DAILY: Cupra Tindaya EREV, Geely EX5 For UK and VW Delays ID.Golf | 16 Sep 2025

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Welcome back to EV News Daily.

Coming up today, CUPRA's Tin Dyer is VW Group's take on a range extender.

G. Lee launches the EX5 in the UK and VW will delay the new electric golf and rock.

Plus, stay tuned.

Later in the show, I'll tell you which electric vehicles

insurance companies say need to be made harder to steal.

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On today's edition of EV News China,

we're talking about 15.5 million NEVs this year,

an updated Denza N9 and G. Lee's Galaxy Mini-Van.

Plus, if you join me tonight on our new show,

which I've called The Techsheet,

a spin-off from the spec sheet,

this is going to be a show that we look at the technology behind electric vehicles.

On The Techsheet this evening, we'll answer the question,

years after its launch, why hasn't the car industry followed the Tesla Cybertruck

down the route of 48-volt systems replacing the old ancient 12-volt battery?

That show will be live tonight for patrons,

and all patron exclusives go into the free feed after seven days.

But if you want the content first, that's just one of the many member benefits.

Let's kick off with Cupra.

Shown at the IAA show, the Cupra Tindaya is two concepts in one,

probably a successor to the Cupra best-selling form and tour,

but also a demo of what VW Group's range extender could look like on the SSP platform.

That will replace the Group's MEB and PPE.

The latter used for cars like the Porsche Macam.

SSP was meant to be EV only,

but now they've shown off the Tindaya with an E-rev option,

or as they called it, the Reeve option,

which is slightly weirder to say than E-rev, R-E-E-V.

Can we just call them E-revs?

Is that okay?

Just for the podcast, even if the car companies want me to call them Reeves,

which is range-extended electric vehicle,

that could increase the Group's competitiveness in China.

Well, I think it's fair to say they're going, well, loopy for E-revs.

Check out our spin-off show, EV News China, for more details.

Performance, they say.

Well, it doesn't really matter because it's not a real car,

but they're aimed for 4.1 seconds, 0-62.

The powertrain would pair dual electric motors and all-wheel drive,

with a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine,

very common, by the way, in the Chinese way of doing it.

Electric range is about 300 kilometers or 186 miles, they say.

Again, the Chinese current trend is for very, very big batteries, 40, 50.

I talked about one today, 65 kilowatt hours in an E-rev.

Well, that's as big as the battery in my Hyundai Kona that I had for a year,

and that thing went forever.

And I never wanted to put some liquids inside it,

and have an engine to service.

Cupra used B-comp, a composite material for the body.

Inside is a motorsport-style yoke steering wheel,

a 24-inch digital display.

Both may appear on future Cupra production models.

No production date has been confirmed.

Entry around 2027 or 2028 could be plausible

for the next-generation mid-sized SUV.

Let's move on and talk about Geely, the megacorp that owns a lot.

They're actually launching a car here under their own brand,

not as a Volvo or a Polestar or an LEVC, London Black Cab.

I can't really say that because the LEVC company is also bringing either a six

or eight-seater minivan called the L380.

I think that comes next year.

I'll look into that.

But Geely, the Chinese company that also owns Lotus,

is introducing its namesake car here,

and orders have gone on sale today.

Pricing starts at $31,990.

It uses a 60.2 kilowatt-hour battery, usable lithium-ion phosphate.

Geely says the entry-level SE trim does 267 miles or 430 kilometers of range,

while the range-topping MAX trim, a little bit less,

often the big trims with more stuff inside or bigger wheels sometimes,

has only 255 miles, 12 miles off the peak range.

They give the 30 to 80, which is useless to us.

Thanks for that.

Please give us 10 to 80.

The industry gives us 10 to 80.

Don't give us 30 to 80 because we know you're trying to fudge something.

They say 20 minutes.

Standard equipment includes 18-inch alloy wheels, heated and electric front seats,

heated steering wheel.

The mid-level Pro trim is 34,000 pounds.

You put 19-inch wheels on that and the cloud interior.

And the MAX trim adds a panoramic glass roof, a powered boot,

and ventilated front seats, among some other nice features.

The EX5 comes with a six-year warranty, extendable by a further two.

Customers deliveries begin late October.

Geely previously said fleet buyers would be a key segment for the EX5.

They account for the majority of EV sales there at the moment.

Volkswagen is next and they will push back the start of production for the ID Golf

and the ID Rock ROC.

I used to say T-Rock that ID Rock sounds weird.

Back to 2030, the all-electric Golf was planned for 2028,

then moved back a year and now another year.

The ID Rock will roll off the line first in the summer of 2030

on the new SSP platform we talked about earlier.

The postponement appears to be part of a chain reaction

tied to shifting combustion engine gulf production.

The internal combustion gulf was originally scheduled to move to Mexico in 2027,

but they haven't worked out the optimal timing for that, they say.

Because of the delayed move, the planned transfer of the ID3 and the CUPRA born

from Tvickau to Wolfsburg in 2027 to fill the capacity

until the Golf and the Rock arrive, that also gets pushed back.

Final allocation of production across the group's plants is normally set in

VW's annual planning round.

They happen in November, which assigns production for the next five years.

The company now says clarity is not expected until that process,

which itself could be delayed because Audi must first clarify its plans

for possible US production.

While staying in Europe and some good news for Tesla,

their Grunheider factory near Berlin will increase vehicle production

beyond earlier plans because of very good sales figures.

Says the plant manager, Andre Tirig, telling the German news agency DPA.

He said the plant had revised their production plans upward

for the third and fourth quarters and that the factory continues to expect

positive signals for all the markets we supply.

He did not give specific production targets.

These comments contrast with actually what the sales data is telling us.

The Industry Association, a CEA, reports Tesla's sales in the European Union

were down 44% in January to July.

In Germany, Tesla registrations were down 39% in the month of August

and dropped 56% in the first eight months of the year compared to the same period

last year. Tesla recorded steep August declines in

France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. Norway was an exception,

but Norway's a very small car market by volume.

Registrations were up in August and up on the year to date.

Chief exec Elon Musk and other top executives have put the sales shortfall

down to the transition of the Model Y, which is their top-selling vehicle,

to having to shift over to the new design, disrupting temporarily the production.

But that can't explain why people also aren't buying as many Teslas as they used to.

So increasing the production in Germany is a bit of a headscratcher,

but still a good news story. Audi planned two RS6 variants.

They were going to do a plug-in hybrid in a fully electric RS6 e-tron.

Now a new report says that the all-electric RS6 may be cancelled.

This doesn't come from Audi, though. Prototypes have been seen on public roads

and photographs on occasions now in the past few days.

That could mean the electric project continues or these prototype cars are

being used to test other systems. An internal combustion RS6 that would

be plug-in hybrid would probably still go ahead.

Both models will carry RS6 badging and seris share a similar wagon silhouette,

but use different architectures. The combustion version would ride on a

conventional platform. The EV and plug-ins should be on PPE,

if you're talking about the high-performance Audi's and Porsches

within the group. So A6, S6, Q6 e-tron, Porsche Mechane Electric, etc.

Early expectations had the RS6 e-tron arriving first

with the plug-in hybrid following in 2026, but now let's wait and see.

Now, when it comes to Chinese manufacturing abroad, everyone's looking for

backdoors at the minute. However, that's because they want to sidestep subsidies,

build the cars in Europe, or even chip them in knockdown kits and

reassemble them in Europe to get round tariffs and subsidies.

Not sure this is the motivation behind this one, but Hong Kong

is talking with Chinese EV makers, including the state-owned FAW,

about setting up local manufacturing and building EV assembly there.

Officials are looking at possible sites in the new territories that border mainland China.

The city's innovation technology and industry bureau

said Hong Kong has been proactively talking about building EVs there.

Officials must deal with higher land and higher labor costs in Hong Kong.

At the same time, China's EV sector also has overcapacity,

with factories producing perhaps sometimes only half of their planned output,

and a severe price war is brutally affecting profits.

Firms across Chinese EV supply chains, battery makers, part suppliers

have been moving to Hong Kong to use their financial systems for international expansion.

Contemporary Amperex Technology, CATL, the world's biggest EV battery maker,

opened their headquarters in the city and completed its debut on the local stock exchange

in May. It's one of the biggest, if not the world's biggest, listing

so far this year. Lucid will expand in Asia, but it won't go to China.

Mark Winterhoff, Lucid's interim chief exec, said the company will expand into Asian markets,

but not China. He made the remarks at the Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference

and described the Chinese market as highly subsidized and oversupplied.

Speaking at the IAA show earlier in the week, he said,

What I take away from IAA, obviously the big elephant, the big topic is the Chinese onslaughts.

He noted Western brands like BMW and Mercedes presenting new fully electric models,

saying that from a technology point of view, Western car makers show things that are definitely

competitive. I don't think they have to be afraid or we have to be afraid of the Chinese.

He noted Chinese manufacturers have improved but are not industry leaders in innovation.

Blimey. Okay. Yes. Well, who is to disagree with the interim CEO of Lucid?

But I think some Chinese car makers would argue when he says that they are not industry leaders

in innovation. He said Lucid will not target low cost EV segments. That makes perfect sense,

doesn't it? He said we're not going to go down to $25,000 or $30,000 price range. The

company's next mid-sized platform will be around $50,000. On China, Mr. Winterhoff

said we are not playing in China and I have no intention to go to China.

I think not personally. I think just with his business.

Now, the Electric Vehicle Council in Australia on Monday this week published some financial modeling

prepared by Magenta Advisory on the, what is there, the fringe benefits tax exemption

which exists for EVs. This exemption introduced in July 2022 reduces the cost of EVs bought

through Novated Leases. The modeling found that extending the exemption through to 2035 would

put 1.5 million electric vehicles on Australian roads or 1.5 million more. The policy had supported

the purchase of 105,000 additional EVs over the last two years. If plug-in hybrid vehicles were

allowed into the scheme, the modeling puts another 200,000 plug-ins on the road by 2035.

That scheme is set for review pretty soon, I think, and they're arguing for it to stay.

Let's talk vehicle to grid. ChargeScape, the automotive joint venture focused on EV grid

integration and Nissan both announced a vehicle to grid pilot within the service area of Silicon

Valley Power. Silicon Valley has obviously a large concentration of things like data centers. The rise

of AI has driven a surge in electricity demand that the grid wasn't designed to handle. At

Nissan's tech center in Silicon Valley, they'll be using a pilot to use energy stored in Nissan's

EV batteries managed by Firmata Energy and their bi-directional charges to export power

during periods of grid stress. ChargeScape will work with the market partner, Leap, to discharge

power from Nissan's vehicles. The pilot is part of their virtual power plant trial supporting

ChargeScape's mission to accelerate vehicle to grid integration and establish it as a model

for other V2G programs across California and eventually more US states. But this is not

a large-scale thing, sadly. We'll take a break when we come back. We'll talk Ford and

Toyota and the used EV tax credit and what that's doing. Stick around back in a mower.

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Thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed this video, please like, share, and subscribe.

Thank you for watching this video. 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.

All right, welcome back. Just a reminder, our spin-off series bonus shows are always

Patreon exclusive for the first seven days. Tonight, we're going to have a look at

why EV still use 12-volt batteries on our sub-series, The Tech Sheet. Now,

let's talk about Ford touting its move to LFP batteries. Lithium-ion phosphate LFP cells

typically cost less, can be charged to 100% without accelerated degradation, and have a

lower fire risk. But until now, lower energy density compared to other chemistries, however,

they were improving very fast. Now, Ford, Vice President Lisa Drake at the Jeffries

Inter-Industrials Conference, saying LFP will be our bedrock. It's a tried-and-true technology

here to stay, and incremental improvements will always be made on it. That's Ford's take, or at

least her take, Ford's VP on LFP. Ford will use the technology licensed from the China-based CATL

to make LFP cells at Blue Oval Battery Park in Michigan next year. These battery packs will be

used across several upcoming models, like a mid-size pickup. Ford already fits LFP's into

the Ford Mustang Mach-E, standard range Mach-E. Drake said Ford is remaining flexible about

battery chemistries. As conditions evolve, she also indicated the company is considering

additional battery plants that could supply cells for vehicles and for other applications. Here's

looking at you, energy storage. Okay, let's talk Toyota in the UK. Now, they make so little money

here. It's basically a rounding error. Market share has been dropping in the UK with no

compelling EVs to sell in a market that is going EV pretty quickly here in Europe.

Toyota Motor UK, the legal entity here, has to file its tax returns, and now they make a

pre-tax profit. I mean, it's not loss making, and many businesses do purposefully post a loss

for various reasons. But Toyota in the UK last year made a total of £462,000 in the 12 months

to 31st of March 2025. Revenue fell by £135 million. Now look, to make 400 grand profit for

Toyota is a drop in the ocean. That's probably, I don't know, the fuel on the CEO's private jet

for a few months. Revenue from new cars dropped while income from used cars was up slightly.

The group's UK market share used to be 6.5%. Then it went to 5.8% last year. In the first few

months of this year, it's now 5.4%. And experts agree that that will be going down as to have

nothing compelling to sell in the world of zero emission vehicles in a country where we have

into our second year now of the zero emission vehicle mandate. The overall UK automotive market

has been growing. It grew 2.7% last year to 2.3 million vehicles. We flip flop between Germany's

being the biggest EV market in all of Europe and yet Toyota and Lexus don't have anything really good

to sell here. There's some stuff, but they're yet to bring anything compelling and have a serious

market offering. And so Toyota here in the UK, I will be losing sleep for them. I'll probably

shed some tears this evening. Feel so sorry for them that the company that has spent untold amounts

of money campaigning against electric vehicles running commercials fighting against EV, the company

that famously says we choose not to plug in. All right, well, you choose a rapidly declining

market share here in the UK. We wish them all the best. Now let's talk the federal used

clean vehicle tax credit launched in January 2023 will expire in just two weeks time and

could save eligible buyers in the next couple of weeks. $4,000 on a qualifying EV or plug-in hybrid

got a cost less than $25,000. It will equal 30% of the sale price up to a maximum of four grand if

you're eligible. Combined with the tax credit and modest prices, it makes the jump to an EV,

an absolute no brainer. According to the director of economic and market intelligence

at CarGurus, Kevin Roberts, he says the used EV market has some of the best bargains out there.

So they had a look at some of them. Certain models stand out. The average listing price of a three-year-old

Tesla Model 3, three years is nothing for a great reliable vehicle like a Model 3,

that is still going to feel new to you, even if it's not new. It was back in January 2022,

the average listing price was $48,712. Fast forward three years, the average listing

price of a three-year-old Model 3 now is $24,000. Hey, find one just below and then you get on the

foreground off. That's an incredible value. Chevy Bolt is probably one of the best bits of value

out there. It's a young vehicle, get a 2021 vehicle, for instance, for way less than $16,000.

The Bolt EV stopped production in 2023, right at the end. And then there was a bunch of

stock with dealers in 2024. So you can get a nearly new vehicle and you get it at the right price.

You get money off and it's such a good deal. So you've got two weeks to do that. Go and look

if you're going to go EV in the used market. Get that deal done. Now insurers have told car

makers they must add critical changes to their vehicles sold in Great Britain,

and they've been talking specifically to the Chinese, mainly tougher locking devices to

make them harder to steal. Changes must include mechanical steps such as lockable

wheel nuts and an extra layer of steel around the car door locks. Software that detects and

protects against unauthorized entry. With an average of 11 reported vehicle thefts an hour

in the UK, car crime is comparatively rare under Beijing's strict authoritarian regime.

It's certainly not as much as in the United Kingdom. Industry sources said,

for the Chinese car makers, it's been a swift learning curve, selling cars in a country that,

well, they do get nicked. Sales of Chinese-made cars in Britain have risen sharply and now account

for about one in 12 of all new cars sold here, MMG, BYD, etc. A spokesperson for BYD,

which in two years of sales has grown, recently overtaking Tesla but careful with monthly data,

said it had been working with Fatchum to learn about UK theft prevention and has been

devoting significant efforts to enhance vehicle anti-theft performance and insurability.

We have added a wide range of technologies and hardware to meet local expectations,

they say that includes anti-theft locking systems and according to the Office of National

Statistics reported total vehicle theft in England and Wales, at least, rose to 102,000

a year. That was in the year-ending march of this year.

So, a Chinese car that's not too secure, maybe stick it in the garage, keep the keys away from

the door, that kind of thing. And that's your podcast for today, thanks to our premium

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DAILY: Cupra Tindaya EREV, Geely EX5 For UK and VW Delays ID.Golf | 16 Sep 2025

Volkswagen Golf

Ford Galaxy

Tesla Cybertruck

Porsche Macam

Hyundai Kona

Volkswagen Id3

Cupra Born

Tesla Model Y

Audi Etron

Audi S6

Audi Q6 Etron

Ford Mustang

Tesla Model 3

About this episode

Original notes