A pure electric MPV is a big car that runs only on electricity and can carry many people or things. It doesn't use gas and is better for the environment.
A solid state battery is a new kind of battery that uses solid materials inside instead of liquid, making it safer and able to store more energy for cars.
The Toyota Supra is a fast and sporty car that many people like because it drives really well and can be customized. It's often talked about when people discuss how cars are made and how good the production quality is.
Solid state batteries are a new kind of battery that can store more power and charge faster than regular car batteries. They are safer because they don't use liquid that can leak or catch fire.
Volkswagen is a big car company from Germany that makes many kinds of cars, including electric ones. They are working on new battery technology for their cars.
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is a very fancy and comfortable car that has lots of smart technology to help the driver. People talk about it when they want to show new car features that make driving easier and safer.
A kilowatt hour battery is how much electricity the car's battery can hold. The bigger the number, the longer the car can drive before needing to recharge.
Scrappage schemes are deals where you can get money or discounts if you give up your old car and buy a new one. This helps get rid of old, dirty cars and makes it easier to get a newer car.
LIVE
This is a message from sponsor Intuit TurboTax.
You've sent so many emails to your tax pro and nothing.
It feels like you're chasing updates.
But now your taxes are done for you by a TurboTax expert.
So you actually know what's happening.
You can match with an expert and just hand off all your tax stuff to them right in the app.
So instead of guessing, you can feel confident your TurboTax experts on it.
Now this is taxes.
Intuit TurboTax.
Visit TurboTax.com to learn more.
Only available with TurboTax experts.
Real-time updates only in iOS mobile app.
Taxes was feeling so stuck.
Sitting in traffic, squeezing into a parking spot,
all to squeeze in getting tax help during your lunch break.
Now taxes is a TurboTax expert who does your taxes for you.
While you go about your day getting real-time notifications about their progress
and the most money-back guaranteed.
Now this is taxes.
Intuit TurboTax.
See guaranteed details at TurboTax.com
slash guarantees only available with TurboTax experts.
Real-time updates only in iOS mobile app.
Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI.
They 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 bring you the latest 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.
X-Pong has launched the all-new pure electric MPV, the X-Pong X9.
Starting price of $310,001.
That's $45,000.
That undercuts the previous model by 14% though.
And we didn't know it was coming.
It was a surprise.
And so that's about $7,000 less than the outgoing one.
The timing is obviously deliberate.
February sales fell nearly 50% year on year to 15,000 units.
X-Pong partly blamed the Chinese New Year holiday.
It published the delivery figure one day
before they unveiled the new X9 launch.
The new BEV price matches the extended range version,
which was released last year.
In other words, you no longer pay a premium to avoid the petrol pump.
The new X9 BEV sits on their 800 volts architecture
in five trims and each with 5C ultra-fast battery charging.
X-Pong claims a maximum range of 466 miles.
That's 750 kilometers on the China cycle.
They call it the world's longest range,
pure electric seven seater with 5C charging.
It's a very specific claim.
But look, this is a very premium vehicle.
Once again, we see those captain's chairs in the second row
that frankly, if I was on a long haul flight in first class,
I'd be very happy with those seats.
It does look very nice.
The pictures they released had a light colored interior
with its two spoke steering wheel
and giant landscape screen in the middle
with its dual wireless phone chargers
and a couple of big cup holders just below that.
This does look very much a premium vehicle.
It also pushes compute.
Every variant has X-Pong's in-house Turing AI chip.
2,250 tops.
The entry level model uses one chip
and the top spec car uses three.
X-Pong took the same chip approach
on its other updated models recently.
Hu Xiaoping expects international sales to double this year.
X-Pong targets 1 million overseas vehicles by 2030
and forecasts overseas operations
will be 70% of group profits by then.
That is a very good looking people carrier.
Big sunroofs as well.
It looks like a big sunshade that'll come across
and haven't got the specs on the second row.
But again, it looks like those very comfortable
second row seats that have probably got massaged,
probably ventilated.
And you know where the foot rests come up
and everything very, very nice.
All right, let's talk a little bit about Goshen high tech.
They are 25% owned by Volkswagen.
They've now finished the work
on their first two gigawatt hour solid state battery
mass production line.
And the move shifted program from pilot scale validation
to full industrial planning.
The announcement centers on Goshen's Jinxi battery.
It uses a sulfide based solid electrolyte.
This is all solid state, by the way,
not semi solid state.
And it reaches a cell level energy density
of 350 watt hours per kilogram.
Goshen says that's about 40% more
than mainstream lithium iron cells
and claims that an average battery pack,
because it's a pure solid state, would be 621 miles.
That's 1,000 kilometers.
And works just as happily as at minus 40 degrees Celsius
as 80 degrees Celsius.
That's minus 40 Fahrenheit to 176 Fahrenheit.
The existing pilot line had a 90% yield rate
and it runs entirely on domestically sourced core equipment.
Uses in-house developed architecture.
In safety tests, it survives up to 200 degrees
and a three millimeter steel needle penetration test
didn't ignite, didn't explode.
Solid state is very safe.
They're going to spend up to four billion you on.
That's 500 million US dollars on the two gigawatt hour facility.
And where will we find these solid state batteries?
Volkswagen and Audi brand vehicles.
Small to begin with, you know, small batch integration.
By the end of this year, they say full scale mass production
by 2030.
But all solid state seems very real, doesn't it?
NIO has extended its seven year low interest financing plan
through to the end of this month for four main brand models.
85, 85 touring, ES6 and EC6.
NIO launched the offer at the beginning of February for one month
but has now extended it.
It's an annualized interest rate effective of 0.49%.
And if you use NIO's battery as a service,
you can get a down payment of about $5,000.
The move lands as Chinese EV makers face mounting sales pressure in Q1
after the scaling back of national car purchase incentives at the end of last year.
Ultra long term financing does some of the work that blunt price cuts used to do
until Beijing signaled their unhappiness with that.
Now, global vehicle sales were 7.18 million units in January.
So I know we're into March already,
but we've now got all of the numbers in for January.
So global sales 7 million and a bit.
New energy vehicle sales 1.42 million on a global level in January.
That's 20% of the market.
Wind down in China's trading stimulus program
did pull those numbers back a little bit,
as did the expiration of the US tax exemptions, tax credit as well.
Battery electric vehicles were 13.3% of all global vehicle sales in January.
Plug-in hybrids 6.4, that's there we get to 19.7% of the global market.
So one in five vehicles sold had a plug socket on the side and 13% were a pure Bev.
China was that 63% of the global plug-in market.
Europe about 19% and the US about 5%.
The global EV market now looks set for a bit of an adjustment China's scale,
but it's export reach.
We'll do some heavy lifting while a reduction of the share of EVs and a political climate
in favor of oil in the United States.
Well, they must decide whether to keep up or keep out of the EV race.
German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz went to Beijing for a two-day official visit recently.
His first visit to China since taking office last May.
He took senior executives from Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz,
and BMW to keep him company on the plane.
Mr. Mertz used the trip to showcase Chinese software inside German flagship cars.
He test rode a new Mercedes-Benz S-Class with intelligent driving from Chinese
for memento after the test ride.
Mercedes-Benz showed an upgraded strategic cooperation agreement with memento.
BMW used the visit to do a deal with CATL over supply chains.
And Volkswagen set out its view of where the center of gravity sits.
It formally acknowledged China as the global core innovation hub.
Volkswagen said competitiveness in the Chinese market
is inseparable from having some global success.
China's auto exports were more than 7 million vehicles in all of 2025.
A new record and further overseas expansion will happen this year.
The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers
crediting China's edge to an end-to-end EV supply chain.
The materials, the batteries, the motors, the control systems,
the cockpits, and even the software.
Now BYD confirming the launch event in two days time on the 5th of March
for their disruptive technology event.
Now it's the date in an official WeChat post from their Shenzhen headquarters.
BYD's February EV sales were down 41% year on year.
That's six straight months of declining sales.
BYD needs to pull itself out of this nosedive that it's in,
and maybe their new technology can do it.
Market Talk links the 5th of March day presentation
to a large-scale rollout of megawatts level flash charging 2.0.
Their new charging piles are going in the ground this week
with a very distinctive cyan exterior and a T-shaped structure.
The cable pulls down from above you.
That helps with the weight because these cables can be very heavy
because they're charging at 1500 kilowatts.
They say on a single gun, a single plug BYD,
they say, and we'll find out in two days time,
some articles say Deutsche Bank, I think say the analysts at Deutsche Bank,
say that if you use two guns and two plug method,
you get 2.1 megawatts, 2100 kilowatts of charge speed.
So that's 50% higher than their first generation technology,
and they want to build 4,000 of them this year.
That's amazing.
We'll wait and see.
Well, we've got two days to wait and we'll find out.
We'll take a break.
We'll come back.
We'll talk Rocks Motor and the Buick Electric around.
Welcome back to the podcast.
Rocks Motor handed over almost 1,300 vehicles last month.
I missed them out of yesterday's February sales roundup
because they're quite a small name in the Chinese EV market,
but it doubled year on year.
January started the year at 1,000 and February was 1,302 straight months of growth,
giving the young brand a bit of a momentum.
The company was founded in 2021 as a premium EV brand built on the outdoors,
I think Land Rovers and very square boxy four by fours,
but they're quite luxury, kind of mid to large luxury off-roaders.
The Gishi 01 was their first one and then they widened the lineup last year
with the Adamas China edition using a range extended powertrain.
So 1.5 litre range in 150 kilowatt electric motor.
And there's an all wheel drive version as well with two electric motors,
44.5 kilowatt hour battery, all electric range, 134 miles or 215 kilometers.
It's expanded into 40 countries.
They do good business in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa with over 80 showrooms.
Open Middle East is 70% of Rocks' business at the moment.
Now, General Motors has unveiled the all new Buick Electra in Casa.
It's a pure Bev.
It launched this month in March as a fully electric version of Buick's full size MPV
under the Electra sub brand.
The Electra in Casa Bev expands their flagship MPV lineup at the premium end of China's
new energy segment.
The joint venture SAIC GM says that it's the in Casa plug-in hybrid.
It's the top selling luxury MPV in its price range.
And here's the Bev version.
Didn't include powertrain specifics.
It did say that the in Casa Bev will use a dual motor all wheel drive setup,
482 kilowatts of power.
It's a very, very powerful minivan, isn't it?
You can fit the family in that and also have some fun away from the lights.
The in Casa Bev will be built and sold only in and for Chinese buyers.
No sign of exports.
Now finally, Shenzhen has launched a subsidy program on the 28th of February,
backed by ultra long special treasury bonds.
It includes cars, but also home appliances and more.
The city targets for the year 35,000 scrappage combustion cars
and 180,000 trade-ins for the year.
And so this is about getting more polluting cars off the road.
For scrappage, if you scrap a combustion passenger car and buy an EV in its place,
you'll get a subsidy worth 12% of the purchase price capped at 20,000 yuan.
If you trade in your car rather than scrapping it,
so it will have a second life, you don't get quite 20,000, you get 15,000 yuan.
But yeah, if you have an old combustion car in Shenzhen,
well worth scrapping and getting a big chunk of change off a brand new EV.
That's a little way. I love a bit of scrappage schemes.
There's been scrappage schemes here over the years, never managed to take advantage of them,
but they can work out really well.
And that's your podcast for today.
Thanks for listening. See you on the next one.
About this episode
The episode dives into China's EV market dynamics, highlighting Xpeng's surprise launch of the X9 electric MPV with a significant price cut and impressive range. Gotion's completion of a 2 GWh solid-state battery production line marks a major step toward safer, higher-density batteries, with Volkswagen and Audi set to benefit. NIO extends its low-interest financing amid sales pressures, while BYD prepares to unveil advanced flash charging technology. The discussion also covers global EV sales trends, German automakers' China collaborations, and new EV models like Buick's all-electric Electra MPV tailored for China.
