DAILY: US Charging Surges, XPeng MPV For UK and Scout Fans Pick Hybrids | 31 Jan 2026

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Well, come back to EV News Daily today.

U.S. charging surges.

The ex-punk MPV for the UK.

And scout fans pick hybrids, plus stay tuned.

Later in the show, I'll tell you why Britain is making a move to outlaw hot rod e-bikes.

No EV News China today.

It's the weekend.

Our spin-off show returns on Monday.

Now we'll start with news of Parin.

They have put out numbers to the state of the American DC fast charging network in 2025.

Their new state of the fast charging industry report tracks who is building what, where, and at what power

in a market that will help decide how fast drivers abandon petrol.

Chargers, not cars, will set the pace of adoption in early 2026.

Capital is pouring into hardware rated at 150, 350, and even higher in the U.S.

But utilization, uptime and pricing, well, they're all a little bit patchy.

America's public fast charging network surged last year in 2025 up by 30%.

This is the amazing story coming out of America at the moment.

It added more than 18,000 plugs in the strongest build-out year in the history of the country.

DC fast charging plugs, by the way, 18,000 new DC fast charging plugs.

The growth defied expectations and crushed Parin's optimistic forecast of 16,700 driven by automakers,

investing, retailers, investing, and charging companies.

Private sector networks pushed ahead despite the Trump administration rolling back the $7,500

federal tax credit and revising the cafe rules to favour petrol.

Fourth quarter deployment was 5,769 new plugs, new DC fast charging plugs, and a 6,000.

That is 44% year over year growth in Q4, even in a quarter where all the headlines will tell you

EV sales slowed down.

Well, of course, they did.

People brought their purchases forward when they could get the money off the cars.

But what didn't slow down was the rate of the charging build-out.

Infrastructure improvements now mean drivers find more reliable, higher powered stations,

normally nearer amenities or with amenities like Wi-Fi, restrooms, and food options.

Federal funding steers the build-out towards highway corridors.

But Parin noted last year the rise of urban hubs where dwell times are longer and revenue models might differ.

The report contrasts networks that chase peak power ratings.

Just that big number.

Look how fast our charges are with those that are actually prioritising things like reliability,

or maintenance, or redundancy at site level.

More than half of new fast charges installed in Q4 were faster than 250 kilowatts.

Reducing charge times and congestion.

Charging sessions in January this year jumped 20% on last year.

There's a compounding demand effect going on.

Can you see it?

Okay, let's move on.

X-Pung will launch its X9.

That's an MPV.

And they'll launch it here in Great Britain this summer, adding a second model to the lineup

that gained a foothold last February when we got the SUV, which is the G6.

The UK was the first confirmed European market for the 7-seater, the X9,

which in China comes in PureBev and EREV versions as well.

An 800-volt platform, the SPA2 platform.

The Guangzhou-based firm plans several further model launches this year

and calls 2026 a defining moment in its European product strategy.

Before then, the refreshed second-generation G6 will reach here in the first quarter,

just weeks after China saw the unveiling of the third-generation G6

and the third-generation G9 SUV.

I should be able to bring you some pricing on that in the next couple of days, actually.

The right-hand drive, X9 though, is already on sale in Singapore.

Along with the G6, it'll be built on X-Pung's first right-hand drive assembly line.

That's in Malaysia, and it's their third overseas plan after Indonesia and Austria.

Hey, by the way, sorry about my voice. Both my kids are really sick.

You know, a couple of years ago, we wouldn't have called it the flu.

We'd have been doing tests up our nose and whatnot, but it's the same symptoms.

So a week of coughing and feeling pretty terrible, and, you know, it's gone to my voice as well.

So I'm sorry about that. Not feeling fantastic.

I'm recording this a couple of days later because I was literally in bed on Saturday and Sunday out for the count.

Thank you for bearing with me.

Occupational hazard of having small children.

All right, let's move on.

Scout Motors first customers want a plug, but they also want to fill a cap as well.

85% of reservations to the new Scout models, that's Volkswagen's off-road aimed sort of Rivian brand,

are for the EREV versions, not the Pure Bev.

Only 15% of would-be buyers coming into Scout.

So the Terra, that's the pickup, the traveler, that's the SUV.

Want to go full Bev, says Scott Keough, and he would know because he's the firm's boss.

Since the pair were unveiled in October 2024, Scouts lodged more than 150,000 refundable reservations.

Output will start at the end of 2027, the new plants in South Carolina, with truck pricing below $60,000.

The skewing demand forced a rethink Scout now plans to launch the EREV before the Pure Bev's,

reversing its original internal assumptions.

The bet rests on American nerves about charging access towing.

Long distance travel with utility vehicles.

And on China's rapid take-up of EREVs, Scouts harvester, which is what they're calling the engine,

the harvester EREVs, use a four-cylinder petrol generator,

obviously sourced from within the Volkswagen group, only to recharge a 63 kilowatt hour LFP pack.

It never drives the wheels, unlike something like a Shark, a BYD Shark 6,

which technically can, once you're up to speed, that keeps the driving feel of an EV.

The instant talk, the silence, the plug socket on the side, so you can recharge it overnight at home.

And you should do, because most Americans live in a different kind of housing stock

to what maybe we have here in built-up Europe.

And so, if you have single-residents homes with a driveway and a garage, please,

judge your EV overnight, even if it has an engine.

You will save yourself so much money on an overnight tariff.

The harvester models will deliver 150 miles of EV-only range,

and probably 500 miles or so in total range.

But having that fallback of a fuel tank, I think for many buyers of this kind of vehicle,

probably makes sense.

It's cultural, it's geographic, it wouldn't suit us.

We haven't got truck culture here anyway, and our country's not that big.

But in somewhere that has different cultural values and different motoring heritage,

as much as an EREV wouldn't suit me, if I'm being pragmatic about it,

I can see a subset of EV buyers where it's very, very suitable.

Again, I don't think it's right for everybody.

It's not a magic one, but I can see it.

Wish it wasn't there, because I'd like to get away from burning stuff.

For Scout, what began as a lonely bet now looks to be part of the industry hedge.

American buyers want electrons, but also a filler cap as well.

Now, a 30-minute wait to recharge puts off American buyers.

Carmakers now bet that cutting the stop to 10 minutes is what will make it analogous to filling up your fuel tank.

Tight remissions rules, generous subsidies in some places,

and a wave of new models have not yet shifted a large group of buyers in America.

This reporting coming from California, the Los Angeles Times, where I found this report,

says how long people sit at a public charger affects whether they go EV.

The industry's reply has been what we talked about already on this podcast,

DC fast chargers that are 150, 253, 50 kilowatts or more.

Rising charge rates are a significant tailwind to the industry,

says Badar Khan, Chief Executive of EV Go, one of America's big charging networks,

says, and I quote, if the energy is going in faster, you don't actually need higher utilization,

end quote. Well, the LA Times wrote today, in EV Go's two most recent quarters,

utilization, a measure of how much time its charge is occupied,

dropped for the first time since the company's IPO five years ago,

in part because its charges were delivering more electricity per hour.

The shift to speed should both delight drivers and bolster the business case.

For charging networks, ultimately faster charging may be the final nudge in converting the crowd to EV.

Let's move on. Volkswagen has begun shipping China-made cars to the Middle East and Southeast Asia,

with Africa and South America next.

The German group is recasting China from its profit center to a low-cost export base,

deepening the industry's fierce, fierce price war.

The shift follows a sharp slide in VW's China sales.

Brutal is an understatement, I think, from more than four million pre-pandemic to 2.7 million last year.

Porsche suffered the most, hit by an 80% collapse in the Chinese luxury segment,

with no recovery in sight.

The closing showrooms at Porsche in China to hold its ground against BYD

and the local startups of BYD's rewriting the playbook.

Oliver Bloom, the chief executive, says technology in China is now exported

and the firm couldn't serve those countries from its European base.

VW has moved R&D research and development to China,

cut manufacturing costs tied up with local manufacturers like XPeng,

a local software and EV specialist.

It's reworked its cost base.

The first model from that partnership, I've talked about it on our spin-off show,

EV News China is the ID UNIX 07, it's an electric saloon.

Now in production, by the way, delivers soon.

It'll sit among 20 new EV models that VW will launch in China to try and hold the sales slide.

Hey, by the way, if you can share this podcast with anybody,

maybe not this one, because I do sound a little bit rough,

but if you could maybe share a better one, if there is one,

with a friend, a relative, someone you know, maybe social media,

discussion groups, forums, Reddit, that kind of stuff,

just to say, oh, you're into EVs, check out this podcast.

I'd really appreciate it because it can come from me

and obviously I'm just the guy promoting it,

but if it comes from you, it makes a real difference as well

because people trust what you say in those communities that you're in.

So I'd really appreciate that if you can just share this podcast around

and help us grow.

We'll take a break and we'll be back.

We'll talk Kia and Scottie and more.

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Welcome back to the podcast.

Now, Kia has opened its order books at home in South Korea

for a pickup version of their new EV van.

It's called the PV5 and it's a pickup version

with list prices starting at $43.5 million.

That's $30,000 US,

but subsidies will cut the out later $20,000 equivalent,

pushing the truck into the mass market.

You're telling me.

The PV5 is at the center of Kia's plan to turn boxy workhorses

into a modular electric platform,

which they can make money from.

The pickup shows how fast car makers can now stretch

a single EV architecture.

We've seen this PV5 already here.

We've got the People Carrier version,

but we know they're coming very early with the wheelchair

version of that, the accessible version of that.

Now we see the pickup truck version of PV5,

more bespoke models coming as well,

signaling a new front in the electric race.

Cheap, pretty plain, commercial, light duty vehicles.

Some of the earlier reviews that I've watched

at the PV5 online, some of the car mags over here,

naturally compare it to the ID buzz

and the point they all have to make is,

this is 15,000 pounds cheaper

and there's 20,000 pounds in some trims cheaper.

And if you're moving around six or seven people,

you honestly don't really miss some of the niceties

of driving the ID buzz.

The PV5 comes in, particularly the smaller battery version,

very competitive pricing over here.

PV5 pickup back home in China though,

sorry, South Korea, is a price at 30,000

or even 20,000 US dollars with subsidies

way below the combustion rivals.

And then you factor in running costs.

If you're a home user, that's nice.

If you're a business, that changes the bottom line.

Kia pitches the PV5 line as more than a van

spin off a flexible base for cargo people

and now open bed jobs.

Okay, let's talk about a really interesting take

on Chinese cars.

And I might maybe even make a special podcast

when my voice is a little better

and I don't feel like trash.

I might make a bonus show about this

because I think this is really smart,

not without danger, but clever.

Chinese electric cars that now sell in Europe

for 14,000 pounds and less

are taking a share of the market

that brands like Shkoda once dominated.

Klaus Zelma is the boss of Shkoda

and he thinks some of the firms behind them

may one day vanish.

He doesn't doubt their engineering.

He doubts their economics in an interview

with the independent newspaper over the weekend.

Mr. Zelma argued that China's EV makers

face a brutal shakeout, chasing volume abroad

to make up for wafer thin margins

at home and heavy discounting.

That may bring short-term gains for European buyers.

A cheap, high-tech car from a brand you've never heard of,

but it could be a long-term risk.

The warning comes as Chinese manufacturers

flood Europe with cut-price battery cars.

I was just having a look at one of what I think

are the bellwethers, which is the early first edition

what they were called Funky Cat,

the Great Wall Motor, or GWM Funky Cat.

They changed their name to the 03.

Okay, but those ones are now 8,000 or 9,000 pounds

and they were a 30 grand car all of five minutes ago.

Nobody knows what GWM is. The logo means nothing.

Funky Cat just does kind of sound really weird.

And, you know, eight or nine thousand pounds,

you get so much car.

But then there's the risk factor,

which the boss of Skoda is bringing up,

saying that, well, what if that Chinese brand disappears?

There's no scale. There's no brand recognition.

There's no robust dealer network.

When that support fades, you're left with a car

that sure was built in an efficient factory in China

with low labor costs, but there's no after sales support

and you just left holding it.

Now, there's, I think, an element of scare mongering

and an element of truth, like all things in life.

It's black and white. It's shades of grey.

There's nuance to his argument,

but it's something that I think the legacy car makers

haven't done enough of,

which is to be more aggressive against the Chinese,

probably because, well, Skoda is VW and VW needs China.

So you've got to be very careful politically.

But I think he's being smart with it

because it's a good point.

So without fear mongering

and I think it's an interesting play

that Skoda are doing.

I would do more of it if I ran a car company

that was being beaten by the Chinese.

You've got to look for your ins, your wins.

And one of those could be, to say to your customers,

I mean, sure, wow, that's a,

you could get a really good deal over there.

What are they called again? All right.

They're going to be around in five minutes

because they weren't here five minutes ago.

Now they might be, they might be here forever,

but we've got to sell cars and it's a war out there.

So interesting, interesting tactic.

I kind of like it.

All right, let's see if I can get through three more stories.

Huawei now sells more premium cars in China

than Mercedes, BMW or Porsche.

The latest Huawei model is a high-end electric saloon

and it deepens the lead

and shows how China's car market is tilting towards domestic.

The firm built its brand on telecoms kits

and smart homes.

Huawei didn't build its brand on engines and gearboxes,

but its new luxury car sold with the joint venture

with the Chinese manufacturer

goes after urban affluent buyers,

the kind of safe base for German badges,

big spec sheets, low prices, high tech software.

The model leans on Huawei strengths

in car computing, connectivity, driver assistance.

The firm fills the cabin with massive screens.

The Huawei operating system over the air functions,

range, charging, performance,

all frankly beat the German rivals.

Plus, it's a Chinese name as well

that they're making it with what's not to love.

That is one of the examples of how

the Western car makers are really struggling in China.

You can check out more, by the way,

on our spin-off podcast.

It's called EV News China.

Not on today, it's the weekend,

but I do it weekdays, actually Monday to Friday.

And it's a fascinating...

You don't have to listen to it by any means,

and you'll still get all of the big EV news here on the main show.

But I learned a lot.

I learned so much doing EV News China.

And I've had some lovely comments from you guys

in the audience as well.

All right, two more stories.

Tesla's RoboTaxi's crash

about three times more

than human-driven cars.

According to new reporting by the EV website Electric,

new NHTSA crash data,

combined with Tesla's own mileage disclosures,

show that the early part of their autonomous car rollout

means things that their RoboTaxi's or CyberCabs,

whatever you want to call them,

are hitting things at a rate far higher than humans.

And this is with the safety monitor in the vehicles,

because we don't have data from when they removed them

to the trail car behind.

That matters for Tesla's claim that autonomy cut costs,

but it is also safer.

We've all seen those pictures online.

If you haven't, then they circulate on social media.

Regularly, if CyberCabs bumping into things, scraping walls,

a few collisions, no one's been seriously hurt.

Thankfully, the firm has long argued

that software outdrives humans.

And the fiercest fans of Tesla

all have YouTube channels or social media accounts

that will show them doing thousands of miles

without an intervention.

But so far, the first RoboTaxi numbers

are showing the reverse.

The official data coming out now shows

that the system not only needs minders,

but it crashes more often,

and the new data link two strands.

The federal crash report, which Tesla now has to file,

and Tesla's own mileage claims taken together

is how you work out that three times worse

than a human number, according to Electric.

Supporters, though, say that the early numbers

are bound to improve as the neural networks

train on miles driven.

They may, of course, and autonomy does not turn overnight.

It's not a flick of a switch from unsafe to safe,

but regulators and would-be RoboTaxi riders

will see the current gap between human and machine

as a cost, a liability, and increasingly a political risk.

And finally, Britain's parliament is going to examine a bill

that goes after non-compliant EV bike conversion kits,

signaling a tougher stance on this grey zone.

Cheap, high-powered e-bike kits have outrun the rules

that define the pedal-X that we have,

the electrically assisted pedal cycles.

Road legal e-bikes, like I have here in the UK,

deliver no more than 250 watts of continuous rated power,

cut the assistance after 15.5 miles an hour,

or 25 kph. Many online kits, though, ignore both those limits.

I could go onto any of those Chinese market places right now

and buy a 1,000 or 1,500-watt conversion kit

and go take my bike for a ride.

Some of them don't have basic safety features

like proper braking compatibility or braking regen

or proper battery management.

Supporters of the bill say these devices blur the line

between what a moped is, which needs type approval,

needs insurance, needs helmet, needs a registration plate.

These retailers that import them and sell them as e-bikes

that have a throttle grip or twist grip,

I mean, you never have to pedal.

And that's against the law.

They deliver speeds and acceleration

better than many mopeds and motorcycles.

Enforcement lags.

Police forces don't have the tools, training,

or legal mandate to test whether a converted bike

meets our current rules or is classed as a motor vehicle.

The proposed law would ban the sale of kits

that don't comply with existing standards

rather than wait to catch the riders in the wild

after they've bought the kit.

It also gives ministers scope to tighten definitions

and guidance as new products appear.

Proponents present the move as a way to protect

the reputation of legitimate e-bike sellers,

which depends on clear boundaries between the regulated vehicles

and unapproved Chinese hardware flooding in

on these different marketplaces.

If Parliament backs the bill, Britain's fast charging

and fast growing e-bike sector will face a sharper legal journey

just as the technology edges closer to being

small electric motorbikes.

It might sound like I've got a bit of my bonnet about this.

There are a few stories about this recently.

And maybe I do.

I won't be trying to be self-aware about this.

Maybe I do have a bit of my bonnet,

but I see so many of them flying around

and some of these kids wearing it.

The parents have bought them for kids, not wearing a helmet.

And they're doing speeds that I don't do in a car.

Like if I'm doing 25 miles an hour past a school,

these e-bikes fly past me on the inside, on the outside.

As a driver, if I knocked them off,

normally, who would you blame?

You'd probably blame the car driver for knocking off a bike

and without a helmet on.

I hate to think what would happen to some of these.

I mean, they're normally teenagers, aren't they?

That's not a great phone call for those parents to receive.

So maybe I didn't use a bit more self-aware.

I'll put a few of these stories in the podcast lately.

And it is something that I'm just kind of picking up more on.

And I think I do agree.

I think I do agree with a few more rules and regs around it.

My American listeners will be 15 miles an hour.

15? Are you crazy? You are a moron.

And that's your podcast for today.

That's OK. We can agree to disagree.

Thanks to our premium partners, National Car Charging

on the US mainland and the Lo Haar Charge in Hawaii.

And Test TV, Avalu's trusted partner

for independent EV battery health testing

in Australia and New Zealand.

Have a good day tomorrow.

And remember, there's no such thing as a self-charging hybrid.

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DAILY: US Charging Surges, XPeng MPV For UK and Scout Fans Pick Hybrids | 31 Jan 2026

About this episode

X-Pung X9

MPV

X-Pung G6

PureBev

Scout

EREV

Traveler

Terra

LFP pack

BYD Shark 6

DC fast chargers

kilowatts

EV Go

Porsche

BYD

XPeng

Volkswagen ID.7

electric vehicle (EV)

Kia PV5

subsidies

mass market

Volkswagen ID.5

Volkswagen Id Buzz

Chevrolet Spin

Mercedes

electric saloon

autonomous car

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