One subset of cars during our visit to China to drive some 20 vehicles which we found particularly interesting were the Tesla Model 3 EV competitors
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to a rather special MotorTrend comparison test.
00:06We just got back from China where we got to drive 19 Chinese market EVs.
00:14Over on MotorTrend.com you will find videos and articles on all of the cars we got to
00:19experience.
00:23If you're as unfamiliar with Chinese EVs as I was going into this trip, well fear not,
00:28I've made a film where I introduce you to every single car that we drove while we were
00:32in China.
00:33Go check that out at the link in our bio.
00:36Ed, two questions.
00:37One, why the vest?
00:39And two, why should these people care about Chinese EVs?
00:42Great questions.
00:43So the vest was a gift and a mandate of our friends that helped put together this program.
00:50So we worked with China's number one automotive media site, D-Car.
00:54They helped set this whole thing up as part of their annual summer test.
00:58And part of us going around on this proving ground was that we had to wear a safety vest
01:01with their logos on it, which they let me keep, so I'm wearing it for you all.
01:05We were invited out to China by the automotive platform D-Car in order to drive and test
01:10these domestic Chinese market cars, a very rare and exciting opportunity.
01:16The cars, the cars there, China is building some really interesting cars and if you profess
01:22to be an automotive enthusiast of any kind, you need to have an open mind and realize
01:28that there's technology coming from other places that will have a serious impact on
01:34the cars you know and love.
01:36They may even come here and you may even get to buy and drive one.
01:39So why not go be ahead of the trend, motor trend, figure out what's going on and report
01:46it back to you.
01:47So that's why I said we got this opportunity, super condensed opportunity to drive a whole
01:53bunch of Chinese EVs across all of the top name brands.
01:57We got to go and indeed we did.
02:00I'm about to test a Tesla Model 3 long range dual motor.
02:04It's a car we know well, a car that probably needs no introduction.
02:08This version is made in China and of course we're testing it here so that we're comparing
02:14apples to apples.
02:15We're about to compare it against some Chinese made EVs.
02:18We're about to compare it to a Volkswagen ID7.
02:21So all the numbers we're getting are coming from the same proving grounds on the same
02:26day in the same conditions with the same driver.
02:29What would you say to the American public, the American car buying public, what is the
02:35perception of Chinese EVs coming into this trip?
02:39I would say there's, I mean the difference between what the American public perceives
02:42and maybe what we might perceive going in.
02:44American public probably perceives them as maybe cheap copycats.
02:47I think we've all been doing this long enough to know that, you know, not to underestimate
02:51any model maker.
02:52And we went there open minded just to see what we know, how good these cars could be.
02:56That was definitely top of mind for me.
02:58We went into it under no illusions.
03:01We were hoping to be wowed, impressed by the tech on display and, you know, all the other
03:07things, the charging infrastructure, the dynamics of the driving and all that kind of thing.
03:12What was your key takeaway from the field of cars that we were presented with when we
03:18arrived in China?
03:20Well, really that, just to go along with what Christian was saying, that this perception
03:24I think that America has had, there's really a negativity around a lot of Chinese products.
03:30It's either cheap Chinese or it's a knockoff.
03:32I think the running joke in comments on YouTube and Instagram are like, it's the TiWoo version.
03:38It's the cheap, you know, poorly made version of whatever.
03:42It's a little, which one's a little bit counter to reality, right?
03:45Because like your iPhone is made in China, like most computers, a lot of camera, digital
03:48cameras, a lot of high quality electronics are made over there.
03:52So I think you go that without swimming in your brain, you land in China, you go out
03:56to this proving grounds, you see all of these vehicles and you start getting into them,
04:00you start driving them, you start talking or attempting to talk to the assistant in
04:05the vehicle.
04:06And at least what I came away with was there were no real gaps.
04:10There wasn't anything glaring that I could consistently say or cross and go, oh yeah,
04:15they're still missing out on so-and-so, right?
04:17And I've been doing this long enough where I drove back 12 years ago, that electric car
04:23from China, Koda.
04:25And that was definitely that TiWoo sort of knockoff, like Christian I think you were
04:28there, like that thing was like very cheap, it was an old, it's like a Mitsubishi compact
04:34car knockoff built by this and with a battery, a lithium, a lithium poly battery, lipoly
04:40battery in there.
04:41And that definitely was terrible.
04:44I remember the shifter on that was a knob and if you spun it, it would just keep cycling
04:47through the gears.
04:50And now we're driving these cars that if you could say, I think on the one, the one end
04:54where they are, there's a lot of copying or at least lifting of technology.
04:59We certainly saw Tesla's influence everywhere, everywhere across a lot of these cars, either
05:05in the adoption of like a single sort of tablet style, multi-information display mounted in
05:11the center to, you know, the decision against using controls on, on stocks or knobs, a lot
05:17of, yeah, a couple of yoke steering wheels.
05:20And in some cases I'm very minimal interiors.
05:23So though I would say that in the interest of fairness, that isn't something that's exclusive
05:28to Chinese EVs.
05:29We're also seeing that industry-wide.
05:30Look at the new Lincoln Nautilus or the Cadillac Escalade, huge screens across the whole thing.
05:34Great point.
05:35Yeah.
05:36Yeah.
05:37They're not, the Chinese aren't the only people copying Tesla.
05:38Right.
05:39For sure.
05:40And it's also kind of smart.
05:41Tesla being, you know, the most.
05:43You want to meet the best.
05:44Right.
05:45And yeah, which speaks to why does Tesla minimize everything?
05:47Well, it's, it becomes, it pulls cost out of the vehicle, right?
05:50As Elon has said, the best part is no part.
05:52Christian, what was the cost spread of the vehicles that we drove?
05:56It ran from about $17,000 to $151,000.
06:00And the cheap car was the Baozhen Yuandao, I'm probably butchering the name, means cloud.
06:06That is a GM, Wuling and SAIC collaboration.
06:10And then the Yangwang U8, which is a BYD luxury SUV plug-in hybrid.
06:15And we should mention that is the price from $17,000 to $150,000 or so directly converted
06:24from Chinese yuan, not including what it would theoretically cost if it came to the U.S.,
06:31which would be 100% tariff.
06:33That's right.
06:34Yeah.
06:35So with that in mind, then we're going to refer to these cars with those prices in mind.
06:40We had a really interesting little subsection of vehicles, the sort of Tesla Model 3 and
06:47comparative vehicles.
06:48Why don't we talk about those for a second?
06:51So we had the Tesla and then we also had the Volkswagen ID.7, which is a car that you
06:56may not know now, but you're certainly going to be seeing around soon that's coming to
07:00the States, right?
07:01Yeah.
07:02So, you know, we work with this Group D car, this big media site in China, and they actually
07:07had all of these cars together for their summer testing.
07:10And we got to pick through and find these different groupings and these interesting
07:14subsets of vehicles.
07:15And we did land upon doing this little comparison test around a vehicle we know very well, the
07:22Tesla Model 3, and then a vehicle that is definitely coming to the U.S., which is the
07:26Volkswagen ID.7.
07:27And then we looked around for what else that they had that was super interesting.
07:31And we knew we had to test the NIO ET5.
07:34And then there was another vehicle, the Zeker 007.
07:38And then the last one was a late ad and also one of the most exciting ones because it's
07:44from one of China's largest mobile phone makers, Xiaomi.
07:47So the Xiaomi Su7, Speed Ultra 7, came into the mix.
07:52And that one actually, I'll start there, was really cool because it had like McLaren headlights.
07:57It had this little pop-up tail.
07:59It was very sporty.
08:00Taycan-like profile.
08:01Taycan-like profile.
08:02Kia Stinger interior.
08:03Right.
08:04And again, the headline being, this is the car that Apple could not make, right?
08:08This is a mobile phone manufacturer, their first product, and it was pretty darn compelling.
08:14And also, I was looking up a little bit about it.
08:16They revealed that car in like November of last year and it's on sale now, which is wild.
08:21Granted, they partnered with Beijing Auto, so a state-owned company, but like, it's wild
08:26that that car is here today.
08:28Also being competitive on specs, 800-volt system, fast charging, I thought it drove
08:32pretty great too.
08:33Yeah, very sporty, super fast.
08:36I would say it was the most foreign of the Chinese vehicles in that the user experience,
08:42maybe outside of like the steering and putting in the gear, I could figure out, but finding
08:46my way around the rest of the car was a lot harder than the others.
08:50And I think maybe speaks to the fact that this is a non-traditional, fundamentally a
08:54non-traditional car manufacturer because the team comes from mobile phone.
08:58Yeah.
08:59And meanwhile, we're trying to find settings like sport mode or drift mode or whatnot.
09:02I mean, you had a chance to try drift mode, didn't you?
09:04I did.
09:05To mixed results, but I think that's more on me than it is on the car.
09:09Yeah, dynamically, I found, and I think we knew this, you know, from what our colleagues
09:14and friends at D-Car had said going into it, this is going to be one of the more dynamically
09:18sort of sorted vehicles.
09:20And I think we all agree that that was the case.
09:23That isn't to say that they haven't had issues in dialing that car in, right?
09:27There were some stories when the car was first driven by journalists.
09:31It was like influencers, a lot of them wrecked it.
09:34So they introduced a beginner mode for those folks, which I think is pretty funny, but
09:39also speaks to how there's a mobile phone company, let me just make a new setting, a
09:42new app for that.
09:43I think the other one that we were very interested to drive, and I was glad we had the opportunity
09:47to spend a lot of time with it, was that NIO.
09:49So I've heard a ton about NIO, NIO has all this technology that sets them apart from
09:55even the most forward thinking of these EV or even Chinese EV brands.
10:00It had Nomi, it had the in-car assistant, which is like this little cute little LCD
10:04face that will...
10:05It's like a Tamagotchi.
10:06It's like a Tamagotchi, right.
10:07It'll pivot around, it'll look at you, it talks to you.
10:09It dances with your music.
10:10Like, I'm so anti, like, all those car assistants, that was charmed, like how could you not be?
10:15It'll tell you a joke, it can tell you what the weather is, it can help you order food,
10:19you can ask it trivia questions, and unlike almost every other Chinese EV there, it actually
10:27spoke in English, too, because NIO's already on sale in Europe, although it wasn't great.
10:33If you went down a couple levels, it had to default to Chinese if it ran out of responses,
10:38but the NIO ET5 and getting to drive it and then sort of messing around with Nomi was
10:42awesome, and then subsequently we saw, we took it to a battery swap facility, which
10:46was very eye-opening, too.
10:48That was great, and, you know, both in terms of the process, but also just in terms of
10:52the idea and the fact that, again, they managed to get something to market that Tesla spoke
10:56about, you know, almost a decade ago, if not a decade ago.
10:59Right, just that there's a company out there that managed to get battery swap out with
11:02over, like, it's over 2,500, I think, close to 2,500 battery swap stations around the
11:08world.
11:09That's pretty wild.
11:10They built power journey corridors to, like, popular sites.
11:12Yes.
11:13Pretty cool.
11:14I don't know if that model would work necessarily here.
11:16I'd struggle to wrap my mind around American buyers leasing batteries, for instance, and,
11:21you know, wanting their own battery back, so to speak, but it's interesting to say the
11:27least, and the fast swap time was, I mean, undeniable, five minutes.
11:30Five minutes to fill it up.
11:32Yeah, it's a very compelling package, the NIO as a whole, from the way it drives, the
11:36way that the interior is laid out, and I think that was something else, actually, that I
11:40found very interesting is the importance that is placed on the interior space with these
11:45Chinese manufacturers, and speaking again to the guys and girls at D-Car, that is something
11:50that the consumer is really focused on in the Chinese market.
11:54And that's probably a key, you know, worth mentioning to the folks that are watching
11:59that, you know, we went to China, we drove Chinese cars that were made for Chinese consumers
12:06and were set up for them.
12:07So even Eric Tingwall, he did all the testing of the vehicles and he noted that, you know,
12:11the surface we're on is probably a little bit slippery, more slippery than what we're
12:14used to testing.
12:15Obviously, the heat, it was crazy hot with the high humidity, very different than we
12:19normally test.
12:21But to your point, the Chinese consumer has different wants and needs than the U.S. consumer.
12:28It's sort of a more status-oriented culture.
12:31Cars are still expensive and mostly for wealthier people, and the wealthy guy actually doesn't
12:36drive the vehicle, they sit in the back.
12:38So a lot of the vehicles we saw there, there were some that were expressly made for, like,
12:42to be chauffeured in.
12:43And this has been long discussed in the China market, that they pioneered, like, Audi Group
12:47made the A4L.
12:48They made a long-wheelbase A4 over there, VW had long-wheelbase sedans because that
12:54was for the factory boss.
12:56They would ride in the back and they'd hire a driver to drive them around.
12:59I think you saw evidence of that in the cars that we tested in this comparison.
13:03Like, they had larger rear seat packages than the Model 3.
13:07They were more comfortable in the back, a little bit more headroom, and more features.
13:10You also see that in the 8S suites all these cars had, because some of the D-car journalists
13:15would tell us that, you know, they get in a car, they turn on, you know, their equivalent
13:18of, you know, autopilot or full self-driving and just let the car drive.
13:25You get that little taste of being driven from the driver's seat.
13:27And even though the Tesla Model 3 that we were testing was the updated, you know, Highland
13:32as we know it, with the small infotainment screen for the rear passengers, I still found
13:36that, I think without fail, the other, the three Chinese market cars and the Volkswagen
13:41had more convenience features for the rear seat passengers.
13:47Including that Zeker, which was one that I think we were all very curious to take a look
13:52at because Zeker is part of the Geely family and we, it's the only Chinese brand that's
13:59actually operating in the U.S. under the Volvo nameplate, right?
14:03So we're getting...
14:04And Polestar.
14:05And Lotus.
14:06And Lotus.
14:07Well, yes.
14:08I mean, but most people don't get it about Lotus.
14:09But yeah, you're right.
14:10So Geely owns Lotus, Polestar, Lincoln Co, Zeker.
14:14But Zeker is like their, I think it's a little bit more on the Chinese, the halo side, right?
14:20It's a little higher end.
14:21Lexus-y.
14:22And so to get to sample that vehicle running around the track was pretty fun.
14:27Yeah, I thought that car was stunning to look at.
14:29A little bit of lucid in its design, but just overall gorgeous, its own thing.
14:34Interior, I thought was one of the best of that whole bunch.
14:36It managed to be minimalist, you know, a la Tesla, but unique.
14:40I think it had elements that were new and exciting to me as a U.S. resident.
14:45I think overall for me, that was the most dynamic package of full, you know, as a car,
14:50and I think that was, you know, kind of the most attractive of the five cars that we tested.
14:55And it claims 500 kilowatt charge speed, which is sort of ridiculous.
14:59Yeah.
15:00Where are you going to charge it?
15:01Where are you going to charge it?
15:02You certainly can't charge it anywhere in the U.S.
15:03Like, we're topping out at 350 kilowatts.
15:05So amazing.
15:06And then the other one.
15:07So we talked a little bit about the Tesla, which I'll come back to.
15:09But I'm very curious about the ID.7 because it is slated to come to the U.S.
15:14But you know, slightly underwhelmed, underpowered, good steering, very Germanic steering for
15:19sure.
15:20But it felt slow, didn't feel particularly special or well built compared to the Tesla
15:26or the other cars there.
15:27Oddly, I think Eric Tumwold disagrees.
15:29He seemed to like how that thing drove quite a lot.
15:32I was hopeful that it was going to be a lot better, given that I spent a year with the
15:37ID.4, the smaller sibling of that vehicle.
15:41And I was, you know, disappointed to find that while it certainly has a lot more features,
15:45a lot more stuff going on on the screens, which I think it has to, to compete in the
15:49China market.
15:50Fundamentally, the software behind that screen was really kind of wonky.
15:54It's no wonder they're going to Rivian for software.
15:56Rivian and Xpeng for some of that architecture.
15:59It is worth pointing out that the Volkswagen, the motors might be different in the U.S.
16:02We probably will get a more powerful version.
16:04You'd hope so.
16:05Yeah.
16:06I mean, the ID.Buzz is certainly working out that way.
16:08So I would assume the ID.7 would be similar.
16:10That said, I mean, it felt like about 30 or 40 percent larger than it was huge in the
16:15other vehicles.
16:16And you've got more space in the back because of it.
16:18It's like a Taurus versus a Ford Fusion, to use a dated reference.
16:21Yeah.
16:22But, you know, after driving them, what did you guys, where did you end up ranking them?
16:27I certainly have some different thoughts.
16:28Yes, I think that was key, is that we all had slightly different takeaways.
16:33For me, I put the Tesla at the top.
16:36And I do caveat that by querying whether or not I have a slight sort of, not bias, but
16:41just familiarity, kind of muscle memory thing.
16:45You know, I'm not by any means a Tesla advocate to the sort of nth degree, but driven the
16:51three and the three Highland before and getting into it again and taking it around the track,
16:56I did find that despite maybe decrying the steering and brakes in previous comparison
17:03tests and, you know, during our of the year last year, I still found it to be probably
17:07the best overall.
17:10Next up, the Xiaomi SU7, I did think that dynamically that car was pretty good.
17:14Loved the styling, like very much the tech integration, pretty compelling as a package.
17:19Zika next for me, again, styling, great performance was pretty good.
17:24And again, I am slightly sad about the weather conditions.
17:27I don't think that we got to push these cars, but I felt that the Zika handled the wet weather,
17:31which was a good and valid test pretty well.
17:34Fourth position, the NIO.
17:35The new tech is fantastic, but I'm not quite sure that that is the right model for the
17:41American market right away.
17:42And so that's why I placed that there again.
17:44This isn't maybe a conventional comparison judging call, but I was trying to be slightly
17:48more holistic about it.
17:49And then I have the Volkswagen, which, again, like you guys have just said, isn't maybe
17:53quite representative of the one we're going to see.
17:55But on the day, it impressed me the least.
17:58I kind of had the same, except I swapped the top two and the bottom two.
18:02So I had the Xiaomi Su-7 first, the Tesla Model 3 second, then the Zika, then the Volkswagen
18:08ID.7.
18:09And last, I should put the NIO because I didn't particularly like the way it drove.
18:12But that's purely on the basis of how they handle the track.
18:15And I was dazzled by the acceleration of the Xiaomi and it's sort of looser handling.
18:20If I were to predict how they would do in the U.S. market, I actually would probably
18:25put the NIO back up at the top because, first of all, I don't think most Americans drive
18:28anywhere near the limit capabilities of the vehicle.
18:31They hardly take any of the track.
18:33So I think they would be far more impressed by Nomi, by the battery swap technology, by
18:39the room in the vehicle and the styling.
18:40So from a product and market fit, I had NIO way up at the top and actually Tesla number
18:46two behind it.
18:48So the rest can sort themselves out.
18:50Yeah.
18:51My rankings actually echoed yours.
18:52They're the same.
18:53I just thought the Model 3 felt, from a driving perspective, the most sorted, felt well engineered.
18:58It felt designed with a purpose.
19:00The Highland update makes it probably the best Tesla that Tesla's ever made.
19:04Just really quality car, especially for the price.
19:06Great range.
19:07Great charging speeds.
19:08And next, obviously, the Xiaomi.
19:10I found myself nitpicking that car.
19:11It's like I wished a little firmer steering.
19:13I wish for...
19:14It's all stuff that can be fixed with software.
19:15But 800 volt capability is a huge plus.
19:17Great looking package.
19:18Affordable.
19:19Zeker, I thought, was just stunning to look at.
19:22I wanted that to be a little bit more pleasing dynamically, but also I realized different
19:26market and also the weather was terrible.
19:27So then, yeah, the NIO.
19:29I wasn't wowed with the build quality on that.
19:31I thought it was good, not great.
19:33The other three cars above it all felt more what a buyer in our market would expect at
19:36that price point.
19:37And I'm skeptical on the battery technology, the battery swapping technology here.
19:42It's chicken and egg scenario, launching that car here.
19:45And then lastly, the Volkswagen.
19:46Solid car, but not really...
19:48Repeated.
19:49Yeah.
19:50Yeah.
19:51Looking at those five vehicles and the sort of spread of those five vehicles, maybe the
19:54gaps between each one, regardless of how you place them in relation to one another, what
19:58were your key takeaways?
19:59For me, it was that there isn't much of a gap, right?
20:03They're all quite good.
20:04Like you've said, Christian, that Tesla Model 3 Highland is probably the best Tesla to date
20:08and the others were all bunched up right underneath it.
20:10For me, it wasn't like one of them, well, maybe the Volkswagen.
20:13It's not like there was a massive drop off.
20:15Yeah.
20:16No, they were all quite close, I thought.
20:17They all had the feature sets that the buyers in the market expect.
20:20The software and all, as far as we could figure out, were quite intuitive.
20:24Xiaomi accepted, which does a lot considering they're all mostly in Mandarin.
20:28We were able to figure stuff out.
20:30Yeah, they're all very impressive cars.
20:32Yeah, I was struck by how familiar, as you put it, and maybe I was trying to see through
20:37that bias that Model 3 Plus drove.
20:40And I was like, this is very clearly among the top in terms of vehicle handling, just
20:45out on that test track, period, end of story.
20:49But also that it was so stark in that interior.
20:52That execution is so minimalist.
20:55And then hearing our friends at D-Car, the local guys say, it's too plain, it's too unadorned.
21:00Some people said actually it's too cheap.
21:02Weirdly, Tesla gets dinged in this country for poor build quality on some occasions.
21:08And I think our Chinese friends noticed it as well.
21:10I think that cuts both ways.
21:11It presents an opportunity for those other brands to differentiate, which they did.
21:14So we saw a lot of, I think in the Zeker and the Xiaomi for sure, like it kind of started
21:19with the Model 3 sort of layout and then added back.
21:22So yeah, like here's a way to shift it that you don't need to go onto a screen.
21:26Here's a stock over here for other controls.
21:28So in one sense, very smart because you're giving folks who were maybe critical of Tesla's
21:33design something to mess with.
21:35But it also doesn't set you apart, right?
21:37Like Tesla is like the model because it takes such a hard line.
21:41It's this crazy hard position on vehicle controls and trying to simplify, simplify.
21:47And it can feel a little muddied when the other guys put stuff back.
21:50That was one thing that disappointed me.
21:52I would really hope to see like a distinctive, unique trait.
21:55And it was all different variations of the same flavor in that regard.
22:00And I get you have to compete with Tesla, but I would have liked to see something truly
22:03unique.
22:04And I think the closest we came to was Nomi and all.
22:06Exactly.
22:07I was just going to say like if there was any brand out there that was giving itself
22:10a real competitive edge, it was Nomi.
22:13It was NIO through that Nomi assistant.
22:15There was another that's not a part of the comparison test, the Jidoo, that Robo 01 also
22:20has a very unique approach to a voice assistant and also some cool styling and crazy doors.
22:25So boys, we went into this trip, I think, collectively with a lot of questions.
22:30I think we got some answers, but my question is this, what questions did we come away with?
22:34What did we go there, see and come back wondering?
22:38For me, the biggest question that still remains, I think it's front of mind for everybody,
22:42is will Chinese car manufacturers come to the U.S.?
22:47Will they?
22:48That's still, I think, an open question.
22:50And then how, with what vehicles?
22:52What will they come over here with?
22:54We drove actually a lot of sedans.
22:56We drove a lot of compact cars and sedans, a few SUVs.
22:59But that's not necessarily the right product mix for the U.S.
23:03Despite all the cool features that we attempted to sample, the Chinese consumer is very different
23:10from the American consumer.
23:11Like, I don't think we care that much about in-car assistance and how fancy they can get.
23:17Moreover, I think we're skeptical of them.
23:20Right, right.
23:21We haven't incorporated that technology as much via our mobile phones.
23:26Maybe we will now that AI is starting to pick up and every one of the social networks and
23:30the search engines is adding an assistant to it.
23:33I don't know.
23:34I mean, it was interesting that the Chinese journalists we were with were as interested
23:37in the processing power and the chipset in these cars as we would be in motors or engines.
23:43I thought that was very telling in the differences between our two markets.
23:46Yeah, our colleagues over there at D-Car, they helped put together some spec sheets.
23:50And one of the categories they put was computer processor in the car, which would be like
23:55Motor Trend back in the day putting, like, who made the transmission?
23:58Like, was it Getrag or was it somebody else?
24:01So that, yeah, it's a good point.
24:02Between when they come, what vehicles they'll bring, and then the price, I think, like for
24:09me, the fact that all of these Chinese EVs that we drove, with the exception of that
24:14Yangwang U8, were basically undercutting U.S. competition by probably like 20% or more.
24:25I mean, that alone, you just, it makes your head start to spin.
24:28Like if they can sell that Baojun, that cloud vehicle for $17,000, or actually I think it
24:33starts in the 12s, if you put 100% tariff on it and it comes to the U.S., that's a real
24:37problem for some of our car manufacturers.
24:40And then final question from me, if you guys could give a piece of advice to the makers
24:44of the cars we drove while we were in China, what would that advice be?
24:48First of all, work with us at Motor Trend, no, I'll end with that.
24:54Advice for the Chinese car manufacturers that we drove, I think, make sure you've done
24:58the research on what American consumers really, really want to have within the feature set
25:04of the vehicle, particularly what's on the screens.
25:06And you don't need to go overboard with the foofy, the fancy stuff.
25:12That said, there's an opportunity there to dazzle if you have an in-car assistant as
25:16cute as Nomi that does all the different things, but it's going to take a lot of education
25:22on the part of the company, educating themselves, and then on the flip side, educating the consumer
25:27about what it can do.
25:29My advice would be the hardware is as important as the software.
25:32There are some vehicles, the MG Cyberster in particular I'm thinking of, which is a
25:36little sports car, just didn't feel finished.
25:38The software was cool and flashy and it had these great sounds and effects, but driving
25:42the car, I was just left cold.
25:44I felt traces of that in some of the other cars we drove too, like maybe a motor pulling
25:48here or there, maybe some integration issues with the PHEV systems.
25:51Just little final polishing pieces that would probably get sorted in a Western or Japanese
25:57or South Korean automaker, not assuredly, but likely.
26:00But meanwhile, the software was dazzling and fantastic, so that'd be my advice.
26:06But I think overall, we had a fantastic time.
26:08We want to thank D-Car, of course, for putting that together and for allowing us to be part
26:13of the journey.
26:14And look, this is just one conversation, one 30-minute rambling.
26:18We've got articles, photographs, other videos, everything's at mosttrend.com.
26:22I would encourage everyone to take a look and be as excited and as interested as we
26:27are because this really is, if not the future, then it's a big part of the conversation.