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Welcome back to the podcast. Zika's 001 has 12C charging, the NeoES8 backlog and
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Euro testing of an MG IM5. Plus stay tuned later in the show I'll tell you how BYD is
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doing overseas. Welcome to EV News China, the podcast dedicated to the world's largest
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EV market. Every day I bring you the latest headlines, insights and analysis from the
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heart of China's booming EV industry and I'll decode for you how fast moving developments
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in the east are shaping the global EV landscape. Zika began pre-sales of the updated Zika 001
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shooting break and it gets better in every possible way and I won't give you all the
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comparison specs but it's fair to say any specs I'm about to give you are considerably
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better than the outgoing one. Chinese buyers can now reserve the new Zika 001 shooting
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break which incidentally, before we get into specs, is utterly beautiful. With 2000RMB
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deposit, but if you do that you get a 7000RMB discount on the vehicle itself on the final
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payment. Showroom display models arrive at stores October 4th, official launch October
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11th. Updated model now goes up to 900V architecture from 800. Zika said the 900V system on the
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SEA platform will improve charging speed, driving dynamics and total range. All-wheel
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drive variants, 680hp, 2.83s 0-62mph, top speed 174mph, 280kph. So we've established Zika
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001 shooting break is already just a beast for technical specifications. What does it
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look like? Blimey, difficult isn't it to try and make comparisons because it'll sound
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like they're ripping something else off but I would probably say maybe taller than a
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Kiri V6, maybe Porsche McKinney with a little bit more of a boot anyway. So two battery options,
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95kWh Zika golden battery, 103kWh CATL Kirin battery. The golden battery has a CLT range of
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441 miles, 710km, flash charging over a thousand kilowatts. That's a megawatt of charging on a
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passenger vehicle. Over a thousand kilowatts of charging, peak charge rate 12C. The C rate is a
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measure of charge discharge rate but it's fair to say that everything else in the west, if you had
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three, four C, you're doing very well. A 12C battery will go to 80% in 7 minutes. Now obviously
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that's under ideal conditions with the right charger but you can add 311 miles or 500km in
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7 minutes. It's just good night combustion isn't it? The Kirin battery gives you 503 miles of range
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and a peak charge rate of only 6C but you can still get to 80% in 10 minutes. That's incredible.
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Driver assistance, well it's all the toys. It's got their G pilot system with 31 sensors, LIDAR
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as well. Driving assistance with an NVIDIA Thor U-Chip. That's 700 tops of processing speed.
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That's significantly up on the 500 before. The older Zika 001 was launched on August 13th 2024,
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starting price at 259,000 RMB. That's 36,000 US dollars equivalent. That's for, I think,
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was the rear wheel drive version for that price last year. I've given you the top specs in comparison
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but it certainly won't be a huge amount of money and that new Zika 001, it's just better in
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every way. The way that the Chinese companies are iterating so quickly and some of it's not a
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small iteration. Some of it is, well to borrow a phrase, an order of magnitude better, deeply,
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deeply impressive. Let's move on. NEO have had a great couple of days. I've been talking about the
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ES8 since Monday and or Sunday rather and now the ES8 orders and delivery outlook. We know
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more now. NEO's mobile app is currently showing a weight of 26 weeks for the ES8. Third generation
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ES8. Big six or seven seat luxury executive Range Rover alternative. NEO unveiled it on Saturday
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at NEO Day. Deliveries began the day after on Sunday, just gone on September 21st. Three variants,
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six seats, seven seats or the signature six seats. Most of the orders were for the six
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seats version. 95% are mentioned yesterday of the orders were for the battery swapping version.
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The company reported production capacity of 40,000 units for the remainder of the year, 15,000
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of those in December and we're already seeing half a year's weight. NEO said it'll cover losses
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from any reduction in next year's purchase tax incentive reduction if production constraints
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mean they can't get the vehicle to you. China's EV purchase tax exemption is diminishing and that
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'll add tax costs for customers who get deliveries next year. But NEO said that if they have to
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postpone deliveries beyond eight weeks, customers will receive compensation of 50 RMB a day beginning
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on the 57th day of after order confirmation. The MG IM 5 is coming to European market. It's an
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electric SUV 800 volt architecture. The IM 5 is sold in Australia as presented by MG over here.
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It'll be sold from MG dealerships, although it doesn't have MG badging on it. I need to confirm
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why somebody said it would then require kind of homologation kind of crash testing like that level
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of if we change the badge, I need to find out what the real deal is with that because I mean stick an
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MG badge on it. But in either way, it's the IM. So it's not even really an MG to be honest with you,
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but 800 volts, 100 kilowatt hour gross battery, 395 kilowatts peak charge speed that's so fast,
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80% charge in 17 minutes. MG positions the IM 5 as premium, requiring upgraded dealer facilities
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for sales and service. Initial performance testing by the famous Norwegian YouTuber Björn Newland
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impressed him with quick acceleration, though the measured output can be slightly below the
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quoted figures, depending on battery temperature and state of charge. The 800 volt system,
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whilst allowing for high peak charging rates at 395, the tests recorded a system voltage down at
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422 was at some points. Yeah, of course, pack voltage does change, doesn't it? When it's low,
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but Björn noting the interior has a large touchscreen, which you like the smaller lower
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display soft touch surfaces and high spec materials, the adjustable seating for average
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sized occupants, equipment includes the glass roof, the frameless windows, the ambient lighting,
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a front trunk or front and a rear hatch with good cargo access. He liked drive resistance
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features with adaptive cruise, automatic lane change and lane keep, ride and handling with
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tune for comfort, he said, and urban manoeuvrability. The review concluded with the IM 5 getting good
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marks for power, rapid charging and well equipped interior. Newland noting that additional long
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term testing was needed though to verify the sustained battery efficiency and real world
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charging of which he is exceptional at and puts all of his data online. So if you go to any of
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these YouTube videos, by the way, look at the notes, the show notes as it were, he puts links
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in there to Google Sheets and stuff where he puts a lot of his testing data. Incredible presenter,
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as well, really compelling when he's reviewing cars. Now yesterday on September 27th, Great
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exterior refresh, the high four Z power train with a two liter engine and dual electric motors
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and Great Wall motors, third generation coffee pilot ultra driver assistance. Exterior is a
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rugged look front grill uses horizontal chrome bars and headlights that are all very off roady.
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Front bumper lines change from angular to straight with black trim, side wheel arch rivets, that
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kind of thing. The rear keeps a spare tire, but the spare tire guard is removed. Tail badging
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is repositioned with Great Wall motor tank at the top. A roof mounted LiDAR plus side and rear
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cameras support the ADAS system. City and highway navigate on autopilot. Tail lights include some
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little small blue lights that indicate when the system is active, really smart move. The high four
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Z has a two liter engine and dual electric motors. So electric motors are 215 kilowatts and 240
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kilometers of CLTC range is a big beast. This is probably one of the places where you would want
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maybe a range extender or plug in hybrid. If you want to do something off roady with it or towing,
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then big battery combustion fuels could be good for some wouldn't be for me. I like pure electric,
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but I can see why people would go for this. I mean, if you've ever looked at a Toyota land cruiser
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and gone, I'd like one of those, then have a look at the tank because it's not a million miles away.
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Now let's talk about GAC and the ION RT getting an update. The electric sedan, they updated this
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yesterday as well with some really interesting specs and four variants priced from 99,000.
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You won. That's 14,000 US dollars. These prices are so low. And again, this looking very much like
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a Tesla Model 3 competitor, the new Kia EV4, isn't it? With the, not the hatchback, but the sedan
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shape with the extra boot. Yep, pretty similar to that big glass roof. Again, just very, very good
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contemporary sedan saloon styling. If that's what you want, but the specs for $14,000,
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again, they just blow your socks off. And so exterior design about the same powertrain options
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mean that the highest configuration will now do 403.9 miles. They have the Velociraptor concept
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of their design, they say, with the three dimensional rounded forms and continuous body
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lines. The front fascia uses a layout to reduce drag. So it's very slippery and friendly looking
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at the front lidar. Of course, the profile is coupe like window frames are blacked out and the
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door handles are concealed. Charging ports on the front fender for this one. Inside a nine inch
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floating instrument cluster, 14.6 inch central screen for drive resistance, 126 line lidar,
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the Nvidia RNX chip. So not the latest greatest superfast, but very, very good. 254 tops, a power
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on that. And Nomap NDA. So intelligent driving using fourth gen end to end large models to handle
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unmarked roads, not using mapping 99% of driving scenarios. It says it covers really lovely two
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spoke steering wheel in this, I think very good level of interior by the look of it. Simple,
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you know, very simple. One of those examples where the front seats both fold completely flat,
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so you could sit on the back seats and stretch your legs out if you wanted to. And then a large
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center armrest in the middle between the driver and the passenger. So by the time you include that
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as well, probably put a mattress in there as well and have a very, I don't know, like a leisure
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experience in your vehicle. If you were kind of camping in your, in your car, CATLs,
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lithium ion phosphate packs, 55 or 68 kilowatt hours and starting price, 14,000 US incredible price
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for a lot of vehicle. Take a break. We'll come back. We'll talk about the aura five, their first SUV
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and BYD in Europe. Stick around back in a moment.
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Hey, welcome back to EV news, China. Now let's talk about the first SUV from aura. Great wall
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motors. First in their brand there, the aura brand, ORA and capitalized as well, how it stylized
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their first SUV called the aura five. And it'll be shown with their natural aesthetics design.
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We get to see it in a showcase in two days time on September 25th. Of course,
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the distinctive family styling on this, the CAT family image, the aura, CAT, etc. All we've
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got so far is an outline of the outside, but yeah, I think it's fair to say it looks pretty much like
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the smaller cars that they do in a large, high family, big SUV. Look, so closed front,
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facier round headlamps, wide fenders, coupe like tailgate, standard features,
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including the big panoramic sunroof, 150 kilowatt motor and an LFP pack from Svolte.
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Now, SGMW open pre-orders for the Shinguang, which is Starlight, the Shinguang 730.
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Today, customers who place an order before the market launch get 2000 Yuan discount,
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it's about $300, by paying a 1000 Yuan deposit. The first batch of vehicles has reached dealers
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in 220 cities. The Shinguang 730 is built on Wuling's new energy architecture using their
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Sky Spirit God technology, offered with three power trains, either combustion, plug-in hybrid,
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or pure electric. Inside a floating center display with physical controls and wireless phone
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charging pads, big vehicle. So this would be two plus two plus three in a seven seat layout.
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There's not much you can do with a people carrier. So the second row seats offer a lot of recline
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adjustment on this. So it looks, yeah, this isn't one of, you know, I always talk about these high
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end MPVs. I always think that maybe nice five-star hotels would have these doing airport shuttle runs,
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or if you like your children, you put them in the back of this. So this is not that level of
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luxury on the starlight, but it would carry a lot of people in, it looks like a lot of comfort.
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And again, there's not much you can do with the styling. So apart from missing the big glass roof
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that a lot of these cars have with the fold down screen from the ceiling and all the luxury. Look,
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this is not in that segment, by the way. So you still get seven people moved around, I think,
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in good comfort in this and not much up front, apart from a big center screen, little driver
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display, two spoke steering wheel as well. Pretty simple, a couple of cup holders and
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the wireless charging pads. But apart from that, this is on your more budget end, I would say.
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And the styling on the outside, well, yeah, it's an MPV. So vertical back and pretty high, obviously
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a very high roof line as well. So the plug-in hybrid with a 78 kilowatts engine and an electric
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motor, the electric variant, 100 kilowatts motor and either 54 or 60 kilowatt hour battery. So
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very sensible specs on this, but I couldn't find out pricing. But what we know, it will
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know in two days time when they launch it, I think pre-orders at least open now. BYD hits 10%
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of Spain's EV sales. BYD is leading the global EV market overseas because of its dominance in
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China. It's able to expand outside. And the BYD's established strong positions in many places and
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many markets, actually, Africa, Asia, South America. In Europe, they've not been as dominant in part
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because many European automakers and markets are serving good products. And legacy automakers,
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kind of hit that frame, legacy sound, that term legacy sounds like the past, we should say it
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established automakers really. Spain's an exception, though. In July, BYD was 10% of their
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plug-in vehicle sales. Tesla was 3.3. That's huge, isn't it? And that's because that is plug-in
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vehicles of all types for BYD. But hey, they'll take one in 10. Spain lacks a single domestic
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automaker to dominate the market, which means foreign brands can come in. BYD is considering
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Spain amongst locations for expanding their manufacturing in Europe. BYD's dealer network
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in Spain has risen sharply. 25 dealers last year, 100 dealers now. Plug-in vehicles were
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21% of auto sales in Spain in July up from 10% a year ago. And for BYD to take 10% of those,
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really impressive. And finally, when your cars are made, if you are listening
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in a location to this podcast where you can get Chinese cars, so when your car is made and it
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goes overseas, I mean, they just stick it on one of the big roll-on-roll-off ferries, right? Well,
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not only, because yesterday, the first China-to-Europe freight train, the Hefei, it's called, the
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JSQ Special Train, commonly known as CAGE cars, by the way, carrying a tonne of new energy vehicles
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departed China. Fully loaded with 290 electric vehicles, the train left the Xitang Railway
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with transit times up to 22 days. The maiden departure ceremony, held as part of the Hefei
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International NEV conference, opens up overseas channels for new energy vehicles made in the
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area, lowering logistics costs and helping them compete internationally. The China-Europe freight
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train Hefei service now serves 20 countries and 176 station cities, with total departures exceeding
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5,300 trains. A new corridor across Eurasia for import, export companies. And that's your podcast
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for today. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next one.
