The D9 is a new electric car from China that can go a long way without needing to charge and can charge very quickly. It shows how electric cars are getting better and better. People talk about it because it’s part of new technology in cars.
The XPeng P7 is a smart electric car from China that looks nice and can drive itself a little bit. It can go far on one charge, and there are newer versions that can go even farther. It’s part of the new electric cars people are excited about.
Some countries have cars where the driver sits on the right side because they drive on the left side of the road. These places are called right-hand drive markets.
Car
Leapmotor i6
The Leapmotor i6 is a fully electric car made by a Chinese company called Leapmotor. It runs on batteries instead of gas.
The Tesla Model Y is a small electric SUV that runs only on electricity, so it doesn't use gas. It's popular because it can go far on a single charge and has lots of space inside. People talk about it a lot because it's helping more electric cars get sold.
The Ford Galaxy is a big car that can carry many people, like a family van. It’s good for families because it has lots of space inside. Lately, it hasn’t been selling as well as before.
Geely is a big car company from China that makes many types of cars, including SUVs for families. They are growing and changing how they name and sell their cars.
Megawatt flash charging is a way to charge electric cars really fast, much faster than usual chargers. It helps fill up the car's battery quickly so you can drive sooner.
The Chevrolet C10 is a type of big car that can carry a lot of stuff, like a truck or SUV. It used to be very popular a long time ago, and now there might be a new version. People say this newer one isn’t very popular or selling well.
The Alpina B10 is a fancy and fast car made by a company that improves BMW cars. It’s comfortable and sporty at the same time. People talk about it because it’s a special version of a regular car.
An extended range electric vehicle is a car that mainly runs on electricity but also has a small gas engine to help it go farther when the battery runs low.
The Kia EV3 is a small electric car that doesn’t use gas and is made to be affordable. It’s good for city driving and helps people who want an electric car without spending too much. People compare its price to other similar cars from China.
All-wheel drive means the car can send power to all four wheels, which helps it drive better on slippery or rough roads.
LIVE
Welcome back to EV News, China today, the February sales report, BYD tests flash charging
2.0 and Denzer's Z9 range claims. Plus stay tuned, later in the show I'll tell you why
Chinese EVs in the UK can draw insurance premiums three times higher than a European rival.
Welcome to EV News, China, the podcast dedicated to the world's largest electric vehicle market
every day. I bring you headlines, insights and analysis from the heart of China's booming
EV industry and try and decode how fast moving developments in the East shape the global landscape.
I'm by no means an expert but I'm learning and if you listen to this podcast maybe every day,
maybe regularly, maybe this is your first time, hopefully you enjoy learning along with me as
well. If you're an expert in China then drop me a line and I'd love to hear from you because
this podcast was started last summer as a even just like a temporary spinoff thing and I'm still
doing it. Mainly just to teach myself and then passing it on to you anything that I learned that
I think is kind of interesting about what's happening in China because the last thing you want
is somebody who is doing an EV podcast and not fully up to speed on China. I wouldn't say I'm
there yet but I'm enjoying learning. Now February's delivery numbers told two stories, volumes
swung hard after January's push and more brands are reaching for sales tools to sell metal.
NEO's three brands delivered almost 21,000 vehicles down over 23% month on month but up
year on year by almost 60%. The NEO brand delivered over 15,000 vehicles. It was the all new ES8
that is two-thirds of their business last month under Envo NEO also pushing a seven-year low
interest plan tied to battery as a service. As for X-Pung they delivered about the same as NEO's
brands actually a bit less 15 just over 15,000 vehicles that was not a great month in February
for X-Pung down 50% year on year down almost 24% month on month from January. Now in January they
launched the P7 Plus and the G7 that one offering a super extended range system and again leaning
into seven year low interest plans to sell cars in February. March brings the next generation
all electric MPV the X9. I'm looking forward to that because potentially right hand drive
markets maybe the UK could be on the radar. A flagship SUV so far codenamed GX looking very
by the way above 300,000 RMB that's 41,000 US dollars is coming as well for now the M03
is the only proven part of X-Pung's big hit strategy. Let's talk a little bit about Lee Auto
they'll be relieved at Lee Auto because it looked steadier they delivered just over 26,000 vehicles
down almost 5% month on month but up 0.6% year on year so basically flat but in the world of Lee
Auto flat is good because they've not been doing overly well they've been in some decline over
recent months and I think they want to steady the ship a little bit and so battery electric line
up there is led by the i6. Next gen L9 will include a premium variant called the Livis
version what the founder Lee Xiang calls an embodied intelligent robot we get their
full year earnings in the next couple of weeks or so but it's been a bit of a rough ride for Lee
Auto. Leap motor delivered almost 30,000 vehicles down from January but up 11% on the same time last
year they haven't gone down the route yet of this seven-year low interest finance deal to attract
more people in their core price brand at Lee Auto still around 20,000 US dollars about 150,000 RMB
they've got an entry level 100,000 RMB A10 coming that'll debut around the Beijing Auto
show that will probably replace the T03. Leap motor is still talking about an annual target of a
million vehicles Zika very much in that ballpark of almost 25,000 vehicles delivered in the month
flat from January to February but significantly up on February last year not disclosing the
model level detail for February yet but those data will come in looks like the sales anchored at
Zika by the 9x let's talk about Xiaomi they delivered over 20,000 vehicles that was down
on January remember though the su7 has halted production now they're only selling the yu7
the model y competitor su7 ultra volumes would be negligible at Xiaomi the refreshed su7 comes
in April probably the earliest in April actually and so last month February was was down from
January and then this month we're starting now March is going to be what they call a consolidation
period they have started to do the seven-year low interest thing on the yu7 Xiaomi unveiled a vision
GT concept at Mobile World Congress and a potential yu9 we'll talk a little bit more
about those cars soon via February numbers I couldn't find I'll carry on the hunt for those
I am motor also skipped specifics on just February it reported a 70% year on rise
year on year rise for January and February combined implying more 7,000 units in February
one of us to do with the holiday season they don't want to declare a February that's obviously
going to be very bad because car purges are down during that spring holiday but I am motor
had did have strong 2025 results because of they say their super extended range system
driving interest what else did well Geely Galaxy actually Geely Galaxy had a struggling February
they were down month on month and year on year it has the galaxy M7 a five-seat family SUV
around 150k that's 20,000 US dollars equivalent Geely Galaxy plans to streamline the line-ups
naming structure they're exports though doing really really well at Geely BYD will finish this
off in case you're wondering hang on you've not mentioned the big one BYD sold just under 190,000
passenger vehicles by far and away more than anyone I've told you about so far and yet that
was still down almost 9% on January and down 41% year on year yeah there are some I would say
panicked articles being written about BYD what's happening why is BYD in decline for several months
in a row overseas exports still doing very well though over 100,000 EVs exported once again
another month they've been over 100,000 it was domestic monthly EV sales which are slowing
down in China for BYD they do have a couple of high-end models coming there's a forthcoming
technology day to showcase next-gen tech which I think they will want to use to shift the conversation
around BYD struggling a bit let's get into it should we BYD has been spotted running internal
testing of its megawatt flash charging in Shenzhen near the headquarters a leaked name plate
points to peak output of 1500 kilowatts on a single cable I should say on a single gun which is
more kind of Chinese parlance actually and a current capability of 1500 amps so this will be
1000 volt architecture 1500 amps of juice therefore 1500 kilowatts of charging power
that's single cable single gun and I think we don't know this until we get all the details on BYD
tech day in a few days time but by the look of the initial social media coverage if you use the
dual gun technique that would be 2100 kilowatts yes that would be 2.1 megawatts this is not for
trucks this is for passenger cars this is you stopping plugging in and saying oh should we go
and get a coffee no the car's charged I'm exaggerating for effect obviously but yeah that's just
like death to the argument but it's quicker to fill up with petrol or diesel I mean even if you're
paying at the pump even if you're you're not walking to the little kiosk and joining the queue
and and paying at the cash register even if you're doing the swipe your card or tap your card at the
pump depending on what you have in your country where you're listening to me then that's becoming
more common over here and lots of people you know save a couple of minutes of schlepping up to the
till and even then it's going to be quicker to drive an EV which is just crazy isn't it and so
we'll find out more details then so the Tang 9 the Song Ultra the CL-07 denser Z9 GT we're on that
in a minute we'll reportedly be able to take that much power we'll see now BYD is released official
images of the CL-07 ahead of its debut in March it sits on BYD's E platform 3.0 EVO and mirrors the
CL-07 DMI the plug-in hybrid and so closed off front face narrow headlights hidden door handles
nice sunroof nice roof line that slopes from the B pillar rearward lidar on the roof matters because
BYD ships the CL-07 DMI with Godzai B that's type pilot 300 the CL-07 EV variant could debut an upgraded
Godzai 5.0 system again that's probably going to be unveiled at tech day on the 5th of March
charging is the story though because the CL-07 EV is identified as one of those models testing 1500
kilowatt DC fast charging on flash charge 2.0 it carries the flash charge badging and so look even
if it's a thousand kilowatts even if it's just a paltry megawatt of charging i'd still take it and
then denser the premium one of the premium brands of BYD will also unveil their updated Z9 GT that's
going to be on the 5th of March again at their tech day and it will do so again we think with a
headline number of that claimed not only fast charging but maximum range which i've talked about
before on the podcast now the denser z9 z9 i guess my us listeners a z9 GT is looks like
such a classy grand Torah and you know sometimes you don't always have to build an SUV which is
nice so again for me you know i'm a huge fan of wagons fastbacks estates call them what you will
this is more of a slippery grand Torah version of that fastback shape rather than a you know
big boxy Volvo of years gone past but i'm still a sucker for that that form factor and i'd be a
sucker for the range as well because the range is one thousand three hundred sorry one thousand and
thirty six kilometers pure electric range now this is on cltc the china cycle which is not real
world and that is still over a thousand kilometers on that so even by the time we get this car and
we see real world testing and we see what it's like at different temperatures it's still massive
range they say the longest range for any mass produced bev in china so again high-performance
luxury market think zika 001 think Porsche tycon owners that might be tempted by this
and the z9 again 1500 kilowatt flash charger capable the battery packs are biggy 122.5 kilowatt
hour blade battery pack and a higher voltage system between thousand volt architecture not
800 volt architecture so that thousand and thirty six kilometers is this one the one with the big
battery pack there's a smaller battery pack as well 850 kilowatts of power that's 1140 horsepower
tri-motor this thing's really special i'll take a break we'll come back we'll talk leap motor
and vault smargens id era in china back in a bit
or welcome back to ev news china our spin-off podcast where i'm trying to learn and pass anything on
that's um interesting to to you and thank you for listening if you do i'd love to hear from you by
the way we think of what was meant to be a one month trial spin-off thing that we did and then six
months later eight months later i'm still doing it and for me it's some of the most interesting
learning that i do because i'm not a china expert um and i'm not in china and i'm not
driving these vehicles day in day out and we're trying to interpret what's happening in the east
for the global ev landscape um and for the rest of us to kind of work it out and put the pieces
together so i appreciate you going on this journey with me now leap motor has used its
stilantis partnership to scale its dealer network and widen its product range in the european union
and the united kingdom european deliveries rose from 1300 units in q4 of 2024
toba 17 000 in q4 last year it's more than two percent of the passenger bev market in the quarter
ending 2025 for the e u 29 countries um three models strove the push t zero which is the little
city car the c 10 the bigger suv and the b 10 um the one that sits between the two really not too
hot not too cold uh kind of goldilocks car the b 10 is a c segment suv um the d so the the b 10
that is um the c 10 comes in fully electric and hybrid the b 10 is fully electric only um
leap motor enter 10 new euro markets last year bulgaria crecia hungary check republic
danmark island ireland slavakia slovenia and sweden at 800 sales and service locations
now double the previous year sa ic vault svargen has been showing off the interior of their id era
nine x so this is the nine series of vehicles many chinese companies use nine to signify the
top end of their ranges it's the first e rev extended range electric vehicle suv launching
officially this month in march when it reaches showrooms it'll be the largest model of volkswagen
sell um the company pitches at their flagships like zika nine x leoto l nine im ls nine yes
emphasis is mine obviously just pointing out the way that some of the naming works unless you're
talking about the ito m eight yeah not not called a nine series but still um this is going to be
around 40 000 us dollars equivalent um and so inside uh the layout puts a 15.6 inch central
screen uh with the rear passengers getting a 21.4 inch foldable ceiling mounted entertainment
screen flat bottom steering wheel big sunroof and a big ambient lighting setup inside as well
it's a six seater by the way three row six seater spy shots on chinese social media showing two new
xiaomis and these are suvs by the way so the xiaomi yu7 gt that's the performance variant
and some spy shots showing showing a large extended range model internally named kunlan
maybe badge does it as a yu9 there is again nine because this would be a large vehicle yu7
is already sitting in the ministry catalog and so that is 186 miles an hour 300 kilometers an hour
top speed dual motor almost a thousand horsepower the most current uh the current most powerful
yu7 is like almost 700 horsepower so the gt variant adding more power and two seconds north of 60
they say the other car plays in a different segment the yu9 pictured and this does look
again very stylish you see the xiaomi badging on it as a full-size suv an e-rev an extended range
family wagon and finally chinese evs in the united kingdom can draw insurance premiums up to three
times higher than european rivals and some insurers refusing to quote at all turning a cheap sticker
price into an expensive car i have a personal anecdote on this by the well i'll tell you that
the end of the actual news one example from the article um is the skywell b e 11 only one sureer
insurer of the 10 or so asked would even give a quote and that was at 2200 pounds a year or
2700 dollars equivalent a per show e308 would be not 2200 but 838 pounds the xpang g6 was
quoted at 1102 pounds uh the kia ev3 would be 827 and not every chinese badge gets punished by the
way the hybrid plug-in hybrid the clu dmi is 645 pounds a year now the gap matters because chinese
brands lean on low pricing if the premium eats the discount you've got to pay more for insurance
than well you've lost out on the whole deal before you even charge it for the first time insurers
price in risk in the uk at least from any different things certainly here when we come to get our car
insurance they want to know a lot about us not only our age and our home address but where the car
is parked overnight whether it's garaged or just in your driveway or on the streets your marital
status uh your job what you do for a living not only job description but also your job title your
inside leg measurement okay i'm joking on the last bit but this might be a surprise to many
people listening around the world on this your insurers may ask you you know fewer or perhaps
more details i don't know but certainly here our insurance industry operates in a way that they
want to know a lot of personal data now they don't track apart from young drivers to get the the
premium down there's no black boxes in our boot tracking every single uh mile that we drive but
that is becoming more common to get the premiums down and so insurers price in a lot of things
but they also price in historical data and if they haven't got it on a manufacturer they can't
price it in repair costs and parts most chinese nameplates like record in the uk parts supply
can stretch as well one example puts bumper components on a slow boat from shenzhen not some
nice new you know rapid air transport um but it would take months to arrive when repairs take months
and your car is off the road insurers are paying for you to have a hire car during that period
and that wipes out the profit on a policy body shops add more unknowns if they haven't got
special tools or even the technical knowledge for a new model the insurers just assume higher
costs than they charge for that guess as a brand builds uk repair network and more claims history
insurers can have more confidence similar patterns happen with chinese and korean cars when they first
entered the market now my personal anecdote from this and feel free to stop the podcast now
because then the news is over i had this with my mg so my mg zs e v was about 900 pounds a year
so i will tell you my personal circumstances not that anybody cares um 47 years old married
i live in a semi-detached house in the central south of the uk um i have two children and i
don't commute to work anymore because the commute is the bottom of my garden and so
that was 900 pounds a year which i think is extortionate when we came to change our car a
couple of years ago we went shopping for a tesla model three my insurance quotes are all all around
a thousand which i think i think is a huge amount of money for someone who is you know um perhaps a
little bit older than and i've been driving summer 17 i've never had a never had a crash touch would
been very lucky and so when i went to get the Polestar i pay 450 445 455 pounds a year for the
Polestar too and that is a car that is all-wheel drive has was it 300 kilowatts of power it's
ridiculously fast faster than i need and yet it was half the price of my mg zs e v on a 69 plate
and the mg was you know with the best one in the world not a very fancy car i think the Polestar
is quite a high performance car and they've got all of the details and i've double checked it and
triple checked it and all the quotes were much lower for Polestar is that because it's all
Volvo bits i don't know i had two problems with my mg um a sensor when it was the auto lights
sensor went so i had to manually turn the lights on and off not a problem first world problem um
but that took months to arrive from china there were none in the uk and also the wiring loom
um where the boot was opening and closing just that action of opening closing the boot
the cables wore through and you know 70 warranty on the mg um that is not normal wear and tear that
is just i opened the boot and closed it and then over a period of a couple of years the cables broke
it was just a bad piece of design and mg fixed that with no quibble but again it was a long time
to get that sorted so maybe that's what insurers are factoring in maybe mg has some part stuff that
i don't know about i don't want to make claims or anything that is my personal opinion i've not
reached out to mg for comment on this um and it i might be a complete one off mg might have a great
part supply now i've been two years that was two years ago and so they might have a nice big uk
factory now with everything on the shelf but we're you know a warehouse so others interesting
because those low prices are attractive for chinese EVs um and when i came to to change our car we
thought we're getting a tesla model three and then a Polestar being half the price we're gonna
have that car for three years probably that's 1500 pounds over the time of the the cars kind of adds
up doesn't it maybe maybe we should do a whole special podcast on it who knows i'll stop now
thanks for listening see you on the next one
About this episode
China's February EV sales reveal mixed results with BYD leading but facing domestic slowdowns, while brands like NEO, X-Peng, and Leap Motor show varied performance. BYD is testing groundbreaking 1500 kW flash charging technology promising ultra-fast charging for passenger cars. The Denza Z9 GT claims an impressive 1036 km range on a large battery pack, targeting the luxury segment. Other highlights include new model launches, financing strategies like seven-year low-interest plans, and expanding European presence for brands like Leap Motor. The episode also touches on insurance challenges for Chinese EVs in the UK and upcoming tech reveals at BYD's March event.
