← Everything Electric Podcast
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- [00:01]
A
We interrupt this program to bring you an important Wayfair message. Wayfair's got Style Tips for Every Home. This is Styles MacKenzie helping you make those rooms sing. Today's Style Tip when it comes to making a statement, treat bold patterns like neutrals. Go wild like an untamed animal. Print area rug under a rustic farmhouse table from wayfair.com fierce this has been your Wayfair style tip to keep those interiors superior. Wayfair Every Style Every Home Ringcentral will completely transform the way you work. It gives you built in AI across all your business conversations. Your phone System has an AI receptionist that answers calls 24 7. Your video meetings have AI that takes notes instantly. Even your contact center has AI so you can help customers faster. It all comes together in one reliable platform for effortless AI communications. See for yourself@ringcentral.com RingCentral Voice of your Business.
- [01:06]
B
At Everything Electric, we're building a small family of podcasts. Our existing Everything Electric podcast will soon be called Spark and that's where we interview leading people in science and industry that's connected with the energy transition electric, automotive, electric, ground transport, all those topics that we cover. Our new podcast, Pulse is the one where we help you keep current on everything automotive because it's changing so fast. And now our latest podcast which is called Tech in China. Now with our very own Elliot Richards in Shanghai, we're lucky to have a window into an incredible world of autonomous driving and artificial intelligence and drones and robotics and even the low altitude economy. Oh yeah, it's amazing. Starting with this pilot episode, Tech in China will be released every fortnight from from March and will be available on Spotify as an audio podcast, but it will also be on YouTube on the everything Electric Tech channel. What's more, we will be working to bring future tech to our Everything Electric live events this year in Harrogate, Cheltenham, Twickenham and Sydney. If you are anywhere near any of those locations it's definitely worth a visit and you'll get to see me and Elliot having a little bit of a chin wag about Tech in China. But now let's get on with the show. Welcome to Tech in China.
- [02:36]
A
Our three free YouTube channels on EVs and clean energy Tech are funded by our fun packed test drivetastic events in the north west and Greater London and our events Down Under. Next up, everything electric north 2026 plus check out everythingelectric store for merch and much more.
- [02:55]
C
Hello Robert, yeah, very exciting to be launching a brand new PODC podcast about Definitely One of my favorite topics and I know you've got a lot of interest in it as well.
- [03:06]
B
Yeah, well, it's because there's so much. I've. I've actually done research earlier. I haven't just sat around doing nothing.
- [03:13]
C
Wow, okay.
- [03:14]
B
I've done research. I wanna. Because a couple of things that we should mention right off right at the beginning. We're going to be running tech hubs. Is that the right term? Tech hubs at Sydney and Harrogate, the live shows this year, which is really.
- [03:28]
C
Yeah. So yeah, we've. We've got this in, in the plan at the moment. So the future tech hub at our events around the world. And this is really a showcase of the new tech coming out from China. Now we've always focused on like evs mostly. We have done some other techie stuff. We've done things about I guess the buses and taxis in Shenzhen. Catl battery factory. So we've. It's kind of like EV adjacent stuff. But we're seeing a lot more interest and a lot more growth in the area around EV. So whether it's robotics or EVTOLs or battery technology, it's all there.
- [04:07]
B
Yeah.
- [04:08]
C
And I think it's a really interesting topic for us to, to talk about because there's so much happening and it's very exciting.
- [04:15]
B
Yes, it is. But this is what I'm saying. I just think this is sort of important for us in the west to kind of be aware of which. Because when you mentioned tech in China, I went what about like really a long time ago, so 2,000 years ago. I'll list the things that came out of China. Paper. I don't even know paper. The, the oldest paper that's ever been found in the world, which is made out of different weird fibers they hammered together and then sieved out on a tray, then dried, then wrote on over 2, 2, 2. 400 years ago the Chinese were using paper. No one in the west wouldn't even know what paper was. They did, they made woodblock prints and movable type printing. 400 years before Gutenberg, if you look up. Wow, movable type. Gutenberg comes up straight away in the West. It was being used regularly in China 400. So about a thousand years ago and.
- [05:14]
C
In the west we were writing on bits of animal, weren't we?
- [05:17]
B
Yeah, we were chiseling on bits of oak or a peasant. You maybe cut some letters into a peasant, make him, make him run to your neighbor with a message written on his. Obviously gunpowder, which I did know that was Developed in China. I did know about gunpowder, but the compass, so the oldest compass in the world with a magnetic bit that made it go spinny, spin and point north. That was in China.
- [05:40]
C
That was invented in China. Yeah.
- [05:42]
B
The blast furnace, the first blast furnace and this. We're talking like 600 years ago. They had blast furnaces now making different sorts of metal. The. The rudder. So I don't know what. The rudder on a ship, the thing that steers a ship, the big plate at the back of a ship, the steering thing. That was it. That was first seen on Chinese ships. I was going to say, because just below that is EV Tolls electric vertical takeoff and landing. That's a bit later.
- [06:15]
C
There's a bit of a gap there. Just a bit of a gap. Not.
- [06:18]
B
Not much. That was like. That was just next on my list. I went, Ev toys. Yeah. When did they. When were they? About 1400.
- [06:27]
C
Yeah.
- [06:27]
B
I mean, yeah. Anyway, but that. I just thought that was fascinating how. How much stuff that we use, you know, because we.
- [06:34]
C
I would have.
- [06:35]
B
I mean, printing was the big surprise for me. Printing rudders and blast furnaces. You sort of think that's Industrial revolution. England in 1750-1800. Yeah.
- [06:48]
C
But China has, you know. I know, I know that China has a very long history of kind of innovation and technology. I'd forgotten about pretty much all of those until you reminded me. It's only.
- [07:00]
B
I mean, gunpowder was the only one I really. I did know. Gunpowder was originally from China and obviously.
- [07:06]
C
Fireworks as well, right? Yes.
- [07:08]
B
Which is. Yeah, yeah.
- [07:11]
C
So I think, you know, here we are in 2026 now, which is incredible. And we're seeing the real shift away from. I guess for me, tech has always been Japan. Right. I was growing up in the 90s. It's like, you know, Sony with their latest Walkman or. Yeah, I don't know, gadgetry.
- [07:31]
B
Yeah.
- [07:31]
C
Every. Like. Like Toshiba, all these Japanese brands we all knew about and that's kind of died away. And now we're seeing, you know, new companies like Unitree who do the robots or, you know, Catl with batteries or their EVTOLs or, you know, there's so many different companies jumping into this arena and it's even the car companies as well. So we all saw the, the xpeng video with the humanoid rope, humanoid robot on stage and they. Everyone didn't believe it was a robot, so they cut the leg of the trousers on stage of the humanoid robot. Everyone thinking, oh, it's someone dressed up. But no, it was an actual robot inside.
- [08:14]
B
Yeah, yeah, it was quite. I mean I do, I have issues, emotional issues, with bipedal robots.
- [08:23]
C
Go on, what are your issues? You.
- [08:26]
B
I just think when I, you know, like the Boston Dynamics four legged things. I mean, they terrify me because, you know, that they could chase you down.
- [08:33]
C
Yeah.
- [08:33]
B
And shoot you, you know, through it, wherever you went. You know, you run upstairs and they come up 10 times faster, you know, so there's, you know, they're relentless terminators, but they look, they're stable. I mean they're like four legged creatures. So they don't fall, they don't need to balance when they're standing still. Whereas a two legged creature and you know, as I slowly lose some of my balance skills as I get older. Okay, this is. Standing up is really hard. Walking, really complicated. And I just think the amount of comp power that's used to keep a bipedal robot upright is kind of like, can't you give it four legs? It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to look human. I mean that's partly the thing. But you know, it is weird, but I mean, I say that after 30. I think it's 35 years playing a bipedal robot on the telly. So yes, I've got two legs to stand on, but you know. Yeah.
- [09:28]
C
Would you have imagined when you first put on your Crichton suit that in your lifetime you would have seen actual.
- [09:36]
B
Robots that really are walking that walk so casually? I mean, it's kind of a swagger.
- [09:42]
C
It's quite walk.
- [09:44]
B
Is it? Yeah, no, it's much more human. You know, I was doing robotic walks. Well, that's ridiculous. I should have just slouched along.
- [09:54]
C
I think for me, I've seen a couple of video, a lot of videos recently of these robots and one of the freakiest ones because they've, they've got joints, right. So they've got joints at the hips, the arms, but they can fully go like 360 degrees round. So the whole like. What's that movie where the, the twins heads spin round in, in that horror film.
- [10:18]
B
What's that? Well, it's not, not the Exorcist. It's not.
- [10:20]
C
Yeah, I think it might be that and that. It's quite freaky when the head spins around, but these robots, every joint can fully spin a360.
- [10:28]
B
Yeah.
- [10:29]
C
And I was like, oh, that, that doesn't feel right to me. That feels horrible. Yeah, but it was, it's amazing because we all laughed at those first kind of Boston Dynamics videos back in 2010. Yeah.
- [10:41]
B
Long time ago. Really?
- [10:42]
C
Yeah, yeah. And you know, it's falling over and everyone was laughing, saying, this is ridiculous. But then we saw videos where it was jumping from boxes. Think, oh, yeah, okay, this is. This is now a little bit scary. And it was only in 2015 that those Atlas robots, they. It took them 50 minutes to complete, like, one of the assault courses. Now it takes less than a minute.
- [11:06]
B
Right, right.
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C
So that's quite.
- [11:08]
B
And that's in very short period of time. But if you think of sort of human evolution, it took us probably 150,000 years to go from all fours to standing upright and holding a stick.
- [11:21]
C
Yeah.
- [11:22]
B
Not. Not. Not two years. Yeah. I mean, they are. The. The movement of them is now. So that. That one you mentioned, the. The xpeng one, and there's the other one, the one you. The unitary. I mean, you know, the way that moves is so confident. I mean, there are quite a lot of videos I've seen of them walking along and then just falling downstairs and clattering on the floor.
- [11:46]
C
Yes.
- [11:47]
B
And kicking their legs wildly as they try and stand up again.
- [11:50]
C
There's quite a few of those videos going around. But the funniest video is. Well, I shouldn't say funny, it's amusing, is the. So with Unitree. So Unitree is a company in Hangzhou. You went to Hangzhou last year when we did the DV drive. It's becoming a kind of robotic hub. And Unitary are based there. And so they've got this video of a robot which mimics the movements of you. So you obviously put sensors on you.
- [12:20]
B
Right.
- [12:20]
C
And so whatever you do, the robot does it right next to you. Okay. So you can do a dance and the robot does the dance. And they had a concert at Christmas time by a guy called Wang Lee Hom, and they had six of these robots on stage kind of copying the moves. Okay. So it looked pretty cool. But back in the showroom, this guy was. Was trying out, but he'd obviously moved slightly his position slightly, so he wasn't parallel to the robot. So you should do this when you're standing next to the robot. So whatever he moves, you do, it can't really touch you and it's very safe. He obviously moved slightly and so he was doing like drop kicks in the air. Think, oh, yeah, this is really cool. And then the robot kicked him in the balls.
- [13:02]
B
I did see that. Yes.
- [13:03]
C
Yes. And you thought, oh, okay.
- [13:07]
B
You imagine there would have been quite a lot of mechanical force in that kick as well. It wasn't a Gentle tap and he went down like the proverbial. Yes.
- [13:19]
C
I think it kind of just shows you the capabilities of these, these robots already. But these are robots that will be commercially available this year. So you can, you can buy one, you can go out and buy one I think for around, we're thinking around a hundred thousand Australian dollars, so on at £50,000 and you can buy one.
- [13:39]
B
I mean, I mean like the cost of a car, basically a cost of a reasonable sort of mid range car. You have a bipedal robot that will kick you in the happy sex. Yes.
- [13:51]
C
The one thing which really confuses me though, apart from the, the nutsack kicking is like what's the, what's the use case of these? Like. Yeah, I don't, I don't like that they're doing creative stuff that humans can do really well, like dancing and you know, fun things. Why aren't they doing more useful things like helping the elderly or working in a factory? That's what we really need to see.
- [14:15]
B
See from, I mean I think that's what I think the kind of flashy, you know, in a sense the publicity stuff of them doing, you know, dancing, everything is kind of, it gets attention, it gets clicks and all that stuff. But actually if you had one, you know, if you did see one, like my mother in law, 95, had a horrible fall at Christmas. She's been very, you know, she's been, she's amazingly resilient woman. But you know, if there, if there was a, a bipedal, very quietly spoken robot that kept apologizing because she will criticize it. She's, she's Australian. Are you doing that? Right? But you know, to lift her and help her move around and go in the loo with her and help, you know, it would be incredible because she's got lots of help at the moment. She's, you know, got broken her shoulder and a couple of ribs and it was a really nasty fall she had, which is classic at that time, that age.
- [15:10]
C
Yeah.
- [15:10]
B
I have to say it made being 95 a lot less appealing. You know, okay, I want to live for a few more years. I want to be 95. Then after that I went, I'm happy not to be 95. It's quite, yeah.
- [15:25]
C
I think hopefully by that time there'll be some, some robot assistance for you.
- [15:31]
B
Yeah. Carrying you around and actually then a bipedal robot to help you might help because they've got more, more height, they can lift things up. You know, if you've only got four legs, you've then got to have some sort of scissor lift on your back.
- [15:44]
C
Yes.
- [15:45]
B
I don't know. Or extendable legs. So you become a very, very giraffe. You go from, you know, rat to giraffe.
- [15:54]
C
I have seen like exoskeletons where they attach them to your legs and I think there's use cases where they provide those to, you know, wheelchair users and it helps them to actually stand up and walk. I think something like that. I'm fully behind but you just know. Yeah, it's going to be within 18 months that they give one of them a gun.
- [16:16]
B
Yes. Right.
- [16:18]
C
Yes.
- [16:18]
B
You just know it. I mean there was. I did hear a report from CES in Vegas which is just finished of a journalist who is completely able bodied journalist. But he went around in an exoskeleton and he'd used one the year before and it worked and it helped him but it, it was really uncomfortable and you know, sort of. It didn't. It felt awkward and clumsy and he, the same company, he, he went in one this time and he didn't even know he was in it. And he was war. He did like a hundred thousand steps around cs. Huge, huge, you know, halls and exhibits where he's normally absolutely exhausted. And he said it was. He just sort of. It was easy because it was helping him walk. It was helping him and then it could all also do. He could just sit down wherever he wanted. Didn't need a chair because it would go and it would support him and hold him up like he was sitting on a chair. Which must be weird.
- [17:12]
C
But.
- [17:12]
B
Yeah, so they do sound like that stuff. I think would. That is incredible. You know that would be so useful. I mean even for my mother in law. For Maureen.
- [17:22]
C
Yeah.
- [17:23]
B
If she had that now it would. And also if it stabilized her because that's her problem is she's now gone. She's now this real whack on the head and fallen over and broken her shoulder. Her balance is all over the shop. So if that held her up, you know it's instead of two carers who are the currently walk with her everywhere, you know, because you have, you've got to walk. Yeah, I didn't know that. Apparently it's really important. Well, I've done a lot. Hopefully today, hopefully we'll see that going.
- [17:52]
C
Into more commercial reality in the next kind of few years and hopefully we get to actually try. I'd love to try a exoskeleton at some point. I'd love to.
- [18:00]
B
Yeah. No, me too. Yeah, I would Love to. But actually I think the, the fact that there's a robot that you can buy, you know, and it's ridiculous, it's a lot of money, 50 grand or, you know, whatever it is, $100,000. But I would have thought there'd be 8 million. Do you know what I mean? That's what I thought. They're so complex. They're so, you know, they've got to be like 10 to 12 million. Are they going to be sure no one can put.
- [18:22]
C
Yeah.
- [18:22]
B
And it's like the cost of a car. Like not even that flasher car.
- [18:26]
C
No.
- [18:27]
B
Incredible. That is extraordinary.
- [18:30]
C
I think given all the price wars, ev. Price wars here in China, I reckon we're within five years of an automaker saying have buy a xpeng and get a free robot. Yeah, yeah, why not? I think all of this wouldn't be possible without one of our favorite topics which we both are very passionate about, which is batteries. Right.
- [18:54]
B
Yes.
- [18:55]
C
None of these robots would be possible without, you know, lighter, smaller lithium batteries. Yeah. But I think the, the biggest breakthrough we're going to see in 2026 is obviously sodium ion batteries.
- [19:08]
B
Yeah.
- [19:10]
C
And we're going to see, I think Catl has said they're going to produce the first like mass market commercial sodium ion battery this year which will go into cars, trucks and all sorts of things. But they're going to put it into mass production this year. I think that is very exciting because it brings the price down, makes it more affordable and doesn't use lithium and it's using, you know, salt, which is.
- [19:35]
B
Very, very fairly abundant material. I think that's fair to say. Although I think there's a report today that Britain is running out of salt because we have massive salt mines in Cheshire who knew, which have been millions of tons of salt under the ground. But apparently it's running out. One of the companies is about to go bust the extract because we're self sufficient for salt. I didn't know that the uk, when you put the salt on your fish and chips, that's how. That's British salt. That's not. None of your foreign nonsense. Good British salt, we export salt, we've got enough salt to sell it, you know, but apparently that was just a news report I read today, so I didn't know that at all. But anyway, you're right, there's a lot of salt around.
- [20:18]
C
I just, I would just want to make sure in the future that my, my batteries have British salt in them.
- [20:22]
B
Because I think that's, I don't mind if they're made in China. But I want the salt to be British.
- [20:28]
C
Exactly. Well, and I think the other, the other thing we're seeing a lot of news of late is solid state batteries.
- [20:39]
B
Yeah, Yeah.
- [20:41]
C
I, I'm still, I don't know if I'm skeptical, but come on. We keep seeing announcements saying we've got the first solid state commercial battery. And it's like, okay, where is it? Yeah, like you made the announcement, you built up the hype. But where is it? Can we test it? No, it's not ready yet. Okay. And you know, it's still the holy grail, right, of battery technology. All these announcements, but with no real action. I just don't really understand what's going on.
- [21:12]
B
No, it is very difficult. It's very difficult not to get cynical and think it's like, you know, or I suppose hydrogen and nuclear fusion. You know, there's these, there's this sort of group of things all in the energy space where there's a lot of promises and a lot of, you know, the theory is all fantastic, absolutely amazing, but to have batteries that are like half the weight, double the energy density and, you know, 100 times the longevity, I mean, they'll last basically longer than about three generations of people. That's what they're proposing. Although it was the Donut Labs, which I, I watched that and I went, wow, that's it. They've done it. They finally done it. And then as I kept watching, I went, they might have done it. That looks good. And then at the end, I was going, who is this dude? He's from Finland, isn't he? I think, and it's kind of like.
- [22:07]
C
Theoretical exercise, which isn't. And it's just, you know, we're tiring, isn't it? I think that's, We've seen tiring.
- [22:14]
B
So much of it. It's tiring.
- [22:15]
C
Yeah, yeah. And then the only solid state tech in China that we've seen so far is semi solid state batteries. I think MG has got some solid state. Semi solid state. Oh, God, it's such a long sentence. Yeah, some semi solid state batteries in their EVs. But it's still not a big commercial thing just yet. I think we need to wait for someone like Seattle to announce, you know, okay, we, we've got it, we're going to do it and it's going to become a reality. But until then, yeah, it's still a lot of hot air.
- [22:45]
B
I mean, I think, I mean, it's just that the, you know what Seattle have done with sodium ion is so you kind of know that that's, it's very grounded. It isn't sort of, there's not hyperbole in it. And what is really remarkable is the cost. So that, that might be the claim where we go. Where you go, oh my God, is that how much? Because they're talking about was it wasn't $10. I think it was $10 a kilowatt hour. I think it was $20 a kilowatt hour. Yeah. Ridiculously cheap. I mean just unbelievable. And if that's true and they get anywhere near that, Even anything sub $50 a kilowatt hour is the absolute game changer. It just makes everything, you know, it just me. It means that you would then put a 2 gigawatt, a 2 gigawatt hour battery next to your solar farm, you know, because why not make it 5 gigawatt hours, you know, you may as well.
- [23:37]
C
Or you can have massive, massive batteries for your own home and it only cost you. Yeah, what a couple of thousand pounds or something. It's just. Yes, yeah, this, that's why I think it's, that's more groundbreaking at the moment than solid state batteries for me. And I think the other, the other one kind of staying on Catl. So over in the last kind of two months I went to a place near Shanghai to visit Auto Flight. Now Auto Flight is a subsidiary of Catl and they do E V T O LS electric vertical takeoff and landing, flying cars. Basically.
- [24:18]
B
I say EVTOL. Is that wrong, do you think EVTOLs?
- [24:22]
C
No, that's correct. It's correct.
- [24:23]
B
Okay.
- [24:25]
C
And, but there's been so much progress in this and it's one of the Chinese government's like focus areas. So it's the ultra. Sorry, it's the low altitude economy they're calling it and they're forecasting it's going to be worth Something like $500 billion in 10 years.
- [24:45]
B
And you know, I didn't understand that till today I read about them today. So it's, it's, it's machines that fly under a thousand meters high.
- [24:53]
C
That's right. Yes.
- [24:54]
B
That's what, that's what they're talking about. So that north to a thousand meters, which I guess all, all other aircraft, all commercial aircraft obviously, but even private planes would fly way above that. You know they 5, 10,000 meters, you know they'd be much higher.
- [25:08]
C
Yeah. And we're seeing. So XPENG are doing their air land aircraft carrier which is like this big truck with six wheels. It's electric with a Evtol in the back that you can then get. That's.
- [25:24]
B
I saw that, that's incredible.
- [25:25]
C
Take off and I, I saw this like four years ago. I was like that's just like conceptual nonsense. It's never going to become a reality. But oh no, they've. They're putting into mass production this year and selling it and have orders.
- [25:39]
B
And have orders because I like the fact that you can take it. I mean what they. I thought there was quite an interesting bit of footage there. So they showed it with this thing comes out the back and then they showed where you could use it and it was next to a lake, wasn't over a town or a suburb. It was like take it a long way.
- [25:55]
C
Yes.
- [25:56]
B
So you fly over a lake so you know. For God's sake. But I mean. But you can fly it like I think you can do six flights because you can recharge it off the ground vehicle.
- [26:06]
C
That's right.
- [26:06]
B
You can plug it into the batteries in the ground vehicle which is just. Yeah, I want one definitely.
- [26:12]
C
But you can imagine like you're sitting on a quiet bench in the Peak District or Lake District somewhere eating a cheese sandwich and up rocks, I don't.
- [26:22]
B
Know, someone, someone grinning at you, going just above your head.
- [26:29]
C
They rock up in their six wheeled like truck and you just hear this and the wings come and they're quite noisy to be honest.
- [26:38]
B
Even though they're electric they're going to be noisy. Yeah. I mean once they're seen. Yeah, yeah. The wind. Oh I mean you imagine that? No, I mean that's the only time I've fallen over from. From air was it? Oh, it's from. We. This was a military helicopter but we were on an army filming on an army base and they landed one and a soldier said step back a bit. So I did. I stepped back quite a lot I thought and then it came into land and I, and I. The wind, when the wind hit me I literally fell over. It wasn't like. It was like being pushed by a big mattress. Just lost my balance and went flat down and then told you. Who told me to stand back a bit. Was resting on his like doubled over laughing. I told you step back. It's a lot of wind. But I mean that was a sort of 20 ton helicopter. Huge thing. So. But even a thing that can carry two people is going to disturb a lot of air.
- [27:34]
C
Yeah. So the one we. We saw a demonstration from auto flight and they had three or four of them flying in formation like the red Arrows.
- [27:44]
B
Wow.
- [27:44]
C
And the smoke coming out the back, it was very cool. But they did sound like Spitfire, like 1940s Spitfires going over. So that's quite.
- [27:53]
B
So they made a very audible. I mean a very easy. Yeah, they made a noise basically.
- [27:58]
C
Yeah, they made a noise. There's a. The video on the everything electric APAC channel showing all of that. So you can have a look at it on there. But these ones are quite cool because they've got these sea kind of vessels that you can, you know, take out into the lake that they can land on.
- [28:17]
B
Right.
- [28:17]
C
And recharge. So basically there's this huge floating battery, but it's got this like luxury lounge in it and it's driven out into the middle of a lake. But they were showing. Okay. Yeah, you can do it on. In kind of this luxury lifestyle way and you know, fly around lakes doing tourist things. But in actual fact, like for forest fires, they've got a fire and rescue one which can fill up with water, then fly out, drop water on the forest fire, fly back, refill, recharge, fly back. So you can do that a lot more frequently. And if you have a fleet of them, you know, you could theoretically help with forest fires a lot quicker. And then another was kind of like rescue missions. It can deploy like inflatable life rafts. It can deploy winch, you know, winch down, winch up. So there's a lot of uses for it. And I think aerosol. What's the name? Auto flight is the name. They foresee it being much more of a kind of commercial use than pleasure. Pleasure craft. But. Yeah.
- [29:18]
B
So is the one that. Is the one that comes out of the back of your six wheel truck, is that a fully autonomous. You don't fly it yourself? You haven't got levers to.
- [29:28]
C
No, I think you do fly it yourself. Yeah. Pilot's license or.
- [29:33]
B
Yeah.
- [29:34]
C
Go somewhere where they're a bit more lax with the regulations perhaps.
- [29:37]
B
Yes, but that. But I think you're right because there was another one I saw which was for, you know, cargo deliveries and you suddenly think, yeah, that stuff, you know is. That makes. And that was one that was sort of in between a plane and a.
- [29:50]
C
Yes.
- [29:51]
B
And a drone. So it had upwards but it flew along with wings, you know, and it can. That could do like 500km and carry like sensible payload of stuff. Purely electric. Yeah, Amazing thing. And that. That you can sort of see there's definitely going to be uses for things like that, that. That don't need a Runway. As soon as you don't need a Runway. You can. You've got a huge advantage.
- [30:11]
C
Exactly, Exactly. I do. I do foresee a future where they probably replace helicopters. Like.
- [30:18]
B
Yes.
- [30:18]
C
Because helicopters are so expensive and so complicated and so dangerous.
- [30:24]
B
Helicopter crashes, it's just. Oh, God. I've been in five, I think, in my life, you know, all to do with work. And every time I landed, every single time I landed, I honestly breathed a sigh of enormous relief, knelt down on the ground and kissed the ground, because I'm still alive, you know, they are. I mean, and they're amazing machines. I mean, they're incredible, but they are. They just seem. They now seem. I think they look really dated when you see them. You think, well, a drone, it's got 12 propellers or 18 propellers, you know, so two of them break. You're still. You're still. You're still one thing that you're hanging from one spinny bit of metal. Fake mistake I made in one, which was a sort of big, you know, a cockpit, glassy cockpit thing. As I look back at the rotor going around, I went, that's. That's too thin and frail. I'm not gonna live. We were over. We were over Las Vegas. We were filming Las Vegas from the sky. Horrendous, terrifying, and no doors, you know, so it was just. Yeah. Anyway.
- [31:27]
C
Yeah, that's terrifying.
- [31:28]
B
But I think if the.
- [31:30]
C
The price of these come down and then we can use our unitary robots to carry us to our personal drone to fly somewhere for lunch, get fed.
- [31:40]
B
Yeah. There would be a machine that would actually put the food in your mouth. I don't want to waste my energy lifting a fork or chopsticks.
- [31:48]
C
I'm looking forward to the future.
- [31:55]
B
Moving on.
- [31:56]
C
Yeah. The last thing I want to talk about was let's bring it back to evs, because I know.
- [32:02]
B
Okay, yeah.
- [32:03]
C
EV fans out there, myself included, and kind of want to talk about the market, because we've been hearing for many years that the market's going to consolidate now. We've got too many manufacturers building too many cars. There's over capacity. You know what's going to happen now. We're moving into the year of the horse, so we're just about to leave the year of the snake and moving into the year of the horse, and we are being told that this is the year that no things are really going to consolidate this year. We're going to see brands going under. We're going to see car companies pulling out of China. Yeah, it's. It really is all up in the air. We've seen, I think companies like BYD are now in over a hundred countries worldwide, which is insane.
- [32:50]
B
Incredible.
- [32:51]
C
Yeah, I remember when we filmed that factory tour video, the. Yeah. In Shenzhen. That was in 2021 now and BYD were in one country, which was China.
- [33:02]
B
Wow. Were they not selling it anywhere overseas at that point? Wow.
- [33:06]
C
Just in China.
- [33:09]
B
And I'm very, very few people outside China have heard of them. And now, I mean, I'm in Australia now. Everyone's heard of byd. They might not know exactly what it is, but they've heard of it. Yeah.
- [33:18]
C
And that's in, that's in five years. And yeah, I know that Geely are very hot on the hills. Xpeng are very close behind, you know, launching in new countries every week. But we're, we're, you know, we're hearing rumblings that, you know, some companies are not doing very well. We've seen a number of companies go bust in the last kind of two years, but we haven't seen any like big collapses or any.
- [33:41]
B
Yeah.
- [33:42]
C
Anything worrying yet. And also we're seeing the legacy car makers fighting back this year. So, yeah, you know, BMW have got their Neuer Class, which we think will probably be quite a big success in China. Don't have much in the way of evs at the moment.
- [34:01]
B
But would they be built in China if they, if they had those or would they be put in Germany?
- [34:06]
C
That's a good question. They have a factory, we did a factory tour there and they have a factory up in the north. So I imagine, yes, they will be built here because they have an electric assembly lineup in BMW up there. So yeah, I think they probably will be. And that I've heard a lot of friends actually talking about, oh, we would buy one of those if it comes, when it comes to China, because it's.
- [34:27]
B
Right.
- [34:28]
C
Yeah. Maybe offer something that the, the Chinese brands don't offer. I don't know, driving dynamics, who knows. But yeah, BMW still has a, a big following in China despite the fact they don't have a great EV offering. So.
- [34:42]
B
But I mean, 20 years ago, would you be able to buy a BMW or like a combustion BMW in China? They, they've been there for a while.
- [34:50]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were, they're aspirational brands back then. So the Audis, the BMWs.
- [34:55]
B
Right.
- [34:56]
C
Mercedes, if you bought one of those, you, you bet you'd made it. Right. And they're doing pretty well. You could show off to everyone else. Now, not so much.
- [35:05]
B
Yeah.
- [35:06]
C
And then we're seeing brands like Xiaomi come out with their SUV and they're predicted to come out with a new car this year. Maybe we'll see it in Beijing at the auto show right later on in the year. But there's a lot moving and I'm not going to make any predictions because it's impossible to make predictions in this market. But there's a lot happening and a lot changing and it's all happening very quickly. And if you add to that some of the tech we've talked about, so sodium batteries, it's going to bring the price of cars down even more.
- [35:36]
B
Yeah.
- [35:37]
C
Humanoid robots in factories, if they can do that, replace workers, then we're going to see even more affordable models coming out because they don't have to pay people.
- [35:47]
B
Well, they don't have this tech is.
- [35:48]
C
All combined and, you know, all feeds into each other. So, yeah, I think we're facing a very interesting year ahead of us. And yeah, both you and I will be hopefully at the forefront of it, seeing what's actually taking place.
- [36:02]
B
Because, I mean, I just quickly are, you know, all the reports, finally, all the reports from every news outlet that I've seen in the last month have said, okay, yes, no, electric vehicle sales really increased in 2025 in all these countries. And I mean, you know, there's some countries where, which I didn't. I mean, Uruguay has a higher percentage of electric car sales than the UK and you go, you what? Uruguay? Hang on, how does that happen? I don't know. You know, there's a lot of countries that are doing that have really kind of jumped into it in a big way. And the UK had the, you know, record sales and all over the place, their record sales. Not in America, but we don't need to talk about that. But, but has, has there been a, do you feel there's been a peak of sales in China and it's, it's softening or is it still going?
- [36:52]
C
I would say so we're, I think we're close to nearly 60% EV penetration right now in.
- [36:59]
B
Right.
- [37:00]
C
In Shanghai or in China. So we're, we've now reached, we definitely gone past peak combustion engine.
- [37:07]
B
Right.
- [37:09]
C
But EV sales are still going gangbusters. I think they are seeing us a little softening because a lot of people already have electric cars. They already have cars. The economy here is not doing so well, so people are being a bit more cautious with their spending. So in order to spur on sales, the car companies are bringing down prices, but they're still not able to shift shift cars. The cars which are selling really well are the small affordable models. So Geely has a, a really small kind of mini hatchback kind of size car. Sold nearly half a million cars in 2025 of that one model. And it's, it's, I think it's £7,000. Starts at £7,000.
- [37:52]
B
Right.
- [37:53]
C
We'll be going to the UK and Australia this year. But that more affordable cars like that selling really well. The premium end of the market not so well then that's where it's kind of a struggling and BYD is having a slight wobble. They've lost some market share I think gone from 12 to about 11, I mean 1 percentage point. But it kind of shows that things are, are slowing down slightly and that's why they're having this big push overseas because to replace those China sales they have to go overseas and that's why we're seeing. Right, overseas sales increase.
- [38:27]
B
Yeah, because there's a street. I went, I went up it again the other day. A road, a big road in Sydney and you go along it and there's an Audi showroom and a BMW showroom and there's a, you know, Polestar. Polestar. I've got a big showroom. That's where I was going. And I can't remember all the other brands, Mercedes and all that. And then right at the, as the road goes up a hill, right at the top there's a huge building, 10 times bigger and it says B Y G in huge letters. And it was very funny. The people at the Polestar showroom said yeah, we, we want to get letters as big as byd but our building isn't big enough.
- [39:03]
C
Just make the letters bigger.
- [39:06]
B
But you know, that shows the impact they've had here. I mean they're every. You see them all over the place. Well, you know, you know, but they're, yeah, they're very common. They're a common brand and a well known brand here. But that. Okay, no, that's wonderful. I can end on some other research I did which is kind of, you know, I want to sort of remind listeners and viewers that this is said as a fact, not as a hope or a wish, you know, that what's shifted in the world in our, in the really in the last five years, but particularly in the last year is the focus of attention on technology and on new technology and new development and it's just shifted to China. I mean there was an amazing report. Multiple research documents and government reports from the last two years have indicated that China is leading in 57 critical technology categories and America is leading in seven technology subcategories. So the whole. Could you imagine 20 years ago, where's the Internet? Oh, it's in America. It's totally American. Electric cars, it's America. Everything was absolutely, you know, new airplanes, everything was the usa. That's. And then it might be copied in China or in Korea or, you know, Europe or whatever, but it really was. When I was there in the early noughties, it was a bubbling hive of creativity and innovation and breakthrough technologies. And it's kind of. It's all gone to AI and data centers running on diesel engines owned by Elon Musk. And you just think, well, that's kind of sad. And all the renewable energy stuff is everything. The breakthroughs in renewable energy and battery technology and the biggest wind turbines. You know, I thought with, you know, Denmark and the UK and you know, the Netherlands, we did the big winter. No, they've done bigger 20 megawatt wind turbines. It's just insane.
- [41:04]
C
It is insane. And that shift is really. It has happened so quickly, isn't it? I mean, it's only been a few years and we've seen, yeah. The, like you say, all the innovations moving, moving to China and. Yeah, yeah. I guess that's why we're, we're talking about it. Right.
- [41:21]
B
Yes, I think it is. Well, I'll let you go, I'll let you go at it because we've, we've, we've chewed the fat a bit. Yes, but, but that's, I mean, it's really, it's such a fascinating shift in. I mean, I just find, I, I'm the same as you. I just find it absolutely fascinating and.
- [41:40]
C
Yeah.
- [41:40]
B
Intriguing and you know, also at the same time occasionally terrifying. You know, I think I'm slightly terrified of bipedal robots because, you know, they, if you punched one and it punched you back, you're dead. You know, you're going to break your hand because it's got a metal head and if it hits you, you're finished. You know, even I would worry about Jason Statham winning a fight with a robot even today.
- [42:04]
C
Yeah, I do it. I'd like to see that movie, actually.
- [42:09]
B
Yeah.
- [42:10]
C
I think if anyone wants to see Robert punching a robot at one of how everything electric around the world, then come to our future tech. Hu.
- [42:21]
B
Yes, Very good idea. Oh, very exciting.
- [42:25]
C
In Sydney, in Harrogate, I imagine, around the world. Very, very soon.
- [42:30]
B
We'll be doing them all over the place. Yeah, yeah, no, that's. It is very, very. It's a very, I think it's a great new spur for us, you know, so that, you know, there's definitely. It's just, it'll just be a lot of different stuff because we haven't mentioned things like phones and AI and you know, and headsets and glasses and all the other stuff that sort of become, that's, you know, starts out being naff as anything but might come. Might become, you know. Yeah, some of it will become useful. Yeah. Next time we will discuss those things.
- [42:58]
C
You know, I think.
- [43:00]
B
Very true.
- [43:01]
C
If anyone wants to get in touch and talk about tech that you want to feature or that you want us to talk about, then just let us know. Get in touch. Happy to. Yeah, happy to take suggestions and we.
- [43:13]
B
Will put some links to. I think we should put some links to the, the more spectacular videos in the show notes because if you haven't seen the robot kick the man in the. Yeah, it's not funny because it obviously it really hurt it, but it is just so typical. It's like human frailty writ large.
- [43:36]
C
I mean of all the places he could have kicked him. Like in the side of the leg. No, right in the groin.
- [43:42]
B
Right in the groin.
- [43:43]
C
Wallop. Oh dear. That's a good place to finish, I think.
- [43:46]
B
Very good. Yes. Thanks so much. Elliot and I will talk to you soon and. Oh, I know what I'm gonna say. Do subscribe anyway.
- [43:56]
C
Yes.
- [43:56]
B
To, to Everything Electric and to this particular podcast because this is going to be very exciting and tell your, tell your friends and your relatives who are. Who might be China phobic because this will really worry them. No, I don't mean that. And as always, if you have been. Thank you for watching.
- [44:16]
D
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