Episode #60 - March sales, BYD's Evolution, How the Lockdowns will affect the auto sector

Tu & Lei go over March sales and BYD’s continued strength despite all the prevailing headwinds and challenges that the other EV makers seem to be running into. 

Tu explains that the China EV space is being told in chapters starting with Tesla is coming to the current chapter of BYD begins to dominate. Lei continues on with a brief history of BYD and the important milestones in its brief but eventful history and how each inflection point in its history builds up to the announcement that it’ll no longer build ICE vehicles. 

Tu also points out that the current direction of the auto sector, investing heavily to bring in-house battery cell R&D & chip design, BYD has been a pioneer in those two areas. 

Lei then turns to some of the challenges that BYD faces and what they still need to confront if they’re to continue to build momentum, gain share and finally enter foreign markets with their passenger vehicles. 

Tu and Lei move the talk over to Geely and how they’re trying to turn past issues with Chinese build quality on its head by building Smart, Lotus, and Polestar brands in China for the foreign markets. 

Tu and Lei close the pod by talking about what they expect and how severe the lockdowns in Shanghai and Jilin will be to the automotive sector in Q2’22.