Episode #81 - August China sales, US restricts chips to China, Porsche and Apple CarPlay

Tu & Lei start off the podcast with a review of August sales numbers,  the pleasant surprises along with the disappointments. 

Tu and Lei then take a step back and talk about the global EV market, how the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) should help the US EV sector and how some Volkswagen customers in Europe have gotten so frustrated with their ID Series vehicles they're returning them.

Tu then moves the discussion to the recent restrictions placed on Nvidia and AMD that limits the chips they can export to China and Russia which leads to a broader discussion about the restrictions by both countries that have given them advantages historically that have manifested into companies that are leaders in the space currently.

Tu and Lei then move to unpack Baidu's Robin Li who said that most companies would likely skip L3 and go straight from L2 to L4 autonomy with their vehicles and systems. 

They close the pod with a brief discussion about some of the challenges ahead for the foreign automakers that they'll need to overcome in China vs. their domestic counterparts if they are to ultimately succeed there.