Good morning Grid Connections listeners.
Today we are thrilled to have our returning guest, John McElroy from Auto
Line Network, Loren McDonald, the founder of EV Adoption and Matt Teske of
Chargeway, joining us for a mid -year check -in.
Earlier this year, John, Loren, Matt and I shared our predictions for the electric
vehicle industry in 2024.
Now it's time to see if those predictions are shaping up for the better or some of
us were off the mark.
And I'll give you a hint, I was off the mark.
We'll delve into everything from consumer perceptions of EVs to the automakers who
are leading the charge in areas where improvement is still needed.
Don't miss this insightful discussion with some of the industry's top experts.
And if you enjoy this episode, please share it with at least one other listener
who you think would appreciate it as well.
Don't forget to leave us a positive review on our podcast page too.
It really does help us engage with more enthusiasts and bring you the content that
you enjoy.
With that, enjoy.
it's probably still one of our most popular episodes was back in January where
we looked at kind of a take at the market and what we'd seen in 2023 and then gave a
forward looking statement or so we thought of 2024.
And
how our predictions have come true.
Maybe some changes we'd make on it and maybe what we're forecasting for the rest
of the year.
in case anyone hasn't seen that episode yet, you definitely need to watch it.
But I think I'm just going to let everyone do a real quick kind of brief about
themselves.
If people listening aren't familiar.
So John, I'm looking at you on the camera.
So why don't you kick it off first?
Sure thing, John McElroy.
Been covering the automotive industry as a journalist my entire career.
Goes back many, many decades.
But now is the best time ever.
This is the most exciting time in the industry.
Thank you.
Matt, how about you next?
Matt Teske and I'm the founder and CEO of Chargeway, been in the auto sector for
about 25 years and founded Chargeway officially about seven years ago to
simplify EV charging for everyone.
And so boy is that conversation becoming more relevant.
Very much so and Loren will let you be next.
Yeah, Loren McDonald CEO and founder of EV adoption.
We're an EV and EV charging data and analysis firm.
Unlike John and Matt, I don't have decades of background in the auto industry.
Obviously been following it for my entire life, but really just kind of joined in in
the EV industry about 10 years ago.
Well, 10 years is pretty good.
I actually just kind of going off everyone talking.
I had to write a bio recently, for an article I was writing and they're like,
how have you been dealing with electric vehicles?
And I realized I have been playing with electric vehicles for two decades now,
which, kind of blew my mind.
and then Loren, I think it's funny too, as you probably know, I've been talking to
Chris here and bend, and it's just kind of funny how not only have I been playing
with the V's, but we do also can have the.
software and tech background.
And then obviously John and Matt, we've both kind of, become friends and connected
through, work over the years as well.
So it's, it's a very, small world, but also one that just seems to be bringing a
lot of people, maybe let's just say automotive nerds together.
and so I'm excited to be talking about today.
Yeah.
anecdote just to prove that I'm not totally late to the market is I actually
applied in 1996 for a public relations position at US electric car based out here
in Sebastopol.
They didn't survive much longer and stuff like that, but I actually have the
postcard they sent me back thanking me for my application for the position.
So.
Well, you got me beat then.
I think I was in the seventh grade at the time.
So that is, but.
arm wrestle about that.
Yeah.
But that's cool that you go back that far in EVs.
That's impressive.
I mean, you were in early on.
I kind of blew my mind.
And I feel like Matt, you and I probably met at like a drive organ thing like a
decade ago.
And when I was thinking about that, you know, that was a few years ago, and then
COVID time and everything else.
And I started kind of doing the timeline that I've been doing this crap.
And I was like, my god, this is it's Yeah, it's a little scary.
things in my mind.
I'm like, yeah, you know, like a year or two ago, and then you sit back and go,
wait, there's two digits there.
That's not good.
Yeah, so.
but anyways, let's, let's get back to these predictions we had earlier in the
year.
I'll kick it off with mine.
I think, mine was that we were going to see for automakers and especially EVs to
be more competitive that they would start offering electric vehicles with more
range.
And maybe it's still a little early in the year.
I'm going to say that really hasn't come true.
it's been more looking at how to just make the cars cheaper, which is also a good
thing.
And just offering more models with LFP chemistry, which doesn't really surprise
me at all, but I was kind of hoping to see, maybe more vehicles can again, that
high 300 range is an option for a lot of cars in the market.
I know if you guys have any other thoughts or things you want to add to that.
know, look, Chase, it's obvious.
You know, you just mentioned it.
They're trying to bring the cost down while you put in a long range battery and
you just destroyed that effort.
Yeah.
I was just gonna say, no, agree with John.
I mean, there's that trade off, right?
Like Mary Barra will tell you hours on end that their customers want 300 or more
miles of range, right?
They have always seen that.
Mostly automakers look at that at sort of the inflection point.
So most of them have sort of checked that box, right?
And so then it's now it's like, well, the...
it's $55 ,000, $60 ,000 for our EV.
Okay, now we've got to work on the cost side and stuff.
And the reality is the people that still say they need 400 or 500 miles of range
ain't going to buy an EV for another 10 years, right?
So let's focus it on the people who say, I can drive my two kids to...
grammar school two blocks away in my SUV with 300 miles of range.
That'll work.
You know, it's like.
I got a question for you guys.
So the EV thing's not happening as fast as was expected, or regulations really were
trying to push.
Biden administration just backed off, said you can build a lot more hybrids,
especially PHABs.
So my question to you guys is, what do you think?
Is the American public going to go for PHABs or even EREPs?
Well, first of all, I don't like the differentiation between the irrev and p
-rev.
I think it's completely pointless.
Because functionally speaking,
mean, from an automaker standpoint, you get rid of the transmission, you get rid
of drive axles, you can, you take a lot of cost out.
That's true, but it's the use case on the consumer side for how they fundamentally
understand how to use it, right?
So no one understands the engineering.
But I think that...
Well, getting back to one thing, it's like unpacking two things.
One is, Chase, your comment about the range aspect of it.
I think there might be some that argue, okay, we've got 400 range trucks now, like
the Silverado or something.
It's like, well, yeah, if you cram 200 kilowatt hours of battery into something,
sure, you can get range, right?
I think that, Loren, to what you were just saying,
And kind of this whole conversation and to that point about the mix of what is the,
you know, the, the fueling option for these, for these models.
I think that the people that are looking for range of 300 or 400 or whatever it
might be, and how we feel like the OEMs have kind of achieved that at the end of
the day, it's not that they're seeking range, they're seeking peace of mind.
That's really what people want.
And so it's the mix of, do we do that on vehicle side or we do it on infrastructure
side and how's the blend of that work as we bring those things to market?
So John, to your question about, you know, what does that look like?
I think that.
Again, my two cents on the news that came out of q1 and into q2 of people that were
gravitating towards hybrids more so than electrics I think that we're seeing that
the public is understanding and appreciating the reality around fuel cost
Efficiency and they want that they're also to the point of cost of a puri V though
Like I can't afford 60 grand, but maybe a $30 ,000 hybrid sure so it's a combination
of factors I think for you're just kind of the psychology of it and how people are
appreciating where the efficiency aspect is going
As for the P have side of it and for plug -in hybrid electric vehicles, I don't
necessarily think that it's going to create.
We in the industry feel like those are lily pad vehicles, kind of like you get
your hybrid, you get your plug -in hybrid, you get your pure electric, right?
And I think that that's true, but the use case of a plug -in hybrid matters.
And we've already seen evidence of someone will lease a plug -in hybrid for $199 a
month and never plug it in because they leased it for $199 a month and just opted
to use gas.
So.
I think until people understand how to actually blend the use case of when they
charge compared to when they use gas and how it fits a lifestyle aspect, I feel
like we're going to see a lot of wasted engineering go unused.
Yeah, I would just add that, I'm still, and I think, I think I sort of went off on
Ford and GM and stuff last time, but, of why they just thought they could go from
ice to be EV with nothing in sort of between just sort of like, yeah, us, us
crazy granola eating people out in California will do that.
But you know, there's, there's this whole thing called the South and the Midwest and
the.
the planes and stuff where, you know, 80 % of them drive, you know, Ram Silverado and
F1 50s and towing boats and stuff like that.
And, you know, plug -in hybrids are the perfect mix for them.
Like the perfect solution for them until they're ready for, for B E V.
And then hybrids, obviously like, you know, people hate it when I say this, but
I've been seeing a lot of this now on LinkedIn is like,
every car should be a minimum a hybrid now, right?
Like, let's just like, you know, let's, let's go from 20 miles per gallon average,
or whatever it is, 2224, whatever it is to 35.
Like, let's just, like, if we want to actually solve the emissions problem, the
fastest way there is just like, no cars with under 20 miles per gallon, like every
car should have 3035, whatever it minimum, right?
Like, it doesn't and Matt will
Matt could talk about this for hours.
It requires zero human behavioral change, right?
And, you know, we're at 1 % of the 285 cars in the US on the road are fully
electric, right?
We're not going to transition this by, you know, the next five years to get everybody
to BEV.
We've got to do the, to use Matt's term, the lily pad approach.
We, you know, yeah, yeah.
I mean, instead of just going, damn, that guy in North Dakota is not going to buy a
BEV till 2035.
Let's get him out of his car truck that's only getting 14 miles per gallon and get
him a one that's got 25, right?
We've, we've almost cut 50 % of emissions, right?
By doing that, right.
And.
think to your point, I think one of the things that just the evidence that keeps
piling up in my opinion from how the auto sector has responded in a lot of these
moments is that they've been reactive.
I just don't get the sense that there is a lot of proactivity around what is the
evolution of their vehicle lineup truly look like to align with emissions focus
and how we translate that to use cases based on lifestyle.
I just feel like it's just been this reactionary like, wow, Tesla's a trillion
dollar company now X amount of years ago.
We got to do something to change people's perception of who we are as an entity to
then pump up our image or stock price or whatever it might look like.
It just never struck me that there was a kind of a, a measured moment where they
sat back and said, okay, how do we actually compete here while bringing what
we have been forward to get to where we want to go to compete with this new.
pure electric world.
And in that respect, and maybe that's what's we're seeing the result of that
now, is the you've got dealers saying, hey, these things are sitting, you know,
like we're, we got people coming about hybrids.
And it's that consumer psychology and how do you approach the market with the right
product mix.
And I to your point, it's like the fact that they just cut it off at the neck and
said, no, we're plugging hybrids.
We're just going from pure electric, pure gas, pure electric.
Yeah, there was there was some, I think some missteps there.
So
John, I don't know if you were at that event back in Detroit, one of the GM
events where Mary basically is about five years ago.
I think Mary basically said, we don't, GM doesn't do very well on the coast.
Like the majority of our market is in the middle of middle of the country, but the
Chevrolet Bolt is crushing it on the coast.
Right.
And so then what do they do?
Their strategy is.
let's just make EVs for the coast.
And like, you know, it's like, well, wait a minute, what if you actually had thought
then, and by the way, at the same time, they said, we're not going to make hybrids
or probably getting hybrids anymore.
Right.
When the middle of the country was the, you know, the quasi EV market for hybrids
and, you know, or the electrified market, which everybody hates that term, but, but
the, the electrified.
Yeah.
But.
But anyway, I just still don't understand some of the decisions that some of these
companies have made.
But end of rant.
now that that's a great rant.
And I think what's so funny is everything you guys have said, is so spot on and
jumps so far away from where we started with the prediction of the battery range.
So I'm just going to say my fart, my quick two cents on that.
And, yes, I, I, I think exactly what you guys are saying is the vast majority of
trips do not need that big a range.
I am in kind of a small percentage of a crazy EV person who will go 800 ,000 miles
a day.
And so unfortunately, but not surprising that hasn't come through.
However, we're starting to see maybe better charging peaks, better charging
curves to kind of get around that and address that and still kind of come at
that lower price point.
I think the big conversation, what's really interesting from everything you
guys just said was around the public perception and the understanding and the
education of the vehicle platforms.
And I just recently had a very.
I don't want to say eyeopening, but it was like kind of reaffirming and kind of it's
surprising that this hasn't changed more in the last few years.
I was at a recent dealership.
It was a smaller town, but it's off I five on the West coast.
So it is a, you would think it's one of the leaders and I went into a dealership.
I was interested about a certain, product from a company in Michigan that has a 150,
a two 50, let's just say of these different things.
And, I could not, I, the people, I actually was one of the best dealership
experiences I've ever had in my life from a, person, like they were super
personable, but the instant I showed any interest in electric thing, they're like,
you don't want to deal with that.
You got it.
And they were, they were trying to just give me the gas and deals one ASAP
because, because of the incentives and all this stuff, it just makes the sales
process so much more complicated for them.
And I think it's like, unless the person.
Is coming in specifically for a model to buy an EV, the sales and dealership model
still does not want to deal with it.
And it was kind of surprising and really interesting kind of light of the recent
news about Ford kind of pulling back what dealerships can and cannot sell EVs and
kind of like the different tier models around that.
But,
I think that's going to be calamitous.
I mean, you've got a dealer network that is frustrated by the fact that they just
kind of feel like they're getting yanked back and forth for, okay, if you want to
sell these things, you got to commit to X dollars and do XYZ.
nevermind.
Now everybody's just going to have open access to this thing.
So you've got dealers that are going to be contentious with that, again, that back
and forth.
But then to your point, Chase, you still have a buying public that is predominantly
walking in, still anticipating and hoping that the dealer can answer their questions
based on their curiosities and interests.
And you combine those two things and what will that add up to?
Not a lot of EV sales.
Unless someone walks in and says, I'm getting this car that's electric.
I mean, that's the type of person that will still walk away from that.
And there's a lack of appreciation about that from, I think, a lot of stakeholders
still.
do you remember what your prediction for this year was, Matt?
I'm sure it tried to sound smart, but what did I say?
summarize it, your prediction was that the hype train of EVs is derailing.
And it still kind of goes back to what you have said for years around just once
again, the disconnect in product and positioning of what the consumer wants and
needs for that.
Well, again, I feel like I'm always very repetitive when I get a chance to speak
about these topics, but I think that I feel like I'm just kind of like that, that
person who's been screaming a warning for like seven years, like this is going to
happen.
And so we're finally seeing some of that happen.
And I think that even the comment that Marybara made the other day about, you
know, GM's vehicle lineup will be dictated by customer demand.
And the moment that was uttered, I thought, there you go.
Like that's, that's a, that's an about face from the.
What was their tagline?
Everybody electric.
They, I got the Fleetwood Mac song that played in my head for like, I don't know
how many days on end because of how many times I saw that ad.
And it's, it's just so, it's so just disappointing because it is obvious that
it's, and I think Loren, your comment was like, I mean, I will say exactly what I
think you said was like, Mary, Mary, whichever way the wind is blowing today,
borrow.
And, and on the comment that I made on LinkedIn about it.
And I just said, yeah, that translation, what is she saying?
If people aren't walking into demanding cars around electricity, they're not going
to be pushing EVs that hard.
That's just the truth of it.
And that, so to your point, Chase, if that was my prediction about the hype train is
coming off the rails, I mean, yeah, I think that, and I think the thing that,
that I was trying to convey with that is that you can, the whole cliche, if you
don't get a second chance to make a first impression and we have, I think kind of
exhausted the goodwill of the public on the hype around the promise of EVs, not
like anybody did it explicitly, but the industry just kept.
really just going about like this is it, this is it and everything just kind of
glommed onto the hype, industry included that started making decisions around
product lineup that oops, they weren't comprehensive about it.
They're not doing this backtracking and it causes the public to just take pause and
say, well then what do we believe?
And you would go, you can't, you can't go away from that.
That's, that's a stink that you have to figure out how to clean off of you.
And you don't do that just by repeating the same stuff again.
So I think that that's what I was getting at with that prediction.
So I don't like the idea that I might've been somewhat right, but we have to clean
it up as an industry.
We've got to be more thoughtful around this.
No, for sure.
I think a big part of essentially what it kind of boils down to what you're saying
is these companies having a long, cohesive long -term strategy and plan for all of
their vehicles, whether it be electric or not, or as they say, electrified for the
others as well.
And I think it is interesting because a lot of the pro EV people just in general
lately have been saying, there's so many headlines about electric vehicle sales,
not being that gray.
Well, they are technically still growing and it's, it's not that we're talking
about that.
It's just that.
they're not growing as fast as they should be.
And with these kinds of missteps and not having a full cohesive plan, it does kind
of open up the door to longer term issues to really see that space take off.
Yeah, it's like put your hockey sticks away.
Like we have to be more thoughtful around that.
I will say, I mean, yeah.
you used an interesting word.
They're, they're not the EV sales are not growing as fast as they should be.
Right.
Like.
define the word should, right?
Like is it Matt's comment about the hockey stick?
Is it to save the planet from global warming or is it what?
That's actually something I wanted to ask you guys a little.
U .S.
market would likely allow.
You know, no, exactly.
So to go on a little bit of a, I guess to, to derail the conversation a bit, but, I
don't know now I'm, now I'm just thinking train analogies, all the rest of this
conversation, unfortunately, but, your, what you're talking about is really spot
on about how this kind of perception and positioning in the market of electric
vehicles has changed.
Like you think back to the Nissan Leaf, I don't think it was a great campaign, but
like when they first launched, they showed like polar bears.
And I know you've even talked about this a bit, Sean.
On, auto line about like, the environment stuff, which I think people like it as a
perk, but it's not really a selling feature.
And now like you look at Rivian, just refreshed a lot of their vehicles.
What did they sell?
They sold nothing about its environmental credibility.
If anything, maybe it's not because it is such a big truck, but they sold the hell
out of performance and the positioning of that and the positioning of lifestyle.
And I think that's kind of been where a lot of the startups or kind of traditional
startups have succeeded was.
Say yes, it can do that, but position the advantages of coming on electric platform
first.
And then some of these more traditional like legacy auto idioms, going back to
exactly what you're talking about, like, stock values for those companies is
skyrocketing.
Let's get on that.
And then kind of just, I wouldn't say throw something against the wall and see
what sticks, but they're, they're just didn't seem to be a very pragmatic or
multifaceted solution to kind of moving the battleship of these companies.
Well, there's a lot to unpack with that.
I think the comment I made recently about how the US EV auto market has started to
kind of feel, it's akin to a moment in the high school classroom where the smart kid
was going to pass the test and everyone else copied off the smart kid to pass the
test.
And then when it came time to apply your knowledge about actually using that
knowledge in the real world, well, the people that copied didn't get that far.
Whereas the smart kid kept going.
I mean, this is a, again, the analogy Tesla, everyone else kind of thing.
we can also argue how that feels around where Tesla's at too, and how they're
derailing in some ways, I think in the ED conversation.
But I think that there's, there's so much to point to that.
To point about pragmatism and like it just, there was not a, to me, there was
not a sense of kind of a humility around like, we don't do this yet.
We really have to figure out how to do it.
But then how many times are decisions made in American business and in capitalism
that are purely based around, we're a business.
Like how do we maintain relevance from a financial perspective to show like to show
that we're competitive?
And how often is that thought of in short term cycles?
The answer is quite often, really.
It's the bang for the buck type thing.
sure.
But John, I want to hear your perspective because you are in the heart of Michigan.
It's just a bunch of us West coast, elites just kind of blathering and saying
perspective.
What's, what's, what's the truth?
You're in the heart of the.
Yeah.
Last year, Americans bought 1 .1 million electric vehicles.
When you tell the anti -EV people that, they're stunned, because they're running
around saying, nobody wants them.
And then I tell them, well, 1 .1 million Americans bought them last year.
That's not chopped liver.
And this year, the...
the prognosticators that I'm talking to, the forecasters, see EV sales coming in
around 1 .6 million.
That's pretty healthy growth.
In fact, that's far better than any other thing.
Pardon?
No, we're not.
We're not.
In fact, they expect a very strong second half.
Look, GM's coming out with what, four or five models?
Honda's accurate just getting into the market.
You know, Rivian just re -fronted.
You know, there's gonna be a backloaded.
second half to the year, Stellantis is coming in with a bunch of stuff.
So that's how they think we're probably going to end up at 10 % market share.
They think the SAR is going to be 1 .6 million.
So that's how you get to your 1 .6 million EVs.
That's pretty healthy growth that they're forecasting next year, it'll go to two and
a half million.
So I mean, it's like the growth is going to come.
Now, having said that, pardon?
Nobody wants him, though.
yeah, nobody wants them.
Right.
Well, that's going to change.
You guys know, as we get second gen platform, second gen batteries, more and
more and more public charging, you know, give it three years.
That's when I think things are really starting to take off.
But let's backtrack to right now today.
One point six million, I'm guessing in the US that's what's at 60 percent of that's
Tesla.
Right.
So that means everybody else is everybody else is.
fighting over roughly half the market, maybe a little over half the market.
And so you got at what, like seven, eight major manufacturers vying for that.
And if you start breaking it down into segments of the market and you take like
two row crossovers, biggest segment, the hottest thing out there, and you look at
its potential market share this year, it's like 250 ,000 units.
So you got Tesla and everybody else fighting over 250 ,000 units and nobody
can make money in the segment.
So there's the problem is that, you know, remember this whole push to EV, it's not
driven by business, it's driven by government regulation.
Thou shalt reach, you know, what the EPA wanted was 67 % of new car sales in 2032
being EVs.
And it's just not gonna happen.
I mean, the...
The public's not ready for it.
They're not there yet.
So that's the dilemma that the industry is in right now.
And this is, by the way, too, why the Biden administration just backed off and
allowed a lot more hybrids to be sold between now and 2032.
But that's the big struggle in the industry.
They invested a couple of years ago when it looked like EV sales were going to
explode.
They thought we're going to fast track right behind Tesla and we'll be on their
coattails.
And as the market expands, we'll...
will be great.
Well, the market didn't expand, but they invested for that expansion.
So that's their big problem right now.
They've over invested for what the actual demand is, and they're losing their shirt
on it.
You know, Ford's the only one that publishes the numbers, and everybody jumps
on Ford's back, but I guarantee you they're all losing.
chase a deer.
those 200 kilowatt hour Silverados.
Yeah.
Just, I just wanted to follow up on something that John said that I think is
really important.
And I don't know if I use this analogy on the, on the last one, but I used it at a
couple of conferences and things like that.
And the, you know, part of what John's talking about is, you know, a couple of
years ago, the, the EV sales, what I call the EV sales pizza pie, let's say it was a
12 inch pizza, right?
And you sliced it up by like, you know, 40 slices, right?
With Tesla getting, you know, 60, 70 % of that.
Well, roll forward now, there's like 90 slices of pizza, right?
And the pizzas, yeah, it grew.
It's now an 18 inch pizza, right?
But if you're, you know, Audi and, you know, four years ago, you had in a
segment, you had two or three other competitors.
Well, now you have eight other competitors in that same segment.
So, you know, but the segment isn't growing six X or four X or whatever.
It's growing two X or something like that.
Right.
So to John's point, I think it's a really important point.
Like the market is growing, but we have twice as many EV models.
And so when you break it down at the model or segment level, like it's, it's hard for
anybody to have significant growth, right.
Because there's just so many more consumer options.
What's that Matt?
differentiation that we're identifying here?
It's a great point, Loren, because what it really identifies is we're getting back to
that brass tacks approach for each brand of what's the cache of their brand, their
design, their methodologies behind why you would want to gravitate to that model
vehicle, right?
It's kind of traditional automotive marketing in that respect, because we're
all kind of seeing it sort of get vanilla around.
what we're seeing as an offering and then spreading things out a lot.
And so I think to me, kind of high level, it's like, what are the three factors?
It's like, well, we've got horrendous interest rates still, for the most part.
We have a lack of ability for people to get into a vehicle that might be electric,
that's even remotely cost, you know, like at a cost level where it's like, this is
practical because you take $60 ,000 and you try to, you know, finance that over
six, five, six, seven years at seven, eight percent.
That's a nightmare.
You know, so that's why again, we're hearing artists saying that the, you know,
okay, use the V markets getting a little bit more attention now because people that
might be attracted to it, they're saying, well, okay, I'll buy something that was on
a three year lease.
That's three years old, but I can get into that for 30 K or something.
I think that's great to see, but I think it's indicative of what people are saying,
saying to the market, which is, okay, yeah, we do want electric cars, but we
don't want $60 ,000 ones.
We want $25 ,000 ones.
And also, but they, they can't buy, you know, fight the interest rates.
And then the last element being, I just always come back to it is.
Why would the general public rush in to buy cars that run on fuel they don't
understand?
Because if that's the true differentiator for the user experience, interest rate,
cost, and peace of mind, there you go.
And we just don't have a good puzzle for that right now, aside maybe outside of, I
mean, Tesla still has it, I think, in a way, but Elon is finding ways to just kind
of throw an M80 into that toilet.
So.
Well, I think, well, yeah, that's a whole nother, that could be another podcast,
but, I think kind of going back to your analogy real quick, Loren though, about
the pizza got slightly bigger by instead of feeding 10 people, you're feeding a
small community center or something.
The, the difference also is I think with this evolution to electric vehicles, there
is, and also kind of ties in Matt's comment about kind of like copying other
people's homework is, is the fact that.
So many of these companies are going to like the kind of the clean sheet electric
vehicle design.
And when you do the skateboard design, sure, you get great lower center of
gravity.
But in a lot of ways, like, especially if you're like a traditional brand, like
Porsche or Audi, you start looking at some of their electric vehicle products.
And not only are you kind of confined to a more specific body style that you're
working with, well, you're sharing that platform with.
Audi you're sharing with all these.
So not only are you fighting against your own like group, the, the ability for
different, differentiation is now, I think in a lot of ways, a lot harder to do with
the electric vehicle technology and to like make a really sporty EV.
And like one of the big things Porsche said was like, well we put our, we use the
same motor as Audi.
Sure.
But we put it behind the axle.
So now it's more like a Porsche and like, yeah, maybe, but I don't.
PR talking point at some point.
Wow.
and so I think that's like just another example of like yeah, Porsche could use
like yeah We've got our boxer six in the bag.
You know what we do.
Audi's got their Inline five there's like a lot more differentiation, but that I
think that's just been a challenge I think for the last decade and a half is the
obviously the badge engineering but also now going into the electric realm where
it's new for everyone, but they also have to share components and then
a lot of ways, the starting point doesn't allow for, I mean, the Porsche good or bad
kind of went with the two, geared transmission, for example.
And that's kind of been a thing.
Like trying to differentiate doesn't really reward in the same ways that it has
traditionally for, I think a lot of these brands versus like a big thing, especially
when you look at the international markets domestic and domestically and
generationally, like the software level is kind of like how the person lives with the
vehicle day to day.
There's just so many of these different variables that have really made it so much
harder to like stand out and.
I, I would say like, nobody cares about anything that you just talked about.
Like no average consumer car geeks care about that stuff, but you know what people
care about?
The key V key, Kea, EV nine.
It's a three row SUV that, that looks different.
Awesome.
And nobody cares that it's electric.
I'll say it looks different.
I'll give you that.
Yeah.
But I get what you're saying.
yeah, what are they shopping for?
Yeah.
electric Tahoe?
You know, like, right?
Like...
this is exactly what I'm talking about though.
Kia doesn't really have to have this in fighting.
Like sure, they've got the high -end and a little bit of the Genesis thing, but
they've gone all in on EVs and they've actually figured a pretty good strategy of
how to differentiate.
Whereas like Audi shares stuff with, and then like even looking at GM, they've even
struggled between like, how do you differentiate the Silverado and the
Denali?
There's just, I think that example you're talking about from what is important to
the end user from a product standpoint is spot on.
The actual backside of it doesn't make, doesn't really matter to the end consumer,
but the actual manufacturers have struggled to even get to the point to
clearly build a product in their own, having their own freedom to build that
product, to get to the consumer that really has that appeal like the EV nine or
a few others do.
And I know I don't like the looks of it, but it's like spot on the market for what
the market wants.
I mean, out, out here where I am in the, San Francisco Bay area suburbs.
I mean, I am seeing like the Rivian R1S everywhere now and the key of it.
Like it's like, well, hello, that's what, you know, soccer moms drive in the
suburbs, three row SUVs.
And so guess what they're, they're buying.
My point is, is nobody cares about two speed transmissions or like any of that
stuff.
Like.
Like I have a, my best buddy has done very well in his career, three IPOs, et cetera.
He could buy any car he wanted.
A couple months ago, he goes, wow, that Kia EV9, like, you know, this is a guy
that, you know, drives, you know, Land Rovers and Porsches and stuff like that.
And he was like totally stoked by it because he...
He always has a big SUV like never in a, in my life would I've expected him to
utter the three letters of K I a right.
And, and if you want.
this, this, I told, once again, I think we're in agreement.
We're just talking about from two different perspectives and what Kia like,
like I said, I don't like the looks of the Kia, but it's like outside of what Tesla
do with the Cybertruck, Kia's kind of, Kia and Hyundai have been the only brands like
making really kind of radical looking cars that not only stand out to the consumer,
but they stand out and then also deliver like in the market, what people want, like
going straight to the EV nine and having a big SUV.
What I hear you saying, Chase, is that the way that auto brands have differentiated
themselves over the years and effectively, through the engineering set the stage for
who they were as a brand, we have, through electrification, there's a great deal of
complexity that goes on with mechanical engineering.
Think about the different pathways you can take, how you design an engine.
It can be naturally aspirated, it can be supercharged, it can be turboed, it could
be all the...
It could be...
What is the displacement of it?
Is it rotary?
Is, I mean, just, there's this very interesting and very complex catalog of
how automakers have taken mechanical engineering and differentiated themselves
and leveraged oil and gas to make that possible.
And then they've applied that to their branding.
And then to your point about design language and what is, what does a brand
represent at the aesthetic side of it?
It's been a very complex blend of product development for a very long time that has
created a.
to in my opinion an emotional product that people buy into and it becomes a part of
their identity and through electrification we have removed as we talk about so often
a great deal of that complexity and wow the maintenance is reduced by so much but
then these engineers and these auto brands are saying yeah, yeah, that's that's true.
That's great.
So What are we now?
Because now we're all sourcing prismatic cells or cylindrical cells from Panasonic
or
or whoever it might be, okay, fine, we have an electric motor.
What's the differentiation of that?
Well, it's a rotor and a stator and ours is behind the axle.
100 % on, like, it's one thing for Chevy to say, yeah, we got a big block V8.
Well, how do you sell prismatic cells with a permanent magnet motor?
Right.
Yeah.
but the gear heads are like, I mean, V8 sounds fun to some people.
It's got a hemi.
I mean, like however you want to go about it is, you know, it's been fun for years,
but to Loren's point, it's like, it just, it kind of just goes in one ear and out
the other for some people because then they buy it for that.
Yeah.
But, but it's still been a marketing talking point.
Yeah.
like myself, we care about that stuff.
But the vast majority of Americans really don't even know what displacement engine
they have.
They have no clue what transmission they have.
Some people don't even know if they have front -driver, rear -drive.
So that's the reality.
So what...
people think Teslas are hybrids.
So it's like, yeah.
Right.
hugely important.
Increasingly now, the whole user interface, how easy it, you know, can you
bring your digital world seamlessly into your car with you?
How does it work with you?
And how complicated or how simple is it?
That's far more meaningful to people today.
So yeah, you know, the days of, you know, big block V8s thundering down Woodward
Avenue, that doesn't resonate with the public anymore.
And in reality, it never did for the mass market in terms of what they were buying.
So there's huge opportunity with electric cars.
And Tesla is the prime example of that.
It came blown into the market, flattened a good chunk of the luxury market in a
totally new and different way.
And it's up to the legacies now to figure out how to do the same thing.
Well, and John, to that point, what they have to figure out is they're reimagining
the core competency and the heritage of what their brands have been, not being
mechanical engineering, not being around the big loud, that's the thing too, is
even the sensory experience of the brand that they've built for a century.
We are taking away the sound, we are taking away the feel of a rumble.
I mean, there are things that we hear this all the time, the smell.
Right?
No.
so like, that's, that's why I'm talking about that's that, but that, that's why it
works so well for them is like, this is kind of a clean sheet to position us.
And now we can deliver what the market wants.
Whereas if you're out, you're like, well, how do we make this kind of like sexy
German, European, sporty electric thing, and then compete against the other
Germans.
But.
Loren, you were bringing it up.
I mean, Hyundai, Kia, Genesis, they're rocking it.
I mean, if you had told me pre -COVID that in five years, people would be paying $60
,000 for a Kia, I would have laughed at you.
You don't know what you're talking about.
And they have been brilliant, Kia and Hyundai, at going, hey, here's our
opportunity.
Toyota's dragging its feet.
Honda's trying to figure out what to do.
Nissan, they tried.
They're not even in the picture.
Here's our chance, because those are the people who cross shop our cars.
It's not the Detroit three, it's the Japanese who cross shop to an extent,
maybe Volkswagen.
So they took the bull by the horns and they've run with it.
I don't think they're making any money on it, but man, have they changed people's
perceptions of their brand.
And now they're perceived as one of the leaders in electrification, at least
amongst the legacies.
No, John, I think you just captured the brand perception that they captured of
being of an innovative brand and being a part of the future of transportation.
I think the thing you point out to John, that's so fundamental on the software side
is at the end of the day, because of the simplification of the drivetrain, and if
you can have a high voltage battery pack that just is reliable, software is going
to be the key for all of these companies moving forward.
And, but even for Kia Hyundai, that's not where they've really been shining.
It's really been about design language, doing something retro or fun and really
establishing that they are by image an innovative EV company.
that's generally fair, Matt, but I would also say their user interface is one of
the best in the business.
I mean, something as simple as pairing the phone.
I mean, it's...
some.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that there's still gaps of just some of the basic functionalities of
like, again, Tesla, Rivian.
I think that if you look, if you go and use the interface of those two vehicles
and then you go and use a Kia Hyundai, you see the vast gaps in my opinion.
Yeah.
agree because...
wait for it to take three seconds for it to go to the next screen.
And that's where you're just like, okay, yeah.
Right.
the legacy automakers are not, they're trying to learn how and they're struggling
with it.
I mean, really, you know, Cariad blew up in, in Volkswagen's face.
Mary Bar was just out on the West coast opening a new software, you know, center
in Silicon Valley because they've recognized, we got to go to the Valley if
we're really going to be able to compete here.
Yeah.
you know, Ford's doing a skunkworks program out there too.
But that's their struggle is they've got this big legacy industrial machine that so
many people's and communities lives depend upon.
And they've got to figure out how to build up a new company within at the same time
and don't mix the two because the big industrial machine will smother anything
that comes in new if it's allowed to, you know, work together.
So they got to keep it separate.
It's a huge mess.
It's going to be a mess for the rest of the decade, and it's all a race to see who
screws up the least.
So John, do you, well, I was going to say, John, do you remember what your prediction
for 2024 was originally?
I mean, we kind of went down a rabbit hole, but we had been talking about sales,
of EVs really.
And your prediction was you didn't think that the $7 ,500 point of sale would
really make a big difference or move the needle in selling EVs.
And to be honest, we've brought up incentives a little bit, but we haven't
really talked about that as like,
What is impacting or making a difference one way or the other?
Sure.
It's price, but I'm kind of curious if you still agree with that or I kind of think
it just helps with the price argument, but I don't think it's.
Yeah.
But, you know,
It's not like, yes, I'm going to do it because of $7 ,500.
don't think it's moved the needle, but here's again, to why on my show, Autoline
After Hours, we just had an executive from JD Power, and she dropped a bombshell, I
thought.
40 % of the new car buying public in the United States has no clue of the $7 ,500
rebate for EVs.
Don't even know about it.
And she's like, you want to sell EVs?
Tell the public $7 ,500.
I mean, it should be front and center.
Instead of saying, you know, save the planet or zero emissions or long range or
whatever it happens to be, you know, let the public know there's money out there.
And by the way, there's of course the OEMs wouldn't do much about used, but nobody
knows about that.
What is it?
Forty five hundred dollars, four thousand bucks.
If you buy a used TV, nobody knows about that.
Well, but they pulled the rug out from under the success that that $7 ,500 tax
credit had been by how they applied it to battery production, mineral procurement.
I think that the best of intentions by policymakers to say we're incentivizing
job creation and innovation in industry domestically.
That's the goal of this.
But I think they needed to stage that.
And we've already seen them backtrack on it, Loren, right?
I mean, they've actually said like,
All right, we're taking a step back on when were the dates on this so we can
bring some more EVs back into that 7 ,500 fold because it went from like 45, 50
vehicles to like 13.
And it's like, well, that's part of why people stopped giving a damn about that.
So.
And I think, I think that's like the, the flaw and to connect what you said with
what John said is like, there was good intent for the redesign of the tax credit,
but it turned into trade policy, anti -China policy, not how do we get more EVs
in the hands of American consumers?
They confluentated the two and therefore, like you said, it went from 80 EVs could
qualify for some level of the tax credit.
I needed an XL.
you know, a file to figure out what it was, but it, but, but, but yeah, but now
it's like, okay, it's there's, there's like 10 of them that qualify.
Like, so I think everybody, like, I always say this, Matt, you know, this, that, that
in the face of complexity, consumers choose simplicity and you know, like this
got so complex that it's just going to screw it.
I'm going to buy a Toyota Camry hybrid.
You know, it's like,
said earlier, it's like they're going in and asking these questions and like you
experienced with that one dealership where the moment it came to talking about any of
this stuff, they're like, we don't even want to bring it up, man.
Like just buy that thing that runs on gasoline.
I will get my commission.
You'll get a vehicle that takes you down the road, you know, and that keys right to
what Lawrence is saying.
It's like, yeah, a path of least resistance without a doubt.
Yeah, I think.
our predictions were fairly good.
Well, I think Loren might've been the most spot on.
Do you remember what yours was, Loren?
I don't really, but I think I said something like that.
I thought EV sales were going to continue to grow at a fairly strong level, but
obviously less than previous years.
I don't know.
Something like that, maybe.
You should phone a friend.
That was incorrect.
Now, you actually had two that were pretty spot on.
You said that we will see a return of plug -in hybrids, which we've kind of already
talked about quite a bit.
And then you said 2024 is going to be an ugly year in the EV charging space.
yeah, yeah, that.
all coming back.
Yes.
I was, I would like to say I was right on both of those.
Yeah.
I think you were extremely right on both of those.
As kind of the guy who is the one that always tracks the Nevi funding and that
whole space, I think probably better than anyone else out there.
Are there any other kind of interesting trends you've been seeing with kind of the
rollout of more EV chargers because of some of this fallout?
Yeah, I mean, you know, kind of in no particular order.
I mean, I think one of the trends we've seen is a shift in who the site hosts are
and like the whole business model for the fast charging industry.
So more than 50 % of the site host winners, they're not necessarily the
applicant.
Sometimes they are.
Are the, you know,
the sheets, the wah -wahs, the circle Ks, the travel centers of America, the pilot,
the loves, et cetera.
Why?
Because they check all of the boxes that the states are looking for.
Safe, well -lit amenities, bathroom, wifi, food, et cetera.
And so at one level, the fast charging industry,
You know, sort of started out as what I call the grant and incentives business.
There is no business model there.
It's let's go out and get money from the state, from the air resources board, from
utilities.
we'll build these things with this other money and then cross our fingers in four
or five years.
There's enough people are driving EVs that will break even.
Right.
And then, you know, and, and, you know,
that hasn't worked so well for everybody.
We're starting to see utilization is actually really starting to get solid now.
But I think the sort of the real shift, the inflection point we started to see
this year is that all of the major oil companies slash convenience store, travel
center chains woke up and go, went, my God, we're like.
perfect for the future of this transition.
People are going to sit for 20, 30 minutes at our place.
They're going to walk inside and spend $15, $20 on food and beverages.
Right?
Like, how do we get some of this money?
Let's do this.
Right?
So I think there's a shift in fundamentally it's the same transition
that happened with gas stations.
Right?
Like, you know, John and I are old enough to know this, but you know, like,
30, 40 years ago, they were gas stations with service bays, right?
And now, so it was fascinating.
I've learned a lot about a Midwest convenience store chain called Quick Trip.
35 % of their revenue is now from food.
food, right?
Like they're a supermarket with 12 gas pumps out front.
Like they've completely flipped.
And so I think that's like the kind of this year, that's been one of the things
that I think we all saw was coming, but it's actually starting to happen.
Like all these companies have jumped on board.
The second part, Chase, really what you sort of referred to is...
Too many companies, just like what John was talking about in sort of the
automotive EV space, too many hardware companies have entered the fast charging
space.
I mean, I have clients that I can't mention that are from Asia and stuff that
are planning major attacks on the US, you know, that was wrong term to use, that are
planning to enter the US market next year, right?
Like we already have...
many fast charging hardware companies, but they're just coming in droves, right?
And so there's certain companies, I won't mention their name, but like, they were
just too expensive, right?
And so it's gotten much more difficult and much more competitive in the fast charging
hardware space in particular, right?
And so, yeah, and so we're seeing some fallout from that.
and, yeah, it's, it's going to continue to be ugly, but then we also have like just
dozens and dozens of new entrance into the charging network space.
and, you know, and we're seeing new companies like Rov, if you've heard of
them out of Southern California, that's building like a, a four court, they call
them in Europe, but basically it's a store with solar canopies and 40 bays and.
you know, you're, you're going there for, to go inside the store, right.
While your car sits out front, right?
So we're going to see a lot of innovation.
and if those companies do that, right, then people aren't going to want to stop
at the fast chargers that are located out by the garbage cans, you know, be behind
a, you know, McDonald's restaurant down off of I, I five, right.
They're going to want to go to a much better environment.
So we're, we're.
We're in the midst of a kind of significant shift in business models,
players, competitiveness.
I know that was a lot, but yeah, there's a lot going on in the space.
Yeah, it definitely seems like what we've the charging spaces struggled with was
like getting the right land and making sure they get the permitting and all this
stuff set up just even get the thing built like a couple of years ago and it still
is, but especially then, and then it became reliability.
And now you have like the electrify Americas who don't even make their own
hardware.
They buy the hardware.
They have to do all of this kind of finagling behind the scenes to find a
place to do this.
And yeah, now you have.
the kind of the gas state, large gas station, C stores come in that they know
how to do permitting.
They have the land, they have all this.
they'll just take some free money if they can, and then just have the people come
and buy the stuff they're already buying.
They don't really care if it's gas or electricity.
They're not really making money in either of those.
And I think then what's really interesting too, is like, when you actually look at
the EV charging hardware space, it kind of reminds me of like the PC market, like a
decade and a half ago, where it was just like battle of.
Who has the most widgets?
And then in the end, it just became like the Asian markets just flooded it with
price for what could kind of come in and deliver the same value because it really
didn't matter as long as it worked.
Who did what better and who had maybe a slightly different better charging screen
because so much of it has also become a software level too that just kind of
becomes the end consumer doesn't care.
They just want the best price.
Well, if they can't differentiate for functionality, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I realized we were kind of coming up on the end of our time here and I feel
like that's probably maybe that's a bit of a sour point to get on.
But, I, yeah, I don't know if there's any positive out, real quickly.
If I, if anyone on here has any kind of positive outlooks about the EV space, or
EV charting space that they've seen recently.
I, I, go Loren.
some positive news is Tesla's rehiring some of the people that they laid off.
Sorry, slow golf clap on that one.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was, that wasn't that a fun month.
I mean, it felt like it just overtook every like moment of talking around what's
going on in this space and, and, you know, and the collective gasp of the industry
had, I mean, it's good.
That's good to hear.
I just don't like the idea that, you know, we had a lot of people.
good.
what's really interesting is that news masked so much other like bad EV charging
news, it's cause Tesla gets headlines and then there's like, well, yeah.
And then XYZ charging company laid off 3000 people.
It's like, there were so many other like, yeah, exactly.
So many other things like, well, if they're announcing that's getting all the
headlines, let's say our bad news, like free wire, we're going for bankruptcy kind
of, and it was just like stuff like that.
And, I, I don't know.
I.
It definitely didn't look good, but my take is like, whenever you look at Tesla,
it's always like, what's there's some short -term craziness.
Like, what was it last year?
They laid off all their salespeople and then they still sold a bunch of cars.
it always seems like there's these super erratic decisions, good or bad that gets a
lot of headlines.
And then you kind of look at the long -term output of their success.
And it kind of just seems to kind of all go away.
I was kind of what, what's really funny to me.
And I don't know.
I'd be kind of curious maybe on the, on your thoughts, Loren, about this.
is when I first heard this, it reminded me of so many things I've heard happen
previously, in the tech industry.
Like I have heard so many times where like, like someone gets annoyed by a team
and they just let the whole team go.
Like Steve jobs was famous for like letting the original version of iCloud
team just go cause he didn't like the product.
and I think it just got so well, and I'm not even talking about iCloud.
I'm talking about like the me .com thing way back in the day, like,
yeah.
Yeah.
and so to me, it is just really interesting that I feel it, I guess I was
trying to be positive and now it's just being negative, but it is, kind of weird
how it, there isn't a good, all this really short -term, like small kind of
things.
And yeah, it's not great that he fired all those people and like hired half of them
back in the next week anyway, but it's like, it just,
kind of feeds in unfortunately to so much of the media narrative and kind of a lot
of the headlines that people are seeing versus like the actual facts and kind of
looking at it from like a longer term thing.
And I don't know, John, you're smiling.
So I guess maybe that maybe nothing's new.
It just, it's me venting.
Yeah.
about them?
So here's one thing that I noticed that I thought was important.
US EB sales not growing that fast this year.
We talked about maybe second half being different, but that's mainly because, and
this is based on registrations, because Tesla does not report sales in the United
States, but based on that, the large...
largely the slowdown has been with Tesla.
And if you take it out of the equation and look at the other legacies, EV sales grew
75%.
So I think that's extremely positive.
And if Tesla gets its act together, things will be pretty good.
Well, that's a great point.
And the one comment I made when all this news came about about the supercharger
team and everything else, the one element that I think is, and I've shared this idea
on LinkedIn, is Elon is becoming a genuine net negative for the Tesla brand.
And I don't know how in the long term they're going to contend with that, but
you can just, you see it on social media and owners groups all the time that did
not buy Teslas.
And you will even hear people say, I went in test drove a Model Y and whatever
vehicle they ended up buying.
And they will even say,
I actually liked a lot of the features of the Tesla, but I was not going to give
money to Elon.
And it's like, well, that's OK, Tesla, board of directors, you get to contend
with that.
I think from a positivity perspective, I just came from a week or two ago being at
the Electrify Expo event in Long Beach.
And again, they have eight events nationwide.
And they've been growing that event series.
It's a public festival to come and test drive EVs.
It's the biggest event they've ever had.
And they've had, that's the fourth year they've now had it in, in California,
Southern California.
And it keeps growing.
So there's, I think there's, to John's point, there's continued, there's, there's
positive things happening outside the realm of Tesla.
And I think that, and there's evidence all around us.
I think the reason why we oftentimes keep coming back to this is kind of like, John,
we're talking about this a little bit before we started talking, it's just this
kind of ebb and flow of just kind of like, yay, that's positive, negative.
And I, and I, we can't change it overnight, but we don't.
Oftentimes, whatever the media topic is, we don't have a measured response to those
moments and to the talking points and to the discussions.
It's oftentimes what's going to get the clicks and how can we...
John Stewart said years ago at one of the events he held was at the Rally to Restore
Sanity.
He said, if we amplify everything, we hear nothing.
And that quote has stuck with me for so long because we live that seemingly every
day in the ED world.
because everything gets this whaah amplification and it just does distract us
from again positive news, progress, things that are going in the right direction.
It's a muddy process we're getting through but if you really look at the last 10
years and you take a step back and take a breath, wow what has been accomplished.
It is very impressive, it's not perfect but we've made a lot of progress and
things just are going in the right direction.
It's just gonna require more hard work.
Yeah.
And Jace, I would just close with kind of an exclamation point on something that
John said actually sort of earlier, which is, you know, we're sort of backloaded for
this year.
And I think there's a little bit of a kind of the quasi -Osborne effect, right?
In that, you know, we had this rush of new models a couple of years ago.
And then, you know, we haven't had a lot of new exciting models.
you know, kind of for mainstream consumers come to market.
But now this year, you know, like we've got the, the EV nine, we've got the, the
Volvo, X 30, the 90, we've got the Chevrolet blazer equinox.
Like we've, we, we actually have, a whole bunch of new products to get the market
excited again.
I think, God.
yeah.
that vehicle will be in production for, I don't know, if in three years time it's
still being produced.
I think it might be very shocking.
I just, I think I...
Really?
for us.
That's well, and here's what really hot take.
I think it still looks better than an EV nine, but, here it's here to me though.
It's like people who don't care about cars think it's sweet.
People who are like, yeah.
Yeah.
But I happened to be at a local state park where I was mountain biking.
And there's a playground there with a bunch of little kids.
And a Cybertruck drove in.
I mean, there's all kinds of trucks and SUVs and blah, blah.
Cybertruck drove in park.
It emptied the children's playground.
They went to that thing like moths to a light bulb.
It was a, and one little boy going around, my God, it's so beautiful.
And that, to me, was stunning.
I mean, that truck has broken through for a very young generation.
It's the like, it's like the eighties, Kuntach for like this generation.
They think it's such a cool, weird, angular thing.
and then you just talk to like regular car people and they like that.
It just doesn't look like anything else on the road.
They're like, yeah, I, I don't know.
I, I, I, yeah.
Right.
That's fair.
Yeah, that's fair.
then they can't because there is a very very low ceiling to people that are
willing to pay $120 ,000 that truck and also the performance aspects of it It just
isn't what it was promised to be right 500 miles of range all this stuff They have to
either deliver on those promises for what that high -priced model is gonna be
because there's only a small amount of early adopters who want the aesthetic of
it and
to also just kind of turn a blind eye to, it didn't ship with autopilot.
I mean, like there are some elements about it they were just damning to me.
Yeah.
that's cause we know it.
We're car people.
We understand that they don't care.
Yeah.
They just, they think it's cool that it looks wild and it's electric.
They're like, this thing's game over.
But on that, I think this is a good place as any to end it.
Thank you so much everyone for joining us today.
for anyone listening, we will have everyone's contact info and more in the
show notes, but.
With that, John, Loren Matt, thank you so much for being on again.
Really fun to kind of recap these predictions and looking forward to
speaking with all of you soon again.
Thanks you guys.
a lot.
Take
Thank you for joining us for this insightful mid -year check -in on the Grid
Connections podcast.
Special thanks to our returning guests, John McElroy from Autoline Network, Lauren
McDonald of EV Adoption, and Matt Teske of Chargeway.
Really appreciate all of them swinging by to share their expert perspectives on the
always evolving EV landscape.
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