Episode #74 - Tu's Sneak Peek of the Robo-1, Projecting 2022 Full-Year and 2023 Sales, Geely's Radar

Tu starts the episode with an update on the ground and then quickly moves to his visit to Baidu headquarters to get a sneak peek at the Jidu Auto Robo-1 concept vehicle. Tu talks a bit about the overall shape, feel of the interior and thoughts on the single long coast to coast screen that makes up most of the front console. He notes that the lack of buttons and knobs really stands out and that the UX and UI needs to really be strong in order to pull the Human Machine Interface (HMI) off.

Lei points out the UX may be behind the complaints about the Zeekr 001 and the reason Zeekr has decided to upgrade everyone for free while NIO said it would be too costly for them to do it, indirectly poking fun at Zeekr for the smaller number of cars they have on the road compared to NIO.

Tu believes that our vehicle infotainment / touchscreen expectations are built on our experience with our mobile phone/tablets so any latency issues or general buggy-ness could lead to a bad UX. 

Tu and Lei then begin to discuss the 1st half sales and how the 2nd half is poised to be much larger and could possibly push full year sales to 6M units. They continued to game out that if 2023 saw >50% growth, the China NEV market could be over 10M units!  

Lei then switches the topic over to Geely’s newest brand Radar that will specialize in electric trucks and both Tu and Lei share their reactions to the RD6 vehicle concept pickup that was unveiled and the changes of the brand’s success.

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