SAI Weekly 22 - 25: Tesla Robotaxi Debuts, BYD Pauses, YU7 Launches and Folks are REALLY Impressed
The Tesla STANs were ALL dialed up to volume 12 with the launch of the Austin robotaxi pilot trying to keep the share price pumped up.
I still use the Twitter / X platform and admittedly, most of my follows are in the transportation space so I should get majority auto/EV/AV/battery/chip related posts, but wow – that algo ALSO sends me SO MUCH BS it’s becoming harder and harder to take the social media app seriously. There are a number of folks that I’ve followed for quite some time that still post frequently and that’s one reason I continue to use the platform. And then I had to deal with all the Tesla robotaxi videos this week - almost unbearable, except there are still some Tesla FUDsters as well which makes things interesting. Below are a couple sample posts that made me chuckle.
Also, a Wiki page lists ALL of Elon’s promises and how many he’s actually kept. According to Wikipedia, 2 of 21.
Other big news, Reuters is reporting that BYD may be lightening their production load for the time being to bleed excess vehicle inventories at the dealers in China. They have also stuffed the international channels with their large delivery ships hitting the ports of Brazil, Mexico and the EU.
I’ll have some deeper thoughts on both down below.
I had the pleasure of speaking at the latest MEMA (vehicle supplier advocacy group) event yesterday in Southfield, MI to a crowd of around 60ish people as part of their Adopting China Speed: Best Practices to Drive Competitiveness in North American event. I summarized my latest China trip including what I saw at AutoShanghai2025 as well as my road trip and individual company briefings.
Whenever I focus on China in talks like this I find that there’s a decent number of people in the crowds nodding their heads in agreement with what I am saying, but also a number of people who tend to be defensive and want to point fingers. I point this out to say that the percentage of people that get defensive and rationalize the ‘whys’ has decreased substantially just in the last three years I’ve been back in the US.
Joe and I had our first LIVESTREAM yesterday on Substack and after some technical difficulties, we both made it on and had a good discussion – mostly on Tesla’s robotaxi launch in Austin and a few other things. Not a bad turnout, but we need to keep it going to build some momentum and we plan to have some surprises before the end of this year to build our followers up so stay tuned for more from At The Wheel real soon!
If you’d like to be a guest or a sponsor for the platform, please do reach out.
BIGGEST NEWS THIS WEEK
Chinese regulatory bodies warn China EV Inc on skimping on quality and reliability in order to save costs. Three regulatory bodies came out strongly against the price war leading to safety, quality and / or reliability issues for NEVs. They will dial up ‘spot’ checks to ensure that nothing has been compromised in the name of reduced costs to support the price war.
Add this to the list of things the Chinese government is concerned about as the price war moves toward its 4-year birthday. The Chinese government also warned against Chinese OEMs holding out payments to their suppliers in order to conserve cash. These are the clearest signs that the Chinese govt is ready for the price war to be OVER.
This points to the hypercompetition in the industry and how the weaker companies really need to get got in order for the good, but weaker companies can take their sales and try to get on the right side of the competition against BYD. Good luck with that…
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The comparo that matters - Slate vs. Maverick. With Trump getting rid of the $7.5K subsidy for EV purchase, It’s all but certain that similarly appointed Slate vs. a Maverick will come out at around the same price. Big BUTS: The Slate will be an EV while at best, the Maverick will be a hybrid. Next: Slate will be a two door. Next, Next: Slate will have manual crank windows and no center console / infotainment console. The Maverick will have both.
Car and Driver says that the price difference for the two door, 150 mile range, pickup Slate and the most basic, 4-door, auto window’d Maverick will be about $2K. To me that makes it a no-brainer – good luck with that Slate.
And BTW, I do hope Slate is successful, but remember that they’ll need to sell well >100K (likely closer to 150K) in short order or it could be curtains for them. And I also know that they are forecasting that their customers will upbuy accessories to bump up that average sale price, but will it be enough to push them into profitability? As we go from $27K closer to $45K, there will be more competitors they’ll need to go up against.
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According to the Tesla STANs, it’s GAME OVER for Tesla’s competitors in the robotaxi space. Thing is, its competitor haven’t received the memo.
Tesla launched between 10-20 robotaxis in a geofenced area of Austin, Texas that had not only a local supervisor but also a remote supervisor – so two failsafes effectively. For this launch, they pretty much ONLY invited Tesla friendlys, many of whom are invested heavily in Tesla on the assumption that they would have nothing but positive superlatives of their experiences and the services capabilities. And boy oh boy, the STANs did not disappoint. To the point where the share price had an 8% pop after the launch.
I am going to do a quick By The Numbers in this post.
· Tesla: 10-20 robotaxis in Austin
· Waymo: ~500 in Austin, Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and soon to be NYC
· Baidu Apollo: >1K robotaxis in service in Wuhan, Chongqing, Beijing, Shenzhen (without drivers) and operate with safety drivers in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Suzhou., Hangzhou, Changsha, Cangzhou.
· WeRide, Pony, DeepRoute and others in China:+400 robotaxis in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Zhengzhou
To put it simply, for Tesla it’s about time. Also remember, there’s not a scenario in the immediate future for them to launch a robotaxi service in China. The largest passenger vehicle market in the world.
For those analysts that are predicting that Tesla is a $5Trillion company, how much of that market cap is from dominating the China market? Because if you look at the above, it’s gonna be tough for them to dominate their home market.
Is launching this service a win? Absolutely, but it would’ve been a slam dunk had ANY of Elon’s original announcements re: Teslas robotaxis actually happened when they were supposed to.
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The YU7 is launching tomorrow. That means pricing will be announced and likely deliveries right around the corner. There have been pics posted on China social of a boatload of YU7s in the parking lots of the Beijing factory ready for delivery to customers – Lei Jun just needs to say the word.
Folks I trust that have driven it are impressed. Really impressed. Articles and videos will all post tomorrow around 10am ET once the embargo lifts, but its safe to say that Xiaomi is the team to beat nowadays in the global EV space. This is gonna be a hit, likely the biggest hit of 2025. And it’s going to do damage to the Tesla Model Y.
One thing to keep in mind here, there are a few other similar sized crossover SUVs that have or will have launched at around this time, the others being the XPeng G7 (already launched) and the Li Auto i8 which should launch in the next couple weeks. That’s going to put TREMENDOUS pressure on Tesla and the Model Y. And I don’t know how it’s going to compete against this trio of EVs from China EV Inc.
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BYD eases on the brakes. Slowing production and expansion, it seems that even the mighty BYD has seen some saturation of their brand in the domestic Chinese as well as international markets. They’ve been stuffing international channels like Brazil, Mexico and Europe using their newly built ships that can hold up to 5.5K vehicles. In Brazil’s case, it’s in anticipation of a tariff rise to 25% in July.
The LAST THING the Chinese govt wants is an abrupt disruption in the EV sector, but that seems like that exactly where it’s headed. Suppliers spread so thin because the OEMs they were supporting were holding payments for ?120 days.
That’s present tense BTW because even if BYD slows production, they need to still bleed the excess inventory at the dealers and how do car companies normally move excess inventory? Price cuts or non-price cut price cuts. That could take months, especially in the slower summer months. That means that IF they don’t decide to dial up production the rest of this year, the price war lasts for another few months. If that’s the case – we are now into Q4, when we ALL know the BIG PUSH for a strong year-end sales cycle heats up.
My guess is that it’s not until after CNY 2026 we see any significant let up on the intense price war. That’s unless the Dam breaks.
BY THE NUMBERS
300M. That’s the number of humanoid robots in the world by 2050 according to UBS. Morgan Stanley thinks it’s more, try 1B. With a TAM of $5Trillion. And according to many that follow the sector, Nvidia is going to supply the compute with its silicon for many of those humanoids.
$11,120. That’s how much the Firefly from NIO is if you decide you don’t want to buy the battery for it. I’ve not been able to drive it yet, but it seems like a pretty good deal based on folks I know that have driven it. Unfortunately for Firefly, that pricing bumps right up against BYD high runners, the Qin, Song, Seagull, and Seal.
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This weekly newsletter is a collection of articles we feel best reflect the happenings of the week or important trends that have effects on the global automotive and mobility sectors. We also provide a point of view that we hope educates and sparks debate.
The Sino Auto Insights team