Xiaomi has launched its first EV research and development center in Munich, aiming to enhance its presence in the European market by 2027. Meanwhile, China is tightening export controls on EVs to ensure quality and after-sales support, reflecting concerns over low-cost competition. BYD continues to expand in the UK, opening its 100th dealership and preparing for new charging technologies. The episode also covers advancements in sodium-ion battery technology, California's end of EV carpool lane exemptions, and new regulations for e-bikes in New York City.
Topics:xiaomi expansionchina export controlsbyd dealership growthsodium ion batteriescalifornia carpool lane changesnew york e-bike regulations
"...dels affected include the DS number eight and the Peugeot E5 008. Overall, half the vehicles on the list seem to b..."
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The expansion of B.I.D. Plus stay tuned later in the show. I'll tell you what speed e bikes and e scooters will soon be restricted to in New York City on EV news China today.
A special sub series about the world's biggest EV market. We're talking C.A.T. L in Spain, the smart number five and NEO's battery shortage.
We'll start with news of Xiaomi opening its EV European research and development and design center. They've done it in Munich in Germany.
It's the company's first R&D and design center outside its domestic market. The Munich center will focus on performance vehicle projects.
EV tech development design customer orientation and advanced research. It'll bring together engineers, designers, and researchers.
The center will foster collaborations with research institutions and develop partnerships in the industry.
The expansion advances the company's long term ecosystem, which they call human car home and prepares for their main entry into the European market by 2027.
Now Beijing is going to impose export control on the kind of EVs that you and I can drive if they're made in China.
Now you see central China government have cited domestic concerns about strong price competition and overseas complaints about a surge of low cost vehicles.
But what's really behind it? Well the government in China intends to tighten rules to ensure that adequate after sales support and exporters are expected to face increased scrutiny.
So you could say they're just raising the quality threshold on this. And that's interesting because I think if you speak to some people, they would say that still what comes out of China is kind of cheap knockoffs.
And there's certainly those kind of websites that don't do themselves too many favors the team moves and she ends and alley expresses of the world some good stuff on there and some stuff that probably gives a reputation of well this hasn't been such a great experience.
And so maybe with their EVs and obviously with the big trade issues happening around the world China export adding export controls on pure EVs might not be such a bad thing.
It just means that you've got to be legit. The commerce ministry confirm the new licensing rules start on January the first not much of a not much of a runway like a couple of months. Wow.
From that date car makers and authorized companies have to apply for export licenses that mirrors the system applied to combustion vehicles already.
So no great shakes, but it means that officials that have previously expressed frustration over unauthorized exports that reach foreign markets don't have the required after sales support now that's probably because I know that all of central government in China listen to this podcast.
So obviously tongue-in-cheek. Come on. No one's listening to this podcast of any importance in terms of the Chinese EV industry. I'm sure. But yes, a point that I've raised many times it's one thing to say hey look at this amazing EV and there's plenty of people that are taking the plunge.
I see so many jacuz no motors flying around now. They're new in the last 12 months. You know give or take.
It's one thing if you're MG big UK heritage history dealerships in every corner. But if you're a new brand the last thing you want to do is go the way of well so many EV companies in China.
Now there's a whole podcast I've made one of the bonus shows you'll see in the feed actually really recently bonus show about how China has intentionally engineered over capacity.
A survival of the fittest hundreds and hundreds of EV companies and they're seeing which ones are the winning bets. And they'll settle on six or eight or 10 you know in five or 10 years time.
The BYD's hopefully the neo's expungs Xiaomi's of the world who the cream will rise to the top. Yeah. But I think what China's worried about is that it's okay do it on your own shores and you can manage any dissent.
You know someone buys a new car the car company goes bust service is difficult. It's not connected anymore China can probably manage that in their own borders.
It's not great by the way. Obviously but outside of China that could do real damage. I could really hurt the industry.
So I see this as a positive by the way I see the kind of cars that you and I that would buy would be probably the better ones.
I've got some after sale supporting and have hit a quality threshold. Maybe hey no bad thing now one of those companies that I have no doubt will be around in 10 15 20 years time.
That's BYD the world's biggest EV maker. They've opened its 100 dealership in the UK less than 30 months after saying they want to do a UK retail launch.
The company says that the average drive to a BYD shows 27 minutes. This expansion shows rising demand for their models.
They're aimed to be a mainstream brand in Europe's second largest car market and at times Europe's biggest EV market.
The milestone coincides with the launch of BYD CPO scheme here certified pre owned CPO means you can get your used EV's direct from BYD.
You get a bit more manufacturer support warranty stuff like that. BYD's been growing in Europe and outsold Tesla in the EU vehicle registrations and not just as a fluke.
The two consecutive months by the way the company's preparing for the European arrival of flash charging next year. That's megawatt class charging on a single cable.
Plug your car in for five minutes and 250 miles. Bob's your uncle off you go. BYD also adding another ocean going car transporter.
It's 8th such ship. BYD is so vertically integrated that apart from the first one which was kind of their own but I can't I think kind of done under under contract.
Not sure the fully full agreement. All the subsequent ones are under operated as far as understand by BYD.
The vessel is named after a city in the eastern Shangdong province where BYD has a big presence.
The company said the BYD's Janan may be the last new commission for now and there's no immediate plans to go beyond eight.
Roll on roll off car fairies but yeah they've got eight of them flying around the globe. Maybe not flying their car carriers there.
It's a leisurely piece however there's eight of them and that's just to get BYD's overseas on exports BYD reported more than 80,000 units shipped overseas in the current period.
More than doubling the theory figure for the same time last year. Year to date not just last month but year to date.
BYD has shipped 625,000 units. That's why they need more car carriers now. Let's talk about battery technology.
Sodium ion battery technology has reached parity with LFP packs in manufacturing and energy density and will expand into other sectors from the minute kind of niche micro cars to be mainstream next year.
Sodium ion technology is really improved. The energy density is climbed from about 120 watt hours per kilogram in the first ones to 165 watt hours per kilogram.
And the great thing is about emerging technologies because they're developing pretty quickly is that there's often pathways like a growing company.
That's why these tech startups and AI companies get sold for bazillions of dollars not because they're making any money but because there's a growth behind them.
There's growth in sodium ion battery technology. They're finding new ways to make them better.
CATL are doing about 175 watt hours per kilogram. They're going to mass production with their natural cells next year.
Current sodium ion cells report a life cycle of 10,000 cycles and they're really stable down to minus 40 degrees.
See, that's minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. By the way, with no capacity loss, they easily outperform LFP, which is the dominant chemistry in China 80% of EVs on the road now hitting the road with LFP chemistry inside.
And now capacity parity just need to get price parity there. Industry analysts say that the battery supplied chain and standard development conference recently reporting that manufacturing costs for the new high energy sodium ion cells.
The production costs themselves are heading towards parity with LFP, which is pretty huge, isn't it?
And that's crucial for commercialization because the main commercial appeal has got to be its lower materials cost relative to lithium based technologies.
That commercial case weakened a couple of years ago when the price of battery grade lithium carbonate fell sharply.
There was excess production capacity and software EV demand, but recent engineering advances mean that sodium ion packs typically outperform LFP in some cases.
And once they commercialized, you know, $70 per kilowatt hour, maybe less next year.
So that's a really, really big deal. Now let's talk about EV energy and their Hungarian facility hit a key stage three days ago when the electromechanical equipment was brought onto site.
The factory is going to be central to EV energy's global plan and be a manufacturing center for Europe's new energy industry.
The facility covers 450,000 square meters. They'll make cylindrical cells for BMW groups, vehicles.
The plant that in Hungary, which I think is pronounced Deborah Sen, my Hungarian is not fantastic.
But I do know a lovely Hungarian lady and I did ask her recently. How do I say that name?
Pretty sure. She said Deborah Sen or Sen at the end. I try and get it right. When others complete.
So, EV energy will supply BMW and create a thousand local jobs. Now, California is ending its carpool lane exemption for EVs.
The clean vehicle program, CAV decal program, expires tomorrow, ending the state's longstanding permission for single occupancy EVs to use carpool lanes.
The California highway patrol announced a 60 day grace period in case you've not been reading the news.
The CAV program is ending because Congress didn't extend the HOV lane exemption reauthorization act.
Sounds a fascinating read, but it would have allowed states to permit single occupancy carpool lane access for EVs.
But Congress repealed that, or rather, didn't extend it.
The CAV decal program began in 1999, so it's been around for 26 years. Over a million decals have been issued since the program started.
And half a million decals are currently active on Californian roads. Now, what if you bought a Fisker back in the day at top dollar, and now you feel completely left in the lurch because Fisker went bust.
What if you bought a Fisker yesterday for about 14 grand? They're on sale for brand new vehicles, massive battery.
Could you get by with driving one? The thing is about EVs is they're largely connected vehicles. You need some sort of support.
This was an old fashioned vehicle, and it was, you know, fifth of the price of a new vehicle, maybe a sick of the price of the big old battery.
You take the risk, wouldn't you? But ongoing maintenance, the Fiskers were never finished anyway, so many issues.
They filed for bankruptcy in June, 2024, but they did deliver 11,000 vehicles. Now, that's the risk of relying on new EV companies, and boy, don't the Chinese know about that.
The Fisker Ocean highlighted the risks owners reported malfunctioning key fobs, erratic power delivery.
But with the company in liquidation, repair channels and manufacturer support all went. So what's amazing is the owners have organized themselves.
Customers have formed the Fisker owners association. It's officially a nonprofit to keep those 11,000 cars on the road.
Customers have pulled their funds to buy spare parts, share diagnostic equipment, and negotiate with former Fisker engineers to help out.
The group has bought inventory at Fisker's liquidation auctions, saving parts that would otherwise be lost to the market, and it's developing an open source software patch.
And the third party repair guides to keep the cars on the road. Amazing work being done there by the Fisker owners association.
Not been smooth sailing. I've been reading about some of the battles that they've been having, but hopefully as light at the end of the tunnel.
We'll talk about France's eco bonus and public charging in India.
Alright, let's talk about that. We rarely do. Fascinating news. Stick around. Back in the mode.
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Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Now this great news coming from the UK, Volkswagen did a survey and 75% of the van drivers they asked.
A happy-to-go electric to meet their business needs. That matches recent sales, showing a 51% year-on-year increase in van sales over here.
Survey respondents said cost and sustainability with the big reasons. 62% said electric vans are cheaper to run than diesel or diesel equivalent.
52% said making their business more sustainable matters to them. Right now, I'm tracking a DPD delivery.
And my last few DPD deliveries. This is a very boring server for the home network to store more podcast files. Don't tell my wife.
I've been buying more technology. Hopefully I'll just turn up when she's at work and I can scroll it in the house. It's a business expense. And yeah, DPD, I've been delivering that on electric recently.
Took a long time. I've seen them flying around the electric ones, but I never seemed to get an electric delivery, but my last few have, must be Amazon ones, have as well.
Sometimes they'll use, I don't know, freelancers or contractors, and they'll turn up in some shabby old transit delivering your Amazon vans. I'm beaten up old thing has got, you know, held together with Sellotape.
And sometimes you get the fancy Amazon vans or logo turn up and they they've been electric as well lately. And honestly, if you run a business who cares how the vehicle is powered ideologically, you could be named Mr. Diesel of diesel streets, diesel town.
And if it's cheaper to run your business with electric delivery vans, you are absolutely going to do it now.
There's so much cheaper to run you charge them overnight. There's a nicer experience as well for stop start package delivery postal delivery. It makes perfect sense.
Volkswagen vans over here say that smart home charging saves you 452. No, 542, transpose those. 542 pounds a year if you use an off peak tariff. That's brilliant news.
Now, France's government published a list of more than 200 EVs that you can get the new thousand euro incoming eco bonus.
Now, the Ajance de la Transition Ecologique released the list, the list includes cars no longer produced.
When which is prompted Volkswagen to clarify the situation, it had some specifications of the ID3 and ID7 on which you can't actually go buy anymore.
Several entries of a variance of models, which no longer in production, some vehicles on the list have a European made battery, which is what you need for the thousand euro bonus ecologic.
But fail other criteria because their price. Well, yeah, if it's more than 47,000 euros in France or your weight is more than two and a half tons, then you don't get the money.
Now, those vehicles can only receive the thousand euro discount rather than the broader benefits of the bonus.
Example models affected include the DS number eight and the Peugeot E5 008. Overall, half the vehicles on the list seem to be outside the scheme's criteria.
Or I'll just no longer for us a spec or a trim that's not in production. It's not clear whether France will revise the list with vehicles that you can actually buy.
All the vehicles on the list that are meant to get the bonus and actually don't because of either battery sourcing or weight and price will be taken off the list.
Let's move on. Hey, charging in India. Big deal. The central government of India has issued guidelines that deploy 72,300 public charging stations using a tiered subsidy model.
A roll out in priority locations, including government premises, offices, complexes, hospitals and educational institutions.
They all get 100% subsidy for EV infrastructure. Government controlled or managed sites, so railway stations, airports, bus depots.
That covers 80% of the infrastructure costs and 70% of the EV supply equipment costs for city streets, shopping malls, market complexes, highways and expressways.
The subsidy will cover 80% of the infrastructure cost. They'll even chip in on battery swapping.
Now, this week Tesla ran a formal assessment test and SAT, a site assessment test of full self driving V14 on Swedish roads.
They have of course had to work directly with Swedish authorities, the Swedish transport administration. They used FSD 14, V14, which was not expected to be publicly available until later this week.
I think Tesla has shifted from requesting permission to partnering with national regulators to validate FSD on local roads.
It kind of seems pragmatic and sensible if you've butted heads with Europe for years now and say just let us do full self driving and the way that we do our regulations over here is no private safe first.
Then it's different to the US. Then make sense to be like, okay, right, we'll do it your way then.
So they're partnering with individual countries and organizations. If in the European Union, one country signs off on it as certifies it as safe.
That goes a really long way to it being certified EU wide after a process in Norway earlier this year. Expectations were pretty high that approvals for highway testing and other European countries would begin.
The joint test may start a multi-stage approval sequence. The Swedish administration will review the data. Tesla then seeks authorization to test FSD a bit more on certain approved highways again in Sweden.
Then the final phase would take it to urban environments and a separate application and approval policy from a local area all the time being monitored very closely for safety.
Now New York City finishes us off the day. New York City, according to NY1.com where I found the story will implement a 15 mile an hour speed limit for e-bikes. That's 24 kilometers an hour.
E-bikes, e-scooters and pedal assisted commercial cycles. The rule which matches existing caps for stand up e-scooters will improve safety for pedestrians and riders as the mayor Eric Adams.
The city's DOT Department of Transportation adopted the change after a public hearing in July. The agency said it had 900 comments through their portal by email and at the hearing.
The mayor's office said that they also looked at international examples like the European Union and we have speed limits here for e-bikes. They can't have a throttle. They've got to be pedal X so pedal assisted electric bikes and their speed limits on them as well. I saw somebody being pulled over the other week on their e-bike near my boys school which I was quite happy about.
Some of those big fat tire ones from China that do have throttles which are illegal here by the way. They are such a speed. That's going to hurt if you hit a kiddo with one of those.
We've got to get the rules and regs taught around e-bikes to make them more popular but equally make them safe at the same time as well. So yeah, I saw the police cart in one away which is fair enough if they're being ridden dangerously and stuff like that.
And we all know that New Yorkers love being told what to do by authorities don't we? So I'm sure that 50 miles speed limit is going to go down really, really well.
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