Afleveringen
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Chinese leaders believe overcapacity across industries including automotive is a cyclical problem that fresh growth will solve. Foreign investors with experience in the PRC see things differently. To them, overcapacity is a direct result of China's planned economy. Not only does massive overcapacity spark price wars inside China, it also threatens to spur an avalanche of exports into markets worldwide, undermining industries and killing jobs. Joerg Wuttke led the China operations of BASF, the German chemical giant for 27 years. Mr Wuttke knows China like few people on the planet. In the summer of 2024, he became a partner at the Albright Stonebridge Group based in Washington DC. Mr Wuttke is considered one of the world's leading experts on Europe-China trade and investments. Today, we talk about what Mr Wuttke calls China's "breaking point" when it comes to overcapacity. How soon will it arrive? What will it look like?
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We're trying something a little different this week! Michael Dunne recently appeared as a guest on the podcast FACE-OFF: The U.S. vs. China, where he had an insightful and engaging conversation with host Jane Perlez. He enjoyed the discussion so much that he wanted to share it with you. The description below is from the FACE-OFF podcast.
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Back in 2015 the Chinese government declared that they would become the world leader in EVs by 2025. Major car companies scoffed. Who wants an EV? Today, China automakers have surpassed Japan, Germany and the US to become the number one exporter of cars. A record number of Chinese EVs were sold globally last year. How did China become the global leader in EVs? We’ll talk with the man who literally wrote the book on the rise of China’s car industry.
Guest: Michael Dunne, Auto executive in China and the US, author American Wheels, Chinese Roads.
Book Recommendations: Michael Dunne’s new book expected mid-2025.Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk and the Bet of the Century by Tim Higgins. -
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Alex Roy and his co-pilots recently made two historic coast to coast trips - California to New York - in his brand new Model S. Their mission: Measure the efficiency and safety of the Tesla FSD system. How close was Tesla to mastering full autonomy? Roy and Team use two key metrics. The first is the total number of disengagements – whether voluntary or involuntary. The second: How quickly could the system recover after a disengagement? Roy, who previously set the Electric Car Cannonball record in his Tesla, has now turned his focus to autonomous driving. His central question: How soon will cars be able to drive themselves coast to coast allowing us to take a nap in the back seat? I first met Alex Roy in 2018 at a private industry event south of Munich. He's one of a kind - colorful, smart and professional. You will enjoy his vivid first-hand account of the cannonball runs, both the triumphs and the reversals - like the time the team encountered a good old-fashioned midwestern thunderstorm in Indiana. How exactly did The Model S and the FSD system respond to that crush of water? Alex Roy, partner, New Industry Venture Capital on the Driving With Dunne podcast.
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What are the industrial crown jewels of the future? Most of us can name two of them right away: Chips that power the brains behind everything, including AI. And batteries or energy storage systems. Batteries power not only EVs but have a much wider application in delivering energy to factories and countless military applications. There is a third one that might be just as crucial: magnets. Magnets are produced with materials derived from the processing of rare earths. Today, China has an abundance of rare earths. More importantly, China has a near monopoly on the processing of those rare earths. This leaves America and the West highly vulnerable. That's where an American company called Evolution comes in - their mission is to build complete processing capabilities in America for American industry. Joining me today to talk about the rare earth processing and magnet challenge is Dean Evans, co-founder at Evolution. They are already operating in Missouri and have sister companies in Korea. What's the central challenge and how soon will America be able to process rare earths and build its own magnets at scale?
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What can we say for sure about China? Many of us can rattle off some incredible statistics. It is a manufacturing and technology powerhouse. China ran up an astonishing $1 trillion dollar surplus in 2024. China builds more EVs than all other countries combined. And China has enough capacity to supply total global demand for batteries. We know these facts. But what we know much less well is how to engage with Chinese business people in a productive way that leads to successful outcomes. That's been a giant black hole for many Western business people. Fortunately, a giant dose of help is on the way in the form of a tremendous new book by Ken Wilcox called The Chinese Business Conundrum: Ensuring Win-Win Doesn't Mean Western Companies Twice. Mr Wilcox, the former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, also ran SVB's joint venture bank in China. He shares extremely valuable inside views of realities on the ground.
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Europe's aim is to become a global leader in adopting next generation clean technologies. In the first phase, beginning in 2020, the focus was on meeting ambitious emission reductions goals. Four years later, the European Commission is making an important adjustment to its strategy. The new goal is to have Europe be a global leader in adopting and producing those technologies. They call it the Clean Industrial Deal. Some background: Up until very recently, Europe's climate goals were met by sourcing many advanced clean energy technologies from China, including solar panels and electric vehicles. European leaders quickly understood that it would be far better for companies within Europe to produce the clean technologies than to import them from China or other countries. Joining us today to walk us through the new era is Barbara Glowacka of the EU Commission. She advises leaders at the highest levels of power in the European Commission on energy and law.
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Europe wants to go green in a hurry. China has EVs to help Europe achieve their goal faster. What's the problem? The problem is that too many Chinese cars are flooding into France, Germany and Italy And that is putting enormous pressure on Europe's auto industry. Making things worse, European brands' sales are skidding in China, which used to be their forever profit machines. VW is now talking about closing three plants and laying off tens of thousands. And we are not even in a recession. Joining me to make sense of the pressure - he calls it a schism - is Roger Atkins, founder of Electric Vehicles Outlook. How will Europe see things through from here? Roger will also share what he loves and what he loves much less about driving his all-electric ID Buzz, the retro bus from VW. Along the way, we will also learn how to say sh-t-show in Chinese. Yes, I promise you there is such a word.
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One of the most significant limiters to EV adoption in America is the dreaded charging experience. Where do I find the nearest station? Wil, the chargers work? Do I need an app? Will I be safe sitting alone in my car for thirty minutes? Who can I call if things go wrong? In this episode, we learn from Christopher Balcom of Schneider Electric that improvements are on the way. Specifically, the mission is to simplify the charging experience by bringing several separate parts - the hardware, the software, the installer and the carmakers – together to form a seamless experience.
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Dr. Daniel Sperling is one of the world's leading experts on electric vehicles. His knowledge runs very deep. Dr. Sperling founded the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. He has written 13 books, including Two Billion Cars, and published 250 papers. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him to the powerful California Air Resources Board, a position he held for 13 years. Dr Sperling has also built a deep understanding of China's EV industry. In this episode we talk about his work at CARB, China's ambitions, interactions with Elon Musk and how demand for electric vehicles will continue to vary by state and by country for the next decade. Dr Sperling also offers some practical advice to people who are on the fence about EVs.
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Here is a candidate for the single most important development in the global auto industry this year: One of every two new cars sold in China this year will be electric. Half! In the US and Europe, we are experiencing a kind of EV wheel spin. EVs as a share of total sales in America still hover under 10%. Europe is a bit higher at 15%, but the pace of growth has slowed dramatically. Why is EV demand growing so much faster in China than in the West? One big factor is the cost of batteries. That is where China enjoys a massive advantage. But the game is not over. Startups in the West, like OneD Battery Sciences, are developing better battery chemistries that deliver higher energy density at lower costs. What are they working on? How soon will we see breakthrough batteries? And how might the US electric change the landscape? To get answers, listen to Vincent Pluvinage and K.T. Neumann.
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It is no secret that electric cars are fast - very fast. But for many drivers, EVs like Tesla or Lucid - even Porsche - do not seem to fuel quite the same emotion as sports cars powered by internal combustion engines. To borrow the French term, the piece de resistance seems to be missing. This makes today's buyers ask: What is the point of driving a sports car if you're not feeling something extraordinary? Toni Piech and Tobias Moers agree. That is why they have set out a vision for an electric sports car that will be quick, very enjoyable to drive and extraordinarily talented when it comes to getting your adrenaline flowing. They will call it the Piech GT. And it will be ready for launch in 2028. They have set the highest bar. The goal is to make it even better than the Porsche Taycan in performance and excitement. So, what will separate the Piech GT from Porsche and everything else on the road? Let's find out. Toni Piech, Founder and Tobias Moers, CEO, Piech Automotive.
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In his best-selling book, Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari describes the most important feature that separates human beings from all other species on the planet: Imagination. We have the ability to imagine something that does not (yet) exist, communicate the concept to others and persuade them to believe it. As a concrete example, he cites the limited liability company, an idea first hatched by the Dutch back in the 1600s. Today we are going to explore the imaginative idea of Web 3.0, an ambitious project to take usout of the quagmire that has become Web 2.0. The basic goal is to create a private internet that is much safer and more efficient than what we have today. Getting there will require imagination, education and a lot of believing. To get us on the path, we are very pleased to have as our guest Tram Vo, co-founder of MOBI, an organization that is building the infrastructure to make Web 3.0 possible.
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By now you may have heard the term software defined vehicle. But what does it mean? Tesla was the first to make one. Chinese automakers like NIO and Xpeng followed quickly. Most Western OEMs today are still figuring out how to make them. But what exactly is a software-defined vehicle? How do they work? Today I am joined on the Driving With Dunne podcast by John Wall, the SVP and Head of QNX Engineering, Product and Operations at Blackberry QNX. This Ottawa, Canada based company makes some of the most important real-time operating systems and software that power your car, including your digital cockpit and your advanced driver assistance systems. Think of QNX as the master plumber of software systems found in more than 230 million cars on the road today worldwide.
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Dr. Ilaria Mazzocco and her colleagues at CSIS found that Chinese subsidies to companies in strategic industries are more than twice as high as in other countries. The numbers are not insignificant. This week, we learned that BYD secured some $3.4 billion in subsidies in 2023 alone. As a group Chinese automakers have benefited from tens of billions of dollars in supply side and consumer subsidies since 2010. Complicating the picture, however, is the reality that China is also home to some fast-moving, highly innovative firms led by people who work harder and sometimes smarter than their peers in the West. Today, Ilaria and I dive deeper into the question of Chinese state capitalism, subsidies and how the West can respond to the rising tide - call it a tsunami - of low-cost, good quality Chinese automotive exports.
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The world is in the midst of a monumental transition from fossil fuels to critical minerals. Those critical minerals, like lithium, cobalt and nickel, are the key ingredients in the batteries that power electric cars, cell phones, electric lawn mowers and more. Today, the minerals are extracted from the ground at mining sites around the world. Massive lithium deposits, for example, are located in Australia, Chile and Argentina. China has minerals, too. China also controls most of the world's mineral processing. As America and Europe step into the critical minerals era, there is a desire for greater access to and control over critical minerals. Now, teams of expert geologists are uncovering new deposits in North America. But after finding the minerals, the mining companies and their investors are confronting unexpected hurdles to clear before they can start mining. Indigenous groups and environmentalists are saying: "Not so fast" to new mines. This week on the Driving With Dunne, Ernest Scheyder, author of The War Below, gives us an inside look at the heating and complex battles over the rights to mine critical minerals.
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By now everyone understands US-China relations are at their worst in 50 years. There is mutual distrust. And mutual animosity. China complains bitterly that America is trying to keep it down. America, meanwhile, is wary of China's new-found aggressiveness. Are the world's two most powerful countries heading for a showdown? If so, how should companies in the West prepare. Stay the course in China? Pare back operations? Or beat it for the exits?
This week our special guest on the Driving With Dunne podcast is Jim McGregor. Jim first went to China in the 1980s. Today he is the Chairman Greater China, APCO Worldwide, a company that solves problems for firms operating in the Chinese arena. Jim knows China. And he knows business. Jim is also the author of the best-selling book, One Billion Customers. Let's listen to his take on where the US-China relationship is headed -
What is an autonomous vehicle? And how will we know one when we see one? Today, the picture is pretty confusing. We have all sorts of names out there: autonomous, self-driving, fully self driving, drive pilot, autopilot, blue cruise, super cruise, Sensing 360, Apollo and NGP navigated guided pilot. Further complicating the picture: In recent months, two of the leaders in the autonomous vehicle industry - Cruise and Waymo - have each suffered setbacks to their reputations in their hyper-intensive missions to create cars that drive themselves. Can they recover? Joining is today to sift through the complexity and bring clarity is Alex Roy, one of the very best original thinkers in the business. Let's listen to Alex separate fact from fiction when it comes to autonomous vehicles.
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It is time to take an honest look at battery technologies. The fact is that batteries that power electric cars today have many limitations. There are limits to the range they can deliver. There are limits to how quickly you can charge them. And there are limits to how many times they can be charged before they start losing their full capacity. And then there are limits to their safety. Lithium-ion battery fires are rare. But once a lithium battery catches fire, it is not easy to put out. These limitations are problems that fire the imagination of entrepreneurs. Hey, let's find a solution, they say, let's improve people's lives and maybe get outrageously wealthy along the way. One of those breakthrough battery solutions on the horizon is known as silicon batteries. When you reduce graphite and add more silicon to the anode, magical things can happen. Our guest today, Rick Luebbe, CEO at Group 14 Technologies. Rick makes a case for why silicon batteries are no longer a technology of the future - they are here and now in 2024.
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In this episode, we use our imagination, well, to imagine a totally different kind of future. One in which we get to where we want to go in town not in several thousand pound SUVs but in sensible light weight vehicles that save on fuel and are good for the environment. Our guest is Hakan Lutz, founder and CEO of Luvly, developer of the Luvly O, a two-seater vehicle that can travel up to 60 miles on a single charge. The Luvly O (that's LUV) is short for light urban vehicle. It's electric, lightweight and recyclable. And it can be packed for delivery by Amazon in a flat box. How much does the Luvly O cost. How fast can it go? How safe is it? And in which countries is it most likely to gain early traction? You will learn all of that and more on this week's episode of the Driving With Dunne podcast.
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Many say that price is the single biggest limiter to EV demand in Western countries. In the United States, the average price of a new EV is $53,000. In Europe, the number is even higher - $60,000. On the other hand, China produces EVs across the price spectrum – from $5,500 to $160,000. Why is it so hard to match China on cost? What steps must Western automakers - and governments - take to compete with Chinese firms? The key is batteries. This week three executives with deep expertise in batteries – Vincent Pluvinage, Karl-Thomas Neumann and James Frith in London – join me to explore the options.
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