CHINA: New Year Trips Shift Electric, Geely’s Starshine 6 PHEV and NIO Sets More Battery Swap Records | 19 Feb 2026

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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 shape the global EV landscape.

Now, let me tell you a story 21 years ago.

Wei Xiaoyi, a migrant worker in Foshan in Guangdong,

spent 18 hours riding his motorbike home for Chinese New Year.

Today, he covers that 700-kilometre or 435-mile journey, not in 18 hours,

but in just six hours by car on the expressways.

And the change shows up in the small details in 2004.

A dozen neighbours from Mr Wei's village gathered their bikes and all rode home in convoy.

However, no one, 20 years later, in his village rides home from Guangdong anymore.

Everyone drives.

Guangxi's roads used to plan for bikes.

The Wuzhou Highway Exit once served as a mandatory checkpoint for motorcycles.

Officers now focus instead on managing the surge of private cars.

This year's Spring Festival travel rush started on February 2nd

and runs for 40 days through March 13th.

Forecasters expect a record 9.5 billion interregional trips

and EVs now take the growing share of traffic in China.

In Guangxi, new energy vehicle trips during the Spring Festival rush will surge 72% alone.

And EV trips are forecast to account for a fifth of all highway traffic during the holiday rush.

A sign of how EVs have changed, how China travels over the New Year.

Now, let's talk about a new vehicle.

China's Ministry has shown an updated Geely Galaxy Starshine 6 plug-in hybrid.

This is a sedan with a much larger battery.

And actually, a much lower price compared to what many in this segment would be used to paying.

Geely has filed for a 28.3 kilowatt-hour pack up from the current 8 or 17 kilowatt-hour options.

The industry quotes a CLTC range of 106 miles or 170 kilometers on the China cycle.

That adds over 28 miles or 45 kilometers to the old spec.

Geely keeps the same engine. It's a plug-in hybrid.

Haven't got the full electric specs here.

The current Galaxy Starshine 6 uses their Hybrid 2.0 system.

So 120 kilowatts front electric motor running through a transmission.

The body stays the same about 4.8 meters long, 1.88 meters wide and low, 1.49 meters tall.

This is a low sedan.

And the exterior looks unchanged, down to the large chrome-trimmed grille.

The conventional door handles and a through-type rear light bar.

But the point of it being conventional is then mirrored in the price.

The existing model has 7 trims and it starts at $74,800.

That's just over $10,000 US dollars for a large sedan four-door vehicle.

It's been on sale since October last year and increasingly every month it's been selling more and more.

Now, a longer electric range with almost 30 kilowatt hours of storage

will help it sell in a segment of 10 grand vehicles where small gains sell big.

The filings also showed a separate version of the plug-in hybrid with methanol power.

Using a 1.5-litre engine and a lithium-ion phosphate battery pack.

Geely are happy to try out different fuels as long as the badge on the vehicle stays the same.

That's the Geely Galaxy Starshine 6.

I must admit, from pretty much every angle, this is a good-looking sedan vehicle

if you need that style of car.

Not everybody wants an SUV, of course.

Then this, I think, takes so many boxes.

The big one being price.

Now, let's talk about robo-taxis.

Kau Kau, the robo-taxi arm of Geely, has deployed now 100 autonomous vehicles

in Hangzhou's Binjiang district

and opened what it calls the world's first green intelligent mobility hub.

The hub is a purpose-built operation centre

that combines automated battery swapping, self-cleaning, and fleet dispatching.

The logic is straightforward, keep the cars moving, cut the downtime,

and that matters far more once you stop paying someone to sit in the driver's seat.

This 100-vehicle autonomous Waymo-style rollout is phase one of a three-phase plan.

Kau Kau intends to move from safety driver supervised to fully autonomous

and to run mixed fleets with some humans and some autonomy side-by-side.

A dedicated robo-taxi model anchors the scheme.

Kau Kau co-develops the vehicle with Geely and other partners as well.

The ambition stretches long past its initial trial in Binjiang.

Kau Kau wants to put 100,000 purpose-built robo-taxis on the road by 2030,

and they've set out their intentions overseas as well.

They have an agreement with Abu Dhabi and it's going to pilot autonomy there.

NIO just hit a new record.

Get this.

Yesterday, on the 18th of February, obviously it's the spring holidays,

NIO completed 158,290 battery swaps in a day.

That's huge.

They now have 3,750 swap stations and that is a new record.

The run rate yesterday works out at 6,600 battery swaps every hour.

They're doing 110 swaps every minute of every hour of every day.

Heavy travel demand has pushed traffic towards the highways.

The three power swap station sites with the heaviest swap stations were all on highways.

They completed 166 swaps in a single day, the one near Fuzhou in Fujian.

NIO's fourth-gen technology handles 480 swaps daily with each swap taking three minutes.

That leaves room to absorb the next wave of holiday traffic,

plus there's the fifth-gen technology coming soon which will make it even quicker.

They have deals with CATL, Chang'an, Geely, Cherry, GAC, FAW, JAC and more.

Now, Australia has a new vehicle energy standard for efficiency

and it's drawn its first blood, a big bill for those who fall short.

The scheme launched last January in 2025 to cut emissions.

The first report is now out.

Most brands cleared the bar.

40 of 59 companies in Australia met or beat their targets.

Electric vehicles pushed the fleet performance lower.

Passenger cars averaged 114 grams of CO2 per kilometre against the target of 144.

And the credit table had a familiar Chinese name at the top.

BYD led with more than 6 million NEVS credit units.

The next one after that was Tesla with 2 million.

19 firms failed to comply.

Mazda, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan, GM and Subaru.

Those brands have time and options.

Non-compliant firms can settle over three years.

They can cut what they owe by buying credits from surplus holders.

A nice little earner as the phrase goes for those Chinese companies that have credits to sell.

Now, X-Pong's been showing off their assistance technology.

X-Pong ran a live demonstration of their advanced drive-resistant systems on Shanghai roads.

It's called XNGP, and they did it for international regulators this week

during a United Nations working group on automated driving session.

The IWG ADS forum aims to harmonise global standards and rules it met in China for the first time.

Officials and regulators from Canada, the European Union, Japan, the UK and the US

joined the ride-alongs on urban streets and on the motorways.

And those runs let delegates watch XNGP's real-time perception, decision-making and vehicle control.

They examined its driver monitoring and human-machine interaction features.

X-Pong engaged across the full sessions, they say, and put their tech on the road

rather than relying on presentations or slides.

X-Pong says it's tracked the IWG ADS discussions for the last three years

and attended in full last year, unveiling their forthcoming VLA 2.0

Vision Language Action Architecture to cut response times and boost performance.

All right, let's take a quick break and I'll be back with one final story.

I'll talk about the Chinese EV truck startup Super Panther back in a moment.

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Reggie, I just sold my car online.

Let's go Grandpa. Wait, you did?

Yep, on Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions,

got an offer in minutes.

Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame.

You don't say.

Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow.

Talk about fast.

Wow, way to go. So, about that picture frame.

Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.

Car selling made easy on Carvana.

Pick up these man ply.

The number one resolution for people last year was to save more money,

but nearly half gave up by February.

Don't let that be you.

Download rocketmoney to reach your financial goals this year.

Track your spending, cut waste, and automate savings in one simple app.

Rocketmoney shows you all your expenses

and categorizes them so you know exactly where your money's going

and where you're overspending.

From there, the app cuts waste by cancelling your unused subscriptions

and lowering your bills.

No customer service needed.

With that money freed up,

the app will automatically set some cash aside for your goals,

whether it's an emergency fund, paying off debt,

or saving for vacation.

Rocketmoney's got you covered.

Users love the app with over 186,000 five-star ratings.

And on average, users can save up to $740 a year

when using all of the app's premium features.

Make saving money a priority this year.

Go to rocketmoney.com slash cancel to get started.

That's rocketmoney.com slash cancel.

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If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant,

you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference.

That's why hands down, you count on Granger for auto-reordering.

With on-time restocks,

your team will have the cut-resistant gloves

they need at the start of their shift.

And you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand.

Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com or just stop by.

Granger for the ones who get it done.

Meet Super Panther.

We're talking about semi-trucks here.

And they want to launch trucks in Europe

with contract manufacturing.

Super Panther debuted at the IAA transportation show

in Hanover with a proposition

that is harder to dismiss than many empty promises.

The Chiamen-based company was founded in 2022.

And with former engineers from universities

and former managers from Continental,

well, four of its board members, a Continental alumni,

among them the CEO,

who run the commercial vehicle business until 2019

and now serves as the European president.

European head of sales also came

from Continental's commercial vehicles as well.

So they have some knowledge about what trucks need to do.

They're not learning from scratch.

The company builds exclusively on a BEV platform,

battery-electric vehicle.

They develop their e-axles, their thermal management,

software in-house as well.

It also plans to license powertrain technology

to third parties, a detail that hints

at ambitions well beyond simply selling some trucks.

In China, several hundred BEV trucks

operate on Super Panther platforms.

Siri's production of the European model

begins this summer via contract manufacturing

at Magna, Magna Stair in Austria.

Between 100 and 200 customer handovers

are planned this year.

Its European launch product is called the e-top-ass 600

and they say they built it for the European market,

not a carryover from China.

It carries a 621 kilowatt hour battery pack.

It's LFP technology and it's made by CATL.

So this is the good stuff

and the e-top-ass 600 does rather mirror

the Mercedes e-Actros 600

in both chemistry and capacity.

It's an 876 volt architecture.

The continuous power output is around 400 kilowatts.

It'll peak almost 700 kilowatts of power output

and they're aiming for a range of 311 miles.

That's 500 kilometres.

A 10.8 tonnes tar weight.

The tractor reaches 42 tonnes gross vehicle weight

and delivers around 42 tonnes of payload.

The heat pump says it'll work from minus 30 degrees Celsius

to over 40 degrees Celsius.

Charging is not on the MCS megawatt charging system.

It uses dual CCS-2 ports

and if you can pull up to two CCS chargers

that are next to each other

you can get simultaneous DC charging

of 660 kilowatts.

That is two guns doing 330 each

which they say under ideal conditions

would get you a 20 to 80 charge in 38 minutes.

There is a complication however.

Dual gun operation does require software support

from the charging operators themselves

and that is currently under negotiation.

There is no AC charging.

An MCS port they say will be detailed

at the upcoming IAA show this year.

All trucks will handle the repair and maintenance.

The specifications are strong on paper.

The truck looks good.

I mean if you've seen an electric European style

tractor trailer, if you like, a semi truck

call it what you will.

It looks like the real deal.

The charging is a striking part of the difference here.

Dual gun support.

Sometimes some chargers have two sockets on

but they wouldn't be 660 kilowatts.

But a start-up with no European sales history

making trucks with contract manufacturing

and charging infrastructure deals

that are still to be ironed out.

Does face a long road to 16,000 units.

It would be unwise to count them out though

and equally unwise to count them in.

We'll watch that with interest.

And that's your podcast for today. See you tomorrow.

I'll see you in the next video.

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.

If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant,

you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference.

That's why hands-down you count on Granger for auto-reordering.

With on-time restocks,

your team will have the cut-resistant gloves

they need at the start of their shift.

And you can end your day knowing they've got safety

well in hand.

Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com,

or just stop by.

Granger for the ones who get it done.

If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant,

you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference.

That's why hands-down you count on Granger for auto-reordering.

With on-time restocks,

your team will have the cut-resistant gloves

they need at the start of their shift.

And you can end your day knowing they've got safety

well in hand.

Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com,

or just stop by.

Granger for the ones who get it done.

This is the story of The One.

As the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant,

she knows the only thing more important

than having the right safety gear

is having it there when you need it.

That's why she partners with Granger for auto-reordering.

So her team members can count on her

to have cut-resistant gloves on hand,

and each shift can run safely and efficiently.

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This is the story of The One.

As an HVAC technician,

he and his digital multimeter

are in high demand.

So when a noisy office HVAC turns out

to be a failing blower motor,

he doesn't break a sweat.

With Granger's easy-to-use website

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to keep everything humming right along.

Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com,

or just stop by.

Call 1-800-GRANGER for the ones who get it done.

CHINA: New Year Trips Shift Electric, Geely’s Starshine 6 PHEV and NIO Sets More Battery Swap Records | 19 Feb 2026

About this episode

Spring Festival travel rush

EV

plug-in hybrid

Geely Galaxy Starshine 6

Ford Galaxy

kilowatt-hour

lithium-ion phosphate battery pack

robo-taxis

Geely

autonomous vehicles

fleet dispatching

automated battery swapping

safety driver supervised

NIO

battery swap station

fourth-gen technology

electric vehicles

NEVS credit units

BYD

semi-trucks

contract manufacturing

IAA transportation show

Continental

battery-electric vehicle

thermal management

e-axles

LFP technology

CATL

dual gun operation

AC charging

MCS port

Tesla Semi

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