CHINA: Zeekr 001 12C Charging, NIO ES8 Backlog and MG IM5 Tested In Europe | 23 Sep 2025

Welcome back to the podcast. Zika's 001 has 12C charging, the NeoES8 backlog and

Euro testing of an MG IM5. Plus stay tuned later in the show I'll tell you how BYD is

doing overseas. 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 I'll decode for you how fast moving developments

in the east are shaping the global EV landscape. Zika began pre-sales of the updated Zika 001

shooting break and it gets better in every possible way and I won't give you all the

comparison specs but it's fair to say any specs I'm about to give you are considerably

better than the outgoing one. Chinese buyers can now reserve the new Zika 001 shooting

break which incidentally, before we get into specs, is utterly beautiful. With 2000RMB

deposit, but if you do that you get a 7000RMB discount on the vehicle itself on the final

payment. Showroom display models arrive at stores October 4th, official launch October

11th. Updated model now goes up to 900V architecture from 800. Zika said the 900V system on the

SEA platform will improve charging speed, driving dynamics and total range. All-wheel

drive variants, 680hp, 2.83s 0-62mph, top speed 174mph, 280kph. So we've established Zika

001 shooting break is already just a beast for technical specifications. What does it

look like? Blimey, difficult isn't it to try and make comparisons because it'll sound

like they're ripping something else off but I would probably say maybe taller than a

Kiri V6, maybe Porsche McKinney with a little bit more of a boot anyway. So two battery options,

95kWh Zika golden battery, 103kWh CATL Kirin battery. The golden battery has a CLT range of

441 miles, 710km, flash charging over a thousand kilowatts. That's a megawatt of charging on a

passenger vehicle. Over a thousand kilowatts of charging, peak charge rate 12C. The C rate is a

measure of charge discharge rate but it's fair to say that everything else in the west, if you had

three, four C, you're doing very well. A 12C battery will go to 80% in 7 minutes. Now obviously

that's under ideal conditions with the right charger but you can add 311 miles or 500km in

7 minutes. It's just good night combustion isn't it? The Kirin battery gives you 503 miles of range

and a peak charge rate of only 6C but you can still get to 80% in 10 minutes. That's incredible.

Driver assistance, well it's all the toys. It's got their G pilot system with 31 sensors, LIDAR

as well. Driving assistance with an NVIDIA Thor U-Chip. That's 700 tops of processing speed.

That's significantly up on the 500 before. The older Zika 001 was launched on August 13th 2024,

starting price at 259,000 RMB. That's 36,000 US dollars equivalent. That's for, I think,

was the rear wheel drive version for that price last year. I've given you the top specs in comparison

but it certainly won't be a huge amount of money and that new Zika 001, it's just better in

every way. The way that the Chinese companies are iterating so quickly and some of it's not a

small iteration. Some of it is, well to borrow a phrase, an order of magnitude better, deeply,

deeply impressive. Let's move on. NEO have had a great couple of days. I've been talking about the

ES8 since Monday and or Sunday rather and now the ES8 orders and delivery outlook. We know

more now. NEO's mobile app is currently showing a weight of 26 weeks for the ES8. Third generation

ES8. Big six or seven seat luxury executive Range Rover alternative. NEO unveiled it on Saturday

at NEO Day. Deliveries began the day after on Sunday, just gone on September 21st. Three variants,

six seats, seven seats or the signature six seats. Most of the orders were for the six

seats version. 95% are mentioned yesterday of the orders were for the battery swapping version.

The company reported production capacity of 40,000 units for the remainder of the year, 15,000

of those in December and we're already seeing half a year's weight. NEO said it'll cover losses

from any reduction in next year's purchase tax incentive reduction if production constraints

mean they can't get the vehicle to you. China's EV purchase tax exemption is diminishing and that

'll add tax costs for customers who get deliveries next year. But NEO said that if they have to

postpone deliveries beyond eight weeks, customers will receive compensation of 50 RMB a day beginning

on the 57th day of after order confirmation. The MG IM 5 is coming to European market. It's an

electric SUV 800 volt architecture. The IM 5 is sold in Australia as presented by MG over here.

It'll be sold from MG dealerships, although it doesn't have MG badging on it. I need to confirm

why somebody said it would then require kind of homologation kind of crash testing like that level

of if we change the badge, I need to find out what the real deal is with that because I mean stick an

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,

but 800 volts, 100 kilowatt hour gross battery, 395 kilowatts peak charge speed that's so fast,

80% charge in 17 minutes. MG positions the IM 5 as premium, requiring upgraded dealer facilities

for sales and service. Initial performance testing by the famous Norwegian YouTuber Björn Newland

impressed him with quick acceleration, though the measured output can be slightly below the

quoted figures, depending on battery temperature and state of charge. The 800 volt system,

whilst allowing for high peak charging rates at 395, the tests recorded a system voltage down at

422 was at some points. Yeah, of course, pack voltage does change, doesn't it? When it's low,

but Björn noting the interior has a large touchscreen, which you like the smaller lower

display soft touch surfaces and high spec materials, the adjustable seating for average

sized occupants, equipment includes the glass roof, the frameless windows, the ambient lighting,

a front trunk or front and a rear hatch with good cargo access. He liked drive resistance

features with adaptive cruise, automatic lane change and lane keep, ride and handling with

tune for comfort, he said, and urban manoeuvrability. The review concluded with the IM 5 getting good

marks for power, rapid charging and well equipped interior. Newland noting that additional long

term testing was needed though to verify the sustained battery efficiency and real world

charging of which he is exceptional at and puts all of his data online. So if you go to any of

these YouTube videos, by the way, look at the notes, the show notes as it were, he puts links

in there to Google Sheets and stuff where he puts a lot of his testing data. Incredible presenter,

as well, really compelling when he's reviewing cars. Now yesterday on September 27th, Great

exterior refresh, the high four Z power train with a two liter engine and dual electric motors

and Great Wall motors, third generation coffee pilot ultra driver assistance. Exterior is a

rugged look front grill uses horizontal chrome bars and headlights that are all very off roady.

Front bumper lines change from angular to straight with black trim, side wheel arch rivets, that

kind of thing. The rear keeps a spare tire, but the spare tire guard is removed. Tail badging

is repositioned with Great Wall motor tank at the top. A roof mounted LiDAR plus side and rear

cameras support the ADAS system. City and highway navigate on autopilot. Tail lights include some

little small blue lights that indicate when the system is active, really smart move. The high four

Z has a two liter engine and dual electric motors. So electric motors are 215 kilowatts and 240

kilometers of CLTC range is a big beast. This is probably one of the places where you would want

maybe a range extender or plug in hybrid. If you want to do something off roady with it or towing,

then big battery combustion fuels could be good for some wouldn't be for me. I like pure electric,

but I can see why people would go for this. I mean, if you've ever looked at a Toyota land cruiser

and gone, I'd like one of those, then have a look at the tank because it's not a million miles away.

Now let's talk about GAC and the ION RT getting an update. The electric sedan, they updated this

yesterday as well with some really interesting specs and four variants priced from 99,000.

You won. That's 14,000 US dollars. These prices are so low. And again, this looking very much like

a Tesla Model 3 competitor, the new Kia EV4, isn't it? With the, not the hatchback, but the sedan

shape with the extra boot. Yep, pretty similar to that big glass roof. Again, just very, very good

contemporary sedan saloon styling. If that's what you want, but the specs for $14,000,

again, they just blow your socks off. And so exterior design about the same powertrain options

mean that the highest configuration will now do 403.9 miles. They have the Velociraptor concept

of their design, they say, with the three dimensional rounded forms and continuous body

lines. The front fascia uses a layout to reduce drag. So it's very slippery and friendly looking

at the front lidar. Of course, the profile is coupe like window frames are blacked out and the

door handles are concealed. Charging ports on the front fender for this one. Inside a nine inch

floating instrument cluster, 14.6 inch central screen for drive resistance, 126 line lidar,

the Nvidia RNX chip. So not the latest greatest superfast, but very, very good. 254 tops, a power

on that. And Nomap NDA. So intelligent driving using fourth gen end to end large models to handle

unmarked roads, not using mapping 99% of driving scenarios. It says it covers really lovely two

spoke steering wheel in this, I think very good level of interior by the look of it. Simple,

you know, very simple. One of those examples where the front seats both fold completely flat,

so you could sit on the back seats and stretch your legs out if you wanted to. And then a large

center armrest in the middle between the driver and the passenger. So by the time you include that

as well, probably put a mattress in there as well and have a very, I don't know, like a leisure

experience in your vehicle. If you were kind of camping in your, in your car, CATLs,

lithium ion phosphate packs, 55 or 68 kilowatt hours and starting price, 14,000 US incredible price

for a lot of vehicle. Take a break. We'll come back. We'll talk about the aura five, their first SUV

and BYD in Europe. Stick around back in a moment.

Hey, welcome back to EV news, China. Now let's talk about the first SUV from aura. Great wall

motors. First in their brand there, the aura brand, ORA and capitalized as well, how it stylized

their first SUV called the aura five. And it'll be shown with their natural aesthetics design.

We get to see it in a showcase in two days time on September 25th. Of course,

the distinctive family styling on this, the CAT family image, the aura, CAT, etc. All we've

got so far is an outline of the outside, but yeah, I think it's fair to say it looks pretty much like

the smaller cars that they do in a large, high family, big SUV. Look, so closed front,

facier round headlamps, wide fenders, coupe like tailgate, standard features,

including the big panoramic sunroof, 150 kilowatt motor and an LFP pack from Svolte.

Now, SGMW open pre-orders for the Shinguang, which is Starlight, the Shinguang 730.

Today, customers who place an order before the market launch get 2000 Yuan discount,

it's about $300, by paying a 1000 Yuan deposit. The first batch of vehicles has reached dealers

in 220 cities. The Shinguang 730 is built on Wuling's new energy architecture using their

Sky Spirit God technology, offered with three power trains, either combustion, plug-in hybrid,

or pure electric. Inside a floating center display with physical controls and wireless phone

charging pads, big vehicle. So this would be two plus two plus three in a seven seat layout.

There's not much you can do with a people carrier. So the second row seats offer a lot of recline

adjustment on this. So it looks, yeah, this isn't one of, you know, I always talk about these high

end MPVs. I always think that maybe nice five-star hotels would have these doing airport shuttle runs,

or if you like your children, you put them in the back of this. So this is not that level of

luxury on the starlight, but it would carry a lot of people in, it looks like a lot of comfort.

And again, there's not much you can do with the styling. So apart from missing the big glass roof

that a lot of these cars have with the fold down screen from the ceiling and all the luxury. Look,

this is not in that segment, by the way. So you still get seven people moved around, I think,

in good comfort in this and not much up front, apart from a big center screen, little driver

display, two spoke steering wheel as well. Pretty simple, a couple of cup holders and

the wireless charging pads. But apart from that, this is on your more budget end, I would say.

And the styling on the outside, well, yeah, it's an MPV. So vertical back and pretty high, obviously

a very high roof line as well. So the plug-in hybrid with a 78 kilowatts engine and an electric

motor, the electric variant, 100 kilowatts motor and either 54 or 60 kilowatt hour battery. So

very sensible specs on this, but I couldn't find out pricing. But what we know, it will

know in two days time when they launch it, I think pre-orders at least open now. BYD hits 10%

of Spain's EV sales. BYD is leading the global EV market overseas because of its dominance in

China. It's able to expand outside. And the BYD's established strong positions in many places and

many markets, actually, Africa, Asia, South America. In Europe, they've not been as dominant in part

because many European automakers and markets are serving good products. And legacy automakers,

kind of hit that frame, legacy sound, that term legacy sounds like the past, we should say it

established automakers really. Spain's an exception, though. In July, BYD was 10% of their

plug-in vehicle sales. Tesla was 3.3. That's huge, isn't it? And that's because that is plug-in

vehicles of all types for BYD. But hey, they'll take one in 10. Spain lacks a single domestic

automaker to dominate the market, which means foreign brands can come in. BYD is considering

Spain amongst locations for expanding their manufacturing in Europe. BYD's dealer network

in Spain has risen sharply. 25 dealers last year, 100 dealers now. Plug-in vehicles were

21% of auto sales in Spain in July up from 10% a year ago. And for BYD to take 10% of those,

really impressive. And finally, when your cars are made, if you are listening

in a location to this podcast where you can get Chinese cars, so when your car is made and it

goes overseas, I mean, they just stick it on one of the big roll-on-roll-off ferries, right? Well,

not only, because yesterday, the first China-to-Europe freight train, the Hefei, it's called, the

JSQ Special Train, commonly known as CAGE cars, by the way, carrying a tonne of new energy vehicles

departed China. Fully loaded with 290 electric vehicles, the train left the Xitang Railway

with transit times up to 22 days. The maiden departure ceremony, held as part of the Hefei

International NEV conference, opens up overseas channels for new energy vehicles made in the

area, lowering logistics costs and helping them compete internationally. The China-Europe freight

train Hefei service now serves 20 countries and 176 station cities, with total departures exceeding

5,300 trains. A new corridor across Eurasia for import, export companies. And that's your podcast

for today. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next one.

CHINA: Zeekr 001 12C Charging, NIO ES8 Backlog and MG IM5 Tested In Europe | 23 Sep 2025

Dodge Charger

Nio ES8

Land Rover Range Rover

Chevrolet Volt

Toyota Land

Tesla Model

Tesla Model 3

Kia EV4

Saturn Aura

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