CHINA: BMW iX1, BYD Yangwang 1000km Range and China Denies Tesla FSD | 26 Jan 2026

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Welcome back to EV News China.

Today, the BMW iX1, BYD's Yang Wang that goes 1,000 kilometers,

and China denies Tesla FSD.

Plus, stay tuned.

Later in the show, I'll tell you why CATL

is already putting sodium ion batteries to the tests.

Welcome to EV News China,

the podcast dedicated to the world's largest electric vehicle market.

Each day, I bring you the latest headlines, insights and analysis

from the heart of China's booming EV industry,

and decode how fast moving developments in the east

are shaping the global EV landscape.

The BMW has launched the 2026 iX1 in China,

pushing its smallest electric SUV further into the country's crowded premium segment.

Unveiled on January 21st,

the all-electric compact SUV comes in four trims

and starts at 228,000 RMB.

The car targets buyers weighing up the Audi Q4 e-tron

or the Mercedes-Benz EQ-A,

as foreign brands try to hold ground

against the fast-moving local EV makers.

BMW keeps its familiar look,

a large closed-off kidney grille

with diamond pattern accents

and some chrome trim as well,

smooth sides, semi-retractable door handles

and L-shaped tail lights.

The compact SUV is 4.6 metres long

with a 2.8-metre long wheelbase.

Now inside, the iX1 gets a big tech boost,

dual-screen layout, a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster

and a 10.7-inch central display,

both running BMW iDrive 9.

Standard kit now includes 5G,

some driver assist tools like parking sensors,

reversing camera and lane keep,

but they'll need to do a lot more

to appeal to the high-tech buyers,

maybe the younger buyers that are going

for Chinese domestic brands

because they're coming with a lot more

than reversing cameras and lane keep.

So the iDrive 25L uses a front-mounted single motor,

it's 150 kilowatts

and does 510 kilometres on CLTC range at least.

The iXDrive 30L adds a second motor,

all-wheel drive, that's the iXDrive thing,

it's 230 kilowatts and CLTC of 450,

so taking a bit of a range hit on that.

Both have a 66.5 kilowatt-hour battery

and BMW dealerships in China,

even though the car has already only been on sale

a short time, offering significant discounts

of maybe up to US$8,000 equivalent

to try and get people interested in this.

BMW will have thought long and hard

about how to market the car,

but I'm not sure that the specs are quite there

to tempt people away from domestic brands.

We'll wait and see.

BYD got a few stories going on today.

Right, first of all, let me kick off with this one.

As previously reported last year,

BYD sold about 4.6 million EVs,

plug-ins and full-bevs,

up almost 8% year-on-year.

And for the first time beat Tesla in pure-bev sales,

about 2.25 million bevs.

For BYD, 1.6 million bevs for Tesla.

The shift matters because BYD now leans harder

on foreign markets.

The firm exported over a million EVs last year,

a year-on-year jump of 150%.

Management setting a formal target

of 1.3 million this year.

City groups say executives talk privately

of over 1.5 million units next year.

Passenger cars and pickups are the core.

One model stands out, the Shark,

because you can't buy it at home in China.

They sell the Shark in Mexico and Brazil.

It's gone down really well in Australia.

It's the only BYD vehicle sold overseas

that they don't sell at home.

Showing how the firm is now thinking

about how it designs and times,

launches and markets vehicles

outside Chinese borders.

For now, the company expands globally

with its overseas sales split roughly two-thirds

to Europe and North America,

then a third back in Asia.

The growth has been brisk.

BYD's EV sales climbed from 190,000

six years ago during lockdown in 2020

to 4.6 million now.

Let's stay with BYD, the Chinese luxury saloon.

BYD Yang Wang U7 now claims a four-digit range.

Obviously, it's China.

We're talking kilometres here,

but it's still very impressive, by the way.

BYD's Yang Wang U7 has been updated for 2026

with a 150 kilowatt hour LFP pack

and a quoted range of over 1,000.

It's 1,006, to be exact, kilometres on CLTC.

Okay, that's 625 miles on the China cycle.

Homologation data from the Ministry of Industry

and Information Technology

put the energy use at 17.7 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers.

If you think about efficiency, how I do,

just I ended up getting used to this,

it's 3.52 miles per kilowatt hour.

That's not Tesla efficiency, but it's good

and obviously has a very big battery.

The previous U7 had 135 kilowatt hour pack

and would do 720 kilometers.

BYD added 15 kilowatt hours, 100 kilograms,

and yet 286 kilometers of range

by making it more efficient

in a segment where larger batteries

can just bring, you know, blunt gains.

It's a hammer.

It's just a big battery.

The U7's actually getting better in terms of engineering.

Standard four-motor trim of the updated U7

is what delivers that 1,000 kilometers.

A more potent variant lifts output

from 960 kilowatts to 1,000 kilowatts.

That's 1,341 horsepower, but the range takes a hit.

Both have supercar pace, 0-62 in 2.9 seconds.

Rear wheel steering, hydraulic suspension,

electronic vertical body control.

Launched last March, they've sold so far almost 2,000 units.

Gotta remember, this is a $90,000 vehicle in China.

It's about 630,000 yuan.

It's a big one as well.

5.26 meters long, 2 meters wide,

and a 3.16-meter wheelbase.

It's a big executive car, very premium.

Alongside it also sits a plug-in hybrid version

with a 52 kilowatt-hour battery pack.

And finally, our last BYD story today.

BYD has begun road tests of its Tang 9.

It's D-segment SUV, launching in the first half of the year.

Sitting at the top of the Tang line,

pushing the brand further into its luxury segment.

Based on the Dynasty D full-size SUV concept,

the Tang 9 will be over 5 meters long, over 2 meters wide,

in both PureBev and plug-in hybrid versions.

So there's other big vehicles like this in SUV shape,

like the Ito M9, Zika 9X.

And targeting buyers, maybe 30,000 to 40,000 US dollars equivalent.

Spy shots show lidar on the roof.

The side profile with hidden door handles.

Might as well rethink about those for next year.

And multi-spoke wheels.

Plenty of chrome on this 2 plus 2 plus 2 layout for six seats.

Branding, though, is up for grabs.

BYD is opening a public voting on the final name.

Either Tang 9 or Great Tang are some of the options.

That would be a cool name for an SUV,

or part of their Dynasty series,

which has sold 1.885 million units across its various models.

The Tang 9 would extend BYD's push

at the upper end of China's mass market,

using volume in that 30,000 to 40,000 US dollar equivalent price band

that the foreign brands once treated as their own.

China has swatted down the chief executive of Tesla.

Elon Musk went on record at the World Economic Forum recently

and said that Tesla's full self-driving

could win Chinese approval next month in February.

A Chinese government source was quick to bat that away.

And say no, it won't.

The unnamed official, cited by state media China Daily,

undercut Mr Musk's timeline and said China will not clear FSD

any time in the near future,

stating that recent claims of an imminent approval for FSD

are wholly inaccurate.

The remarks clash with the upbeat view

that Tesla's chief executive often repeats.

The gap matters because China is Tesla's most important market

outside of America.

And the world's most competitive arena for ADAS.

Local rivals are pushing rapid over the air upgrades

and ever higher spec.

Autonomy, formal approval of FSD,

would give Tesla a very high margin product

in a market where price competition on the actual hardware

is intense.

Tesla's penciled in FSD for rolling out in China

in the first quarter of last year, 2025.

Yeah, I'm just checking my calendar.

It says 2026.

Progress is lagged.

Key obstacles include geographic data collection

and strict data security.

Under China's laws, Tesla must rely on only authorized Chinese firms

to provide mapping.

Musk has floated direct access to non-sensitive video data

from China that would help him train FSD.

Regulators, though, are in no rush.

The government source offered no detail on the status

or timing of the review,

which leaves Tesla selling a limited autopilot package

in China.

Unlike in America where they've been off autopilot

and taken away lane centering,

unless you pay $100 a month, $1,200 a year,

to subscribe to it as part of the FSD package,

in China there is still basic autopilot.

That is free with every vehicle sold in China.

Lane centering, acceleration and deceleration,

adaptive cruise stopping and starting.

You can pay for an enhanced autopilot

for around $4,000 equivalent for a one-time purchase

with automatic lane changing, auto parking, smart summon.

And of course there's FSD if you want to,

give them $8,800 equivalent one-time purchase

for features that you can't yet use.

Let's talk about China's value in Malaysia

and Volvo's EX60 next on the podcast.

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All right, welcome back to the show.

SAIC GM Wuling, the joint venture,

has started production of its Wuling Bingo EV in Malaysia,

the Tang Chong plants,

with the first car rolling out on January 20th.

It is the firm's first model to be assembled locally

and a concrete step in its integration push

into Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand.

The move matters for two reasons.

I think it shows a Chinese value brand

willing to commit money and technology to Malaysia,

not just ship in cars.

And it shows how Chinese makers now design

electric models and supply chains

for emerging markets from the start,

rather than retrofitting products years later.

SGMW is pairing its global EV know-how

with manufacturing locally

to meet international quality standards

and tuning the cars for local tastes as well

with the local supply chain for vehicles

and core components.

Malaysia's EV market is growing fast, actually.

Don't talk about it much,

but pure electric sales rose over 200% year on year.

And 25% of consumers now say

that they would consider all electric

as their next purchase.

Volvo, a next in the news,

they will start selling their new EX60,

the SUV in Europe this year.

Chinese buyers will have to wait.

The firm has no timetable

for production or sales in China,

even as it targets the luxury family segment,

the EX60 matters in China,

because it shows Volvo planning to compete

in a field that Chinese brands

are dominating on price range and software.

It's built on Volvo's new own platform,

SPA3.

It's made in Sweden.

The mid-size SUV will mix very long range,

503 miles WLTP,

very high computing power.

And Volvo says it's the lowest carbon footprint

of any EV it's ever made.

The car comes in three powertrains,

P6's rear-wheel drive, P10 and P12 all-wheel drive.

Under CLTC, that would be 810 kilometers

for the rear-wheel drive version.

On a 400 kilowatt DC fast charger,

it would add 340 kilometers in just 10 minutes.

Under the skin is their new central computing system,

really impressive cell to chassis design,

which many Chinese are nailing now,

and which many European legacy car makers

can't get their head around cell to chassis.

Obviously, they're trying extremely hard with their suppliers.

There's proprietary motors and giga-casting,

all lifting the structural efficiency

and energy mesh and management.

Safety hardware is very important

with a reinforced cage body

and adaptive front seat belts

to actually pay attention to who

and what kind of body type is sitting in a chair,

tied to a central platform.

Over-the-air updates,

of course, will be part of the improvement.

Cabin tech leans on Google's Gemini AI

for natural voice control

and Android automotive as the operating system

with next-generation Qualcomm and Nvidia chips.

Pre-orders have begun in Europe already,

with American orders due in late spring,

but China, TBC.

And finally, China's biggest battery maker

has put Sodium on the road.

On January 22nd,

CATL launched its Tiangxing 2 battery

for light commercial vehicles,

including what it calls the first mass-produced Sodium iron pack.

It's a 45 kilowatt-hour unit

with an energy density of just 175 watt-hours per kilogram.

They say 10,000 cycles in its life.

The move matters less for novelty,

but more about what it means for cost and supply.

Sodium, way more abundant and cheaper to extract

than lithium if it works at scale

in small and micro vans and light trucks to begin with.

It could trim battery costs

and improve the economics of workhorse fleets.

CATL has built the Sodium pack

to comply with the new national standards,

technically GB38031-2025,

in case you're wondering,

to tackle a known pain point.

Winter range and winter charging.

Remember when I first got my very first EV,

it was Renault Zoe,

and then we got a cold spell months later.

And boy did the range drop.

That was my first experience.

Doesn't seem to affect more modern EVs

as battery technologies change,

but they say the Sodium iron packs

can keep 90% of their capacity

at minus 40 degrees Celsius.

That is, coincidentally, minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

That is the point where the different scales align.

Minus 40.

Fun fact.

And can charge at once,

even if you freeze the pack,

at minus 30 degrees Celsius.

Now that combination targets

northern Chinese cities

where commercial EVs suffer

seasonal performance swings.

The Tang Xing 2 line

does not rely on Sodium alone.

It adds three lithium-ion variants,

a fast charging version

that's 100 kilowatt hours

and a long range version

that's 253 kilowatt hours

in their commercial vehicles.

Now the Sodium-ion battery as well.

This is really the front line

of China's EV battle,

which is shifted from luxury cars

to vans and commercial vehicles

and bringing the cost down.

And that's your podcast for today.

Thanks for listening.

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CHINA: BMW iX1, BYD Yangwang 1000km Range and China Denies Tesla FSD | 26 Jan 2026

About this episode

BMW iX1

BYD Yang Wang

sodium ion batteries

Audi Q4 e-tron

Mercedes-Benz EQ-A

BMW

kidney grille

compact SUV

parking sensors

reversing camera

iDrive

CLTC range

BMW iXDrive 30L

all-wheel drive

BYD

BEV

EV

BYD Yang Wang U7

four-digit range

LFP pack

kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers

BYD U7

horsepower

0-62 time

MSRP

yuan

wheelbase

plug-in hybrid

BYD Tang 9

ADAS

FSD package

autopilot

Dodge Charger

Renault Zoe

Request an Explanation

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