The Ford Capri is a small, sporty car that was popular in Europe a long time ago because it looked cool and was fun to drive. The podcast might be talking about a new version of this car that Ford is making now to bring back the old style with new features.
The Ford Explorer is a type of big car that can carry lots of people and stuff, like for family trips or outdoor adventures. It's been around for a long time and is known for being useful and strong. They might be talking about it because a new version was made or because it hasn't sold as well as expected.
Plug-in hybrids are cars that use both electricity and gas. You can charge them by plugging them in, and they can drive some distance using only electricity before using gas.
Spy pictures are secret photos taken of new cars that haven't been shown to the public yet. People use them to see what the car might look like before it's officially announced.
Huawei is a big technology company from China that makes phones and other gadgets. They have started working with car companies to help make smarter cars.
A BEV powertrain means the car runs only on electricity from batteries, not on petrol or diesel. It uses electric motors to move the car instead of a traditional engine.
Battery swapping means taking out your car's empty battery and putting in a full one really fast at special places, so you don't have to wait long to keep driving.
Energy density tells us how much power a battery can hold compared to how heavy it is. A battery with higher energy density can make an electric car go farther without making it heavier.
Lithium-ion batteries are the kind of batteries used in most electric cars. They can store a lot of power and last a long time, helping cars run without gas.
EV batteries are the big batteries that give electric cars their power. How good these batteries are affects how far and how well the cars can drive.
LIVE
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And Great Will Motors chair talks quality.
Plus stay tuned, later in the show I'll tell you how Gang Feng Lithium,
a battery supplier to Chang'an and Hyundai,
has entered mass production of hybrid solid liquid batteries.
Welcome to EV News China, the podcast dedicated to the world's largest EV market.
Every day I bring you headlines, insights, and analysis
from the heart of China's booming EV industry
and decode how fast moving developments in the East shape the global landscape.
Let's start with BMW's Chief Executive Oliver Zipsa,
warning that Europe risks future growth if it ignores China
and the world's largest EV market.
He made the case for engagement ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Mertz's
first state visit to Beijing.
Zipsa will join a business delegation travelling with Mertz to China next week.
The group also includes CEOs of Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.
Mertz said he will seek strategic partnerships during the China visit.
Zipsa called the trip a strong signal for dialogue and cooperation
and told Reuters that global challenges can only be solved by working together.
The timing matters, the US President Donald Trump has ignited a global trade war,
which has given European governments new and fresh cause to reinforce,
stronger ties with China.
The world's second largest economy for now.
The trip follows British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's visit to China last month,
part of a wider European effort to deepen trade links with Beijing.
Berlin still tries to hedge its bets though.
It considers China a key trade partner, but resists over-dependence.
The new coalition government in Germany is expected to keep the guarded approach
used by its predecessor.
German car makers have their own reasons to keep talking though.
BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz have seen their China sales decline.
China drove profits for years until state subsidized EV manufacturing
sparked an intense price war and local brands gained the initiative and innovation.
Legacy Western car makers have fallen behind in competitive EV motors,
software and autonomous driving.
Money points one way when the politics points another.
German companies invested in the most capital they had done into China in four years in 2025.
That suggests corporate Germany plans to deepen its China commitment as politicians urge restraint.
Next up, an interesting story about Geely, China's third largest car manufacturer.
And they may build vehicles in the United Kingdom to avoid heavy tariffs on imports from China.
The company wants UK sales of 100,000 vehicles a year by 2030
and plans at least seven new models in the next two years.
Geely's UK head of sales framed local building as a test of scale.
It makes sense for us, said Harry Baithe.
If the brand grows to a point where it makes financial sense, we will do it.
Mike Yang, Geely's UK managing director, pushed the case beyond a simple unit cost.
He said customer experience and satisfaction matter more than just cheap manufacturing.
Reuters reported that Ford and Geely are talking about using Ford's spare capacity in their European factory,
with technology sharing perhaps on the table as well.
Ford's plant in Cologne, overhauled recently for $2 billion, builds the new Capri,
an explorer but they've not been big sellers.
It can make 250,000 vehicles a year but is running well under that.
Ford has placed its incoming Fiesta replacement, instead with Renault.
And their complex in France, a reminder that spare capacity can be traded just like any other asset really.
Geely does not have the field to itself.
Cherry, the parent company of J.Coup and Amoda doing good business in the UK,
confirming their plans for a European headquarters in Liverpool.
And reportedly is in talks to build cars at JLR, Jaguar Land Rover facilities in the UK.
Now, Great Wall Motors chair has been chiding China on quality and price wars.
The Great Wall Motor Chairman, Wei Jianjun, told staff at the company's early February annual meeting,
the Chinese car makers, including themselves, still sit a very large gap behind the best in the world.
That says a lot about their ambitions, if nothing else.
Mr. Wei pointed to Germany, Japan, South Korea and the United States as all holding
the edge in manufacturing experience and technical depth.
He told Chinese firms to keep learning from other regions to use internal evaluation
and find weak spots.
He held up Toyota as a model for quality.
Mr. Wei said Toyota keeps customer trust despite frequent recalls because it faces faults head-on
and explains things like recalls clearly.
Mr. Wei then turned to the home market.
He won China's price war, posed a slow burn risk.
Interesting.
Deep cuts that lack sustainable options, operations rather.
And solid product quality could corrode the industry's foundations.
He also cautioned that leaning on low prices as the main weapon for exports, cap the long-run growth.
This warning lands as GWM Great Wall Motor posts both scale and momentum.
The company reported revenue last year of US$30.7 billion equivalent and a net profit of US$1.37 billion.
It sold 1.32 million vehicles globally, including 403,700 new energy vehicles,
about a third of their business.
GWM Great Wall Motor have been urged and the wider industry being urged to focus on product quality,
technology development and long-term competitiveness as Chinese car makers ramp up production and export through 2026.
Let's talk a little bit about MG, one of the shining lights of China's export industry.
The SAIC owned company does exceptionally well in Great Britain and in mainland Europe as well.
MG, formerly a British brand and you know I would say with a dealership on every corner,
but certainly with a very high visibility, with a logo they haven't changed since it was British owned
and in the minds of many British is still a British brand.
MG's been teasing a new battery electric sedan, saloon as we would say, to replace the fastback-styled MG7.
The teaser landed on the 29th of January last month.
MG called it an expansion of its new energy vehicle lineup, but then stopped sharing any more details.
No technical announcements were made and then earlier today on the 20th of February
An unidentified prototype was seen, pictured, in an underground car park in China.
The Weibo account called Sugar Design, with those that posted the photos.
Well, this car that's in the photos matched the teaser from two, three weeks ago.
Wide sculpted rear wings, a very heavily sloped bonnet line.
Think Kia EV6, very thin headlamps and a fastback shape.
The front end adds some details worth watching.
There's a rectangular air intake below a thin slot.
In China that queue links to plug-in hybrids and range extenders that need more air being
sucked in than pure bevs that just need a bit of air for cooling.
That raises the prospect of a plug-in hybrid variant or an E-rev variant alongside a BEV.
Earlier reports out of China said this would be EV only.
Other visible details include five spoke wheels, semi-hidden door handles, and a very obvious
roof-mounted lidar at the top of the car in the middle, usual place for lidar,
and a very large tailgate as well.
The rear appears to carry an active spoiler.
It has the obligatory single full-width light bar.
Inside, seating for five, the spy pictures have a light-colored cream interior.
That looks really nice inside the vehicle as well.
And so the front seats look very sporty with integrated headrests and shoulder bolsters.
No powertrain specs of course because this is just spy pictures that I can share.
The platform we think would be very similar to SAIC's Z7 or the Shang-G Z7, the sedan
coupé that was jointly developed alongside SAIC and Huawei.
The Beijing auto show in late April 2026.
I think we'll see more details.
All the timing works out for an official reveal of this.
So there is an MG7 now in petrol form and it's 4.8 meters long, 1.9 meters wide,
1.44 meters tall, so it's low.
It's a low sedan saloon car and it sells in China from 17,000 US dollars equivalent,
albeit with a petrol engine.
The successor may well drop its petrol transmission and engine or it may keep a charging port
and a fuel cap.
The story gets more complicated, but otherwise a very good-looking
low-slang saloon sedan, not the biggest selling segment at the moment,
but certainly a segment that many people would want to move into, not only in China,
but outside of China as well.
The camouflage covering up any other significant details that I can bring in.
Standard door mirrors, not cameras, that kind of thing.
So everything pointing towards this being an affordable MG,
either as electric or as a pure Bev powertrain, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Right, another day, another Neo record in battery swapping and Zika starting in Italy.
Stick around, back in a moment.
Shocked at how much money you've saved.
Bonus challenge.
Upload an internet or phone bill and let Rocket Money try to lower it.
You only pay if they find you savings.
On average, Rocket Money members can save up to $740 a year when using all of the app's
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Users love the app with over 186,000 five-star ratings.
Make saving money the resolution you actually keep.
Start the 60-second savings challenge at rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
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In a week, you'll forget you set it up.
In a month, you'll see real dollars piling up.
In a year, you'll be shocked at how much money you've saved.
Bonus challenge, upload an internet or phone bill
and let rocket money try to lower it.
You only pay if they find you savings.
On average, rocket money members can save up to $740 a year
when using all the app's premium features.
Users love the app with over 186,000 five-star ratings.
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Start the 60 second savings challenge at rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
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All right, welcome back to EV News, China.
Another day of the spring holiday and another record from Neo,
a new battery-swapping record.
In case you're thinking, hang on, he did this story yesterday.
He's getting a bit forgetful in his old age.
Yeah, so yesterday was 158,000 battery swaps in a day.
The most ever, a new record for Neo.
Well, just one day later, 166,000 battery swaps.
A new single-day record.
This surge coming in China's spring festival travel peak.
Neo logged three single-day swap records within five days.
And the traffic funneled through expressway sites.
As I mentioned yesterday, the busiest single station this time
was at the Xiaoxi service area.
That's on the Ningbo and Dongguang expressway,
the G1523.
That did 173 swaps in the entire day.
And that still sits below its theoretical peak throughput.
But it still gets pretty close.
Neo's got 3,750 swap stations in China.
And over 1,000 on the expressways, 550 in cities.
The network now doubles as a public scoreboard
for how well they're executing.
The CEO, William Lee, telling staff,
Neo targets full-year profitability in 2026
after its first quarterly profit in Q4 2025.
Now, Zika will start Italian deliveries this spring.
The Chinese EV brand owned by Geely expanding into Italy
as part of its Euro push.
Delivery start in the spring.
A four-model lineup.
Working with a partner called Jamil Motors.
Pricing starts at 38,000 euros.
That's 39,900 US dollars.
The acting CEO of Zika Europe calling Italy a key market
and pointing to a rising demand for premium EVs.
Building on success already in Sweden,
Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Zika also entered Germany in December 2024.
Italy now joins up the map.
The hard part starts once the cars arrive
and they have to sell them.
But they're learning more about how to sell to Europeans.
And finally, Gangfang Lithium,
a battery supplier to Chang'an and Hyundai,
has entered mass production of what they call
hybrid solid liquid battery.
I'm not surprised that at a nationwide level,
Beijing is cracking down on exactly what we call
solid state batteries.
And this summer we'll get some more regulations in place
in terms of exact definitions.
But for now, they call it a hybrid solid liquid battery.
So let's look at the specs
because that's what matters more than it's called.
An energy density of up to 650 watt-hours per kilogram.
That's exceptional.
Today's best lithium-ion batteries, the best,
are in the window of 250 to 300.
This doubles what's on the road right now.
The company was only founded in China in the year 2000
and in a short amount of time,
they went from a lithium salt and battery manufacturer
to supplying batteries for EVs in 2017.
Oh, I started working with Chang'an in 2023,
then in 2024, did a deal with Hyundai.
For now, the hybrid solid liquid technology
serves non-automotive applications.
The jump in energy density comes from what they say
is high performance, positive and negative electrode materials,
and a design that uses lithium metal anodes.
Lithium metal brings low electrochemical potential
and high theoretical capacity.
But dendrite growth has long blocked commercialization
of this technology.
They're sort of needle-like, I mean microscopic needle-like,
lithium structures, and as they grow,
they can grow to pierce the separator.
That would trigger a short circuit
and obviously degrade the cell.
Ganfeng says it suppresses dendrite growth
and improves electrochemical stability
by using a multi-element lithium alloy
rather than pure lithium metal.
The alloy architecture delivers a critical current density
and they say that those figures support 3C fast charging.
So not the fastest charging battery in the world,
but for many 3C is fine for automotive,
for stationary energy, absolutely fine.
But it's that energy density
of how much they've packed into that space,
that weight 650 watt hours per kilogram
that's deeply impressive.
What about safety?
Yeah, if you're wondering that,
it's a really big topic in China.
On safety, it pairs what it calls
zero-strain lithium alloy anodes
with a sulfur cathode that expands
during charging and discharging
by between three and five percent.
The cell has passed all of its
nail penetration tests
and heating up to 250 degrees Celsius
with no thermal runaway events.
This is what they call a platform,
a stepping stone, if you like,
towards the next generation of battery technology.
It already uses solid liquid approaches
to develop all solid state batteries
with lithium alloy anodes
and that's the sample production stage on that.
And that's your podcast for today.
Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
Link your accounts and see every subscription
you're paying for.
Tap one you don't use and cancel it.
That's money back every month.
Step three, create a financial goal.
$50 every paycheck or let the app
automatically move small amounts of cash
when you can afford it.
In a week, you'll forget you set it up.
In a month, you'll see real dollars piling up.
In a year, you'll be shocked
at how much money you've saved.
Bonus challenge, upload an internet or phone bill
and let rocket money try to lower it.
You only pay if they find you savings.
On average, rocket money members
can save up to $740 a year
when using all the app's premium features.
Users love the app with over 186,000 five-star ratings.
Make saving money the resolution you actually keep.
Start the 60-second savings challenge
at rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
That's rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
Rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
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About this episode
BMW's CEO stresses the importance of engaging with China to sustain Europe's automotive growth amid global trade tensions. Geely considers UK production to bypass tariffs, exploring partnerships with Ford and Jaguar Land Rover. Great Wall Motors' chairman highlights quality gaps in Chinese car manufacturing, urging focus on long-term competitiveness over price wars. MG teases a new electric sedan, signaling expansion in China's EV lineup with potential plug-in hybrid variants. The episode also touches on battery innovations and market strategies shaping China's EV industry and its global impact.
