Sinocism Podcast: Tu Le of Sino Auto Insights on the rise of the China vehicle industry

In this episode of the Sinocism Podcast Bill speaks with Tu Le, Founder and Managing Director of Sino Auto Insights. Tu recently attended the Shanghai Auto Show. We discuss the rise of China EVs both inside China and increasingly in other countries, and especially of BYD, why the legacy foreign auto manufacturers are struggling and will continue to struggle in China, and how “China EV Inc” will win share in many overseas markets. We also discuss Tesla’s positioning in the PRC and some if its challenges ahead, especially from BYD, both inside the PRC and in other markets around the world.

Links:

Sino Auto Insights

Sino Auto Insights newsletter

Doug DeMuro reviews the BYD Han:

The BYD Song L:

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Bill: Welcome back to the Sinocism podcast. Today we're very lucky to have Tu Le to talk about the PRC auto industry. Tu is the founder and managing director of Sino Auto Insights. Tu recently relocated to Detroit after many years in Beijing. Tu and his team at Sino Auto Insights do advisory and market research work for companies and investors who want to understand the PRC auto industry and especially the rise of Made in China EVs. He also writes an excellent weekly newsletter and does a podcast and occasional or weekly, I think, , Twitter spaces. I will put links to those in the show notes. Tu, welcome and thanks for joining the podcast. Great to see you again.

[00:00:36] Tu Le: Bill first. , thanks for having me. Last time we saw each other, I think we were at Central Park having a coffee at Jamaica Blue. That quite a few years ago.

[00:00:47] Bill: Tu and I are old friends from, from Beijing. , so, and, and it's, it's good to see you and, , nice to have you, , back in the US and Detroit. , Detroit is home, right. But it's also a great place to be if you're working on the auto industry.

[00:00:59] Tu Le: Yeah. It's kind of ground zero for what's happening in the EV and mobility space. So, so it's, it's a great time to be back.

[00:01:05] Bill: I've been really wanting to get you on the podcast for a while and I got finally motivated to do so after reading, what you were talking about from the Shanghai Auto Show, which you were, you, you just came back from China, I think, like a week ago, right? You're there for Tu or three weeks, , and nice to be able to travel again, right?

[00:01:21] Tu Le: Oh, man. It was, , it was kind of, , surreal because the last time I traveled internationally from China, we were just, we had bags packed and everything, so a little bit different.

[00:01:35] Bill: Yeah, no, much, much better. , and I think, you know, the Shanghai Auto Show clearly rocked a lot of people's worlds, and so Tu is going help us understand what's going on, and that's why, you know. So I wanna start though, first with, if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up in China, working in the audio industry and, and what your firm does.

[00:01:54] Tu Le: Okay, sure. So,  as you'd mentioned, I grew up in Detroit, actually in Pontiac, Michigan.. In my entire family, all eight of us have worked. In the automotive space, along with our significant others. And, my first job, actually out of undergrad at Michigan State University was working at GM where the recently canceled Bolt is manufactured.

[00:02:16] Tu Le: After grad school I moved to Silicon Valley, worked there for about six, seven years., and I met a girl and chased her over to Beijing actually. So I quit my Silicon Valley job and what I thought was going be a three or four year commitment ended up being 13 years.  I had moved to Shanghai, took a job with Ford