Connectivity in China + EVs heading to SA
Tech Things #21
I’m writing this newsletter from the airport lounge in Beijing, after spending an incredible eight days with the Chery Group South Africa. I was hosted by the team from its two newest sub-brands in SA: Omoda, aimed at the young fashionista, and Jaeceoo, aimed at the adventure and off-road crowd. I visited Auto China 2024 to hear and see more of what to expect later this year. The Chery Group also introduced another luxury sub-brand called Exeed, which will not come to SA.
Chery are already in the top 10 most sold vehicles in SA but are nowhere near slowing down. The Jaeceoo J7 and J8 PHEVs are heading our way, alongside the J6 EV; plus the Omoda E5 EV, the C7 in an EV/PHEV variant and the C9 in new energy variants but to be confirmed. I also very briefly got behind the wheel of the all-electric J6 and E5, which I’m super excited about. In the mean time, you can catch up with the news out of China, plus some other interesting cars I spotted at the show.
The Chery Group also introduced its new robot called Mornine at its Eco Exhibition at its head office in Wuhu. We got there after catching a bullet train from Beijing that peaked at 347km/h! Chery and Aimoga’s collaboration on the robot is centred around customer service, which they hope to bring to SA dealerships. The robot can speak and smile with some facial movements, and is powered by a large language model with vast knowledge on Chery’s vehicles. We also saw the cutest Omoda-branded cyberdogs at the expo, which I controlled very briefly.
I’ve had a bunch of queries on how I stayed connected in China. Most of you know I already use the Airalo eSIM; you can read my review here. I am glad to report that it also works in China and has a built-in VPN! You don’t need a third party VPN, everything just works natively; just make sure you have a phone that supports eSIM. You can use my referral code ‘NAFISA1418’ to get $3 with Airalo.
Another thing you need to know is that while you will get access to Google Maps, just know that in China, they don’t use Google Maps. So some places won’t have proper info and reviews listed. It’s not useful for finding out what public transport or train to take. But you can see general info and distance, beyond that it is not useful. Being hosted, I didn’t need to find a third party app to find out about what train to take.
And lastly, the Alipay app has been great for making payments on your phone under ¥15000 - you don’t need to verify your identity for spend below that. It is available for Android and iOS, which you can link to your bank cards. It worked in most places for me and has the DiDi app built-in, (their Uber equivalent) to get around. I will post a proper review on Recharged for Alipay.
Okay, that’s all for now… I have a flight to catch!
Till next time,
Nafisa
Interesting takeaways. "We got there after taking a 347km/hr maglev train".
By medium.com/@lindelanimalinga