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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. Today's going to be an NBITS day with one of the questions being this. Are Chinese cars about to take over our highways? That's coming right up. And hello there, it's hump day, it's middle of the week day, it's Wednesday.
And Wednesdays are for either encore editions, I can't remember the last time we had one of those, or NBITS days. And it turns out that you love NBITS, or at least many of you love NBITS. Not all of you love NBITS, but many of you do.
Chapter 2: Are Chinese cars about to take over our highways?
And you recognize that Wednesdays is my day off. Such as it is. And today is NBITS. And you heard the headline. The headline is, are Chinese cars about to take over our roadways? Well, we know there's a certain opening of the market. You've heard the Prime Minister on his deal with the Chinese on cars, letting just a small amount. Well, what was the figure? 50,000? Something like that?
Up to 50,000? Chinese cars a year and we've made this kind of a deal so we could reduce the tariffs on canola and certain other things from China so let's get started on this because this story comes from the Daily Mail that's in the UK right and And the headline is, Chinese cars will soon take over Britain's roads. I've tested them and spoken to insiders.
Here's what you need to know before you buy one, says motoring editor Rob Hull. That's the headline. That's a long headline. But the story's even longer, and I'm not going to read it all. But I'm going to read some of it because it's pretty interesting, actually. But keep in mind, this is Britain, all right? This is not Canada. It's Britain, but there could be a lesson in here for all of us.
So let's get into that. This is from, well, it's a little more than a week ago. Here's what Rob Hull writes. And once again, it's about Britain. It's about the UK. But get ready. It's going to start to look like this soon. Here. Here he goes. Everywhere you look on the roads today, there are cars with new and unfamiliar names and badges you may not have seen before. Any chances?
And chances are, they're Chinese. The rise in popularity of Chinese electric cars has been meteoric and unprecedented. Chinese brands are capturing huge shares of the British market that took foreign brands such as Kia 25 years to crack. Experts tell me it's a matter of when, not if, they take over our roads in the UK.
There may soon be a time when you seldom see a British or even German car on our streets anymore. there has previously been a stigma around owning a Chinese car, as they have been sometimes perceived as the cheaper, knock-off version of European favorites. But their quality is now undeniable. This is the motoring editor of the Daily Mail, okay?
Their quality is now undeniable, and with familiar faces like Daniel Craig, remember Daniel Craig, James Bond?
Yes.
Now fronting these brands as ambassadors and effectively giving them the James Bond stamp of approval, any snootiness is quickly fading. Sales have been rocketing. Almost one in ten new models delivered in the UK in 2025 was sold by a Chinese company, twice as many as the previous year, according to car registration figures. That's around 196,000 cars compared to 98,000 units delivered in 2024.
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Chapter 3: What recent deals have been made between Canada and China regarding cars?
Two Chinese powerhouses have emerged in recent years to drive the surge in sales. BYD, that stands for Build Your Dreams, and I think it's Cherry, although it's pronounced or spelled with only one R. BYD is famed for overtaking Tesla as the world's largest EV maker last year. It entered the UK market in 2023 and already has 10 cars in its lineup. 10 different models.
This year it's launching its Denza sub-brand, which includes the first electric car to charge in less than 10 minutes. 10 minutes! Using one of the company's flash chargers. Okay, this goes on and on, okay? But it clears clearly what's happening. They're expanding the market. They're being let in the country by bigger numbers every year. And they are undeniably well-made.
So this is like, I don't know, half a dozen pages long or longer than that.
No, it's longer than that. It's almost 10 pages.
But they do include at the end, and I think this is worth mentioning for those of you who may be going, okay, maybe I better start thinking about this a little more seriously. They include five tips when buying a Chinese car. Number one, pick one with a long warranty. Okay. If you still have reservations about the quality of Chinese cars, pick one with a long warranty.
Cherry models all come with a seven-year, 100,000 miles, so it's whichever comes first, warranty for the cars. And eight years, 100,000 miles for the high-voltage battery packs in electrified models. BYD has a shorter warranty of six years. 93,750 miles. That's 150,000 clicks for its cars. Although the batteries are covered for eight years and 125,000 miles.
Two, massive dealer networks means you can find one close by. That's always an issue, right? You want to be able to, depending on where you are, you want to know that you can get a dealer. If you're looking for additional confidence, choose a brand with a dealership close by. The two dealers that I mentioned, Cherry and BYD, have more than 250 showrooms between them in the UK.
Some of the other brands are partnering with European manufacturers to piggyback on to their existing dealer networks. Three, a hybrid might be more cost-effective than EVs. And you hear that in not only the Chinese models. You hear that in other models as well. You know, some of my friends who have Hyundais swear that the hybrid is better than the EV. I don't know that.
I'm just telling you what I hear. Check with your insurer. A recent study found that some insurers are either refusing to underwrite some Chinese cars or charging hundreds of pounds more than they would to cover models from established mainstream manufacturers from Europe, Japan, Korea, and the U.S. That's important to keep in mind, insurance, before you rush off.
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Chapter 4: How have Chinese electric cars changed the market in the UK?
I haven't had any buzz from a gummy. It's subtle, much more subtle than a buzz. About 15.4% of Americans older than 12 have used cannabis in the past month. according to 2024 data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And before you start thinking too much, it's been at least 40 years since I smoked cannabis in my foolish youth.
I used to take the occasional marijuana cigarette. That was back when it was illegal.
So I haven't done any of that. It's just the odd gummy I've tried. So 15.4% of Americans older than 12 have used cannabis. That number has been increasing as new marijuana products hit the market and more states legalize its use, according to the Centers for Disease and Prevention. Older adults, those 60 and older, are the fastest growing group of cannabis users in the country.
According to a 2022 study, adults over 60 who started using did so for medical reasons, including to treat pain and arthritis, sleep disturbances, anxiety and depression. While more than three quarters of those people found the cannabis either somewhat or very helpful, the question remains, what are the side effects?
You may be particularly curious about brain effects, given concerns about cognitive decline. So what exactly does the research say? Cognitive decline. Maybe that's what Trump's doing. Maybe he's just shoving those gummies down his throat every night. And instead of sleeping, he goes straight to his phone and starts tapping out bizarre social media posts. Maybe that's it.
Cannabis use is linked to worse working memory. This probably isn't too surprising, but cannabis can affect your ability to retain information in the short term. This makes some intuitive sense to anyone who has tried it.
If you smoke cannabis, afterward, if you do a working memory test where you're trying to maintain some piece of information, like a phone number or a short list of words, you're less good at doing that while you're acutely intoxicated, said Joseph Schacht, an associate professor of psychiatry and co-director of the Division of Addiction Science Prevention and Treatment at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
But lifetime use seems to have a similar effect. Consistent cannabis users tend to have lasting memory deficits compared with non-users, he said. In a January 2025 study in JAMA Network Open, the largest of its kind, researchers looked at the effects of cannabis use on more than 1,000 adults aged 22 to 36 using brain imaging.
Heavy lifetime users exhibited lower brain activity during a working memory task compared with non-users after excluding recent users. Okay, this is getting pretty technical on all of this. But clearly, there's some concern here about the problem it's having. Here's how it concludes.
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Chapter 5: How are European automakers responding to the rise of Chinese cars?
But sometimes they kind of deserve it. You know, I remember once I was I was golfing at one of my favorite golf courses. It used to be one of my favorite. It probably used to be my favorite golf course in the world, which was Turnberry on the west coast of Scotland. Absolutely stunning course. Site of a number of British Opens.
The last one being when Tom Watson almost won the British Open over 60 years old.
He didn't Stewart Cink beat him in a playoff.
Anyway, I used to go there every year, me and my buddies. Bruce. Bruce used to come too. Bruce Anderson. But then Trump bought it and we haven't been back since. But I love Turnberry, not only for the golf, but the history. The RAF used it as a base during the Second World War and used the fairways as runways. And in some places you could still see the pavement. That's all gone.
That history has been wiped out. Anyway, I was at Turnberry once. We were in the clubhouse, and we were having our lunch after a round of golf. And at the far side of the room were a group of Americans who clearly had on their tour, their golf tour, Johnny Bench, the famous catcher from the Cincinnati Reds. And Johnny was sitting with them there and, you know, the celebrity in the room.
But these guys were jerks. They were loud. They were obscene. They were treating the staff in the room poorly. And Johnny Bench was clearly embarrassed. He kind of looked over at us at one point with a sort of, I can't believe this, But, you know, we could believe it, like many of you could, because you've seen this.
This is not to characterize all Americans abroad as being this way, because they aren't. But a surprising number are. So much so that this American magazine or newspaper, Huffington Post, has done a whole column on the rudest things Americans say while traveling abroad. It's by a writer by the name of Gillen Wilson.
And the sub-headline is, you don't need to say everything you're thinking out loud, whether you have thoughts on currency or cultural traditions. You should treat a visitor to another country as you would a visit to a friend's house, meaning you wouldn't spend time criticizing their cooking or traditions.
So here are a few things that constitute the rudest things people say when traveling abroad, and they're talking about Americans. Number one, the customer is always right. Something the writer says, I actually heard. I was in London last week. Somebody was arguing with the front desk of the hotel, and they were saying, well, the customer is always right.
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