Why China’s EVs are So Cheap - DTNSB 4974
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Picture this. You're in the garage, hands covered in grease, just finished up tuning your engine with a part you found on eBay. And you realize, you know what? I could also use new brakes. So where do you go next? Back to eBay. And you've got eBay guaranteed fit. You order a part, and if it doesn't fit, send it back. Simple as that.

So when you dive into your next car project, start with eBay. All the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. eBay. Things people love. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, March 12th, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of stories, and just try to help each other understand.

Today, Bodie Grimm tells us why Chinese EVs sell for cheaper and an email from Tim. Me? Oh, I'm Tom Merritt. I'm Jen Cutter. Let's start with what you need to know with The Big Story. The Big Story

Niantic, or maybe you say Niantic, but I'm going to keep saying Niantic and we'll just call the whole thing off, made two big announcements on Wednesday. First, as expected, it is selling its mobile games division to Saudi Arabia's Scopely. That includes Pokemon Go, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now, as well as Pokemon Go's companion apps Campfire and Wayfarer. Scopely is a game that's been around for a long time.

Scopely develops games like Monopoly Go, Star Trek Fleet Command and Marvel Strike Force. And it is owned by Savvy Games. Savvy Games was established through the Saudi Public Investment Fund. This is a global company, but it's controlled by Saudi Arabian investors. The combined portfolio of this will be one of the largest game communities in the world should it get through regulatory approval, which it is expected to do.

When combined, it will have more than half a billion players, or at least if it had been combined in 2024, it would have had half a billion players. It'll probably have more in 2025. Niantic is also spinning out Niantic Spatial. That's the technology part of the company. It makes the visual positioning system, which is like the mapping tech that is used in games like Pokemon Go, as well as Ingress and Peridot.

It is developing a large geospatial model using machine learning, which could be essential to future augmented reality products of all kinds. So it kind of wants to be the platform for that. Niantic Spatial will continue to own and operate Ingress and Peridot. So if you're an Ingress player and you were wondering, am I going to be owned by Savvy Games or Scopely? No, Ingress is sticking with Niantic.

Scopely will have a share in Niantic Spatial, but it will be mostly owned by the current shareholders in Niantic. So this is kind of I think Niantic is going to survive as kind of a holding company for this. But Niantic Spatial is going to be what you think of when you think of Niantic.

the games, which are going to Scopely. Both transactions are expected to close before the end of the year. Jen, the games going to a company that knows games very well, the tech staying with the company that was spun out of Google originally, former Google people have founded it to do tech. What do you think of this? I'm kind

I'm kind of impressed with the long tail game here from the Saudi PIF and in general. When they first got into esports many, many years ago, it started with like light sponsorships. And, you know, people were wondering, OK, like how long is the money going to last? Are they going to get bored and quit? And no, they have not quit at all.

Everything keeps growing. This mobile base is huge because now they've got all of their hardcore stuff. And this counts towards some more casual things. But these are very dedicated casual players. And these are casual players with a lot of mapping stuff. So it's going to be interesting to see where the data ends up. And

And also where the employees end up, because this is a large headcount that they are acquiring. And with games where they are right now, I might be a little nervous if I was there. Yeah, let's talk about the headcount a little bit. Niantic has done layoffs.

within the past year. So they have trimmed down a little bit. That might be good news for the teams that are doing these games. And just so you know, in the transaction, the teams are expected to go totally over. Like if you're working on Pokemon Go, you're going to Scopely. The question...

which you're rightly alluding to is after the organization, anytime there is a merger, there are redundancies. You, you end up finding out, Oh, we have two people doing the same thing. We don't need two people doing that. Um,

I would assume that with the layoffs having happened already, that you will see less of that, but you will see some. Hopefully it's not a large number of people. Yeah. The big question is what are the next steps? And we will be watching. Yeah. And I think it's wise for,

for Niantic to say, we are not able to make these games as successful as they could be because we're not a game company. We're a tech company. Let's let somebody who knows this space, Scopely in this case, take that over. We'll benefit from that because they're going to use our visual positioning system. They are going to benefit because they're going to have a stake in our tech stack. And

potentially augmented reality could take off at any time and become a much bigger thing than it is right now. And Niantic Spatial is positioned to take advantage of that and be the map of the world should that happen. DTNS is made possible by you, the listener. Thanks to Pele Glendal,

Tim Deputy, Brandon Brooks, and our new patrons, Gristlefoot and Frozen Cusser. Yay! So glad to have you. But good name. Good name. Picture this. You're in the garage, hands covered in grease, just finished up tuning your engine with a part you found on eBay. And you realize, you know what?

I can also use new brakes. So where do you go next? Back to eBay. You can find anything there. It's unreal. Wipers, headlights, even cold air intakes. It's all there. And you've got eBay guaranteed fit. You order a part, and if it doesn't fit, send it back. Simple as that. Look.

Look, DIY fixes can be major. Doesn't matter if it's just maintenance or a major mod. You got it, especially when things are guaranteed to fit. So when you dive into your next car project, start with eBay. All the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. eBay. Things people love.

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Picture this, you're halfway through a DIY car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and boom, you realise you're missing a part. It's okay, because you know whatever it is, it's on eBay. They've got everything, brakes, headlights, cold air intakes, whatever you need, and it's guaranteed to fit, which means no more crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. All the parts you need at prices you'll love, guaranteed to fit every time. eBay, things people love.

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment.

Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95, including prescription lenses,

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Wednesday, Google announced its GEMMA 3 model is available for developers. Google claims it outperforms LAMA 405B, DeepSeek V3, and O3 Mini in LM Arena when run on a single GPU or TPU. For those who care about the specs, it has a 128k token context window and supports more than 35 languages with pre-trained support available for more than 140 languages.

It's a highly capable and efficient text and visual reasoning model. Google's DeepMind also announced Gemini Robotics, which is built on Gemini 2.0 to add physical actions, including interactivity and dexterity. It can also generalize actions in response to new scenarios. That means it's good at interacting with people in multiple situations. The dexterity means it can fold a piece of paper or remove a bottle cap.

And finally, Google launched Gemini Robotics ER, which is an advanced visual language model. When paired with movement controllers, it can reason about what it is in front of and what to do with it. Google gave the example of a lunchbox. It could identify what's in it and what to do with it, though I don't expect it would eat any of it.

Google did a demonstration asking a robot running the models to spell something with letter tiles. It spelled the word ace. It also dunked a basketball when asked to. Yeah, which I mean, the key there is that it was asked to. There was a basketball and a hoop sitting there, and it was able to understand the question, identify what the basketball was, pick it up, know what a dunk was, know that the hoop is what you need.

It's all that stuff putting together. You could program any robot to dunk a basketball. That is not the impressive part. It's that you could just tell it to do it and it would know what you mean. These are pretty great advancements. I know the ability to run on a single GPU or TPU is getting more of the press.

And that is table stakes kind of stuff for Google to do to be able to stay in the game and say, we are the most efficient. You won't need as many GPUs, especially with deep seek out there. Like our model is super efficient, too. I get why that is necessary and very important for Google's AI business. But the robotic stuff to me seems more impressive and leading to more immediately practical stuff.

Definitely. Like robots have been involved in industrial production since forever. To see one robot, which admittedly the hands look a little creepy, but to see one robot being able to do these varied tasks is,

So that's some pretty big progress. Yeah. Being able to say to a robot, doesn't even have to be humanoid, can you hand me the Phillips screwdriver and have it know what it is, how to look for it, identify it, pick it up, have the dexterity to grab it and hand it to you. There's lots of examples I could think of like that.

Reuters sources say TSMC is talking to NVIDIA, AMD and Broadcom about teaming up to buy Intel's foundry business. Now, Intel hasn't officially said they're selling their foundry business, but they've indicated they might be willing to. There's a lot of rumors that they're shopping it around and TSMC would like to buy it, but they don't want to be the only owner of it.

The Intel foundry business makes chips. It doesn't design them. So Intel wants to hold on to its designs, but the parts where it makes chips, where it's also started making chips for other people besides Intel, is what it might be able to sell. According to sources, TSMC would operate the factories but would not own more than 50% of the joint venture. That's why they need other people to join in on it. Mm-hmm.

What isn't touched by TSMC in the chip world? I think it's an ever-growing shorter list. Yeah. And that's why they don't want to own more than 50%. That keeps the regulatory scrutiny away. Benchmarks are coming out for Apple's new M3 Ultra chip, which comes in some models of the new Mac Studio.

According to GFXBench, the GPU in the M3 Ultra is 9% behind the GeForce RTX 5080, DirectX 12, and 20% ahead of the RTX 5070 Ti. In Cinebench 2024, GPU tests the M3 Ultra was 25% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and on par with the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti.

None of this means it will always work best for what you want it to do, but it does show it is a powerful GPU. Yeah, those are good benchmarks. It's pretty impressive.

Google says it has rolled out updates to Google messages. If you've been having a problem with slowdowns and freezes when receiving some media files over RCS, this is good news. However, Google isn't certain it fixed all the issues. It says we think we've fixed a lot. It didn't need an update. So it's server side. It should just start working better for you. But it is asking for feedback from those who still have problems.

Roomba maker iRobot warned during an earnings call that it has, quote, substantial doubt about its ability to continue operating. The board is examining refinancing debt and pursuing a sale. Amazon attempted to buy iRobot last year, but gave up in the face of regulatory opposition in Europe. The company reported a 44% decline in revenue year over year in Q4. Yeah. So the Roomba makers won a loan or...

Amazon tried to buy them, but it's not the end yet. Yeah. So there is hope yet for little room, but there's a lot of competitors out there too. You know, Robo rock ain't bad. So, uh, an Australian man received an artificial heart made of titanium during surgery at St. Vincent's hospital, Sydney last November. And in February became the first person to be discharged from the hospital while still using that device to pump his blood. Uh,

In fact, it continued to pump his blood until he received a human heart transplant earlier in March. The by the core total artificial heart or TAH uses a levitated rotor held in place by magnets to move the blood. Just one moving part to keep that blood spinning through your veins. Uh,

Other patients have successfully survived with this exact model, but none for as long as this unnamed patient. And as I said, first person to ever leave the hospital while still using it.

Yeah, if you think this stuff is interesting, definitely go look up pictures and the theoretical like viewing of it working because it is so cool. I love medical science and like the discharge from the hospital for 100 days. That's incredible. I don't know how much activity this unnamed person was allowed to do. Sure. But I doubt he's running any marathons or anything, but he's alive and still alive, which is great. Mm hmm.

Google has changed its affiliate ads policy for Chrome extensions after PayPal's Honey Discount Finder extension was accused of swapping in affiliate links during checkout. Google has clarified that, quote, affiliate links, codes, or cookies must only be included when the extension provides a direct and transparent user benefit. An example of a violation is this is, quote, inserting affiliate links when no discount, cashbacks, or donation is provided.

Podcast app Pocket Cast announced its podcast player is available on Windows, Mac and the Web without restrictions for free. It was already available for free on iOS and Android. You don't need a subscription or even an account if you want to just go find an episode and play it. If you want to create an account, you don't have to pay. You can still get your subscriptions, sync between platforms. And if you pay, if you're curious, you get things like folders, bookmarks, smartwatch compatibility and a few other perks.

India's Jio platforms followed Airtel in announcing a partnership with Starlink to offer the equipment and subscriptions, as well as explore ways to supplement telco service. Jio offers its own satellite-based broadband through Jio Space Fiber in partnership with SES. Airtel is also partnered with Utelsat's OneWeb. Those are the essentials for today. Let's dive a little deeper into some ongoing stories and follow up.

Car tech is a complicated thing, especially with the ever-growing amount of tech inside it. Tom has been sitting down with Bodhi Grim of the Kilowatt Podcast to help us get a better understanding. Chinese car makers can sell their cars for less. Some of that has become because of subsidies and cheap labor, but Bodhi helps us understand other reasons why Chinese EVs are so cheap. Bodhi, thanks again for sitting down with me. I appreciate it, man. Oh, thanks, Tom. I'm happy to be here. So, uh...

What are some of the things people may not realize that are making these Chinese cars so cheap? What's the first bit?

The first bit is low materials cost. So the battery accounts for between 25 and 40% of the cost to produce an EV. And that number has actually come down quite a bit. In 2016, it was 50% of the cost of building the car. And now we're looking between 25 and 40%, depending on who you read. So that is definitely helping bring the prices down, along with what you said before in the intro with the subsidies and the labor. Yeah.

All right. What about other factors that are specific to China? So you have great economies of scale. Chinese EV makers, they produce more than half of the EVs in the world. So when you're producing that many EVs, you're able to spread that cost of R&D, factory costs, and whatever else they do to put into the car over a greater number of vehicles, which helps bring that price down. All right.

All right. So they've got the battery makers and they've got, you know, the top battery makers in the world. They've got this economy of scale because they've built up the industry there. Everything's together. I assume that that carries on. What's the next bit?

The next bit is supply chain. Chinese EV makers, they're likely going to get their supplies from China. They don't have to ship it across the world. It's in their neighborhood. And if it isn't in China, it's next door. So that lowers transportation and logistics costs. It minimizes delays.

And because these Chinese automakers are able to build so many of these vehicles, they can negotiate better prices. Yeah. And that leads me to my next question, which is some of the effect must be the fact that there are so many of those EV makers in China, right? Doesn't that affect the price too?

Yeah. So according to CNN Business, right now there are 200 EV manufacturers in China. 200? 200. And I think that's probably also including like, I don't know what they're called in China, but like tuk-tuks or, you know, motorcycles or mopeds and things like that. Cushman style things. Yeah, yeah. But in 2019, there were over 500 of these EV manufacturers. So we're definitely seeing an adjustment in the market, let's say.

But because of all this- We lost 300 in five years. Roughly, yeah. In less than five years, yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of competition and that fostered an insane price war. And Mary Barra, GM's CEO, said that she's like, "This price war cannot continue. It's not sustainable by any stretch of the imagination."

So in 2023, 16 Chinese automakers, I want to say Chinese automakers, I mean automakers that operate in China because Tesla and Volkswagen were a part of this. They signed an agreement and basically not to disturb fair competition in the market with abnormal pricing, which is to say, let's fix our prices to something that's more reasonable, which probably needed to be done.

And the goal for that was to stabilize the market. That was day one. They signed the agreement day one. Day number two, the very next day, Tesla announced that their referral program, they're going to give $500 off Model Y and Model 3 if you referred. And then Volkswagen announced that they were going to offer some sort of incentive. And the whole deal fell apart and they rescinded the agreement that very next day.

So we're waiting for more of these manufacturers to have to go out of business before this lightens up. It doesn't sound like the agreement is going to do the trick. What about the appeal of these? Because, you know, it's one thing to be able to make cheap EVs because you have the resources, you have the infrastructure, you have the marketplace, but they might all be like Yugos, right? They're not. What makes these appealing? Jeez, Tom, I think we should probably start with what's a Yugo and then go from there.

You go is you don't go. It just ask your parents. It is a very, very cheap Eastern European car. Right. Ask your grandpa. So the Chinese EVs are full of really cool technology. But what the technology that they have, like Tesla has a lot of cool technology and it's most of it's under, not most of it, a lot of it's under the hood that you'll never see or even notice. Right.

What Chinese automakers do is they put that kind of front and center. And an example of this would be NIO. NIO has this really cool personal assistant that kind of has a digital face. And when it's raining outside, it will change and will show a little rain on the screen. And it just sits on the dash. It's just this cool little personal assistant. You can tell it to roll down the window. You can tell it to change channels on the radio. And it reacts with a... You can tell it to take a selfie. It reacts kind of as a...

another person in the car, let's say it's got a personality. It's got a great personality and it's fun and it's kind of quirky. And then BYD has, you know, rotating screens and a bunch of other tech forward stuff that, that make it really, really cool. But they also have the other stuff, which, you know, they ride nice, they handle nice, uh,

Um, but they're really putting that tech forward stuff out. So if you're, if you buy a BYD seal for like $10,000, you're not getting a car that has, you know, an old AM radio in it that, you know, I don't know if you remember, uh, now I'm going to be the old guy when you had eight track players in the car and like my little fingers were not strong enough to eject the eight track.

It's not like that. You get Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, things like that. So you're getting a very tech-forward vehicle for a very affordable price, which makes you feel like you're getting more for your money versus getting something that's $10,000, but there's no fun in driving it. It's just a utility vehicle at that point. Yeah.

Well, this definitely increases my understanding of this marketplace. Thanks, Bodhi, for explaining all this to us. If folks want to find out more about this kind of information and more in the car tech market, where should they go? They should go to 918digital.com and you'll see all the stuff that I'm doing there and follow Kilowatt for sure. Fantastic. Thanks, man. Thank you, sir.

If you want to keep the conversation going, you can join us in our Discord. All you got to do to become a member of our Discord server is be a member of our Patreon. Then you can link them right up. Go find out more about that at patreon.com slash DTNS. Picture this. You're in the garage, hands covered in grease, just finished up tuning your engine with a part you found on eBay. And you realize, you know what?

I can also use new brakes. So where do you go next? Back to eBay. You can find anything there. It's unreal. Wipers, headlights, even cold air intakes. It's all there. And you've got eBay guaranteed fit. You order a part, and if it doesn't fit, send it back. Simple as that. Look.

Look, DIY fixes can be major. Doesn't matter if it's just maintenance or a major mod. You got it, especially when things are guaranteed to fit. So when you dive into your next car project, start with eBay. All the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. eBay. Things people love.

Ever wonder just how good or bad your diet really is? The Mayo Clinic Diet has just launched its new diet score, a game-changer in tracking your health. Your diet score is personalized based on tracking key activities that deliver healthy habits, support weight loss, and deliver long-term, sustainable success. The Mayo Clinic Diet was developed by doctors and dietitians from the world-renowned Mayo Clinic.

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We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today, Tim has a worry. Yeah, and I think it's a fair one. Tim wrote, Microsoft has always been bad with names, but replacing the remote desktop app with the Windows app is going to make Googling a...

for it so much harder, along with searching for it in your help desk ticketing system or anywhere else. And yeah, what Tim's referring to is the story yesterday. They're not so much replacing the remote desktop app with the Windows app, but saying the remote functions are in the Windows app, so we're getting rid of the remote desktop app. But yeah, now you can't search specifically for the remote desktop function. You have to search for the Windows app, which is...

I'm with you, Tim. That will cause a little bit of consternation and confusion. Yes. Thanks for sending that in because, again, for those of us running tech support for families, we will have to remember to say, hey, search for this. You can't just search for remote desktop app. Are you in Windows? Great. Search for Windows. What? Yeah.

Big thanks to Bodie Grimm and Tim for contributing to today's show. Thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. Big thanks to our patrons who make the show possible at patreon.com slash DTNS. We're also on live every day. Sarah Lane, Roger Chang and myself on DTNS live. You can find us on YouTube or Twitch or more details at DailyTechNewsShow.com. Talk to you tomorrow. The DTNS family of podcasts.

Helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program. Ever wonder just how good or bad your diet really is? The Mayo Clinic Diet has just launched its new diet score, a game changer in tracking your health. Your diet score is personalized based on tracking key activities that deliver healthy habits, support weight loss, and deliver long-term sustainable success.

The Mayo Clinic Diet was developed by doctors and dietitians from the world-renowned Mayo Clinic. It's real foods, no gimmicks or fat diets, just life-changing healthy nutrition. Join today for access to customizable meal plans, tracking tools, group coaching, and at-home workouts. Everything you need for long-term success.

Get your free diet score now at mayoclinicdiet.com slash go. No sign up needed. Now, the Mayo Clinic Diet accepts the Care Credit credit card. The Mayo Clinic Diet, healthy weight loss for life. What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95, including prescription lenses,

plus scratch-resistant, smudge-resistant, and anti-reflective coatings, and UV protection, and free adjustments for life. To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses, or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com. That's warbyparker.com.