Episode #58 - Li One on loan, Long Talk about NIO, Merc's Tech Day

The episode starts with a discussion about Li Auto loaning a Li One out to Tu for a week in order to get his feedback on the SUV. The conversation moves on to NIO being one of the last EV makers to raise prices and Tu points out why NIO may have a bit more flexibility than their competitors that are building their own vehicles. 

Still talking about NIO Tu & Lei go over NIO’s earnings and evolves into a longer discussion about NIO’s current situation, their strategy, and where their announced investments, including increasing the R&D staff to 9K people could lead them in the future. 

Lei then talks about his experience with the Mercedes Tech Day that he attended in LA and gets into a broader discussion about how its new EQS will be one of the first vehicles to offer Level 3 (L3) autonomous and what conditions need to be met in order to activate that function. Tu and Lei get into a detailed discussion about what needed to happen for the L3 feature to be used on the roads in Europe and what would likely happen before the end of the year when the feature will be launched in the US. 

Tu closes out the podcast by moving the discussion to BYD’s just-announced partnership with Shell. Lei pulls out the discussion to a broader look at how these traditional petrol companies are now rebranding and reinventing themselves to maintain relevance during the cleantech push.