This week’s episode discusses MG price cuts, Zeekr vehicle pricing and voting for the next Tesla Supercharger locations.
Transcript
Adrian Maidment (00:00):
Hello and welcome to EV Loop powered by Carloop. I’m Adrian Maidment. On today’s episode, MG slashes prices again, Leapmotor launches Aussie website, chart of the week, and probably something Tesla related.
Hi, Riz.
Riz:
Hi, Adrian. Good to be on. This is our ninth episode.
Adrian:
Yep, yep. We’re cranking them out now. Some good comments as well, so we’re getting some good feedback, so that’s nice to see.
Obviously, if you want to see more of this stuff, like and subscribe so you can be in the know when we release our episodes, which is generally every week. So that’s what our schedule looks like.
So yeah, let’s get into it, Adrian.
Adrian:
Okay, we’ll start with, well, has Riz had any driving experiences this week?
Riz:
So I’ve had two experiences. One was with the XPeng G6. The G6 made its way down to Melbourne, and it’s supposed to be here for about six days or so. So test drives for those that are interested. Very, very desirable car. So I was lucky enough to sort of get to experience it on the first day when it landed at Lorbek, which is a prestige luxury car dealership here in Port Melbourne. So that’s where they were running the test drives out of.
Adrian:
What’s the vibe like, Riz? Is it sort of positive?
Riz:
Yeah, the vibe was pretty good in terms of the people that were interested in test driving these cars in person. So there’s quite a lot of demand. And then I’ve seen on social media afterwards, a lot of people are very happy with the way it drives, and it’s sort of the first opportunity that they’ve got. So got to see it myself, got a test drive, and very spacious, quite nice in terms of its interior. Now, these are pre-production cars, so not everything’s ready. But I did get to see one of the people that was working with XPeng showed that when they were driving these cars down from Sydney to Melbourne, they stopped to charge, and some of the charging speeds they were getting were over 260 kilowatts, which is pretty high, and it’s higher than Teslas that are currently in the market. So that was quite interesting to see. But yeah, this product’s looking very promising.
Adrian:
Yep, and what else have you had a look at?
Riz:
I was also fortunate with the Australian Electric Vehicle Association to check out one of BYD’s latest showrooms or experience centers in Richmond in Melbourne. Got a bit of a talk from the Chief Operations Officer from the importer, EV Direct, on what are some of the products that are currently in the market, how they’ve evolved, and what’s coming up. I got to learn that the BYD Shark, which is their upcoming plug-in hybrid ute, would be arriving before the BYD Sealion, which is their all-electric, sort of mid-sized SUV to compete with the Tesla Model Y. Some may even call it the Tesla Model Y killer. And that’s likely now to arrive early in 2025. So there are a couple of things that I’ve got to do from a cars point of view, and there’s plenty more in the coming week, which I’ll share with our viewers and listeners next week.
Adrian:
Okay, and we’ll move on to some industry news. I’ve seen another headline. I wasn’t sure if it was a repeat or I got it wrong. MG slashes prices again.
Riz:
MG is on a roll because I know we touched on this last week with the MG ZS, but this time around the MG4 64-kilowatt-hour variants. There’s two variants there, the Excite and Essence, and they’ve cut prices on both of them for the month of September. Now, unlike the MG ZS, which is on a bit of a runout because they’ve launched four ICE versions, they’ve launched a new version already, and there’s an EV version being tested that’ll be coming out shortly. So not sure what’s going on, but I guess they want to maintain their sales of MG4, which is their best-selling electric car and quite a fun car. I’ve had plenty of chances to drive one for a couple of weeks in the last 12 months, and fantastic car in the way it rides and drives. Now with the 10-year warranty, the price cuts on the 64-kilowatt-hour pack. For anyone that’s interested, it’s sort of the best of both worlds. It has reasonable range, over 430 kilometers, up to 450 kilometers of WLTP range. Fairly zippy, and it’s rear-wheel drive, so it is a fun car to drive. So definitely worth test driving at your local MG dealer.
Adrian:
Yeah, so these price cuts just seem to keep coming. And Leapmotor has launched their Aussie website. We talked about them last week, but maybe you could just do a quick recap of who they are because they’ve sort of come out of nowhere, I guess you’d say.
Riz:
Yeah, so Leapmotor is a Chinese startup. When we say startup, they’ve sold thousands of cars. And Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Chrysler, Maserati, a whole lot of other companies, they bought a 20% stake in the company and started a new joint venture called Leapmotor International. So Stellantis, being a fairly large automotive company, they have dealerships in pretty much most parts of the world. They’re going to help them launch into those new markets outside of China, and that’s exactly what’s starting to happen, which is great to see.
We did spot one on the roads here in Melbourne being tested a couple of weeks ago, and now the website’s gone online fairly quickly. And now there’s two variants of their first car called the C10, which is a mid-sized, sort of a Model Y-sized SUV. From the rear, it looks a little bit like a Porsche Cayenne, and from the front, it is pretty stylish. On the inside, from the pictures that we’ve seen from the website, it’s very well equipped, quite nice in the way it’s sort of minimalistic look, but there’s, you know, I think it’d be quite a comfortable SUV. So now that the website’s up, some of the high-level specs are out. It’d be really interesting to see how quickly we get an update on its launch and, more importantly, the pricing. So exciting times in terms of all the new EVs coming into our market.
Adrian:
Do you know how they’re being distributed?
Riz:
I’d say it’d be through Stellantis themselves, which currently, like I said, have Jeep dealerships and a whole lot of other things. I’d say they’d rely on that existing network. So I guess if it’s a quality enough product and it’s easy enough to test drive out of their dealerships or even pop-up stores, I think it will sell quite well if it’s priced right. I’m expecting it to be priced at under $50,000 for the entry-level. If that’s the case, it should sell pretty well.
Adrian:
Good. Okay, let’s move on to something bigger, and that’s the new charging hub. I read this on the Driven website: the new charging hub to service electric grocery deliveries.
Riz:
Yeah, that’s going to be established, and I think it will be serving Woolworths, which is one of the biggest supermarket chains in Australia.
Adrian:
They should have paid for it.
Riz:
Well, yeah. And they’re also, like I said, they’re getting funding. And the company involved is Zenobe. It’s a UK-based fleet transition company that has done a few projects in the electric bus and sort of mass transport space. So it’s quite good to see that they are out there now doing the same thing, I guess partnering to deliver a hub like this. For those last-mile deliveries, one of the big trends out of COVID has been basically ordering groceries online. I know it was a thing before COVID, but it really ramped up, and now a lot of people just see it as convenience. So those last-mile delivery trucks, if they go all electric, then that’s a good thing for our cities, and they’re a lot quieter running around our streets.
So supporting that with this ARENA, which is the grant that they received, and Zenobe working on it, it’s quite a unique project. But wouldn’t be surprised if in the next couple of years we see hundreds of these sort of projects and hubs opening up as we get more delivery vans and light trucks being electrified.
Adrian:
Yeah, it looks pretty impressive. Right, chart of the week. Chart of the week, Riz. What’s happening this week on the charts?
Riz:
So this week we’ve actually got sort of the Tesla growth in obviously the most popular EV state, New South Wales. I know we concentrate on them quite a bit, but they’re leading the charts with nearly 38,000 Tesla Model 3s and Ys in that state at the moment. And one of the good insights out of that is the number of fast-charging Supercharger sites that are being built. Some of them are co-funded by the New South Wales government, but New South Wales by far has the most amount of upcoming Supercharger sites, and some of the most recent ones have also been opened in that state to support those nearly 38,000 Tesla vehicles. Not only Teslas anymore, because a lot of those sites are open to non-Teslas as well.
So if your non-Tesla can charge there, which majority of them can— I think some of the early BYDs can’t— then it’s a good thing. And it’s definitely a good thing for people looking at road tripping because there’s a lot of sites that are going to be coming up in New South Wales and along the East Coast that will support the number of EVs we have on the road. So Tesla aside, I think the number of Supercharger stations that Tesla is running to support EV drivers, it’s a good thing to encourage more people to make the switch.
Adrian:
Okay, we might as well stay on Tesla. We’re moving to our rumors section, Tesla factual news and outlandish rumors. What have you got this week?
Riz:
It’s a pretty big rumor, Adrian. We are about a month or so away from Tesla supposedly having a product unveil, which is— you know, we haven’t had one of those for a while. And this will be the Robotaxi. The rumors that we’ve been spreading is around Warner Brothers Studios being the location where this unveil will happen. And now there’s been a pretty unique-looking vehicle that’s been spotted. I’m not sure if it’s AI-generated or not, but we’re reporting it anyway. This yellow prototype vehicle thing being followed by a Tesla vehicle could be a very strange way to camouflage a vehicle being tested, but that’s what we’ve spotted.
So yeah, in a couple of weeks, I guess we will probably see more of these types of vehicles, if they are real, being spotted by other people and making its way to the interwebs, where we find the most credible ways to report that type of rumors and information. So yeah, a bit happening in the Tesla self-driving space in the coming weeks, which we will cover pretty closely.
Adrian:
And let’s move on to keeping sort of a Tesla theme. Let’s pull out one of those Tesla killer headlines. This is from techradar.com: “Lucid’s affordable new SUV shows it’s planning to overtake Tesla as the new EV king.”
Riz:
Yeah, so Lucid, obviously, they have some amazing drivetrain technology. So the electric motors that go into Lucid vehicles are very efficient, which is great. But that’s only one component of it. To produce these cars at mass scale is sort of what’s important. And Lucid is at least a couple of years from doing that. So their vehicles are Tesla killers in their own eyes. They are very nice vehicles, but Lucid needs to make hundreds and thousands of those to, you know, be an actual Tesla killer. Otherwise, it’s still looking like Tesla Model Y will be the best-selling car in 2024 as well— not just an electric car, but overall in the car market, the best-selling model in the world. So plenty of Tesla killers on the way, including this Lucid. But yeah, that’s what we have to keep an eye out on and see how many are actually killing Teslas.
Adrian:
And events coming up, Riz, what have you got on the cards?
Riz:
So a couple of things. Polestar will be launching one of their electric cars in Australia. There’s a drive event coming up. That should be quite interesting to see, so I’ll be attending that. Following that, there is also the Australia China Economic Trade and Investment Expo 2024 here in Melbourne. So I’ve been asked to give a speech there on behalf of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association. And then I’m off to Sydney at the New South Wales Government EV Drive Day being organized by NRMA. Friday is the fleet day, so I’ll be going up there talking to fleets about all things EVs, in particular the commercial EV fleet landscape and the new brands that are heading to Australia. So if anyone’s interested, come and say hi, particularly at the New South Wales event, because I will be there, and there’s plenty of test drives and other things happening there as well.
Adrian:
Look out for the man in the purpley sort of shirt.
Riz:
That’s it. Purple shirt.
Adrian:
And on that note, I guess we’ll sum it up, Riz, and see you next week.
Riz:
Yeah, Adrian, there’s just so much happening. We’ve only touched on maybe one or two new brands this week, and I think by next week we might have some pricing updates on a couple of the models we have touched on today. So stay tuned. Like, subscribe, hit that bell icon. Where you’re listening, follow us so that you can get the latest sort of information all in one place. And if you’ve got any suggestions, please drop them below in the comments.