BYD is a big Chinese company that makes electric cars and batteries. Here, they’re talking about putting charging stations in other countries so their cars can be used easily there.
The D9 is an electric vehicle that’s planned to be sold in Europe. The podcast connects it to a bigger effort to grow in that region. It’s mentioned because it’s part of the manufacturer’s upcoming lineup plans.
Charging in extreme cold is harder because batteries and charging electronics need heat to accept high power safely. The segment’s point is that cold temperatures reduce charging speed (the same charge target takes longer).
A plug-in hybrid can run on electricity, but it also has a gas engine. You can charge it like an EV, and it can still use gas when the battery runs low.
The “China cycle” is a specific testing method used to estimate how far an EV can go. Different countries use different tests, so range numbers aren’t always directly comparable.
They’re saying one version of the car uses one electric motor and it makes a certain amount of power. More power generally means stronger acceleration, though actual feel depends on the whole system.
Production capacity is how many cars a factory can build. Chery is saying their Barcelona operation will reach a certain scale, but they think it still won’t cover all their demand.
A joint venture is when two companies team up to build and sell cars together. The idea discussed here is to move beyond simple exporting and instead compete globally using shared know-how.
A nameplate is basically the car’s brand/model name. In this story, “Freelander” is being used as a brand name, but it also used to be the name of a specific car.
“Chat Concierge” is an AI chat assistant for car shopping. It’s meant to help you with practical steps like finding a car, arranging a test drive, and getting financing or trade-in estimates.
Pre-approval for financing means a lender reviews your information and offers a financing decision before you pick a specific car. In car shopping, it can speed up the buying process and help you negotiate with clearer budget limits.
Estimating trade-in value means figuring out what your current car might be worth if you trade it in. The real number can change based on condition and mileage, but estimates help you plan your budget.
E-revs is a label for cars that can drive like an EV part of the time, but they still have an engine. The idea is that they’re not just tiny “assist” hybrids.
Solid-state batteries are a newer type of EV battery that could store more energy and be safer. The catch is that it’s harder to make them reliably at large scale right now.
“Wh per kilogram” is a measure of battery energy density—how much electrical energy a battery can store for its weight. Higher density generally means longer range or less battery weight for the same range, but it must also be achievable with durable, safe cells.
LeapMotor is a Chinese company that makes electric cars. In this segment, they’re launching a new “Ultra” version with more power and more advanced driving tech.
A front splitter is a small aerodynamic add-on at the front of the car. It helps the car “sit” better at speed and can also make it look more aggressive.
Buick is a well-known car brand, and here they’re showing an electric SUV called the Electra E7. The segment also mentions it’s part of a new EV branding effort in China.
Vehicle-to-load (V2L) power lets an EV or PHEV supply electricity to external devices, like appliances or tools, via an outlet. It’s often used for camping, backup power, or powering small electronics.
“Queen seats” is a nickname for a very comfortable passenger seat. It usually means the front passenger gets special comfort features like more recline and cushioning.
This means the car has a lot of speakers for better sound. More speakers can help create a richer, more “surround” audio experience.
LIVE
Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing
on SpinQuest.
And there's never been a better time to sign up than right now.
New users get $30 coin packs for just $10, all the table games you love, with hundreds
of slot games and real cash prizes.
That's at spinquest.com, S-P-I-N-Q-U-E-S-T dot com.
SpinQuest is a free to play social casino.
Boydwear prohibited.
Visit spinquest.com for more details.
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.
What's up, baby?
It's Bretzky, and I'm here to tell you that spinquest.com is giving out free sweet coins.
All you gotta do is purchase a $10 coin pack, and guess what?
They're gonna give you the coins from a $30 coin pack.
That lets you play all your favorite games like Blackjack, Want It Dead or Wild, and
we're talking real cash prizes, baby.
SpinQuest.com.
SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino.
Boydwear prohibited, visit spinquest.com for more details.
It's Chevy Trucks are right there with you.
Click to learn more.
Chevrolet, together, let's drive.
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.
SpenQuest is a free to play social casino. Boydwear prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.
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.
I'm here with SpinQuest where you can play and win from the comfort of your own home
with hundreds of slot games and all of the table games you love with real cash prizes.
Right now, $30 point packs are on sale for $10 for new users. It's all at spinquest.com,
that's S-P-I-N-Q-U-E-S-T dot com. SpenQuest is a free to play social casino. Boydwear prohibited.
Visit spinquest.com for more details.
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.
SpenQuest is a free to play social casino, voidware prohibited, visit spinquest.com for more details.
You know what, it sucks to be bored, but when I get on my phone and play real casino games
on spinquest.com, the time flies by, that two hour wait at the DMV seems like 10 minutes,
play your favorite spots, live black check, live preps, with a live dealer, new players,
$30 coin packs are on sale for $10 bucks, play spinquest.com and you'll never be bored again.
About this episode
BYD plans to ship 6,000 flash-charging stations overseas—3,000 for Europe—timed to Denza’s Paris launch, with claims of rapid domestic buildout and fast charge targets. Chery pushes deeper into Europe via local partnerships and a Barcelona HQ, while NIO founder William Li argues for battery and chip standardization to curb industry oversupply and profit erosion. The show also covers XPeng’s steer-by-wire “physical AI” GX, China’s projected shift to mostly pure EVs, new model debuts, and a spicy Li Auto vs. Nissan social-media disinformation allegation.
