SAI Weekly #16 - 24: Auto Beijing 2024 SAI Awards

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We are moving!

We’ve outgrown the current newsletter platform so this will be our last newsletter here before we make our way over to Substack. I am going to try to port all subscribers over automatically but just in case it doesn’t work, please subscribe to our new platform here: https://sinoautoinsights.substack.com

Exhaling now. Just spent 3 days in an XPeng G9 with Lei as we made our way down from Beijing to Shenzhen. That was a total of ~1.5K miles / 2.5K km. We made stops in Zhengzhou and Changsha before pulling up to a hotel here in Shenzhen last night. Traffic and weather cooperated for the most part.

We documented our journey via X (old Twitter) and decided to do this because:

1. We wanted to test XPeng’s X-NGP intelligent driving system (L2+)

2. Experience the good and bad of charging while driving cross country in China.

3. Lei and I both needed to be down in Shenzhen for a few days.

Since I haven’t written in some time, I wanted to make sure you knew I was still around but out of pocket. I am back and sitting at a desk with an empty screen and will do a dump shortly. Appreciate those of you patiently waiting for my next post.

It’s on its way and I have a lot to update you on including my take on:

• Latest Jiyue visit

• Zeekr 009 Grand launch event

• Seeing the Xiaomi SU7

• Hosting a happy hour for friends & out of towners

• Attending quiet dinner hosted by Google & carwow

• AutoBeijing2024

• KOL & content creator summit

• Bumping into Mary

• Road trip to Shenzhen

• Tesla FSD in China

This won’t be the newsletter that all happens in though. But to leave you with more than a short update, I’m handing out awards! These awards are for what I saw & experienced in Beijing over the two media days. With pictures. Mostly mine unless specified otherwise.

Best of Show

Jiyue 07

Mazda EZ6 

Denza Z9 GT 

Buick Electra EV Wagon (picture from Car and Driver)

Fang Cheng Bao Super 9 concept (Picture from CNEVPost)

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Best Impersonator of a Thief

Lei Jun – who stole the show!  

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The BALLS OUT booth – this is for the booth that spared no expense (and was one of the biggest to show for it)

Hongqi 

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Sylvester Stallone award (the MOST Over The Top product at the show)

XPeng AeroHT 

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Chinese Cybertruck

Changan Qiyuan E07 (picture courtesy of CarNewsChina)

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The Rick Astley award For ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ on China

The foreign Legacy Automakers

VW Brand Head of Design - Andreas Mindt, (a very nice dude) in front of the new design language for ID.Series vehicles.

Cadillac Optiq interior  

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The ONLY ICE drop that mattered

 Ford Bronco – this should be a winner for the Blue Oval (picture from Best Selling Cars blog)

This should hit for Ford. And boy does it need one. Only the four door will be available for sale in China for now. 

What do you all think? Agree? Let me know...

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This weekly newsletter is a collection of articles we feel best reflect the happenings of the week or important trends that have effects on the global automotive and mobility sectors. We also provide a point of view that we hope educates and sparks debate.

The Sino Auto Insights team

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Sino Auto Insights is a Beijing, China-based market research and advisory firm that specializes in assisting companies analyze, strategize, and develop products and services that will shape the future of mobility and transportation.

Members of our team have experience working in Detroit, Silicon Valley as well as here in China across multiple sectors and functions as entrepreneurs as well as working at larger companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, GM and FCA, and many others.