Nickel, Chinese EVs and a Senate Chase in the Philippines | Franco Varona - E708
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
35 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 18 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What sparked the electric‑vehicle boom in Southeast Asia?
They were gunshots that happened in the Senate. He's like running around the halls of the Senate and there's national agents chasing him. And he goes, Franco, I've got a crazier story for you. He said, this EV company, 300% sales despite the fact that our infrastructure for EVs suck. People post their electricity bill and it's zero. Oh snap. Because they all have solar panels. Of course it's the second largest nickel producer, which of course as we all know is important for batteries. But what we do is we just literally mine it out of the earth and export it raw.
Hey Franco, good to see you in person again. Hey, good to see you too, Jeremy. Yeah, well good to record this in Manila.
Yeah, every time I see you it's like a different setting, right? We had the we have it sometimes online over Zoom. Sometimes we have it in person
in another setting. Yeah,
beach resort. Yeah, this one.
Beach resort. Yeah, and then there's a podcast booth and now we're in a hotel, which is great too. Fantastic.
Also beautiful view.
Yeah, yeah. We were talking about this earlier. Like the view you have is Manila Bay. Of course there's a new airport being built out there. So we have a nice nice unique perspective of it.
Yeah, and I think there's something that I only just recently learned from you. Because you fly to the airport and I think it's good, I think it works and it's functional. But it definitely gets crowded and I feel like obviously the international terminals, nice. But the domestic terminal which I've flown through as well, I think it's not as efficient. Oh yeah. So it's very so I think it's a good idea to have more capacity and it's actually beautiful.
Yeah. Right now that everybody flies into combined between all the different terminals. I think it's over capacity by like thirty, forty percent already, operating annually, right? Yeah. So they're doing a good job of upgrading it because it's a public private partnership. But yes, you're right. To have a new airport online coming. Yeah. relatively soon would be I think very helpful to the Philippine economy. Yeah. I
think the Philippines like like you mentioned before is so many islands and so you can fly, I mean, from place to place unless you Yeah take a ferry and the ferry's gonna take much longer if safety wise also the problem as well. True.
Well and practically let's be honest, right? Right now you fly into Manila and it's the international terminal. If you need to connect somewhere, you have to get on a bus and then get on a highway to get to the other terminal. It doesn't make any sense, right? Yeah. I mean I fly I need to change terminals. Whereas here, it's a big pain in the ass to get from one terminal to the other and then you get to the islands.
Yeah.
So I think broadly we're all very excited with this just simple idea of having one massive seamless experience to arrive and then to depart for a domestic destination.
Yeah. Well, I think exciting times I'm looking forward to visit the new airport when it comes out. What is it gonna be done by roughly? Man, I mean there's always like I mean there's always like
and if we look at it right now, it's still let's be honest, it's still like piles of sand.
Yeah, yeah, okay. So it's funny. Sorry, is it be like it'll be done by twenty thirty? I'm not gonna say that
dude. Then
like twenty fifty. Yeah, yeah. I'm not
gonna go viral in twenty twenty th twenty eight or whatever, dude. I'm not gonna go viral then then. So I don't know, like who knows? Never
give a number. Number man
I'm not gonna look at myself at like forty, you know, forty eight years old and be like, Oh look, Franco predicted wrong.
To be fair, construction always has delays anyway, like so anywhere. So yeah Yeah,
probably a little bit more more so in the Philippines, but you're right. Those delays are okay. Yeah, okay,
I'm being uh fair. Nice chap. Yeah, so I think we also went through the last since the last we did, yeah, about many months ago and today I think it was interesting because we pretty much record this at the start of the energy crisis for the Middle East.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What sparked the electric‑vehicle boom in Southeast Asia?
0:00–4:27
2
How is the new Manila airport expected to affect regional travel and logistics?
4:27–8:49
3
How did the 2022‑23 oil crisis accelerate EV adoption in the Philippines?
8:49–12:40
4
Why did EV sales jump 300 % in just three weeks and what does that mean for the market?
12:40–17:20
5
How did BYD become the Philippines’ third‑largest car brand in three years?
17:20–21:36
6
Why is Malaysia’s fuel‑subsidy policy a ‘trap’ for EV growth?
21:36–25:42
7
What caused the 55 °C heatwave brownouts in Manila and how are solar panels changing electricity bills?
25:42–31:03
8
What really happened with the gunshots, Senate chase and political turmoil in Manila?
31:03–35:30
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
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