CHINA: BYD Wants 6,000 Overseas Chargers, Chery Seeks Euro Partners and NIO Wants Industry Standards | 13 Apr 2026

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Welcome back to EV News China.

Today, BYD won 6,000 overseas charges.

Cherry seeks Euro partners, and Neo wants industry standards, plus they tuned, because

later in the show, I'll tell you about an extraordinary claim by one automotive CEO

against a Japanese rival.

Welcome to EV News China, the podcast dedicated to the world's largest EV market every 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 shaped the global landscape.

BYD wants to deploy 6,000 of its flash charging stations overseas, and 3,000 of those earmarked

for Europe.

The European rollout is meant to support Denzer's push into the region, coinciding with the

Paris debut of the Denzer Z9 GT last week.

BYD is introducing Denzer across Europe with the Z9 GT, that's a grand touring wagon,

and the D9, a 7 seat premium MPV.

The D9 has been one of China's top selling high end new energy people carriers.

By the end of this year, Denzer targets coverage in over 30 Euro countries and 150 retail outlets.

The plan pairs the cars and the charging kit.

BYD is deploying charging infrastructure and vehicle introductions together in Europe.

Flash charging 2.0, already slated for Europe anyway in 2026, that timing is now fully lined

up with Denzer's market entry.

BYD says its domestic flash charging network is now 5,000 stations in 297 cities, and they

did all of that in 27 days.

That's extraordinary, it's unbelievable, I'm not saying I don't believe them, but I guess

that's what the word unbelievable means, 5,000 stations, 5,000 stations in 27 days, ok, the

research required to fact check each one of those is more than I have time for, but ok.

It plans to replicate the pace overseas, which is frankly ambitious.

It also shows the scale of their intent.

The Z9 GT is at the centre of the launch, under normal conditions, optimal conditions

you'd say.

Flash charging takes the battery 10 to 70 in 5 minutes, and it'll get a full charge,

well 97%, but we're all friends, we'll call it full charge.

In 9 minutes, and at cold temperatures, minus 30 degrees celsius, that is 12 minutes.

Denzer offers the Z9 GT in pure bev and plug-in hybrid, the bev version is rated, on the China

cycle, 644 miles over a thousand kilometres, the plug-in hybrid version 250 miles or 400

K's of electric only range.

Power train options go from a single motor 370 kilowatts to a tri-motor layout.

The Z9 GT is priced at 115,000 euros, that's 134,000 dollars, right up against the Porsche

Taycan.

Z9 GT is currently on sale in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, more to follow, part of their

expansion phase.

Staying with BYD, a pickup prototype was seen on social media, and this would be a domestic

version of a BYD pickup, which is interesting because pickups in China are classified as

commercial vehicles, they have different rules and regs around driving, where you can drive

and the specs and the technical regulations around pickups, they're not used like other

countries where they're perhaps lifestyle vehicles.

So, it's not really a huge segment in China, but it's growing in EVs, the test mule doesn't

match the export-focused BYD shark, in case you were wondering, the front end looks like

the dynasty range, prompting speculation that BYD could sell the pickup through its dynasty

dealerships.

The difference is, according to a China version, a domestic model using a more cost-focused

plug-in hybrid powertrain, the China pickup sector is all about affordability and utility,

Great Wall Motor is one of the domestic leaders in the truck segment, and BYD has signaled

the move before, though last year they said a domestic pickup was planned sooner or later,

so far BYD has been pushing pickups overseas, like the shark targeting South America and

Australia, part of their wider expansion drive, Ford's CEO, Jim Farley, was down under for

the Formula One, and as part of that, because they're sponsoring Red Bull these days, drove

some Chinese pickups and said they're different animals, the numbers don't add up, he said,

against the kind of traditional truck benchmarks that he has Ford use.

Cherry wants to build in Europe without building from scratch, its plan rests on local partnerships

and existing factories, not new greenfield sites.

Lionel Kio, the chief commercial officer of Cherry, France, said Cherry is actively looking

for additional production capacity in Europe, he made the point at the Omoda and Jakku launch

in Paris. Cherry entered Europe in 2023, expanding to 18 European countries, passing 100,000

total customers in Europe, sales rose from 17,000 in 2024 to 120,000 last year in Europe,

six times higher in the first two months of this year, in Jan and Feb, Cherry sold almost 40,000

vehicles in the UK and the European Union up 200% on the same months last year.

Electric models driving the growth, Cherry opened its European operation centre in Barcelona last

week, the site is its first overseas regional headquarters, the Barcelona operations sit in

the former Nissan plant, which Cherry runs with Ebro, it'll reach 200,000 units of capacity in

2029, but they say not enough. Cherry executive said the Barcelona site alone won't meet its

European demand and purely anecdotally, I see tons of Jakus and Omodas flying around at least

my local area these days, backing up the numbers at least, selling well in the UK.

All right, let's talk Neo, Neo's founder and CEO William Lee used a keynote at the

Intelligent Electric Vehicle Development Forum in Beijing over the weekend to call for industry

wide standardisation of batteries and chips to save 100 billion yuan, that is $14.5 billion.

Lee's argument went beyond Neo's own results, he said that the wider EV industry keeps growing

volumes and revenues, but not profits. In his view, the problem is supply chain. He said faster

product iteration in chips and batteries, in lighting, in interiors, has made supply and

demand hard to balance. New models get a short demand spike, then demand falls.

Supply chains then overshoot, capacity and production catches up after demand has dropped.

Lee said, wasting hundreds of millions of yuan on a single model is now routine. He described

that as a systemic resource problem in the whole industry. This main target is all about costs,

batteries and chips, more than half of a vehicle's bill of materials.

Lee said that they should lead any standardisation drive purely on cost reasons. On batteries,

he said the lack of unified battery cell specifications stops manufacturers from sharing

supply chain capacity flexibly. He added that battery technology has matured enough to make

standardisation of its nickel, mid-nickel and high-nickel battery cells, timely and practical.

As for chips, he pointed to rising complexity. For instance, NEO's ES9, the really big new SUV,

requires more than a thousand semiconductor part numbers and 4,000 individual chips. He said

that's unsustainable. Now, Cherry's Vice General Manager Wang Lang used the same forum in Beijing

to say that China's entering a new era of joint adventures. His pitch was simple,

Chinese automakers are moving beyond the old export model and beyond China focused joint

ventures. In its place, Wang set out a model built on local production, technology-led global

competition and international expansion. The Freelander brand sits at the centre of that plan.

The brand is launched as a joint venture between Cherry and Jaguar Land Rover,

an independent luxury new energy vehicle tech brand. Wang said Freelander combines global design

with local technology backed by global R&D and manufacturing. Cherry brings supply chain integration

and their expertise. Jaguar Land Rover brings heritage and brand. The project also uses technology

from Huawei and CATL, targeting the upper-segment EV markets. The Freelander SUV has cleared its

now extreme cold weather testing ahead of a launch sometime in the second half, H2, of 2026.

Spy shots and official footage supplied shows a heavily camouflaged SUV that closely mirrors the

previously revealed Concept 97, boxy, upright, flat roofline. That design looks like a Land Rover.

That's the point, isn't it? The production model will debut first in China with global markets

to follow. Full-tech details should be around June, I think, and then we get the car in the

second half of next year. Freelander itself is not a vehicle, it's a brand, even though

a Freelander is a nameplate of a car. Used to be anyway. It launched on the 31st of March and so

again, everything's happening at China speed with this. It's a standalone global EV brand,

launching six models in five years. We'll take a break, we'll come back, took X-Pong,

China's EV share predictions and more. Stick around.

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Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI,

they are already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping.

Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers

find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing,

and estimate trading value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack.

That's technology at Capital One.

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Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI, they are already deployed one.

It's called Chat Concierge, and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered

reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule

a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trading value. Advanced, intuitive,

and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One.

Hey, welcome back to the podcast. XPAN has set up a technology launch event for their big GX.

The flagship that they call a physical AI era, not just another large SUV. Although it is another

large SUV, the GX is a six-seater built on the SEPA 3.0 architecture, what they call physical AI.

All right. XPAN is expected to fit the whole lineup with 800 volts high voltage platforms

and dual motor all-wheel drive. The GX will be the first globally mass-produced vehicle with

Bosch's next-gen steer-by-wire. Bosch says the system natively supports level four autonomous

driving and 100 functions. XPAN describes the GX as the first level four capable

steer-by-wire production vehicle below $500,000. That's $70,000. XPAN pairs the hardware with

four of their AI chips, together over 3,000 tops of local compute, which is in context,

frankly, huge. XPAN says its XNGP 5.0 system targets response latency below 80 milliseconds

to fold in robotaxi technologies and full autonomous driving.

So two versions, a Bev version and an E-rev. Now, China sees EVs taking 90% share by 2040.

Professor Uyang Minghao of Tsinghua University used the Intelligent EV Development Forum in Beijing

over the weekend to draw a hard line under China's gas guzzling era. The member of the Chinese Academy

of Sciences said pure electric vehicles will dominate 90% of China's EV market by 2040,

while plug-in hybrids and E-revs have already started to decline, he says. His case is efficiency.

Mr. Uyang said pure electric drive holds a fundamental efficiency edge over anything

else with an engine. Plug-in hybrids, E-rev, they're all crutches to get to full Bev. Using

renewable electricity, pure EVs deliver twice the efficiency of hydrogen and four times the

efficiency of synthetic gas guzzlers. By 2030, new energy passenger vehicles in China

will pass 70% market share in 2030, with a pure EV to hybrids. So we'll call plug-in hybrids and

E-revs because they have engines. We'll call them hybrids, although they're much more than a

shabby Toyota hybrid, but they are not a softer or mild hybrid. So they've got even then pretty

decent EV range, but still we'll call them hybrids. So pure EV to hybrid split of 7 to 3 ratio,

that's by 2030. By 2035, he reckons it's going to be an 8 to 2 split in favor of pure Bev,

and he says by 2040, the market will be 90% pure Bev as plug-in hybrids and E-revs have disappeared.

Mr. Ooyoung to the industry that had assembled the forum, not to use solid state battery technology

as a marketing tool, pointing out to scientific problems, blocking the path to mass deployment,

especially reactions that affect chemical, air, mechanical and thermal stability. He's forecast

for solid state cells with 300Wh per kilogram density emerging by 2030, but cautioning

against rushing the launches. LeapMotor will launch the Laffer 5 Ultra by the end of the month

on the opening day of the Beijing Auto Show, taking the Laffer 5 standard and moving it upmarket,

but still below 150,000RMB, that's £16,000, mattering because LeapMotor hasn't chased

a lower entry price. They've gone upmarket, they've gone for sporty trim. So the base model is £10,000

equivalent or $93,000RMB. The Ultra version has new aero front splitter bodywork, some different

wings, rear diffuser to look sporty, 19-inch wheels, some different coloured brake calipers,

some different badging, frameless doors, flush side windows, a bigger motor, 180 kW of power,

and they say inside an 8-point massaging system and some new flagship chips for their autonomy

and lidar. Urban Navigation Assist Pilot NAP already works on the Laffer 5 Ultra and the car supports

nationwide NAP, they say with no mapping. Test vehicles are reaching dealerships across China now.

Buick has shown a full spec of their Electra E7, that is the first model under SGMW's premium

new energy vehicle mark, Electra, all capitalised. In case you were wondering how it's stylised,

Electra, the first one is the Electra E7, a large five-seat family SUV,

launched over the weekend in either Supermax or Supermax Turbo trims. Buick has set the price

range between £160,000 and £210,000RMB, that's below £23,000. Buick says each one has 42 standard

sys features including the new plug-in hybrid pro system with 235km of pure electric range,

six kilowatts of vehicle to load power, they say it's got four floating layer seats and double

bed mode. The front passenger seat is a zero gravity recliner, it's pretty common actually in

China cars, they call them queen seats, sometimes it's the non-driver seat implying that, I don't know,

the queen's being driven, I'm not sure about that, it's a little bit sexist to me, but they call it

it's often the passenger seat that will completely recline. Rear passengers get a 15.6-inch

rear cinema screen, there's also a 20-speaker audio system, a cold box and tables for the second row.

Finally, Li Auto's founder, a chairman of CEO, Li Xiang, has made an amazing claim

saying that one rival is using organised internet troll accounts to spread false

information, so that would be disinformation, if I'm being specific with my language here,

and I am, because legally, I want to be very careful with this, that they are intentionally

spreading disinformation and flooding social media comments against Li Auto in two posts on his

own WeChat account, he accused Nissan, no, he strongly implicated Nissan, must be careful.

The posts come days after Dongfeng Nissan launched the NX8, that's an SUV, NX8 is Dongfeng Nissan's

first model to be EREV, and of course Li Auto is famous for their EREVs, they kind of started it

really in terms of big sales of an EREV pioneer, that's a better way of saying it, isn't it,

and leaked internal training materials and PR briefings also show that Dongfeng Nissan is

benchmarking their NX8 against Li Auto cars, Li Auto's legal team says it has completed

evidence collection on social media attacks, the company said it would report the case to

the public security authorities, Dongfeng Nissan general manager Wang Qian denied the allegations

on Weibo, Wang said Dongfeng Nissan always strictly follows industry rules and supports

healthy competition, extraordinary claim, generally I would say the Chinese EV industry CEOs,

the companies, they tend to play pretty nicely, at least above water, the stuff that we see,

they tend to say complimentary things about their competing models, they often turn up at

the launches of competing cars and cheer them on, so at least the bits that we see,

it tends to be a pretty friendly fight, but wow, extraordinary, we'll see where that one goes,

Nissan of course deny all of the allegations against them, if I get any more statements from

either party, we'll bring those to you in the interests of fairness, so you know what's going

on. That's your podcast for today, thanks for listening, see you on the next one.

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CHINA: BYD Wants 6,000 Overseas Chargers, Chery Seeks Euro Partners and NIO Wants Industry Standards | 13 Apr 2026

About this episode

BYD

D9 Denzers

MPV

flash charging network

minus 30 degrees celsius

pure bev

plug-in hybrid

China cycle

tri-motor layout

single motor 370 kilowatts

Porsche Taycan

on sale in France, Germany, Italy and Spain

production capacity

joint ventures

nameplate

Chat Concierge

pre-approved for financing

estimate trading value

Capital One

robotaxi technologies

E-revs

solid state battery technology

300Wh per kilogram density

LeapMotor

aero front splitter bodywork

rear diffuser

Buick

vehicle to load power

queen seats

15.6-inch rear cinema screen

20-speaker audio system

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