Collapse or Consolidation? Does America or China hold the trump card on electric cars?

0:00Elliot Richards:Pop quiz. What's in your kid's lunchbox? At Whole Foods Market, they've already done the studying. Over 300 food ingredients are banned from their shelves. No hydronated fats in the peanut butter and no high fructose corn syrup in the cookies. And for sandwiches, there are no synthetic nitrates or nitrites in any of their deli meat. So you can pack lunchboxes with peace of mind. Get back to school ready at Whole Foods Market. You know, NASCAR fans appreciate a good pit strategy. the best teams are always looking for ways to make things faster, smoother, and more efficient. But buying a car? Most of us think that it's going to be a long, drawn-out process.

0:38I did too. Then I found out you can actually buy a car online on AutoTrader. Really. I started the way most people do, searching inventory, comparing options, narrowing things down, but then I realized I could do way more of the process online than I expected. Get details, explore financing options, connect with a local dealer, and continue moving through the buying process from wherever I happen to be. And here's what surprised me most. You're still not doing it alone. Real dealer support is there if you need it, which gives you confidence every step of the way. Plus, you're in control. Want to do everything online?

1:12Great. Prefer to handle some parts in person? That's an option too. It's buying a car your way. So if you're in the market for your next ride, check out the huge selection available on AutoTrader and see how simple the process can be. Buy your car online on Autotrader. Really, visit autotrader.com.

1:35Hello and welcome to the Everything Electric podcast. Very excited to introduce today's guest. Not really a guest because he's one of the family. Elliot Richards, who's in Shanghai at the moment with his gorgeous three babies who stayed up extra late to record these episodes and who also I will point out now this was a technically very difficult episode to record and I think it's down to a very very old set of earbuds that I've got that do something to I don't even know I have no idea it's way above my technical pay grade but it's screwed up so this this episode comes in it's in one thing for you but it was made in three different sections for us so if there's any repetitions that's possibly one of the reasons and also a slight change in clothing um because we recorded it over more than one day so it doesn't it's irrelevant to the topics we cover but that was just to explain what was happening so it was a technical challenge which i think we've now solved which is a great relief um i just want to say that uh the next show is in vancouver very very soon uh everything electric vancouver and after that which is interesting i've just heard today i shouldn't really go on about it too much but i'm very intrigued we're doing everything electric at farnborough in just outside london in the uk and i've heard that our ticket sales are very very good they're much higher at this time at this stage before the show than we would normally expect that could partly be down to the fact that we have now recorded two episodes of a new show called zap heap which is like scrap heap challenge like i used to do except it's with electric batteries and motors we're doing the tests live at those events in october at Farnborough, October the 11th and 12th.

3:32And they're going to be either – they're going to be spectacular regardless, but they may be spectacular disasters as well as spectacular successes. We're really looking forward to doing that. So the entire cast of the shows are going to be there. Colin Furze will be there. Imogen and Jack and myself will be presenting the tests for those machines. And then we will release the first episode in November. early November when the edit is finished. So they're kind of more complicated edits than the fully charged crew are used to because there's hundreds more cameras. So it's a big project. It's a really exciting project.

4:11I've seen the first cut of the build of the first machine, and it's like classic scrap heap but without engines. But it's not like, oh, why can't you have engines because they make a noise. Yes, I know, but it's different. It's an experiment, and we would beg your indulgence because I think it's pretty amazing. And the teams that make the machines are extraordinary, really, really talented, and really they've come up with some amazing stuff. So that's very exciting. Look forward to that. But enough of that. We're going to be talking about the global automotive market, the impact that China has had on the rest of the world, the situation in the United States with the cessation of imports of Chinese things, of tariffs and how that's affecting the American auto market.

4:55Elliot's very, very tied into all of this. It's a fascinating conversation. So please welcome to the Everything Electric podcast, Elliot Richards, live from Shanghai.

5:25and much more at everythingelectric.store. Elliot, thank you very much for carving time out from your parental duties now that you have some more fresh new babies.

5:39Elliot Richards:Yeah, if people don't know the news, we had twins over the summer. So we now have three children here in Shanghai. So yeah, it's been quite a rollercoaster this summer. um yeah a lot of babies in the house crying and a lot of high emotions but it's been really good babies and mum are healthy and happy and we're just about surviving so yeah you've just shown me pick they are ridiculously cute they are really extraordinary so you're very yeah no congratulations and thank you no they look lovely they do look lovely so i i missed this so your wife jenny was pregnant when i was in shanghai i remember the last meal we went out on the last day and that amazing place i don't know where that was some sort of bizarre village rivers and people yeah there's like a water town close to where we live here in shanghai close to where the exhibition was right and we had a traditional kind of cuisine from this area it was very nice wasn't it it was lovely yeah it was great yeah um yeah we have to get you back there again i know it was amazing so i mean because i've been trying not to talk about china too much to people here you know but every now and then or you know if people are foolish enough to ask me what what how did you get on i do go on about it a lot but i mean it was out of all the countries i've been to in the world you know i had so many um you know pre prejudices i suppose i had so many You know, because of my generation, you know, we heard about the Cultural Revolution and, you know, all those things.

7:20It was just a thing. It was a story. Then to suddenly turn up at this incredibly modern country with the vastest buildings, the amazing, I mean, all the infrastructure, just the physical infrastructure. I mean, you know, to be fair, I only saw Shanghai. What was the other town we went to on the train? Was that Hangzhou? Yeah, Hangzhou, yeah. Hangzhou. so i didn't see like the whole of china but it was genuinely remarkable experience to go there and it was made much easier thankfully having you there to to guide i think even though once you've set it up going through turnstiles at a train station very simple if you don't know what you're

8:01Elliot Richards:doing you're you're in all sorts of trouble you end up in inner mongolia or somewhere um yeah yeah Yeah, I think I'm obviously very happy that you guys got out here because I think we've always said, all of us have said that for people to understand China a bit more, especially in the early days when we started doing this and showing videos from China, people are very much like, a lot of people are like, oh, this is great. This is very nice. You know, great to see what China is really like. But there was a contingent of people who were like, you know, more negative comments. But I think in the last few years, we've seen those kind of comments disappear as, I guess, China becomes more mainstream, more people visit and more people actually understand that what they've managed to do here is just remarkable, you know, growth of these mega cities and everything's clean and the infrastructure works.

8:56Elliot Richards:Yeah. Yeah, so I'm glad you guys got here and you enjoyed it and you got back safely as well. Yeah, no, it was amazing. It was truly amazing. And actually, one fact I just read the last week was that China, just the rate of change and the scale of change, I think those are the two things that stayed with me was what had happened even in the last 10 years there. So since you've been living there, it's been transformed. But one of the things that happened last year was last year in China, they installed more solar than America has in total, ever. And America is not sluggish when it comes to solar.

9:37They've been installing it for years. It's not like they've been very keen to do it. But in one year, they installed more than America ever has. And I can't remember. It's over 1 ,000 gigawatts of solar now in China. It's just mind-boggling.

9:53Elliot Richards:It is, isn't it? And we've seen this in multiple industries, that when China really puts its mind to doing something, yeah um they they set to achieve it within you know 10 or 15 years so the bullet train that you went on yeah 10 how long ago like 10 years ago that that didn't or 12 years ago that didn't really exist right now it's the largest high-speed rail network in the world of course yes um you know the electric car industry everything really yeah it's it's just boggling mind mind boggling And I think for me, it's really nice to get your perspective because I've been here. And when you're in somewhere, you don't see that much change.

10:33Elliot Richards:But then you get people come here and they say, oh, wow, OK, this is this has changed because of this. And so it's really great to get outsiders perspective into China. One of the things that has stayed with me, a memory that's very clearly stayed with me is is Chinese guys about my age. so the older generation who generally seem to have a cigarette hanging from their mouth on the kind of battered old tricycles that would clearly have had a two-stroke engine on, but they've been converted to electric. But they're still the noisiest electric vehicles on the roads there because they're kind of clanking and grinding and there's old chains rattling around them.

11:11And they've usually got a load of old metal, you know, scrap metal on the back. But I love that. So they're wearing what I would consider were sort of Chairman Mao era suits. Yes. And they've got the cap on and they've got a cigarette. Yep. But they've still got an electric vehicle still. That really took them out. I saw quite a few of them and I just really, I went, look at you, old dude, fantastic. You've still got the cigarette going.

11:35Elliot Richards:I mean, it's funny, they're moving with the time in one area of their life, right, with their transport. But in other areas, they're still sticking to what they know, right? Yes, yeah, yeah. No, that was extraordinary. But yeah, I think the train stuck with me. The scooters, you know, walking down a busy central city, in a massive city down a really busy central street with loads of traffic and loads of scooters, and you could hear birdsong and people's footsteps. Yeah. It's uncanny, isn't it? We stood outside the hotel and there was no sound or smell. And you guys, like, this is so strange. We can hear everything.

12:11Elliot Richards:We can hear the birds. You can hear the river nearby. And this is in the middle of Shanghai. And also another one that I cannot believe, but I've had to look at video footage that we shot there, was the flowers in flower boxes along the highways. And you go, well, you can imagine it being a little bit near a posh building or near a government house. There might be a bit of that. But this went on for hundreds of miles. Who's gardening it? Who's planting it and looking after it? I mean, it was really well-maintained. miles and miles of beautiful flowers it was just that was extraordinary it was wasn't it and i think even that's why i think it's important we went out to the countryside of yeah china as well just to see what the other side but even there it was the roads were amazing you know there was street lights everywhere 5g was everywhere yes food was great um yeah so because it's quite easy to get kind of shanghai goggles on you and think oh sure if you stay in the city yeah yeah like all of china's like this but i think we got to hangzhou we got out to the countryside and i think yeah yeah you can see a little bit of a different perspective as well it was you know that was a lovely moment like looking up at a terraced uh farming you know up a mountain with bamboo forest around and then i could actually hear people yeah chatting with each other up on the farm and you're going oh that's that's very different that's not like shanghai that's scruffy people growing vegetables exactly yeah um yeah so what have you been telling people what's been your like they say oh robert you've been to china what was it like what have you been replying what have you been saying it's generally in this the kind of realm that we talk about you know obviously the traffic the the the shift in that stuff i mean i've talked about catl which we must talk about you know amazing going to see them and their next generation of batteries and the fact that they must have made their announcement about the$10 battery they must have known about that when we saw them because they didn't mention it then because that's quite a big thing but anyway that we can talk about that in a minute but um you know when I I think the the general attitude I've got from and this is just a random selection of people I've met since I've been back it's quite a a positive response to that They're quite pleased to hear that.

14:31And I think what's shifted globally in the consciousness of the world's population outside of the USA is that the USA was deemed by, certainly by European countries, particularly by the UK, as a friendly ally, supportive country that would stand up for us against, you know, friend or foe. That is so changed. And it's been a real trauma, particularly in Europe, I think. You know, Europe has depended on the USA since World War II. And suddenly China looks kind of attractive. Yes. They're very stable. You know, they don't go crazy. They've not invaded hundreds of other countries in the last 100 years.

15:11I mean, that may change. I'm not saying that. But, you know, as a general rule, you look at China and go, well, they're not, you know, they're making really good cars and nice. They've got really good trains.

15:22Elliot Richards:huge progress with solar and yeah wind and everything right so yeah it's a complicated political shift that we're going through very much so you know but anyway yeah no i mean i would say it's it's been a generally it was a generally positive experience for me and a quite an interestingly positive response from people i've spoken to going to a an afternoon at home as it's called amongst more osher members of society in a couple of weeks time and i'm really intrigued to meet them because they i mean they are sort of very traditional uh conservative people okay you know with in a small c conservative in a good way but very traditional and i'm intrigued to know and also two of them are ex-military so i'm wondering okay i do want to ask them about it because you know yeah that'd be interesting yeah it might have a different perspective i don't know yeah very much so but that i mean there's a lot of things we can't we can we start with catl because that was a remarkable visit and what i think we there was nothing we could have done about it what caught people's imagination was us driving around in the ridiculous skateboard chassis the skateboard chassis which was great but in a sense you know what they're actually doing there is remarkable as as in i mean you've presumably heard the news about the 10 battery the sodium battery yeah yeah yeah um yeah it's it's funny isn't it because you you don't think i mean a battery company doesn't sound very interesting right you're like oh batteries like okay fine you know they do one thing yeah but what catl are doing is is so many things in so many different areas so building their own skateboard chassis for example is is insane so they're almost becoming their own kind of manufacturer then they've got these wild breakthroughs with batteries so i remember a few months ago we saw the i'm gonna get all my facts mixed up but you remember seeing at the catl stand they had the the 12 24 volt battery for trucks yeah instead of using like the old lead acid battery for trucks um which you know lasted a huge amount of time longer etc etc then they've also got the super fast charging and then now it's all about sodium ion yeah um which we've been hearing about for a long time very long time and now they're offering it and saying, well, this is going to be the cheapest battery you can get and it's going to decrease the price of cars by, well, who knows, 30 % maybe?

17:54Elliot Richards:Yeah, yeah. I think it's... And for sort of massive storage for like multi-gigawatt batteries suddenly become economically plausible because they're not$700 million, which they would have been a few years ago. So, you know, there might be a million dollars for a massive, you know, battery array that would power a city. It's that kind of, it's just absolutely groundbreaking. And also, it's made of salt. Yes. Effectively, isn't it? Yeah. You know, one of the most abundant materials on earth, you know, easily available anywhere. It doesn't have to really be mined like some of the other materials.

18:32Elliot Richards:So, yeah, I think, you know, and I think, you know, what the whole company are doing is that it's very engineering focused. but for the good of everyone. Obviously, they want to make money, but, you know, I think I just love CATL.

18:50Well, let's move on because there's things that – it's on my list of topics. There's Windrose Trucks. I've never even heard of Windrose Trucks, so I don't know what that is, but they're in trouble. And that's a Chinese company.

19:04Elliot Richards:so yeah it's kind of uh i think it's i think it's run by a chinese guy who set up and they've set up this like a tesla semi kind of alternative and they've taken it to new zealand and tested it i think roger's met them and roger atkins has met them and tested it uh yeah gavin shoebridge in new zealand has met them and tested it i haven't seen that okay and making a huge splash because they were coming onto the market very quickly i think within i'm gonna get all my dates wrong but within like two years they bought a product from concept to market i think it's cheaper than the tesla semi and they were getting orders but they've basically announced i think a few days ago that they're allegedly insolvent so we don't really know yet but apparently they've they've basically gone bankrupt um they've run out of money um you know this this is very typical i think of the industry at the moment there's a lot of hot money or was a lot of hot money going into evs and ev development new companies um but they're failing very quickly now and yeah we're starting to see a bit of a contagion i think through throughout the industry through throughout the industry where there's companies that are going under because they don't have enough sales they don't have enough investment so i think this year we've already seen one of gili's brands uh jidu which was like the right uh joint venture with baidu which is the google of china they had like a self-driving robo car just wasn't that popular didn't sell particularly well and so gili basically closed them down right um and so i think this is windrows is kind of one in a long list of companies that are probably about to collapse because i think the pressure now is so high especially in china like you know people have bought their evs maybe a few years ago last year they don't need another new ev yeah they last quite a long time that's one of the problems and they don't really go wrong that's the problem um so i think yeah everyone's feeling the pain even byd themselves i think are they're facing headwinds they're not struggling obviously they're still selling huge amounts of cars but even i think that they're seeing a bit of a slowdown um so there's a big worry about what's impact like what's coming and i think windrows is kind of the tip of the iceberg yeah um you know So that's why they're expanding so much into overseas markets, Middle East especially, Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand.

21:35Elliot Richards:That's why we're seeing such a big push from these automakers with amazing finance discounts. I think in the UK, BYD have said, oh, we'll match the government grant and just take that off. Yeah. Extraordinary straight. They said that on day one. Everyone else was reeling, going, oh, what do we do? Well, it's a lot cheaper. We'll take seven grand off it. or whatever, you know, it was like three grand off it, you know, going, my goodness, that happened so quickly. But I mean, that, I think the thing we've got to remind ourselves is that, say, 25 years ago, 90 % of the car companies that we can now talk about didn't exist.

22:09No. You know, they're all really new. And, you know, I think that we've seen those kind of explosive bubbles in technology in the past. Well, in fact, when cars first started, the amount of car company names, I remember googling it once there's about 600 names yes of american car companies that were in the functioning about 1910 well i've heard of probably five of them yes so 99 of them went under you know which i think we're going to see something like it's it's kind of inevitable isn't it yeah it is

22:39Elliot Richards:i mean you know i don't think it's and people say oh legacy brands are just going to go under no it's not i mean it's no they're not there's going to be a lot of chinese brands going under in the next i don't know maybe six months potentially um having spoken to a few in the last few weeks i know that you know cash is very tight you know a lot of automakers have um made people redundant right um sales even though they're still reasonable they're just they they're just burning cash they can't they can't keep up and i think yeah uh we're reaching that point now saturation point whatever it might be where we're going to start seeing all of a sudden probably a lot of companies going under being taken over being consolidated and this is probably when we'll see maybe some overseas western oems either taking over these chinese companies or the other way around right yeah yeah yeah i think everything is up for grabs and this is really about to be the wild season of of evs i guess yeah i mean it's incredible how the the it feels like the technology is rumbling on, regardless of what any individual political leader might say in any particular country.

23:55I mean, what Ford have just announced with their next generation of, and that is so inspired from Ford executives and just chief technology officers going to China going, oh my God, look what they're doing. Exactly. I think we might need to do something about this, you know. Yes. And their announcements recently, you know, are extraordinary. What the, you know, the level of investment, the scale of investment that Ford, you know, You just think, well, if you want to talk about legacy, that's probably as much legacy as you can poke a stick at. They've been around quite a long time.

24:27Elliot Richards:Yeah, I think what Ford are doing is remarkable. I think they're a little bit slow. They have been obviously quite slow. Renault have shot out of the gates with an amazing product, and people love it, and the sales are doing really well. I saw Jeremy Clarkson has said that he likes the Renault. He raved about it, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Jeremy Clarkson, who famously doesn't really like EVs. Yes. So if Ford can, you know, borrow some of that magic, then there's still everything to play for. It's not over. It's not going to become the China show in a few years' time. No, no. You know, people still want good quality cars from well-known brands that have been around for a long time, I think.

25:12Elliot Richards:Yeah. If Ford can get it right, and they've been known to get it right in the past, then they should stand in good stead in the future. I mean, I think on the flip side of that, we can't underestimate the impact that the Chinese brands have had. I mean, I'm aware of it in Europe and the UK, and it is enormous. And it's the fact that, you know, I've blabbed about it for years, but now people that aren't the least interested in cars all know nothing about it. I mean, they've done it. One of them has done it wrong. Do you know much about those BDY cars? I've had that. but the fact that that's leaked in this was someone who's not that's not the slightest bit knowledgeable about carbon you know i always think sensible why should they know but you know the fact they've heard that there's this car company that is coming that are selling cars here that are people are buying and you know starting to see them yesterday i saw three um seals you know in a days driving on british motorways and well i saw one in the middle of wales yeah that's a byd seal oh my god like a normal person not a journalist with you know with a camera stuck in the car just a person going somewhere so yeah i think they've arrived definitely here yeah i mean i and i wasn't around during the 80s when the japanese automakers really came in in a big way and in the 90s i didn't really notice when like the korean car makers came in in a big way there's history repeating itself and very similar yeah hopefully what it does and what it did before was spur on the other automakers to actually innovate a bit more you know come up with better cars you know it's simple if you want to compete then you know make a better car it's really really straightforward but then you've been in the is it the p7 the x-ping the shaopeng p7 yes is that i'm uh technically at time of recording i'm still under embargo i can talk i can talk about it i just don't think i can talk about how it drives but yeah so xpeng you know have had great sales success over the last year yeah they had a bit of a down period about three years ago where things weren't going very well they've changed their management they've changed their design they've changed their cars and now they brought out this p7 which looks like something out of the future it's right it's a fabulous looking car oh nice i've just found pictures of it yeah very kind of iconic kind of future looking and this for me captures the x-peng of five years ago i was going to say the x-peng of old but it's not that old they're only about 10 years old as a company but it really captures kind of a sophistication in the chinese automakers which i think they have been lacking before you know this car has some pretty cool neat features where you can use your voice to control it from outside the car so you can get out the car tell it to drive backwards into a parking space you can open you can tell the car to open your boot without pressing any button or anything it can hear you from anywhere around the car but it doesn't go you know over the top with you know karaoke microphones or right silly gimmicks that people don't really use and it feels much more like a a european car or a car that definitely european consumers uh or i know western consumers or consumers from outside of China are really going to like.

28:26And I think the looks really make it stand out

28:29Elliot Richards:against the competition. So we've shot the review. We're doing the editing right now. It will be coming out next Tuesday, but I don't know when this podcast is coming out. It's coming out very soon, basically. Yeah, I think it's the day after. I think this goes out next Monday, I think. It should be the day after this, yeah. Very impressive. Because Jack's done an episode about the P7, but is that is this a different is this an updated version yes so ah right okay that explains yeah so jack so well my very first video for the fully charged day as it was known before was the xpeng p7 the first one that was my first ever video right um back in 2020 i think it was right uh yeah so that jack reviewed that one when it came over to the uk or the netherlands and i said this is the up like seriously like upgraded it does look noticeably different yeah it's completely new completely new so um and i like it because it shows a maturity in the chinese brands that yeah they don't have to have wacky designs they don't have to go crazy they can actually just make a really well designed well-built sophisticated car and it should sell really well we don't know the price yet but it should sell really well

29:48so i think we've got to be transparent about this elliot we can't pretend because i i've got a different shirt on there's reasons for that and also this is now the following day even though it all blends together without any seamlessly seamlessly seamlessly joined together but we did have technical nightmares yesterday that have driven me bananas and you've been very patient so we've recorded a bit each day or a bit each session this is our fourth session so i can't like let's do it we should have done it over 10 days where we do like five minutes a day you know just slowly build it up. Great idea for next time.

30:23Just split over 10 evenings. Anyway, let's, cause we got, we've just finished talking about X-Peng. Yes, we did. And all that sort of stuff. So let's do, can we do the Jayco? Is that all right? Yeah, yeah, of course. Jump into that. Cause that is intriguing because it's coming to the UK. So it's a, yeah. Yeah. Tell me about the Jayco. Cause I've not seen one. Did we see one at the motor show? I can't, if we did, I can't remember it. It sort of feels like we should have done.

30:53Elliot Richards:Yeah, I think we should have done. We probably did in the blur of all the cars we did see. Yeah, I think it's forgivable for both of us to not quite recall exactly what we saw. And the Jaycoo, it doesn't particularly stand out for its design. It's pretty, it's okay, but it's, yeah, so it could have easily blended in. But you remember when we went to the iCar stand and we saw that pink, fluffy car and we stood next to it? So their parent company is Cherry. So Jayku is part of Cherry. So the company which produced that produced the new E5. So this is, I think it's probably going to be one of the most affordable new EVs in the market in the UK when it arrives.

31:28Elliot Richards:It starts at£27 ,505. Oh, God. But it looks kind of flash and big. Yeah, it looks a bit Range Rover-y a little bit. It does look a little bit, that. And that's interesting because Cherry's joint venture partner here in China is JLI. you know they they build them here um so they've obviously learned a lot from that joint venture and now they're bringing a lot of that knowledge back to the uk with these kind of soft roader ev suvs um and it you know it's fine we've we've tested the emoda on the show we've had it at the i think at farnborough or um at london right you know it's a perfectly fine it's a pretty normal car um it's proven to be quite popular but it kind of makes you beg the question so if if JLR's partner can bring out an electric car in the UK, but Range Rover still have delayed their new SUV, it kind of makes me scratch my head a little bit because, you know, like you said, I think in our previous recording, you know, Jaguar really fast out the blocks, weren't they?

32:38Elliot Richards:They had the I-Pace. I-Pace, fantastic, yeah. But since then, it's kind of all gone a bit slow, and, you know, they really do need to bring out this Range Rover because a lot of these Chinese competitors are coming thick and fast with SUVs, electric SUVs, and at really affordable price points. Yeah, because, I mean, that's one of the things, you know, I think that JLR really have got down. So I've heard a lot of criticism about the electronics in Range Rovers, and I've certainly not. I've only ever had Land Rovers, very basic old ones that had very little electronics in them. So I haven't experienced that problem firsthand.

33:14But one of the things that they excel in is drivetrains. And that was what blew my brains out when I drove the I-Pace the first time in Spain, going up a stupidly steep slope on a rough mountainside, you know. And this thing just sailed up. It was like it wasn't there. And I know from having driven a Land Rover enough, a Land Rover probably would have got up that same slope, but it would have made so much noise. You'd have been thrashing the engine to bits. You'd have been going down the gears desperately. it would have done it but it would have made this the the eye pace just went and every and then you could see that a wheel slipped and it stopped spinning as soon as it slipped the other one took the strain incredible incredible road uh you know traction on a road car that was with road tires and this is going up a slope you and i would not be able to get up without a stick or some someone pulling up i mean it was proper steep all i could see was sky i and that was incredible that they managed to do that well that feels like what an amazing step now start making all your land rovers and exactly your range rovers like that you know exactly and i think there's a something

34:18Elliot Richards:to be learned from probably their joint venture partner cherry you know the the pace of bringing out cars to market in china is very quick so yeah 18 months to two years and perhaps it's maybe a bit rough around the edges in places or it's not 100 perfect where i guess range rover can't really afford to get this wrong so they're just testing and testing and testing to make sure they get it fully right. And the market's there. People want to buy them and, you know, it will be exceedingly popular, which is good. I just wish they'd hurry up a bit. I mean, I know they exist because I've seen them driving past our house.