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Hello and welcome back to Directly Current, presented by EVs for All America. I'm your host, Max Patton. This week, we're talking about Chinese EVs. You may have heard recently news that Canada is dropping its substantial tariff on Chinese EVs, allowing a limited number of them into the country, no doubt in response to Trump's very adversarial trade policy. like it or not Chinese EVs are compelling to worldwide audiences they're lower cost they promise to be more technologically advanced and today I'm speaking with Kevin Williams who has an inside perspective EVs in many of these vehicles because he's driven them spent seat time and written about them for inside EVs he reports on the automotive industry overall but he's really worked hard on this beat, emphasizing how behind Western automakers are. Regardless about how you feel about Chinese EVs, and I can tell you at EVs for All America, we want EVs to be made in the US, I don't think anyone benefits from being ignorant about the situation happening worldwide and what the state of the art in the technology and the market is. So I'm really looking forward to hearing Kevin's insights. China, of course, faces a relentlessly competitive automotive market with almost no profit. So its companies are very, very eager to expand to the rest of the world, particularly into profitable markets like the US. Now, while that may not be happening tomorrow, especially with a political will of bipartisan support to let that not happen, the moves in Canada and the very warm reception to vehicles like Xiaomi's Su7 among even Ford's CEO should give some pause to just everyone in the automotive industry. So if you want to learn more about Chinese EVs, the trends of the automotive industry, and Kevin's view on why he thinks having a globally isolated world for the automotive market isn't sustainable, and it's going to change one way or another very soon. So please enjoy Kevin Williams, staff writer from Inside EVs, dishing on Chinese EVs. All right, Kevin Williams, welcome to Directly Current. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. So first, can you just give us a little bit of a scoop on how you went from general kind of gearheadness, being interested in the automotive industry, to the kind of beat you occupy now, which a lot of it has to do with EVs from Asia and just EVs in general? Yeah, I think right around COVID era is when I really started to make that pivot from just general interest, car guy to hey let's pay more attention to what's going on here but even before i started writing about cars i actually originally started out in political writing i did some local political reporting during the black lives matter protests of 2020 ish so i kind of wanted to take some of that more critical energy of finding out what's really going on here in the car world especially since there was a really big push to to understand more about where everybody's going electric so So like, what are we going to get out of these cars? And inherently electric vehicles, I think, are political. Vehicles altogether are very political. And I think electric vehicles are very much, they occupy such a huge space for geopolitical tension between a lot of entities. But I had just been watching, I've been watching Chinese cars for years. But I noticed like right before COVID, I started noticing that Chinese cars started going from not so good to really good in a really short amount of time. when I was like, and I felt like nobody else was really paying attention aside from other people who obviously watch Chinese cars or live in China. Yeah. I was like, that's odd that no one's talking about this. Hey guys, we got to wake up and find out what's going on here. So then that made that my beat here. So that's how I got to where I am now. Yeah. And I feel like a few years ago, some people might've disagreed with, oh, cars are inherently political, but we just think about the last year and the Teslas being sold in the White House lawn to like the White House's comments on EVs, the tariff policy, Chinese batteries, I think like suddenly that became way more of a mainstream thing. So it's interesting, obviously, you were early to that. But seeing with China out of COVID, there's been books written about this, the West is, I think, still trying to grapple with it. But from your perspective, what's it been like just seeing this extremely rapid product iteration to the point now where like extremely diversified brands like Geely are in some ways already in the U.S. They're definitely in Europe and they have really compelling cars. Yeah, you know, as a car person, it's like really exciting. Not thinking about any sort of geopolitics or tech things. It's really cool to see a brand come out with like cars that you've never really, it's they're implementing technologies that, you know, everyone always like put in a concept car or put in like a almost a sci-fi level of tech innovation here that you would see in a comic book. And now all of a sudden they're having it in vehicle production, in production vehicles that you can buy. It's nice to see like manufacturers that are doing something different compared to longstanding car manufacturers that we get in the West here. So that part is actually like super, super exciting. Yeah. And like, what do you think of the awareness? Cause I feel like it's only been very recently where if I'm just thinking of mainstream reporting, there's been stories for a while now, but oh, this company called BYD sells a really cheap EV. But just now it's consumers are starting to realize that no, when it comes to like technology and product differentiation, they're not just cheaper, they are ahead. I think it was your colleague, Patrick George, the Inside EVs podcast was talking with the Rivian CEO a few months ago, and he was saying something about this. So I'm not scared about China because of price. Maybe he should be his point was, if they make vehicles in the US labor standards, environmental standards, they probably will be similar to the price of Western automakers What should keep them up at night is that the vehicles themselves are actually pushing technological frontiers Their powertrains are really good They charge quickly It all those kinds of things Yes. Yeah, I would agree. There is a big perception that people are seeing on social media. I think social media is probably one of the biggest drivers, especially like TikTok, Instagram reels, Sha Hongshu. They're seeing what these vehicles are capable of. And now that people in the West are starting to get access to this vehicle, access to these vehicles, they're realizing that it's not like state propaganda here. They're seeing that, wow, these cars actually do what they say they can. And they really are priced that way. And I think there's a lot of sour grapes. I think a lot of Americans feel slighted. They feel cheated, partially because there's such a cost of living affordability crisis here. People can barely afford the gas cars that we have on sale here. And you log into social media and that Chinese people are living in the future. Yeah. So that erupts people the wrong way. And your perspective, you're in the Midwest. You're not all that far from Detroit, right? Like the American automakers, what are they delivering to us? We've got the new Chevy Bolt. That's cool. But compared to many of the things that you've taken a firsthand look at, it does decidedly last generation. And it does seem like we're being cheated as American consumers. It is. It's an old car that was originally not on sale for a little while that they've brought back with some kind of minor under-the-skin updates. And that's not the same as a ground-up, highly integrated, highly technologically advanced design that you're getting from something from China. Yeah. Do you think, I'm thinking of Volvo as a particularly strong example. Obviously, they early on took Chinese investment, the GLE ownership, their technology is many ways shared with Chinese cars. And yet I look at vehicles like the EX90 and they're like maybe one or two years back of what the Chinese market is getting. It seems like maybe now that's catching up. But like, I know you've spent some seat time on the EX30, I think the EX90 as well. What is your take on it? If you just look at a brand like Volvo, where they actually do have access to Chinese technology, but it's maybe delayed a bit here. How do you see that contrast? Huh, interesting. That's a very interesting question. I know for Volvo's case, I feel like there's an intentional separation on some levels between what Volvo's doing and what the rest of Julie is doing. I know that's like I've talked to both to Julie and Volvo late within the past year before they did have like their own development technology stuff siloed off on purpose. But I know they're trying to do to bring that together more. I think part of that is, I think, is compliance. These brands, especially Volvo, wants to be compliant with wherever they go. And I think, unfortunately, Chinese technology has a reputation of being like a spyware. Whether for better or worse, even if it is true or not, I think them keeping those two things separate is why those companies look the way they do. Yeah. I have seen some other reporters in the auto industry and some other prognosticators have said the best the dream world scenario would be having Chinese companies come into the U.S., maybe try IP here that we badly need, but keep it locked in some way, at least of American jobs. You could justify data security if things are built here. Those were concerns of the Biden administration. They're seemingly continually concerns of the Trump administration. of this whole idea of like technology sharing. I know Ford has that sort of ongoing thing with CATL that's been controversial. What do you think of that, its feasibility? I think it's going to have to take, I think it's going to have to be feasible if that makes sense. I know there's a lot of like roadblocks on the political side, but I feel, I think a lot of automakers are running out of road here. I think there's a lot of effectively because like they want to stay compliant because they don't want to have too many things tied up in China. it seems like they're it seems like a lot of brands are doing effectively the same thing twice but they're making two different versions of like software systems one for china one for here yeah different vehicle platforms one for china one for here and then two different everythings like self-driving systems that's totally parallel tracks between us and china yep yep versus for cars that are effectively like serving the same types of people but i don't think that a lot of car brands are having the budget or patience for this anymore. It doesn't make any sense to make one for China, one for here, and then we're using less talented engineers, or we don't have access to the same software stuff for our version. And so our version is, it would cost more to make and it wasn't as good. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like it has to happen at some point. Yeah. I think, for example, I think GM is learning this. They have the Ultium car platform, although they don't refer to it as Ultium anymore. But I know the Ultium cars that were sold in China they're pretty much all dead now aside from a handful of Cadillacs. And instead GM has been pivoting to either using its Chinese partner SAIC China but it has basically nothing to do with the GM Ultium or our electric car platform here in the United States. The cars that were on the platform that were sold there they didn't do well. They didn't review well. They didn't look all that great. and they had to cut prices significantly in order to get them out the door because nobody wanted them yeah i do wonder sorry go on yeah i just think if we keep going on that that that track of having these two platforms it's just not going to work something it's going to give yeah and i think it's going to happen soon yeah margins aren't great in the auto industry the best of times it's and that with the u.s as kind of policy flip-flops it's really hard for anyone invested in this market, including the companies based here, including for us like Toyota, Honda, or GM, though, maybe like Toyota has done better than anyone else because of their diversification. But when it comes to EVs, we haven't seen that many great things. I'm thinking though, what you said, like the Chinese consumer, the American consumer, probably not all that different. What does someone want in a car? They want it to have nice features. They want it for something for their money, the range and charging. Our geography may be a little bit different, but still, I think ultimately, like, when you think about what people actually buy, like crossover SUVs that most of the time are driven in urban suburban environments, there is a lot of crossover in those markets. Do you think there are differences, though? I know one of some of the more outlandish examples are like the Xiaomi, I think Su7 has the karaoke mode, right? And that seems almost like too whimsical, too playful for a lot of the like, drier Western automakers. That's just my like, stereotypical perception. But do you think that American consumers are actually receptive to want my car to be higher tech. I don't care about CarPlay. I just want the whole experience because we have different, like we use Google, they use different services, right? We do live in different software worlds. Yeah. I think part of it is also age. One of the things I think there is a desire for more tech or good implemented tech in American vehicles I think there always a lot of like you know back and forth about how there shouldn be so many screens in cars I just want something that going to get me from point A to point B And I don't necessarily think they're wrong, but I do think of, say, Tesla. That company is like, it's an entire, a huge all-screen interface. When it's been that way for years, it doesn't have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Yet that hasn't stopped it from becoming the best-selling car, some of the best-selling cars, period, in the world. Yeah. And I think the desire, I think if brands were more able to basically replicate that type of experience in their cars, I think we wouldn't have some of the conversations that we do now. And I'm not convinced that American brands or honestly, a lot of Western brands have been able to do that. But when I go to China, it's not very hard to find a car that can do the same things that Tesla's infotainment stuff does, but probably catered a little bit more to Chinese audiences. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it does. I guess here we have Tesla and Rivian. Those are software-first companies that arguably do develop their vehicles in a true next-gen way. It's like to see automakers in the US, you get into the software experience of almost anything that's on sale and modern. It's improved a lot. I know Google's helped out with the Android built-in systems in many vehicles. I have a Polestar too. It's fine. But when I see the TikToks, when I see the videos of Chinese EVs and integrating with smart home systems, obviously that's a whole different world for that consumer. And yet at the same time, it does feel like, like I agree with you, it's not feasible to replicate the hardware. And yet for our own security and market reasons, we have all of these like different software stacks. We rely on Apple and Google and sometimes crappy built-in software in cars. In China, the phone makers, the car makers may be the same company and the smartphone platforms. All that stuff is like much different than it is here in the West. Yeah, it just seems they're more willing to walk in lockstep. I think that's one of the reasons that I think I wish people would take is that Chinese tech companies and Chinese car companies are really willing to walk in lockstep with one another in ways that we would not get here in the United States. Yeah. Getting back to your original point, I also think part of it has to do with age too. One of the things I have noticed even talking to some of the brands is that some of the generally the people who are buying cars in China are way younger than a lot of other places in the West. I think I remember talking to Xiaomi. I think that their average employee age was about 28. I think it was Xpeng. They said, oh, people who buy the Mona, they're like, I think on average it's like 22. I feel like I have to take those numbers with a grain of salt, but also at the same time it tracks. I feel when inherently younger people are more tech ready, they're more willing to futz around with screens, they're more willing to do a lot of other things versus everybody in the United States or generally in the West who's buying a new car is older. Yeah. At the supper earlier, part of this might be that like affordability is a real thing, right? And that's really come noticeably for the automotive industry where the average transaction price is like almost $50,000. People are taking out longer and longer term loans. I don't think that many young people can really afford to buy a new car right now. No, no. Their tastes don't effectively don't matter. Like why should they? Why should any? Why should any automaker talk to young people? they don't have any money. But yeah. Yeah. Imagine in a world where hypothetically, the US affordability maybe gets better, or at some point in time, millennials, Gen Z will have enough money, will want to get vehicles. If they're faced with cheaper, more competitive vehicles from upstart Chinese brands, it tracks that they'd be more open to that. And we'd had some polling at the East for All America that indicates the same. Younger people are both more receptive to EVs in general and seemingly less hostile to the idea of a Chinese car. Yeah. And I think that's what scares a lot of like Western automakers, especially in the United States. I'm not convinced that most average consumers really care about the point of origin for where their car comes from. They don't really care about it with any other consumer electronics. What's the big deal for the cars, right? And I think these Western automakers are seeing with their own eyes just how good these things are and they realize oh my gosh if they come to the united states we really are cooked here yeah i think unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you feel a lot of brand a lot of american consumers just don't have the money to be principled like that that's fair and that's a great point of if people don't really differentiate or care about their smartphone when you take some that's 15 times the msrp or more people to be making decisions of principle on that? Probably not. Very recently, Canada has opened itself up to basically a trade deal with China to accept Chinese EVs. That's a huge deal. I think a lot of analysts have called this out because not only is Canada really close to us, we at least used to have a very close trading relationship and vehicle factories would cross the border several times over. I think it still happens. Folks are eating the tariff, but it's very tough right now. Canada is seemingly doing this defensively because the U.S. is a less friendly partner. But what are your thoughts on all of that and Chinese EVs being just north of us? I think it was a matter of time. There's been talk that Ottawa was going to do this at least a year ago, even before the relationships between the United States and Canada had deteriorated. Like the United States, there's a huge affordability crisis. People are really in search of clean, reliable, cheap transportation. and a lot of the manufacturers just really haven't been able to get to that. On one hand, it's nice to see that somebody's finally going to get cheap Chinese EVs. On the other hand, I guess I'm not convinced. I'm not sure how well this will play out. I think the cars themselves will likely be successful, but I do know that 49,000 units for the first model year is not a lot of cars at all. It'll be interesting to see exactly which Chinese brands make their way there, consider Canada worth their time. or whether it's just going to be eaten up by imported versions of western brand cars right yeah i think for a long time up until china implemented this 100 tariff on chinese evs tesla was importing model threes from china so we'll see if they go back to that or if it's actually a new brand and some new cars and some new interesting stuff to shake up chanada's market yeah and if it's the latter right if it's those new brands even though we won't directly have access to that in the states like at all that we speak the same language most of us people in iraq still so like you could imagine popular imagination like people are going to finally realize what a cherry or a zika might be it also primes a prompt for any sort of u.s expansion although right now geopolitically things are pretty much in tatters but at least for right at least for this instant the vehicle standards and homologation standards between the united states and canada are pretty much the same in a lot of ways So basically if you can sell one car in Canada it doesn take much work at least from a technical standpoint to get it ready for the United States I can instantly see BYD or Geely starting dipping their toe into the rest of North America by selling a few cars in Canada. And then maybe things will change in the future. and then all of a sudden we have BYD and Geely on U.S. roads too. Yeah, no, that's a great point because I think the knock on Chinese EVs, and maybe it's not been done in good faith, but some Western automakers have prided themselves on, these Chinese EVs can't be sold here because they're not going to meet NHTSA safety regulations. They're not going to comply with our regulations. This is the test of if you have a pretty similar market with pretty similar regulators, substantively, they probably can cross over much easier than maybe people have thought before. You talk about how they can't meet NHTSA requirements. A lot of the times it's not even true anymore. I think it's in Euro for Euro NCAP. Well, the safest small car ever is a NIOs Firefly, which was tested last year. I've had conversations with Geely, and I wrote a piece about how Geely could come to the United States. Geely has a Southern California Development Center, and part of it is for compliance and not just software. Part of it is actual crash compliance, that sort of thing. So I know these conversations are being had in these wardrooms, in China, they might not be public with them yet. But I know there's a lot of movement behind the scenes to where if we could, the second we can get access to the United States, here's what we need to do to get our cars here. Yeah. And it'd be foolish if those conversations weren't happening. We are all of the problems with the US market, which I think have been very much laid there in the last few years, the most profitable automotive market. Maybe it's because consumers are less financially savvy or more car dependent, but whatever the reason is, people take out bigger loans here, they buy larger, more expensive vehicles. That's very attractive for any global automaker, particularly if you're a Chinese automaker, and you have already an oversupply issue where your market is very not profitable because you're in a price war with all of your competitors. Do you think there's any other kind of like recent news or trends just looking forward that we can expect to see in 2026? Or do you think the US right now we really are maybe a backwater or it's a bit quieter for EVs and whatever does shake out will be one of the last to receive? Or do you think there are trends of some kind of market cooperation or trade deal that Trump would make? I'm not asking you to predict the future, but what do you think is feasibly possible in the next year or so? That is a good question. I feel as strong as the Chinese market is, I think there's a lot of softness in ways that are just starting to show up. I don't know if you've paid attention to some of the offerings that China has been having. I've noticed there's been a strong, not pivot, but introduction of E-REVs, extended range electric vehicles, basically plug-in hybrids with big batteries to effectively capture people in China who are still not swayed by EVs. And then also these models are making their way outside of China to European and Asian countries who, once again, for people who are not necessarily swayed by EVs. And I think that points to a space where maybe not everybody's convinced about electrification, unfortunately. And I think that bit of softness paired with the fact that the American manufacturers' EV efforts are in shambles right now, I think we're going to hit a wall here where somebody's going to be like, hey, flag on the plate. We're going to have to start over here because something is going on here. We're going to have to work together if we want to survive. Because I feel like the way American automakers are moving and what they're spending their development dollars on, it's not sustainable. There's billions and billions of dollars of American money wasted on EV projects that didn't go anywhere. I mean, I don't think that's because people don't want EVs. I just think that these American manufacturers spent their money on the wrong thing. Yeah, look at the Model Y. That's had Tesla's recent brand problems aside, that's had no issue being a blockbuster success, including in the US. There's just arguably been very few competitors for it until maybe very recently, because the other automakers were dragging their feet, they had to figure out how to be competitive on cost. And they've arguably still not really surmounted those challenges. I do think it's interesting. Yeah, he raps and faves of maybe there is a market both for those in China and also in the US, obviously, for rural people who are interested in having a scout for towing and stuff. Perhaps there's an opportunity for more kind of not leapfrogging to say, but like synchronization, right? Both of our countries have demographics that kind of want the same thing. And it might not all be battery electric vehicles. Maybe the learning that could be had in an ideal world between the two countries. I would like to think within the next year, there's going to be a little bit more cooperation here. I think the saber rattling between all three parties, between the United States and China is not productive for anyone. I think just historically, so many American brands have had ties to China, whether that be supply chain or just in general, cutting that stuff off, I don't think is going to help anyone. Yeah. And there's smart ways to do it. I don't think the national security concerns and all of those things are entirely unfounded. Not to say our own government and our own private companies don't harvest people's data, but there are certainly ways to cross-develop batteries and powertrains that don't involve handing over software control to a foreign automaker. Plenty of Chinese companies, plenty of European companies are happy to do their own compliance with regulations and let other companies handle chips and software if they can make money selling steel. I agree. I think there's roadblocks, safety guards that we can put in to make sure everyone's safe and get what we want. But I think we need to do that sooner rather than later. Yeah, agreed. I appreciate the optimistic, but also realistic takes. Thanks so much for your time. Yeah, no problem. Thank you so much. That is all this week on Directly Current. Thank you again to Kevin Williams for lending his valuable time to us. We have another episode coming out next week. Then we're going to slow down the schedule a little bit for some higher profile episodes coming up with a perspective from inside the automotive industry that we're very much looking forward to sharing with you. If you haven't, check out EVs for All America's website for polling, news, and merchandise, hey, because we could use your support. And if you haven't already, do subscribe to this podcast in your app of choice. That is 100% free, and we're going to continue to bring you the best content we can during this chaotic, but actually pretty exciting moment for the automotive industry. We are not believers in the doom and gloom perspective. And I think you'll see next week's episode, that there are some optimistic trends for the US car market and charging and the EV industry at large. Yes, even right now in 2026. We'll see you in your feeds with another guest next Tuesday.
