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Speaker 1: Praying Bridge, Peter Lewis, who's that Asia Business correspondent, Peter Good, Evening.

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Speaker 2: These things are either good evening.

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Speaker 1: Peter Good to have you on the show. Let's start

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Speaker 1: with BYD because anywhere you go in New Zealand you

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Speaker 1: will see one of these cars and their sales have

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Speaker 1: now reached a bit of a milestone one hundred billion

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Speaker 1: dollars for the first time.

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Speaker 2: Yes, exactually sales top to one hundred billion dollars. Not

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Speaker 2: only is that a nice round number, but it's also

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Speaker 2: significant because they've now leaped frog Tesla, which is suffering

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Speaker 2: a bit of a backlash at the moment because of

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Speaker 2: Elon Musk's role in the in the Trump administration. Now,

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Speaker 2: the Tesla only makes the electric cars. But you know,

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Speaker 2: if you take BYD's evs, they're about the same number

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Speaker 2: now as Tesla. If you include China, by BYD's hybrid cars,

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Speaker 2: which are very popular in China, It's sold a record

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Speaker 2: four point three million vehicles globally in twenty twenty four. Now,

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Speaker 2: the reason for this, a lot of people will say, well,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of shenanigans going on, lots of state

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Speaker 2: support for Chinese EV manufacturers, which has been true. But nevertheless,

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Speaker 2: the BYD car product and Chinese eb makers in general,

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Speaker 2: their product is absolutely superb. If you ever sit in

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Speaker 2: aside one of these cars, sometimes you feel like you're

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Speaker 2: not in the motor vehicle, you're in a time machine.

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Speaker 2: They've got all the latest gadgets in it, and in fact,

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Speaker 2: you know BYD is putting in its latest models all

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Speaker 2: its latest features, like for example, that tree that charges

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Speaker 2: in five minutes and gives you about five hundred kilometer range,

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Speaker 2: so almost as quick as just filling up your car

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Speaker 2: with petrol. It's got all the latest AI features. It's

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Speaker 2: got a feature called Godzi, which is like a sort

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Speaker 2: of a semi automated driving system. And this car, the

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Speaker 2: latest model that it's just released at the weekend, only

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Speaker 2: costs sixteen and a half thousand US dollars. So when

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Speaker 2: you hear of Donald Trump putting tariffs on cars into

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Speaker 2: the US, you can only think that, actually, all it's

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Speaker 2: going to do is make it worse for the US

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Speaker 2: car industry. Not only is it going to push up prices,

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Speaker 2: but you know, the US has lost the battle already

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Speaker 2: with the Chinese makers for electric vehicles. It lost the

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Speaker 2: battle a long time ago for smaller vehicles because they're

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Speaker 2: imported films like South Korea's Kia Motors and key On Dai.

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Speaker 2: Really where it makes its money is in large gas

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Speaker 2: guzzlers and pickup trucks, which are hardly the future of

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Speaker 2: the auto industry.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and these terrorifts, I mean, I know that some

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Speaker 1: think that they're going to be the savior, but also

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Speaker 1: many people, including some working for those very companies, don't. Now,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about these subsidies in China. This is fascinating.

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Speaker 1: So they already we have quite a large subsidy program

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Speaker 1: over in China, but they're looking at extending these to

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Speaker 1: some leisure areas, that's right.

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Speaker 2: I mean they're trading program, which they introduced about a

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Speaker 2: year or so ago, was to try and boost spending,

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Speaker 2: to get the consumers to open their wallets and spend

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Speaker 2: and boost the economy. So you could trade in mobile phones, cars,

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Speaker 2: other gadgets for a new product at a good price

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Speaker 2: within a certain period of time, So trading your old

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Speaker 2: fe and you. They're now talking about including services in that.

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Speaker 2: They're talking about travel, tourism, sports again to try and

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Speaker 2: get people to spend because consumption is still nowhere near

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Speaker 2: the level it needs to be, and there's certainly nowhere

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Speaker 2: near consumer spending the sort of levels that you see

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Speaker 2: in other economies. In the US, for example, it's about

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Speaker 2: seventy five percent of GDP. In China, it's only about

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Speaker 2: forty percent, so lots of room to expand consumer spending.

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Speaker 2: The problem and the reason why they're struggling, it's just

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Speaker 2: a lack of confidence in the economy at the moment

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Speaker 2: amongst Chinese households, they're worried about losing their jobs. You've

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Speaker 2: had employment is close to a record high, over twenty percent.

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Speaker 2: There's no real social support scheme if you lose your

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Speaker 2: job or if you get sick, so people rather save

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Speaker 2: their money than spend it. So this is the ongoing

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Speaker 2: battle that China has to try and get households to

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Speaker 2: spend more, not just on goods now, but also on

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Speaker 2: services as well.

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Speaker 1: Fascinating now, Pete Hinseth, he'd be happy to be out

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Speaker 1: of the States at the moment after the whole signal scandal,

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Speaker 1: and he's hitting to your neck of the woods. He's

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Speaker 1: hitting to the Indo Pacific as they call it, but

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Speaker 1: we would probably refer to it as Asia and Tokyo

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Speaker 1: is on the list.

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Speaker 2: That's right, is in the Philippines at the moments. He's

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Speaker 2: going to Tokyo this weekend. This is coming at a

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Speaker 2: very difficult time in US Japanese relations. Firstly because the

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Speaker 2: US has slapped tariffs on Japan on its auto vehicles,

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Speaker 2: and it was hoping to get some exemptions from that,

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Speaker 2: because actually Japanese tariffs are lower than US tariffs when

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Speaker 2: it comes to auto's but they haven't obviously succeeded. They

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Speaker 2: spend a lot of time trying to lobby Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister Shiga Wins over to Washington. None of that

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Speaker 2: appears to have worked. And now this visit by Pete

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Speaker 2: hege Haig said is coming when Donald Trump has questioned

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Speaker 2: the security arrangement between the US and Japan. Now he

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Speaker 2: says that the US is obliged to support Japan and

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Speaker 2: defend Japan, but Japan's not obliged to defend it back.

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Speaker 2: And he says, you know who on Earth makes these deals?

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Speaker 2: What the answer is, It's the US that makes those deals,

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Speaker 2: because it was the US who imposed the pacifist Clause

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Speaker 2: in the Constitution after the Second World War. Dwight the

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Speaker 2: Eisenhower further expanded that in the nineteen sixties. So Japan

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Speaker 2: traditionally has had a very pacifist approach. It doesn't spend

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Speaker 2: much money on defense, doesn't have nuclear weapons. But you know,

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Speaker 2: it sounds like Donald Trump is going to shake up

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Speaker 2: all of this, just like he's shaking up the relationship

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Speaker 2: with the EU and with Canada and expecting some sort

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Speaker 2: of trade deal and some sort of deal that's going

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Speaker 2: to get Japan to spend more money on its own defense.

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Speaker 1: I suppose that was an inevitable thing to happen. Let's

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Speaker 1: just hope he doesn't shake until it breaks, you know,

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Speaker 1: like he hasn't some other areas of the world. Appreciate

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Speaker 1: your time as always, Peter Lewis, who's our Asia business correspondent.

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Speaker 2: For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to

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