CHINA: BYD Next Gen Tech, New Xiaomi SU7 and 900-volt Zeekr 009 | 06 Mar 2026

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Welcome back to Weaving News, China. Today, BYD's next gen tech, the new Xiaomi

SUV 7, a 900-volt Zika 009. Plus, stay tuned, and later in the show I'll tell you about

RoboSense, a LiDAR supplier that's unveiled their new sensor, which is over twice as powerful

as the next best available technology in LiDAR. Welcome to Weaving News, China. This is

the podcast dedicated to the world's biggest EV market and every day. You get the latest

headlines, insights, analysis, right from the heart of China's booming EV industry.

An ID code, what it means for the global EV market. Alright, let's get into it. Now, BYD's

March 5th, Shenzhen Tech Day revolved around their next gen blade battery, their new flash

charging, and the cars that can work at the maximum speeds. They're talking about the

new 5-minute refueling routine being the new standard. Now, there is so much to go into.

I'm going to make a special standalone podcast episode for you. Could be 10, 15, 20 minutes

longer. I know how it ends up. I'll get my notes together, and I'll run through all the details

for you. But a separate podcast in your feed, it'll go into the Patreon feed first,

and then something that we do for our Patreon supporters, they get the shows a week in advance,

the bonus to ones we do anyway. And then I will, they'll go into the ad supported free feed

in seven days time. But I don't want you to have to wait for the information. Obviously,

that's for our, we dig really deep into the kind of chemistries and what it means and all the

different ins and outs. I will keep it a bit top line on this podcast, but I will give you all the

key information. So you don't have to listen to that spin off show, by the way. So a new blade

2.0 battery pack that's LMFP. So lithium manganese ion phosphate chemistry boosting energy density

by 5% over the original blade battery. And a 10 to 70 charge rate in five minutes. Now I wish they

gave 10 to 80 because just 10 to 80 should be the industry standard in talks in terms of how fast

it takes to charge an EV. But they've gone 10 to 70. And I know the reason why it's because they

can say it's five minutes and it's, it's coming in at that five minute number. Which frankly,

let's not argue about 10 to 70 or 80. Let's focus on a five minute charge stop to get to 70%. That's

that's deep into the pack. But they're also, this is new. Also gave all of the charge times for 10 to 97%

now. I've never ever talked about the 10 to 97% charge time. I was fascinated why they gave

figures for all of the new cars that have this new technology 10 to 97 because obviously this

technology still does taper down at the end. Now there are some battery chemistries coming in that

have a more linear charge curve that don't taper towards 100%. But maybe this battery pack when

he gets to 97% it slows right down. Now there's no point sitting there twiddling your thumbs at a

charger. Just leave at 97. If it really does take a decent amount of juice that deep into the pack.

I mean, it's fascinating isn't it? But anyway, the 10 to 97%, which is basically a full charge. It

is basically a full charge at nine minutes. And that's a regular temperatures. They also

talked a lot about minus 30 minus 40 degree Celsius. That's a handful of use cases. But still,

they were talking about the durability. BYD says up to 50% faster charging than their conventional

EV packs on the existing public charges and highlighting long cycle life plus the nail penetration

safety tests to preserve the reputation that they have on the infrastructure side. BYD launched

what it calls the world's most powerful mass-produced charger, a 1500 kilowatt. That's 1.5 megawatt

single gun solution at a thousand volts. Now that's important because if you wanted the existing

flash charging, which was used to megawatt plus, you had to find a charger with two cables, two

guns, and you had to be either driving a hand L or a tang L, built with two inputs or two

sockets that you could plug into. This is a more conventional single cable single gun single

socket on the side of your vehicle solution. Each stall has a high discharge battery and super

capacitor to ensure that the energy storage system can deliver megawatt class power. But not

need crazy grid connections and so a relatively small grid connection always topping up the bucket.

If you like the tap just turned on, dripping into the bucket all the time, filling it up,

a car turns up, you dump all the power from the batteries and BYD are obviously so vertically

integrated that's an easy thing for them to do, easy enough thing to do with with their battery

technology. As of today, they have 4,239 of their existing flash charges in the ground. They want

20,000 by the end of this year. They're going to 4X it. That's so impressive. New vehicles showcase

the tech and a thousand kilometers. That's 600 miles becomes the new normal. And so a sub 10 minute

charge. So it's a 9 minute something, maybe 9 minutes 24 to get to 97%. On a thousand kilometers

or 600 miles, China cycle, it's optimistic. It's not real world and we can make adjustments and

dial that down for real world. But anyway, the cars they announced, I won't go into all of them now,

at the top end, luxury young one brand. The young one new seven is a new luxury sedan,

new blade battery, 150 kilowatt hours over a thousand kilometers of range and a 10 to 70

charge in five minutes. The denser Z9 GT, that's that gorgeous shooting break. That has the new

battery technology, a thousand and 36 kilometers CLTC, the longest range bev that I report on. And

again, fully supporting their new flash charging 2.0. Across the lineup, BYD published the

70% times of five minutes and the 97% times of anywhere between eight minutes 45 and nine minutes 24

for the new flagship, the great Tang SUV or the Dattang SUV. That's kind of a big Range Rover

competitor. The CL07, the song Ultra and many more cars in their lineup all getting this technology.

Some of it very mainstream as well. So not confined to a single super expensive million new one

kind of vehicle. Check out the separate podcast if you want more details. If that's enough for you,

then by all means don't let's move on. Xiaomi has sent physical units of the next generation

SU7, their saloon sedan, to stores nationwide yesterday ahead of an official launch in April.

The showroom push targets almost 500 locations in 143 cities by the middle of this month,

giving buyers something solid to look at. Pre-orders start at 229,000 you want. That's around

31 and a half thousand dollars. Xiaomi offers eight exterior colors and safety kit comes baked in.

Every trim gets a steel roll cage and four door impact beams and nine airbags, sweet and rear

side airbags as well. It's not surprising with some of the negative press that Xiaomi's had recently

what with accidents and door handles and people getting out of the vehicle. They're leaning really

hard into safety. They talk about crash protection and the cross beams and high strength coating,

tenfold improvement in things like scratch and tear resistance. So really going on durability,

on safety, on iterating, Xiaomi learning more about how to make a high end product door handles

wear addressed. They did address the door handles, a triple redundancy system across the whole

line up, they say. Both interior and exterior mechanical releases, the automatic fallback

if the for some reason electronic switches don't work. Standard version, 320 horsepower, max trim,

almost 700 horsepower, standard and pro variants, almost 800 volt architecture. The max one is at

900 volts and so they say a range of 560 miles for the pro pack and every model including

LiDAR and 40 millimeter wave radar standard. Now let's talk about a big mileage claim. X-PUN

has expanded the G6 lineup with a new e-rev that's extended range electric vehicle e-rev. We say

it's priced from 186,000 yuan, that's $26,000. The new range is the max ultra and ultra SE trims.

X-PUN pitch is the e-rev around some core pillars in their marketing. Range charging, intelligent

driving, space handling and safety. So the big pitch is it's an e-rev so it's got a fuel tank

but it's also got a 56 kilowatt hour battery pack and a CLTC range. So if you fill it up with

electrons and you're going to be a gas gobbler as well, they say 1700 and 4 kilometers on the China

cycle. That's 159 miles. When do you ever need that? However, this is in China the current marketing

war that's happening with e-revs and the current one-upmanship that's happening there. Everyone's

just going for a bigger and bigger and bigger total number. And even on the pure electric number,

it's 267 miles which is arguably more than my poll start-ups. You know that's China cycle so it

won't be but still. Charging sits at the center of the new X-PUN G6 e-rev. They say it's the only

vehicle in its class of 27, 28,000 US dollars with an 800-volt architecture 5c ultra fast charging

battery on every trim level adding 200 miles or 315 kilometers in 12 minutes of charging. So those

cars are in the showrooms heading towards showrooms so you can go and have maybe you can't but buyers

go and have a look at that and see how it works out and if they want to maybe put off a purchase

of something else or maybe go for this. Very interesting. The chassis uses a front double wishbone

and rear 5-link independent suspension with standard dynamic chassis control they say with AI

algorithms because everything is AI algorithms now. In a live demonstration it's held its body

stability during a tire blowout at 112 miles an hour, 100 kph and the system achieved full stops.

They say from 81 miles an hour I don't know why blowouts tests are so big in China not a thing

that really happens overseas but a lot of Chinese companies with advanced kind of traction control

and safety systems give the blowout test speed the car totally under control which it's a safety

message and so obviously resonates but I've noticed a few of them do this right let's move on

Zika has teased the 009 flagship MPV and that is coming in sometime Q2 the updates shifts the car

from an 800 volt to a full stack 900 volt architecture they say using Nvidia's drive

through you driving chip for autonomy the 900 volt architecture lifting the charging efficiency

and the performance of it as well but no official configuration details the 009 from Zika debuted

in 2022 and then deliveries started not long after in 2023 Zika says it's led MPV sales in the

400,000 yuan segment and above in China for two consecutive years and this is well it's an MPV

there's so much you can do with the shape of an MPV but it is in a very large very comfortable way

to move a bunch of people around Zika plans updated 007 and 007 GT models as well again with

the same 900 volt architecture we're just about to get the 7 GT overseas and yet at home already

updating that car the patent fits with China's high-end EV fight where brands use tech upgrades

and product tearing to chase premium buyers okay we take a break and there's a couple more stories

to go on a really busy podcast to end the working week for EV news China back in a moment

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all right welcome back to the podcast gac iron plans to launch a battery swap version

in april the car the iron rt will come in for variant starting at a hundred thousand uon that's

fifteen thousand us dollars and the battery swap will deliver a ninety nine second swap experience

since that is a full charge that's not a ninety seven percent charge that we talked about

earlier that is a pack that's probably been slow charged maybe overnight on cheap rates

and it's been at the the swap station and it's been conditioned and you know it's good in good

condition and it's a ninety nine second full charge there's a wider push by c atl the

battery maker aims to build over three thousand battery swap stations in china by the end of

this year alone by the end of last gac atl had built over a thousand of their swap stations in

forty three key markets bac arc fox will unveil a new battery swap sedan using the c atl system

got long term partnerships with gac and bac as well already testing the model it launched the

ion ut super last year in november with battery swapping prices start with the battery rental scheme

at fifty thousand uon for that vehicle not just neo having it all their own way with battery

swapping c atl and their automotive partners getting in on the action as well at the ninety nine

seconds in a full charge and off you go again it's just incredible now and let's talk about

cheating the Huawei slash gac collaboration the cheating will unveil its first vehicle next week

maybe just over March 17th the brand launched last september as a premium EV brand it'll take

a shooting brake style coupé shape targeting a launch for june it also wants a flagship that

can compete with vehicles priced around a million uon that's a hundred and forty five thousand

us dollars equivalent the segment has momentum in china the zika 001 is proof that buyers will pay

for that format cheating claims they mass produced lidar system of eight hundred and ninety six

channels that's a very high definition lidar system they say it's the world's highest

specification lidar in a production car recognizing tiny objects from over 120 meters away and of

course in any weather as well let's talk a little bit about great wall motor before we finish

off couple more stories great wall great wall motor unveiled the tank 700 high for z it's a plug

in hybrid SUV roof mounted lidar and 118 miles of pure electric range the reveal follows a tease

from the german of great wall motor last week his social media post showed a silhouette so a car

under the cover that pointed back to the being a tank 700 line up the high for z keeps the headlight

clusters and grill from the tank 700 high for tea tweaks the bodywork a bit the hood add some

ventilation openings the front bumper switches to a three-section layout with a front lip on the

spoiler and some wider fender flares kind of beef up the sides rolling on 21s looks pretty cool

as well the back roof spoiler and a centrally mounted camera sit above the horizontally opening

tailgate spare tire spare tire mounts on the tailgate which all leads into that kind of off-road vibe

that off-road look which does look very very cool and the numbers match the scale because it's over

5.1 meters long that's over 201 inches and over 2.06 meters wide with a three meter wheelbase this

thing looks ready for business this is total kind of mini land cruiser territory for towing

two and a half thousand kilograms or five and a half thousand pounds break it's a blocking hybrid

system so it's too late to range him and a 60 kilowatt hour battery pack on this one by the way

quick mention for a report which claimed Mercedes-Benz we're going to use a new global platform

partnered with Glee the platform carries the codename Phoenix and production would be 2030 onwards

Mercedes-Benz denied the claim saying that the reported cooperation was entirely fabricated

and untrue this report framed the plan as a shift in how Mercedes-Benz develops small city cars

it said the Mercedes-Benz China R&D Centre acting as the global headquarters for compact vehicle

development it described this as the first instance where Mercedes-Benz allowed next

journal R&D team to independently develop a new platform but as I say the good people of

Mercedes-Benz saying thousand percent not true finally we'll finish off the day on the podcast

I just told you about a car coming with you know the greatest LiDAR which they can get and stick

inside the thing and now that's been blown out of the water so this is RoboSense a BID-backed

ADAS supplier has unveiled a spot of BID's tech day the EM4 LiDAR Centre with 2,160 beam support

that is just one day after Huawei talked about that 896 line LiDAR which at the time was the world's

best and this one just blows out of the water by two and a half times RoboSense offers the

EM4 in four beam configurations from a lower end up to that higher number as well aiming it at

passenger cars and RoboTaxies RoboSense has not published detailed detection specs yet

and the timing matters because RoboSense now sits deep inside BID it has secured the position

of exclusive LiDAR supplier for 11 new BID's unveiled all part of the tech day again we'll

go into it on the spin-off podcast BID song Ultra EV C-Lion06 C-L-07 their EVs the C-L-008

the Datang big SUV denser Z9 young one you seven young one you eight young one you eight L

Feng Cheng Bows and others BID is invested in RoboSense's ADAS capabilities BID also pushes ADAS

down market the Seagull the Seagull can be had with God's IB and that's an ADAS package for

less than ten thousand you want like thirteen hundred dollars on a mass market more cars with more

sensors raises the stakes and thanks to scale lowers the costs RoboSense already deploys the EM4

on some of the IM vehicles and the Zika 9X as well in a partnership with Gilles Zika brand and

that is your podcast for today and indeed this week back on Monday morning have a great weekend

see you then

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