And V4 as well. So hopefully all accessed for all cars too. That'd be good.
And this one is, let me just check my notes. Where was this one from?
This is a viewer photo in Mansfield, Victoria. Where's that?
It's kind of thin. Yeah, from Johan. Let's have a look. Which part of Victoria?
It is in the northeast. East. Northeast. Bonnie Doon is nearby.
Okay. Jamison. Mount Buller. That's Strath Boogie.
Yeah, it's all a high country. Yeah. There you go.
It's good to learn about Victorian geography while we're at it.
Oh, thanks, Gary. On the way to the snow fields. Thank you.
And Richard. It's no country. Thank you.
Awesome. Yeah, cater for Mount Buller. Nice one. That's good.
Good for winter next year.
And also this pick as well. So this is obviously still under construction
in Mansfield, but hopefully ready for next winter.
Yeah. How's the Serenity? Bonnie Doon. Nice. Nice castle reference.
Okay. That's good. Just quickly wanted to talk about our sponsors real quick.
So thank you to Hunkook Driving Emotion, EV Tires. Check them out.
Hunkook Ion Tires, Long Warranty. Thank you to Power Shop as well.
Power Shop to EV Plans for day and night, depending on your needs.
Check them out. And also thank you to Carloop,
data to empower Australia's EV Revolution. Ruiz and the team. Thank you.
Okay. Now we talked about earlier with Roland, the fact that the X-Ping
Parramatta is still launched and it's going to be a full service centre as well, Roland.
Oops. It is.
It is. And then I also found out it was posted on Facebook. Michael, I think he's one of the
employees at X-Ping in Port Melbourne. And you can see that there. They will also become
an official service centre too. So when I was speaking to one of the guys at Parramatta,
they were saying you can pretty much choose whether or not you want to go with Altatune
or if you want to go direct. So they're doing warranty work already like at Parramatta. So
it's good news for owners who didn't want to just specifically go with Altatune.
Now's you've got an option to go direct. So I think that's a good win.
Nice. It's good to see a DC charger as well in the car park Roland in Parramatta
if you need it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure where they can charge that full 240 or 250 kilowatts,
but still something's better than nothing. Gotta try it. Gotta try it. Yeah. Bring the G6 over
there. And what a great spot. Hey, it's an auto alley Church Street Parramatta, the home of
cars, I suppose, in Western Sydney. Great location. They've chosen well.
I just, I guess X-Ping, I'm just a bit confused at the moment, right? We all,
it's no secret that HQ's coming in. So it's a bit of a bit of a bit of flux at the moment.
You know, what's, what's the direction for when are the cars coming? And particularly the new G6,
G9, X9, a lot of stuff, a lot of cool stuff coming out of China, but we're just not getting
those dates like the other brands like BID, Zika. Where is any thoughts? Any, any insights
from your end? Well, they've got an FAQ page that they updated a couple of months ago on
the current Australian website. And they were saying that the, I think it was the X9 that
was going to be here in late Q4, maybe Q1 next year. We still haven't seen the G6 performance
that was supposed to be here by June. So maybe they're waiting for the new change over,
but I don't think there's a performance variant in the new model. So I guess time will tell.
I also heard some other markets, maybe Malaysia got the, the new G6. So it's getting, you know,
closer, but yeah, hopefully Q1 next year. Yeah, I got some people I know looking forward to the G9
as well. They just want that bigger SUV. So yeah, hopefully Xperia can get their act together.
Yeah, wouldn't mind seeing the new G6 as well. That's a nice big one.
X9, we need the competition here for the people move the market.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, they talked big when we went to Hong Kong earlier this year for
their brand night. It looked really good, the X9. So hopefully it comes next year.
Otherwise they'll fall behind, right? You got Zika with their 009,
got BYD with Denza coming in. Lots, lots to choose from now that people move a segment.
Even potentially GWM's Wave brand, WEY, they might be bringing I think a plug-in hybrid
sort of people mover, pretty luxurious as well. So yeah, quite a bit of competition
started to emerge in that space now. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, Daros's Indonesia has the X9.
So hopefully we'll get here soon. That's good. That's great. That's another right hand drive
market, I think. Could be wrong. I think they are, and they're assembling them there.
Oh, very good. Oh, here we go. Marius says the M4 services, Ampol, I think, both
East and Westbound now open online. That's great. Five DC fast charges.
Yeah, it's a great spot on the M4 there, around Eastern Creek.
I have to go for a test, maybe in the IM, just test out that speed.
Do we know what that battery is called? I mean, Zika's got the Golden Brick,
but does IM call a special name? Is it a Platinum Brick or...?
Yeah, I'm just trying to think. It's one of those, what is it, Alibaba and
SAIC joint venture. Oh yeah. So I should, yeah, I don't know, maybe Alipak or something.
Need a catchy name, hey? Golden Brick's pretty good.
That sound cool. That sound good. Or is it green, guys? Yellow, gold or green? It's hard to tell,
right? Got a squid. Hey, actually, speaking of Golden Brick, this week, there is the pre-sales of the
updated Zika 7x in China. So that's already sort of started, but, you know,
like most things, that's probably another 12 to 18 months away in international markets. So China
first, as we learned in the Zika trip last year, that there's a lot of things, such as zero gravity
seats and a whole lot of other features, screens that move from one end of the Zika X to the other.
All of that sort of stuff is China only first until they feel comfortable and then it goes
into international markets where they're allowed to have it. So new Golden Brick battery in the Zika
7x, the new variant, more power. And I'm sure they've done a lot of other interior tweaks as well.
But last week when I met, you know, the first 50 odd owners in Sydney, they were all very,
very happy. Very high demand, that particular car at the moment. And, you know, I think
both of you have driven it. I think, you know, Tom, you enjoyed it, some videos and
Roland, you've spent quite a, seems like you spent quite a bit of time with it.
What do you think, Gents? Like, based on what we have in that vehicle, what other improvements
could they possibly make? Like, I think it's pretty good.
Yeah, honestly, I think it's a great package for that price. It's really, I mean,
all drive, that's what I had under 80 grand, seriously, in New South Wales, very hard to beat.
And, you know, that's what it has over the G6. It's got the all drive variant, which the Xperiax
doesn't have, it's missed the boat. So I think Zika have done very well, price it well,
good inclusions. And look, those China first things, I mean, sure, no zero gravity, no
starlight thing at the front, but I think all in all, the way it drives, it's very comfortable,
very planted. I think Roland will agree. Yeah, honestly, for the price, there's nothing else.
If nothing else that you could just easily go, it takes this many boxes.
Yeah. Yeah, agreed. And if you're lucky enough to get to a fast charger, then you can, yeah,
golden brick the battery out of it. It's amazing. It's very fast.
Yeah, here we go. We've got a seven X owner right there loving it. Good, congratulations.
Yeah, end of October EV sales should be good. Riz, I think looking forward to that in a few days time.
Yeah, fingers crossed. I'll try and have something for us next week, just as a preview to see what
it's looking like. I have a suspicion that we're going to get close to 10%. I think we might be
a little bit of a dip compared to what we had in September. It appears that end of every quarter
seems to be some sort of a quarter rush. So we see a bit of a surge. But if the overall vehicle sales
are sort of starting to come down a little bit from their highs, then we might have a pretty
good month. So yeah, let's watch this space. Yeah, we did approach X-Pung for you guys,
me and Roland, when we were there, we asked them, why aren't you reporting to FCAI or UVC?
And they said, watch this space. So we did ask the question.
Hopefully, it'll materialize soon because we did say, look, if you report,
the numbers will definitely be better. So it's for the greater good. So we are pushing them.
It gives more confidence to the brand, right? Because that's the moment it's unknown. And
when people get the unknown answer, it always goes negative side first. They're like, well,
we're not selling. Correct. They had a better month in September. They doubled their previous
averages to just over 200 and something vehicles. So look, it's, you know, it's doing
relatively well given, you know, that the car has been around for nearly 12 months now in the
market. But yeah, I wonder what the, what that would, you know, how that would change if
they did start to report their numbers, because more people will be aware of the vehicle.
That's right. We'll just amplify it on the show. Absolutely. That's what we said.
Here's a good point here. So Nakramanta says, I recently learned that the Zika 7x and the
Brabus Smart Hashtag 5 are the same car. It doesn't surprise me. I mean, you know,
it's a Geely car on the Smart cars as a Zika. So probably share some common parts there.
Richard says, the 7x is the only car who's charging is faster than anything
available on the market. The fastest charger in the country is 400 kilowatts. Very true.
IMS, they're pretty quick too. Are they? Are they 400?
I think they were getting close to 290, 300. Okay. Yeah.
I guess for all intents and purposes, like sure, the numbers are big, but I think in terms of time,
it's probably very similar around the 15 minute mark. Yeah. Same with G6. It's pretty fast as
well. If you get a charger that can work. Has MG sold any cybersuiters? I will ask Richard
that question. I did see one in the wild the other day. I was very, very happy to see it
in my neighborhood. I think they are selling very few, like a couple of months, but I'm not sure
how that demand will continue in the future. It might be one of those cars that just remains a
Halo car. To be fair, the IM interface, it's very similar to the Cybersuit. You've got the
three screens. So it just looks more refined, right? But it's, yeah, same sort of platform.
Chau says he knows of one owner in Tasmania. Good. That's one car. Sergio asks, do you think
the Starlight will be an option for Australia one day? Ooh, ADRs, Jets. Apparently, that's
like insane. But I mean, you know, it's that, I think we touched on it last week that
it's always a balance of how much kit you add onto a car and what that price is going to be
versus what is really important to the buyers at the end of the day is we are price sensitive
to get our foot in the door. And, you know, maybe in some top trims one day, but it's a lot of
compliance work to sort of get it to that stage for such a short sort of number of sales or
small number of sales. Yep. I think you could have done all the basics, right, you know,
ride quality, suspension, comfort, inclusions, infotainment system, ADAS, I think it's all
ticks the boxes for that price. And yeah, they've concentrated on what Australians find important
in a car. So hats off to that team for Zika doing that. Yeah, I agree, John, if Performance
G6 is in and it was supposed to be, as we said earlier, then definitely a competitor for the
Zika 7x all-wheel drive. 100%. Watch this space. I need to bring it in. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Now, speaking of green or gold, this is definitely green, guys. Jolt. Jolt's following EVs footsteps
and introducing auto charge to their hardware. So auto charge just in short is basically
set up in your account, your vehicle, and you can just plug it in like a Tesla supercharger,
it'll start charging because it'll handshake knowing that it's your car, which is
pretty handy. I think when I first talked about this in EV, there was some security concerns around
auto charge. I think there's a competitor to auto charge, but all in all, I think it's a
good step forward, makes it easier to use a DC fast charger in Australia. So hats off to you,
Jolt, for doing this. Does Jolt still have the free seven kilowatt hour a day charger? I think
they do. Finish what they do. Yeah, good. That's only a third of the Seagull, I don't
want battery guys. Yeah, that's all you need, right? Yeah, thanks to how they still do. Good.
Oh, here we go. Jolt's only for the paid tier, right? Not for the free tier. Okay, look.
All right. Free is free, right? So cool. Oh, James used it yesterday. Cool. Nice. Thanks for
verifying that. That's why I love this show. Just ask a question, it gets answered. It's fantastic.
Now, the king of ADR speaking of Roland. Let's walk through this. Dong, what a great name. Do
you want to sound this? I was going to say, I'm waiting for you to say the name. Oh, man.
I'll get in trouble. Okay. Okay. So first of all, Dong Feng. All right. I think it's
lost in translation. It's a funny name, but isn't Dong Feng, it means Oriental, right, Roland?
In Chinese? We have to ask someone in the chat here. I don't know. I'm going to look this up.
Dong means east in Mandarin. I know that. So I think it is. I'll be watching a few
C-Dramas here. I think it means Oriental. No? East wind. East wind is what it means.
Right. It's east something. All right. Good. Sort of that out. So Dong Feng,
genially forthing Joyer T5 EV. Wow. What a mouthful. Jeez. Who thought that up?
It's coming though, isn't it? It's coming. It's approved. And I mean Dong Feng supposedly
according to Google, found in 1969. So it is an established company. It's not just a new one
that's popped up, say, in the past 12 or so months. So yeah, it does say there is 1,500 kilograms
maximum towing mass brake trailer. Front wheel drive from memory about 160 kilowatts.
Yeah, 150. Yeah, seems to be the average thing coming out. Like if we've got base entry-level
cars coming out from China, things like they're all around 150 kilowatts if they are roughly
that size vehicle around 4.6. Yep. Yeah. Dong is good. As Tony said, just call it the Dong.
I love it. Yeah, that's right. What a Dong.
I do like the M-Hero. I think Riz, we saw that in China. Looks pretty cool, that military style.
Very tough. Yeah. Now, based on what I understand, Dong Feng has got a couple of partnerships in
China, including one with Nissan. So they build, you know, youths and other things for, and I
also believe they build quite a bit of military equipment. So I think that, you know,
from an automotive point of view, they are pretty big. And they're already in Europe.
They sell a vehicle called Nami Box, which is like a seagull or like another one.
And they're also selling the Nami Box in New Zealand. So yeah, quite a lot of,
like, well-known brand in China. They seem to be, they seem to know how to make cars.
And if they are coming to Australia and New Zealand, it means that they are looking at the
right-hand drive markets pretty seriously, this could be one of many models to come.
Yep. Another brand. That's right. Another SUV to start with. Yeah. Someone said,
look, it's a competitive, the SS7. Yeah. Okay. Right. Hope for the same sort of price
as well, sub 50. And Darryl says the fourth thing. I keep reading this as frothing. The fourth thing
is a sub brand. Okay. Right. Darryl. Very good. And they've got a youth as well, according to Michael.
Okay. That'd be good. Yeah. Definitely have a sense of humor. I don't know if it's a sense of
humor or they're just aware of... Could be just a conversion of a name,
lost in the organization, but... I mean, East wind sounds pretty hardcore, right?
Imagine driving a car that's East wind. That's a bit, I don't know, palatable than Dongfeng.
I feel like if it was East wind, like it's got to be a Lotus, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lotus is a quite nice name as well actually. So Dongfeng and the Yang Wang, if you have a drag
race between those cars, I think the Yang Wang Extreme will win, but the Dongfeng
frothing may be more comfortable. Yeah. I'd be frothing at the U9, definitely.
A U9 to be dancing on three wheels. Yeah. Well, okay. That's the Dongfeng. We'll
keep an eye on that. Jumping to the other side of the world, Cadillac, Vistik, ADR approved,
six seater? Six seater, two variants, no towing. So if anyone was interested,
you're going to carry six people, but you can't carry anything else.
And it is heavy, nearly 2,900 kilograms. That's a heavy boy. That's a tank. Yeah.
Yeah, look, I confess, I quite like the Cadillac Lyric. We had that for the week. That's
quite a luxury kind of vehicle. Look, it's expensive, but it's different, right? It's not
Chinese. It's not the Tesla. It's not Japanese. It's different. So I'm sure there's a market for
it. And rolling with the new Sydney airport, you never know. This could be good for airport
shuttles for the hour journey out west. Yeah. In black, for sure, it'll look quite
sleek, quite nice. Speaking of which though, I have seen one Lyric on the road. I saw
my first one earlier this week. In the world? In the world. So I don't know how many numbers
they're selling, but I've seen at least one. Yeah, I'll have a look at that. But I guess,
Jens, this or the Zika 009? Hands down, 009. I don't know. Sorry. Yeah.
America versus China. Tough call. And then they're selling, I'm actually pretty impressed
with how many 009 Zika is actually selling. Every month, it's generally between five and 10,
which is a lot for that car, for that type of vehicle. We're talking of people who were
talking 150,000. Yeah, 150,000 plus. It's a lot of coin.
So and the 009 just looks so different on the road. Black, you know, with that silver
grill at the front, maybe the grand edition, which I've done this live stream from the
back off in Chatswood once upon a time. So yeah, look, there may be some people
that have an affinity with the Cadillac brand. But, you know, everyone that I've met that
knows the Cadillac brand from back in the day is not willing to fork out anything more than
60 grand for a car. So, you know, time will tell. Yeah. I was speaking of Chatswood,
I mean, around the North Shore, there's a few 009s running around. I see them a lot. So,
yeah, doing school runs. It's a pretty cool car. I wouldn't mind being picked up in that,
which we did actually with Zika when I first went there back late last year. So,
nice to be picked up in that from Shanghai. Great car.
Yeah. Well, anyway, there's an alternative in the Cadillac Vistic.
Hopefully another launch, Roland. We'll see you there.
Yeah. I do think that they will probably price against similar to the 009,
because if we think the Lyric was about 120, right? Yeah. And that's this being an even
bigger SUV. It's got to be more than that. No brainer. Now, get this, kind of like flew
people to the States before they were going to launch the Lyric. So, I don't know how
many people will be willing to fly to the States now, if they were to do another launch.
With this sort of car, it's basically like an Escalade, where you do need to be going through
some rougher parts of Compton and other areas to really feel how protective and big you actually
feel. So, if anyone's interested, we're always keen to head over to the States to find out.
But, you know, I'm quite happy in the Turac East at the moment.
Well, if you get past the US customs, and yeah, I'm sure be happy to see what Cadillac have
got to offer. Anyway, that's Cadillac. And just staying with the American theme,
Costco. Costco are continuing their Leap Motor discounts, ending in nine days, guys.
If you want a Leap Motor C10, $2,500 off Costco. Costco membership is about $70,
that's a pretty good deal. Huge discount. There was a poll star had some an incentive
with Costco at one state, and they do other automotive brands as well, brands as well. But
good to see Costco is being part of the EV journey. I think it's Costco people go there for the
bargains and the bulk buying. And if you can get an EV that is a bit of a bargain and cheap
enough to run, that's basically, I would call it a affordable man's Porsche.
You know, you pick up a hot dog, you know, pick up some bag of oranges,
pick up a coffin and then a car. Yeah, why not? I love Costco, honestly. Love Costco. Except
when you buy stuff from Costco, you come home and it's like, hey, it wasn't this big in the
store. What happened? That's good. Costco's good. Yeah, Darryl says if they do a similar
deal with the B10, they could fly at the door 100% before it's in the flying car. That's that's
X-Pak. That's different. Yeah, Costco needs to provide EV charging stations. Agreed? 100%.
So what do you just roll up and buy at Costco? Yeah, you probably could drive through.
It is American. Yep. Yep, only petrol stations, no EVs. Very interesting.
Oh, selling gold bars. I think, yeah, gold's very popular at the moment, the way the world is.
Selling gold bars in the US. Interesting. You buy and bulk to save money. Yeah, why not just
why not buy two while you're at it? Buy one for me. Yep, thanks, Jason. And just to end
off, guys, the New South Wales, we're seeing the first EV bus depot powered up in Sydney.
That's great. Very good. Towards a cleaner, greener future.
I like seeing that gantry there with the charging above. Very, very good. How big are those batteries
on one of those electric buses? How many kilowatt hours? I think there are 300 to 400 kilowatt
hours. I was going to say 15 to a couple of hundred. Sure. Yeah, you have to, a lot of
these buses don't do more than 150 kilometers a day. 200 kilometers a day. I mean, depending
on the road, you know, sort of the routes they go on, even Uber drivers, most of them don't drive
more than 250 kilometers a day. So there's enough range for all of them. So yeah, it's
quite, quite cool to see. I mean, electric buses in China are like at different level,
like there's multi-storey bus storage sheds with like charging, fast charging on all levels.
And just, yeah, electric buses, Shanghai, Shanghai, Guangzhou, just everywhere.
But I'm glad that we're starting to go on the journey. And I really feel New South Wales is
leading the charge on electric buses compared to Victoria is a little bit slow. And I think
other parts of Australia are doing pretty well as well on this transition. So congrats to the
New South Wales team. It's so nice when an electric bus passes you or when you're walking
on the street. It's just so quiet. You don't hear the diesel, rattle. It's just great. And
I've seen a few electric school buses too, which is even better. So, you know, looking
up to the kids health. They're so quiet. They're so beautiful. And just having them
around, I think we need more electric buses. So if you have any interactions with your local
transport authority, let them know we need more electric buses that are a lot better than diesel
on the road. Makes sense to me. Makes sense to me. Alrighty, cool. Gents, that's all we have time
for tonight, right on the our mark. So good to see you both. Thanks for joining us once
again, Ruiz and Roland. What's up this week, Ruiz?
So tomorrow morning is Tesla's Q3 earnings call, which of course I'm eagerly waiting to get up
at 730 to listen to because there's always some interesting bits that get dropped.
So looking, you know, that's that's one thing that's happening. Apart from that,
obviously next, so not this coming weekend, the following weekend is a Sydney EV show. So a lot
of prep around around that. They're even going to have I think a new car reveal sort of stand as
well. So worth checking that out. And yeah, just preparing for the show. And next week,
there's also all energy for anyone that is in Melbourne and is interested in battery and
sort of tech space. So all energy happening in Melbourne, I think it's Southern Hemisphere's largest
renewable energy show. And they have an EV area as well this time around. So that's sort of what's
going on. Fantastic, Ruiz. Busiest man in the space. So good. Glad you got the spectre to
drive you around and bonza lounge. That's it. Roland, what are we driving? Nothing at the
moment. I just handed back the new Genesis G80 Electrified yesterday. Yeah, big sedan. Didn't
show for anyone except kids. So it was a huge car though. Can I just say before we wrap up,
four wheel steering, for a car that was 5. something meters, that was a good turning circle.
Yeah, that's when the wheels turn the other way, right? Yeah, turns the other way at low speed and
at high speeds. So the IM that you've got, that will do it too. There's a couple of cars, usually
high-end cars, they've got it. Amazing turning circle. Yeah, it's a strange feeling, right?
It feels like you're drifting across when it turns the other way. Yeah, that's cool.
Very good. Well, thank you, Roland. Thank you, Ruiz. And thank you to our audience as
well. Great of you to join us. We'll be back hopefully next week. I'll let you guys know.
Before then, but otherwise, what's happening? Trying to add this. Here we go. That's what I
want to see. All right, so thank you, Roland. Thank you, Ruiz. Thank you guys and girls in
the live chat. Have a great week and weekend and we shall see you next time on Ludacris Feedlife.
Until then, take care. Happy charging. See you around.
About this episode
Dive into the latest Australian EV news with lively discussions on Tesla's Full Self-Driving subscription, BYD's new Atto models, and updates from Zeekr, Xpeng, and Dongfeng. The hosts unpack media narratives around Tesla FSD, explore BYD's pricing and tech specs, and address local EV infrastructure developments like new superchargers and electric bus depots. They also highlight upcoming EV shows in Sydney and Melbourne, share insights on Chinese EV brands entering the market, and touch on EV fire statistics and consumer perceptions. The episode blends detailed tech talk with community updates and industry trends.