fully electric,

the ION B, I think it is.

And that sort of brand is still under the radar.

We're not seeing a lot of them on the sales charts yet,

but they've got pretty ambitious plans to open

quite a few dealers before the end of this year.

And they will obviously be bringing a whole lot more

in terms of the product into the market

that people would want like the new ION UT.

That's going to really sort of push that electric catchback space,

which has been taken up pretty strongly by the MG4,

and obviously now the BYD 801.

The Dolphin does okay,

but the more competition or the more models

they are in those segments by brands that are

still relatively new to the market,

people will be keen to go and check them out in person

at those dealers, at those retail spots.

So yeah, watch this space.

I think we're going to have some really strong competition

from the likes of GAC, even GLE,

when they bring their electric hatchback later on in the year.

So yeah, it's only going to get busier in that space.

More options mean more people are going to be interested

and want to go and check these cars out.

And obviously having gone to China a couple of times with Joy,

I mean, China time, we know that they're here for the long term.

They keep telling us, every media trip you go to,

like we're here this day, we're going to grow and grow,

at least that's what they keep telling us.

So these short-term numbers probably don't mean too much to them.

They really want to just proliferate

and bring good quality cars.

So we'll see, I guess, how that goes as we continue

these live streams over the years.

But yeah, the car, the motor, JQ, that's good.

J5, that's done to fill those orders up and 7x as well.

That's good to see them still selling well.

And I just saw somewhere here that I agree with this comment here.

7x is constrained by supply at the moment.

Yes, the big weighting list is 100% for sure.

Interesting to see how many out of three.

So yes, I was just going to say that too.

Particularly, I guess maybe because the new model's coming,

maybe this is a clear out of the old one.

I don't know.

Yeah, Dongfenbox says Darryl.

Yep, that's in New Zealand at the moment.

So I don't know when that will come to Australia,

but I'm sure it will be too far away.

Yes, all right.

Now, speaking of Atos, Ato1, this is Richard's Ato1,

or his daughter's Ato1, at least.

There it is there.

Nice photos.

And I hear the Ato2 press cars are being made available

very soon in Australia.

So we should see some fresh reviews, I would think.

From the media outlets.

That's a nice pick there of the Mini Alambo in action.

So also, I think it was the first day they picked it up

and took it straight up to Mary's Will.

How far away is that from Melbourne?

Oh, trying to think it's 100Ks, maybe a bit.

Yeah, it's quite a bit up.

Maybe others can sort of check factually,

but yeah, it's not close.

Yeah, very good.

Let's push on.

So let's share this bit of news here from Rowland,

the ADR King.

So yes, speaking of the whole staff five,

we'll talk about that car as well very shortly.

They joined and had a chance to look at yesterday.

But Rowland is spotted that just also approved

or received ADR approval.

So there we go.

So well timed, hey.

Perfect.

So we've got two.

Sorry, Rowland, you go ahead.

You walk us through this.

The thing that catches out is the weight of the car.

I did not expect that weight.

I knew it was going to have a big battery,

but I did not expect that weight.

The big boy.

A half tonne TMS and GBM is just under three tonnes.

I mean, with 112kWh battery,

I mean, you know, you kind of have to,

you guys don't be a big boy, right?

It's Rowland approved.

Yes, indeed.

I'm sure.

Looks nice and that power is the price though.

Yes, the price.

So it's also a top spec price.

It's Rowland spec.

So Joy and I had a chance to look at it yesterday in Sydney

and the YouTube video is coming and Bargo drops tomorrow.

Just to give all the media outlets a chance to have a look at it

and prepare their videos.

But yeah, as you can see here,

it's the beautiful looking car.

I mean, I love the Polestar 4 personally,

but the 5 is just gorgeous.

Just that low roof line sedan.

It's like a chef's kiss.

It is very nice.

Yes, nice.

Take my money.

I agree.

I mean, I don't know about take my money,

but it is nice to assess the price range

and the Polestar 5 is perfect for Rowland as well.

Rowland, 3.2 seconds.

Is it quick enough?

I'll be honest, would have liked faster,

but you know, you can't have everything.

Now, there is a car that is coming.

Well, I don't know when it's coming,

but potentially it's going to be announced

in less than four weeks.

And we will see how fast and heavy that is compared to this.

So when that time comes, Rowland,

I think you and I can have a bit of a comparison to have a look.

All right.

I'm really hoping it's lighter than this,

because this is, it's lovely,

but jeez, that weight, as soon as you,

you felt that with the Polestar 3 as well.

You take it around corners

and you really feel like it's very precise in its steering,

but just you feel the weight in the corners

and it's sometimes a bit scary, but it looks gorgeous.

Indeed, indeed.

And Tony is guessing here, is it the 7 GT?

I mean, I mean, it's certainly another Gilly vehicle,

another sedan, well, another wagon, but lower car.

I really hope it is, Chris.

No, it's going to be two doors.

Two doors, okay.

Two doors.

And I'm not saying the car will actually come here or not,

but it will be announced.

It's going to be two doors.

And yeah, we'll find out in about a couple of,

I have no other information.

All I know is it's been a long time coming

and it's two doors.

And I think, Rowland, you will know what it is

if I say it's a long, long time coming.

I think I know.

I think some of the people know too.

Yes, that's it.

Hell's got it, everyone.

I swear I didn't touch or kick anything.

Sorry, guys.

We will get back on very shortly,

but you can hear us, right?

No problem.

Yeah, we can hear you.

We can hear you.

That's good.

At least that's not me.

Right, we can try this camera.

Let's have a look at the FaceTime camera at least.

Let's see.

There we go.

Oh, we're back.

Hey, we're back.

Yeah, it's a proper camera.

Nice.

Who knows?

What's your thing?

Well, we'll blame the store.

Something weird is going on with Rowland's.

Yes, Tesla Roadster.

Yes, could be.

Could be the Xiaomi Ultra.

I think that's four doors.

It's mainly...

Speaking of which, did they even see that concept?

The Gran Turismo concept that Xiaomi showcased

this couple of days ago at the...

I'm trying to think it's a big mobile conference

in, I think, Spain.

So it's just...

What's it called?

It's a Xiaomi GT?

Great.

Yeah, just call it a Xiaomi concept.

And yeah.

No, Vision Gran Turismo.

Is that the one?

Yep, okay.

Let's see.

Oh, yes.

Okay, let's put it up.

There we go.

Yeah, that's a huge...

Wow, what is that at the back?

It looks like a really big USB-C.

Yeah, it does.

All massive exhausts.

Inspiration from Lotus.

There's a Lotus one.

The Lotus Vivaio.

It's got a similar, like, just huge back.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the MG Cyberster is a two-door sports car.

That's something, at least.

Yes, like a little electric Mazdrom X5 almost.

It's a Suzuki Jimny EV.

I mean, that'd be nice, right?

Hey.

That'd be cool.

Suzuki is launching something next week,

so that could be it.

Yeah, that's true.

Denzer Z sports car.

So looking forward to that as well.

All right, I'm going to switch cameras and...

Let's see whether we can switch over to this one.

Oh, this is probably more reliable.

There you go.

That's how...

I have to look at this one.

This camera here.

Have to look down.

Okay.

There we go.

Sorry, everyone.

We will see what's going on later.

It was the audio last week, and this week it's the vision.

But that's all right.

Okay, what shall we talk about next?

Let's see.

I've lost my train of thought now.

We talked about Geely, so let's talk about Geely.

Let's do that.

Where is it?

We will find it very shortly.

Sorry, guys.

Share that one.

Okay, let's do...

Let's share this one.

So, yes, the Geely EX5 extended range was launched or announced this week.

Do we have a pricing on this?

Yeah, it's $1,000 more.

I think it's $4190 for the base, and the top spec is $45990.

Okay, so about $1,000 more?

Yeah, $1,000 more per variant from what I can see.

Okay, it's not too bad.

I mean, for an extra 8kWh, why not, right?

Might as well just pump it up a few kL more.

So, $475 up from $430.

It's not too bad.

And you get a free home charger as well if you order that.

Or for N31st of March, so get those orders in if you want it.

I guess, you know, I guess if you're going to order a Geely,

which is probably still the peak of the bunch, I think for that size, 4.6m car.

Yeah, sorry to put that comment down.

And Darrell's saying the Starray extended range should be around the corner as well.

So, how many, are we talking the extended range of the

battery or the petrol version?

Can't wonder for the Starray.

And apparently less beings and bongs as well, so better aid us in the recent updates.

It's good. There's a button that silences the beings and bongs.

There you go.

Now, I've worked at the keys and the Hyundai's.

You know how the aid us is a bit of an issue as well, right?

So, I've worked out if you hold on to the mute button, for those of you with

keys and the Hyundai's, it actually gets rid of the aid us straight away,

like the overspeed warning.

And Genesis.

And Genesis, thank you, Roland.

Yes.

It comes to the mute button.

Is that on the right hand side?

Okay. I'll try that.

I took the EV4 to the airport yesterday to the Bonser lounge.

And it, even at 4.30 in the morning, drove me insane.

You're speeding too much.

Just, Roland, you know what it's all about.

When the roads are clear, I don't want to steer.

I just want to keep speeding.

Okay.

It's an interesting comment here from Masty.

I got a call from my Zika delay tonight, or delay, I assume it means dealer.

And they asked if I was interested in upgrading my order

of my seven X performance to the limited black edition.

Wow. Extra four grand and one of the first batch this month.

What does $4,000 by you, apart from a black car?

I wonder.

It's black on black.

Interesting.

Any, anything extra like floor mats or an umbrella for that $4,000?

No, no, it's, it will be, it will be.

I think it'll be a style package, like a visual style package.

And I think it's available in Europe.

I think so.

I know they did one for the double or one in Europe.

So we can sort of have a, have a quick Google or what that looks like.

The Zika 001 black edition.

But yeah, the seven X would be, would assume similar.

A lot of companies do black for half done black editions before.

Cool. Okay.

Keep an eye on it.

Oh, Tony says Zika called me too.

And the GT seven is coming July.

I mean, I think you mean seven GT coming July.

So not far away.

It's fabulous.

Can't wait.

All right.

Now trigger warning again.

So this is about GROC, Tesla and GROC.

Roland had a chance to test this week.

I saw a bit of your video Roland.

So how did you, how did you feel went with GROC?

So it's very limited, uh, assistant.

And there's a couple of other features that you could like kids stories and stuff like that.

But in terms of integration to the car at this point in time,

what does work is the voice assistant to navigation.

And it is, it is honestly

days, light years ahead of the Tesla assistant using navigation.

Just purely talking from navigation side,

like if you tell it to navigate to XYZ location,

I tested other things which normally I would do for even Siri on the Apple phone that it does better

in the sense of find me XYZ cuisine as an example.

And you could kind of do trip planning as well.

You could also ask it for reviews at the same time.

I also tried getting it to swap destinations.

So like to go to this location first as opposed to that location.

I said multiple things and he executed all of it flawlessly.

Where it is more of a gimmick is probably all of the other features.

Some people might enjoy it, but for me personally, I don't think I would use it

all that much, especially with the lack of integration to the car.

But I think I can see where it's potentially headed.

If they actually integrate that into the car,

it would work way better than what it is to lead.

That's good. Good to see this potential.

Just back on the Polestar 4,

they said that Gemini will eventually be coming to Android Automotive.

So it might be a AI companion battle battle off in the next couple of years.

As these AI companions join us in the car.

Just on the screen there.

Roland, you did a good job, Ben, because Grock itself replied saying thanks for testing through

much. So if there's nothing else, you know that they're listening.

Always watching. Always watching.

Yep. Can't wait till Grock cooks for you, says Daryl,

and says, can you smell what the Grock is cooking?

That's funny. Tony agrees with Roland.

Grock is amazing. Just doesn't do that much yet.

Can you ask it to open all the windows? That's an interesting one.

Yeah, okay. Maybe in the future.

There are some cars that can do that.

Like the Alexio that we just tested recently,

you can just quickly press the button that opens everything.

Yeah, because you can do it quite well.

I remember testing a based on you can even use percentage.

I remember in my video, I tested to say like open back left window 30%.

Now it didn't measure the distance, but it looked like 30% at eye level.

To the to the percent. I mean, that, you know, gets a feedback to Julie.

Someone can measure it.

That's right. All right, we'll keep testing that as time goes on.

Looks like BYData3 can do the windows as well.

All right, Tesla needs to do some catching up there in that department.

Alrighty, so just at the halfway point,

just wanted to quickly just thank our sponsors once again.

Thank you to CarLove and thank you to PowerShop as well.

So thank you for sponsoring the channel.

All right.

And let's pop this one up.

So it looks like the Denza Z9 has landed in Australia.

Seven seater luxury EV could be a good price as well.

D9.

Sorry, thinking of Z9.

I want the Z9 to come though.

The D9 has landed in Australia.

The seven seater, my apologies.

So it's a predominant front-wheel drive car for the people that really care.

It's two, yeah, the 230 kilowatts is actually the same for the all-wheel drive.

So it's a 45 kilowatt rear motor, quite a small motor for the rear.

But pricing wise, I think they've hit them up.

It's like, I'm sure if you can negotiate the top split to go under the LCT.

So a lot of people that will go down the novated lease side of things will be pretty happy.

Yeah. I mean, for all the people that are out now, like the ZK009,

even the bigger SUVs like the Volvo EX90, the Kia EV9, this is actually very well priced.

This is like undercutting them all.

There's an 89, 85, 95.

So I've seen on some of the Facebook groups, there's been a few people that have mentioned

they've got the Ioniq 9 under LCT.

So they're definitely doing big discounts on that.

Here's EV9, I remember it was just the entry level that some people have got under the LCT.

So from features and specs side of things, you get more in the Ioniq 9.

And then all the other ones, good luck getting it under LCT.

Yeah, so true. Yeah, I still like the Ioniq 9.

What do you reckon, Joy? Like all the big cars we've tested so far?

Yeah, and I was remembering the really, really, really expensive one, the VW Buzz.

Oh yeah, 90 Buzz.

Yeah. I think, I mean, this one looks more stylish, doesn't it?

And I think it will be a lot more comfortable than the VW, which wasn't nice when you were in the

third row. It's quite bouncy, yeah.

But VW is iconic, though. Sorry, Riss.

No, no, all good. VW is. But this, of course, is Bonza's vehicle of choice.

Having been in both captain's chairs and in the back being driven all around Shanghai in one.

And of course, being in the back of the Zika 009, the different types of cars,

this, I think, is very well built. The noise isolation is next level in this car.

But if you wanted, obviously, the VW factor, that's when you'd sit into the 009 and that's

like really sort of takes that luxury upper notch. This, I think, for its price is amazing,

like 85, 99. I was expecting it to be at least 110 plus, even for the base model.

So yeah, it's a lot of car and very popular currently in Hong Kong, as we've seen that

in the right hand drive there as well. So yeah, I think VW has gone onto a bit of a

winner with this particular model. And of course, it stands as first fully electric model in our

market. Could this be the Carnival killer? Carnival, Kia Carnival is like a very popular

people right now, given this is all electric, right? And if your price is going up, could this

be it? It's going to get extremely close, because I don't know if they still sell it,

but Kia did have a hybrid one of the latest Carnival. And that was already in the low 80s.

So you'll literally compare the same thing, because the Carnival's only front-wheel drive,

anyway. And the size is five, I think it's about 5.1 something, just under 5.2. So very,

very similar. The only thing that Kia will win over is the reboot space, because it doesn't have

the additional motor. Okay. Okay. Yeah, the other one's the Zika X9, of course. Sorry, Zika,

X-Pang X9. Sorry, I'm mixing up my brands here. X-Pang X9. That looks quite good as well. So

hopefully that's positive. That was launched the day, Tom. Again, really launched. How many times

can you launch the same car? They launched it last year when we were there in April in Hong Kong,

and then they've just relaunched it again in the 2026 edition. Well, they launched it in November

in Flindere, remember? I don't know. Can't keep up anymore. Daryl's saying Carnival and

Alphard. Yeah, that's the other one, Alphard. Is the Alphard actually officially available in the

country, or is it a great import? It's a great import. The Alphard and the Velfire under Toyota,

it's import only. I think we need to rename this Bonza D9, Riz. If you're listening and you want

that airliner type of name, the names rights are still up for grabs. So if you want your

denser customers to be flying Bonza, Bonza D9. Now, the other option is if you feel like densers

are a bit too ho-hum, then there's always, if you don't want a Chinese car, there's always

the 11th Formula One team this year. Cadillac have announced two more SUVs into Australia's

market. So let me get this right. The Optique and the VISTIQ, which will join the Lyric

in their lineup. So if you feel like 89 is not enough to pay, then I think you could go Cadillac

and pay a bit more, possibly get more luxurious as well, a bit more old world luxury.

Or I can just swap the queue for a K, because it's Lyric, right? Like, well, not that Lyric

is spelled that way, but you know what I mean? Like, okay, then the CK. So it's just Optique.

It's stick. No, key. Oh, okay. Optique. Optique. Just make it more bogan. Optique. VISTIQ.

One of them's got the seven seats. Let me just scroll down. If we get now.

Because then it's all matching. Lyric. Optique. VISTIQ. VISTIQ.

VISTIQ. VISTIQ. The big boy. Otherwise, you have to call it the Lyric. Lyric.

Yeah. I mean, how much was the Lyric on Lyric again?

It was over 100. It was driving away about 120 from memory. Wow. Okay. Look, it is a nice car.

We did drive it to Goldburn to test the Supercharters there. It is very nice.

It felt really like solid. It's a big boy. There was, like, I haven't driven anything else that

felt like that, that just kind of had this kind of like beefy presence. It's hard to explain.

Like, it wasn't fluggish, but it was just, I don't know. It's just old world, big, like bold.

I feel like it's just going to be black. Like, you can't have silver.

Yeah. No. Like, it's going to be black and black. Yeah.

I felt like we needed to drive to, like, a golf course or something, though. It's

like something, yeah. I was on the dress for sure. Some sort of, you know, membership club.

Snob. So, the 33-inch screen, like, come on. When is too big, too big? Come on.

33-inch diagonal screen across the whole dashboard.

I agree with Darryl. This is exactly what I was thinking.

How many sales have they done, Ruiz?

Well, do you have the numbers?

Yeah. No, not many, if any. And they're not worth counting if they're not doing it.

I don't think, I don't even know. A couple of dozen.

I did look at these today, actually, the one that, the lyrics, the one that's out, right?

Yeah. On Car Sales. It's a lot of fun of it, because I did see the article. And it's about,

demo models are being sold for about $95,000 in new sales sales going away.

Okay. Yeah, still a lot of money. I like this one. Steve says, sorry, Steve says,

the Cadillacs sound like contact lenses. That's true, isn't it? Vistik,

OPTIQ, you know, you know, I suppose. Celestic. Celestic.

Take a guess on what's next.

What will the Americans bring out next?

Yeah. So, if I'm already in the black with a few of these cars, a few sales, yeah, maybe.

Maybe. Big margin. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, I still wouldn't mind trying them out.

It's always fun. All righty, let's keep pushing on. Now, Roland, this was very interesting,

this first you put up on X this week. So, MG are now offering an Alpha battery,

Alpha ESS home battery with the IM5 or 6, almost 40 kilowatt hours in size,

but lots of terms and conditions I hear you say.

20, I've got to open because I knew we'd bring this up for discussion. There's 23

T's and C's and some of them have multiple lines,

but the short version is you get the 7 kilowatt charger, you get a 20, no, 39 odd kilowatt hour

battery, 5 kilowatt inverter though, a bit small. A bit small from what I think. And then the main

thing that caught my eyes in the T's and C's, and I'll put a link so everyone can have a read if

they want, but it says that installation is actually separate. And you've got to,

what did they say? I think end of April to do the install. Yeah, so installation of the Alpha

ESS battery must be completed on or before 30th of April, 2026. MG motor is not responsible for

delays caused by install availability, grid approvals or site suitability.

That's actually a huge deal, installation excluded. They could get an approved installer

and really, really charge you a lot for it, don't you think? Yeah, yeah, interesting.

But I mean, installation costs can be, you know, like, they might, for some people, they might

have to like knock down walls or, you know, like for one, you know, it might be like so far away

from where it needs to be. So I think that bit is fair because I mean, you can't treat everyone

the same for that. But for me, I think it's the timeline. If it has to be all be done before

30th of April, that's what's actually going to make it hard, I would have thought, because

I think, are they still pretty busy? They're smashed, all the installers, yeah, totally smashed.

And five kilowatt inverter, that's tiny, you know, for a big battery like that, you want at least

15, I think, 15 kilowatts to make use of it. I would thought, would have thought.

Leon's got a good comment there.

Made of the CEO, the MG CEO has no intentions to talk business.

They just got, well, the last one is on its way out. So maybe this is the last one, I don't know.

Good concept. I always thought that, to be honest, Tesla should have done this.

They should have bundled or they should have had a way where they could bundle power walls with

you know, with the car. A power package. Yeah. And I don't know why the energy team works so

separately, like hands down the best product out there. You know, when everything's so well

integrated with the car, it's a no brainer. And I'll encourage you all to do the same thing as

well because of their big energy storage business, right? Like, yeah, maybe the competition will get

there where this is an offering, like it's such an awesome thing to offer a turnkey solution.

Yeah, it makes sense also if they can install a, like a DC bi-directional charger with it, right?

Just stuff the whole package with the car being like sense to me. I wonder if this has got island

mode as well, we can go off grid or that's a separate package with the inverter, I don't know,

or the gateway. But I think what Riz was saying is that, like the whole point of something like

this is that it's meant for the kind of person who like doesn't like gets overwhelmed by the

detail of it, right? And so it's like, here's something, as he said, a turnkey solution. Here's

just something that we will kind of look after. Yeah. And we'll just give you something that

works. Like it may not be kind of like all the like exactly fine tuned, but you know, it does the

job. So yeah, like all wrapped up all in one. Yep. Yep. It's not bad concept. If anybody has

bought this package, let us know in the comments or later on when you're watching

on replay. If they're selling about 30 to 50 cars, not maybe about 80 cars a month at the moment,

with the IM5 and IM6, this could drive up demand. But yeah, what happens if you can't fit that in

and then you can't cancel your order? So that's true, isn't it gonna read the 23 terms and conditions

which Roland spelt out for us very, very carefully. Now, Tassie even saying the first 400 kilowatt

charger in Tassie is now operational in Longford. That's good. It is. Excellent.

And Tony, yes, IM5, 6 are good. They are good cars. I like the IM5.

Yeah, it drives well. Looks good. Now, what have we spotted on the roads this week? Well,

in China, at least. It is the Zika double the nine facelift question mark, Roland?

It would be. I mean, unless someone really likes the camera wrap and on the wheels included,

all signs are pointing to there's a facelift of some sort. I mean, the exterior lights and the body

itself looks quite similar. So potential mold uplift. Otherwise, there'd be upgrades to the

interior, which I genuinely can't think of. What else are you going to upgrade? Like,

the six theater version has the same as first class seats from the airlines. So

how much better can it get? The four theater grand with the TVs. You can't get much better than that.

Yeah, yeah. That was my first impression of Zika when they picked us up from the airport in Shanghai

in one of these double and nine. That was just phenomenal. Set the tone. See, a good, a very

good friend of, I guess, Tom and Tom and mine was a very acclaimed journalist got in this car and said,

this is incredible. It's Bentley quality. And he's often wrong. Well, he's really wrong and

often very right about this sort of stuff. And then he took it around the track. Just said this is

a three tonne cars and supposed to move like that.

So weight is one thing, right? But I feel like you've got the powertrain to match it. If you've

got enough torque, enough power, you don't really feel the weight, right? As we did on the trackers

at Ningbo with this thing. Yeah, generally speaking, you don't because of the air suspension

that it's got. It's really good at managing body roll and other things as well at high speeds. But

there are times when you do feel it. And it's, it's, it reduces your confidence because you can't

go into corners as fast knowing that the momentum that you're carrying is gonna might take you off

track. So, you know, that's why I'm really hoping we get some light cars coming in very soon. But

yeah, I mean, from a luxury point of view, this is the pinnacle of what, you know, electric luxury

is. Anyone that hasn't had a chance, I think Zika is going to potentially be at the Melbourne

Motor Show as well. Check out and sit in the back of one. It's next level.

Any videos of donuts on this thing? Not that we can don't it, but turn the traction control

off a bit of oversteer. You saw there's videos up there on red night, I'm sure.

All right. And just, can I just say before we move on? Yes, please. The person who had the

one job to do the camo did not cover Zika. They literally had one job to cover the important

parts of the car to try and hide it, but they left a badging right there. That's right. The only

thing that matters really. It's too funny. What car is this behind it? Anyone know? Is that the

bonza? I mean, denser? Yeah, I don't know, actually. I mean, there's so many people

move us over there. Apparently, the most common or popular people move, I'm trying to think,

is a Buick in China. Okay. So, all right. So,

now this next story is just, this is actually more community announcement. This is just,

we shared a explaining video, I think, last week or week before when someone threw a shoe

at us or something. And when you put the indicator on, as you see in this video,

shared by one of our viewers, when the indicator goes on, the blind spot monitor comes on,

and then you lose dash cam footage, actually, because it records the, you'll see now when

the indicator goes on as they turn. So, you get the, like, side camera suddenly. So,

if something happens in that moment, then you don't get any footage of it. So, you might lose

that for police reports or insurance purposes or whatever. So, it's just a small point to know

if you have an expert at the moment. So, don't indicate. So, dual BMW, don't indicate or turn

off the blind spot monitor on, off, I should say. So, just letting you know. All right,

as we come towards the end of our show, this is just an interesting article for you guys. So,

this is a fully electric truck. How good is this? Fully electric refrigerator trailer.

I'm sorry, solar panel, solar powered refrigerator trailer. The truck is not EV, but I think the

refrigerator trailer is battery electric, I believe. Do I not know? Yes, it's got solar panels.

That makes no sense, right? Because that wouldn't require that much electricity to keep cold.

It's got, like, what, 10, 15 panels or something? Maybe? So, that's probably enough, isn't it? If

you're traveling on the highway and lots of sunbeaming down on it. These guys in the UK,

1,671 kilometer round trip. Oh, sorry, this is Sydney and Brisbane, sorry. It's a UK-based

company running entirely on battery and solar. I should have used chat GBD to summarise this for

me. No, okay, I think, oh, you could let your wife breathe? No, I think, no, I did read it in that

time, I think. So, no, I think it is just that part of the, it's that part of the thing that

didn't require any power from the truck itself. So, it was completely self-powered by the solar

panels. It's my understanding of what I was able to quickly read. Thank you, chat GP wife.

There you go. Please don't compare me to AI. Better than AI. Good, or I will hope you'll see more

of this kind of thing in long-haul distance travel. What if it rains? What if the sun stops shining?

What if the wind doesn't blow? What if they can drive at night? That's true, they're from the UK.

No, but this was in, this trial was in Sydney.

I don't understand why they're so, like why UK companies are so excited about

solar and batteries when the sun rarely shines over there. So true.

How good would this be for like, yeah, like all the refrigerator food and like medication and stuff

like that. Everything that needs to get cold. Right. Well, that's pretty much all I have,

unless you guys have anything you want to discuss. There is Roland or people watching,

just finally towards the end here. One last little bit. Tomorrow, if anyone's interested

at 10 p.m. meet me in an alleyway in Melbourne. No, BYD is going to have,

basically it's a bit hush hush of what they're about to announce. Tomorrow is a very big day

for the brand. They're going to be announcing some major technological breakthroughs in BYD

Blade 2.0, megawatt charging, 1500 kilowatt flash charging, updates on their God's eye

self-driving tech, and they've been doing quite a lot of testing. And a couple of,

I think at least close to half a dozen new models. One with the world's longest

range on a single charge, all being unveiled at the same time, starting at 10 o'clock.

Don't know how you translate the Vivo live stream that they'll be doing, but if you've got a Chinese

friend, get them to sit next to you so they're able to translate what they're saying. But I'm

pretty excited. This is going to be very interesting as to which models get what sort

of tech coming. Initially, we'll start in China, but then, yeah, I think very soon we're going to

see some very fast charging, very affordable electric cars coming. So yeah, pretty excited

about that. Tomorrow night, 10 p.m. 10 p.m. Mal time. Yeah, Sydney, Melbourne time. So it's

7 p.m. China time. China time. Whoa. Hang on. Take a drink. Yep. That's good to hear. Yeah. I mean,

look, we need better, more affordable good cars from China. That's very exciting to see. And I

forgot, I think someone mentioned in the chat, potentially solid state batteries also being

announced in terms of when their production will start from BYD themselves. I think they're the

second biggest battery maker in the world. Exciting. Exciting. Good to see blade batteries

actually entering a lot of the other cars, too. Like the Hyundai, Alexio had the blade battery as

well. And of course, the JQ's have had them as well. So good. Very good. All right. Roland,

what have you got on this week? Nothing yet. Pick up something next week, but I'll tell you all

next week. Exciting. Very exciting. Sounds intriguing. And Riz, what's up next week or this week?

This week, the EV4. I've been driving that around. Obviously, I'll use the little tip that I learned

today on muting some of those notifications. And then next week, something's happening in Sydney.

I'll have more to share when we have our live stream. What about yourself? Enjoy. What's happening

this week? Yes. So we've got the EV4 as well. And I like it because it's a sedan, as you know.

Makes me happy. And we might be testing GROC as well this weekend. So we'll keep you guys posted.

Hopefully, FSD and GROC. We'll see. I don't know whether it's rolled out yet in hardware

force, but if it does, it'll be good to test. But yes, I think the same event that Riz is talking

about, we'll see you there next Tuesday. So it should be fun. Okay. Well, join. I think it might be

time to wrap up. And thank you, Riz. Thank you, Roland. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you both.

And thank you everyone for watching tonight, as always. So same bat time, same bat channel

next week. Let's pull up these sponsors page to make them happy. Thank you, everyone. And

bye.

Australia BEV Sales Feb 2026: and Chinese Cars Overtake Japan Overall

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