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Good morning.

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Grid connections listeners.

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I'm your host chase.

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And today we're bringing you an all star panel featuring Steve Birkett founder of plug and
play.

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He's the king of all things.

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Neve and EV charging along with Walter Schulze the data-driven mind behind the network
architect channel on YouTube.

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And last but not least Eric Way.

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He's the experienced EV road tripper and voice of the News Coloumb channel together.

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We'll dive into the trends of 2024 and how they're shaping the EV industry.

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charging infrastructure and the future of mobility.

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This isn't just about what's happening now.

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It's a blueprint for what's coming in 2025 from the latest in DC fast charging reliability
to current EV models.

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Our guests share unparalleled insights around what is happening in the space today.

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Plus we impact the big wins, surprising challenges and the current state of electric
transportation.

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So what's in store?

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Well, how about how fast charging hubs and streamlined plug and charge tech are redefining
the road trip experience?

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The rise of vertically integrated networks like electric era and their game changing
impact on DC fast charging for EV drivers, along with what automakers and EV buyers can

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expect as federal incentive shift and private investment skyrockets.

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This is an episode packed with interesting takeaways and eye-opening perspectives that you
won't want to miss.

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Love what you hear?

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Well, share this episode with someone who's passionate about the future of electric
vehicles as well.

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Plus, don't forget to leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform.

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It helps more EV enthusiasts discover grid connections.

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With that, enjoy.

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I'm sure all of our listeners are familiar, but just in case, and there will be obviously
as we always do links in today's show notes, but real quickly, if you guys could just kind

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of go around, in addition, obviously, talking about coast to coast EVs, which you do a
fortnightly, but just what you individually do and your backgrounds for our listeners

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today,

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So I'm Steve from Plug and Play EV, a YouTube channel based out of Boston, Massachusetts
and the back of my car quite often.

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But yeah, so I cover a lot of infrastructure and electric vehicle.

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Everything really reviews product reviews travel that kind of thing around the Northeast
and more recently across the country and we also do with the fine gentleman to my left and

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down below the fortnightly coast to coast EVs podcast which is a real a live stream on
YouTube but also makes its way to audio platforms to cover EV infrastructure and the EV

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news and analysis of the day.

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Thank you, Steve.

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Why don't you go next, Walter?

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I'm just looking at the boxes on my screen.

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I'll have you go next.

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Walter Schulze.

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I work at the Network Architect channel, YouTube channel to produce content, typically on
DC Fast Charger station builds and also site visits.

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And I've been mentored by Eric and his site review method.

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So I've been taking that as the way I, when I show up to a site to do a review.

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That's the method that I follow in order to do reviews.

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So I'm definitely the junior member of the team.

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And last but not least, Eric, why don't you tell a little about yourself?

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Yeah, I was just figuring we'd go in alphabetical order by last name after Steve started.

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yeah, so I mean, I've been driving electric vehicles for quite a while now.

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I actually just did a road trip in my Chevy Volt that replaced the one I had before.

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So I've actually been driving plug-ins, plug-in vehicles now for 13, almost 14 years.

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quite a long time and then of course transitioned to All Electric about eight years ago.

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what I do basically is a YouTube channel just covering the infrastructure, best practices
for traveling, that sort of thing.

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And I saw real dearth in coverage, especially people talking about the public charging
infrastructure early on, which is kind of why I got into doing a video channel on YouTube

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to kind of document it.

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You know, Walter referenced that site review model that I created and I, I, I've been
remiss in not doing as many site reviews as I need to, but it was just a way of providing

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some analytics and quantifying the things about charging sites that really matter to EV
owners because, know, we've seen so many chargers going in that are not.

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like focused on the customer, they're not focused on the EV driver, they're focused on a
business or something else.

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And these are factors that people who actually drive EVs and use chargers are interested
in.

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So it's something that was worth mentioning.

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so, yeah, I just kind of cover all topics, EV, but primarily trying to focus on the
infrastructure because I feel like that's what affects us all really.

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For sure.

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And I know we have a few different topics that we wanted to cover for tonight, but let's
kind of just start.

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you mentioned Eric, even road tripping.

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I think Steve, had you on earlier this year as well.

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Kind of talking about the big road trip you talk, took across the entire country actually.

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So I think it might be interesting to just kind of talk with all three of you having you
on and even my recent experiences doing the annual road trip I do down to Phoenix and just

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kind of hear any trends or insights that all three of you are kind of.

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Seeing in that realm as far as I think there's a lot of headlines and there's a lot of
facts on paper, but in the end there is reality.

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And I will say personally, as soon as it's been driving EVs for a while, things are
getting better, but there are still the occasional headwinds or unexpected issues.

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So I'm curious to hear what your experiences have been and if you guys have had any trips
that you want to share recently, we'll kind of kick it off with that.

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I'll send people straight back to the episode we did chase of 60 minutes or more of my
trip across the country so everyone should go back and listen to that after this.

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Eric has definitely had some recent travel right Eric?

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Northern California I think it's probably worth starting on your coast and heading east.

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you want to start on the West Coast?

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OK.

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Well, I mean, I was going to say one one trend that immediately jumped to my mind when you
when you mentioned that chase is reliability has improved.

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And I want to say specifically for Electrify America, I feel like they've been sort of the
big bad that people pick on all the time.

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And I don't know that they've received.

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Enough credit or acknowledgement for how much they've actually improved their reliability
in the last year alone We've seen that fourth generation hardware going in and it's going

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in very rapidly So it's not just putting in new sites, but it's actually replacing aging
equipment or problematic equipment And so I've that's one of those areas that I feel like

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it's really worth calling out

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I personally try to avoid focusing on Electrify America, but I do think that we need to
give them a little bit of credit for the improvements they've made in their reliability.

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But the other trend that I've noticed and maybe I get, it's really weird because I follow
the East Coast in the middle of the country as well, even though I don't get out there as

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often, but I'm seeing the rise of...

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these smaller charging networks that are really starting to get their footing and really
starting to build out.

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And Chase, I believe you had a representative from Electric Era on at one point in time
discussing.

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Yeah, and I've made it a point now to kind of go out of my way checking out some of the
Electric Era sites that are going in in Northern California, and they're doing an amazing

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job.

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I think just so far I've visited three of their sites, all of them for 200 kilowatt
dispensers, split power, all located at gas stations, all a block off the freeway.

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know, all this complaining about I have to drive a mile off the freeway to get to a
charger.

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They're literally exit the freeway and you're there, right?

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I've had one issue and I think four charging stops and it was related to

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the payment card reader.

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And the next time when I went, it was fixed, right?

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So they have a really good uptime.

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The chargers are working.

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They're dispensing the power that they're rated.

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And one of the big things that I've noticed is they are getting these chargers installed
ahead of schedule, which for someone in California, that just doesn't happen, right?

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Like this idea that...

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They have, I think they got a contract with Costco because they had a seven week
turnaround time.

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In California, the station I visited most recently was in Wyricka.

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They were initially targeting a spring 2025 opening date.

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And they're like, well, we got the hardware ahead of schedule.

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We're just opening the site now.

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So they're done.

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Like it's online.

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It's ready to go.

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So like this is something that we don't see.

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so they're kind of right now.

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in the terms of these smaller, lesser known charging providers, kind of the cream of the
crop in terms of what I've observed.

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I do have my criticisms though, right?

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And I'm nothing if not a critic.

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And I do recognize that they fit a very small niche of what I consider relatively low
power, average power per stall.

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So about a hundred kilowatt per stall, if the site is completely swamped.

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No pull through parking, no canopies.

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but they serve that niche of you're in a smaller, efficient car, you're not towing a
trailer, you just want a reliable charger with a quick 10, 15 minute top up off the

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freeway, you're in, you're out, it's reliable, you know it's gonna work, and you have
on-site amenities that you would have at a gas station.

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That goes a long way for a lot of drivers, and I think that is a niche that has not really
been supported up to this point.

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That's kind of top on my mind, but I've talked enough already, so.

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Yeah, I was going to say you just said so much that I want to unpack there.

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don't know if and Steve, you have anything to add to that, for sure electrify merit and
electric air.

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I have definitely some recent experiences and thoughts on that realm as well.

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Steve or Walter, I don't know if you've had any recent experiences with either of those
providers.

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Yeah, I think there's still they there are a few kind of out locations that they've had
kind of popped up across the US but by far they're still much more West Coast based and

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you're correct.

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We've had Quincy Lee, their CEO on the Great Connections podcast and their team are rock
stars.

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One thing that I have noticed in a trend as of late is innovation to solve the
long-standing problem of, as you say, station lead time from construction to activation.

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And there's a lot of innovation in this area with Revell and Gravity, which Steve could
probably speak to, and Electric Era has got some very creative solutions.

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So it's not only putting chargers in the ground, it's solving other problems as well.

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That's one of the things that I've been noticing in the industry is that there's a lot of
innovation coming to the table.

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think the site that Eric mentioned in Wyrika was suffering, the middle of 2025 was down to
the transformer lead times.

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And they I don't know if they just got bumped up a list or if they they were able to
source I know there's some creative work going out there on, you know, pre sourcing

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transformers or, you know, getting a jump on those things.

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But, but they definitely were way way ahead.

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They just carried on building and then then got it live, obviously, as Eric's visit is a
testament to.

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Yeah, but I mean, speaking to that, Steve, in that same region.

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So if you go a little bit south on I-5 to Weed, I talked to the installers at the Pilot
Flying J and they had completed the Tesla V3.5 Supercharger the same weekend that they

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completed the Pilot Flying J.

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And the next time I went up there a month later, the Supercharger was on.

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and working and dispensing power and it was still another month and a half after that
before the Pilot Flying J went up and it wasn't a transformer issue because they both

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supposedly had power drops.

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So there is some jostling I think to get in the lead in terms of whether it's site
approvals or sign-offs or something.

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And if you know how to play that game apparently in California it gets you ahead.

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It's an interesting now that you're mentioning it, there's also an overlap with the the
the NEVI progress that I've been monitoring, because I've tried to keep it you know, it's

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a little bit more of a cluster of sites.

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So you kind of there's only 4042, I think at the moment activated.

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So I've kept an eye on when they break ground or when the state DOT is saying they're
under construction, that kind of thing.

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And then when they've actually, you know, started charging cars, that's typically my
metric of they're open and ready to go.

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And the turnaround time there has varied from

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The quickest one was in Hawaii for I think they started and finished in February this
year.

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So even that's a short month.

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So some like 27, 28 days, but that's a municipal site.

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had Tritium hardware already pre-bought.

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this is, you know, they're well positioned to turn that around and it's a sunny place.

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So there's no weather delays really, unless some tsunami comes washing in.

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But the longest is, I think it was a pilot flying J in Ohio, which may not still be open.

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But again, they've got, you know,

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60 and 17 sites, some of pilot flying J that opened within a couple of months, some of
them that have really dragged on to 200, 220 odd days.

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And so you start to see even with the same provider owned and operated by the person
who's, you know, putting them in on their property, just maybe local contractors, maybe

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the equipment, all of these things that can move the goalposts and you know, some sites
will be up and running in a couple of months, others may take, you know, four, five, six

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longer, just kind of really depends on what's going on the ground, I think.

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I think there's a couple of things to add to that.

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know in electric era's case, have a, their focus is vertical integration.

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And they have taken that to a pretty strong extreme between not just the hardware layer,
but obviously software as well.

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And I know some of the veterans that they've recruited, not just from ex Tesla, but other
charging companies as well.

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There have been some really interesting learnings.

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around like how to actually do what exactly we're talking about right now that's execute a
lot faster than some of these other players in the space, especially if they're not as

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vertically integrated.

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And I, be honest with you, I still don't know what some of these tricks are.

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I just know in conversations I've had with people offline, they do confirm there are
tricks as we've kind of alluded to with the jostling that they have learned from the

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industry that they are leveraging.

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They won't tell me what these tricks are, but they are saying that that has really helped
with.

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acceleration in development.

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Obviously I'm not always a big one to talk about rumor, but it's just been an interesting
trend.

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and since you brought it up and just things I've kind of confirmed when talking with
others in the industry.

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Yeah, I mean it just stands out to me though, Chase, because California is such a
particularly harsh environment in terms of opening DC chargers.

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Electrify America had mentioned several years ago that their average opening time for
California was double the national average.

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And so that's a pretty harsh environment for, yeah.

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think that that is necessarily, I call it the I-5 curse personally.

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a lot of the cities along I-5 in the whole West coast are definitely much more onerous
from a permitting standpoint.

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And it doesn't matter if you were an EV charger or not.

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just having a lot of friends who are contractors and others in, related kind of real
estate development spaces.

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It just takes a long time.

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And obviously California, think it's the one everyone talks about, but this is something
we do see in multiple States along the West coast.

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Unfortunately, I think it is finally starting to change with new entrants like electric
air and others.

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But, yeah, I think it's just interesting going also not to just focus on them electrify
America.

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I definitely agree that their experience has definitely improved.

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And I recently did, doing my annual kind of trip from.

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It's about, I didn't do the full 1200 miles in a day.

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Like I've done previously only did 800 this time from, bend, Oregon to Las Vegas.

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And I did use an electrify America to kind of take this different route that I hadn't
driven in an EV.

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I'd done it ages ago, a Subaru actually.

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And you go along what's known as the loneliest highway in the U S and it's incredibly
beautiful and remote, but there was an electrify America charger.

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used in, battle mounted Nevada.

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And it was.

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Probably the best EA experience I've ever had.

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Having said that, the app was incorrect with how many stalls were available.

195
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And then one of the stalls, just everything looked like it should work, but it did not.

196
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And so I did have to move.

197
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then once I moved to this other, 350 kilowatts doll, it kicked off and everything worked
great.

198
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and

199
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they all the new 350s or was this one of the old kind of hybrid?

200
00:18:08,496 --> 00:18:09,767
so correct.

201
00:18:09,767 --> 00:18:12,028
yeah, there were some of the new ones.

202
00:18:12,109 --> 00:18:19,974
but I, I think kind of talking about earlier Eric's experience and how he ranks, charging
experiences.

203
00:18:19,974 --> 00:18:27,960
I think there are one that's so spot on and that that is a great rubric and to just have
like kind of a base starting point for them.

204
00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:36,768
But then I always approach it from like people like my mom or other people I know who are
very, tech adverse people and

205
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If I was one of them, I would be so frustrated because everything looks like it should be
working.

206
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It would like I would swipe my card and it would even like say processing it like
everything just seemed like it would work.

207
00:18:47,647 --> 00:18:49,849
And then it would just say fault on the car.

208
00:18:49,849 --> 00:18:53,812
And then the car would say there was an issue with the charger.

209
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and I pretty quickly knew it was the charger, I, had, honestly, I had some time.

210
00:19:00,140 --> 00:19:02,862
And so I was just kind of playing with it to see, there a weird thing?

211
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Is there anything that it could be on my side?

212
00:19:04,863 --> 00:19:07,274
Are there any weird things I can do to make it work?

213
00:19:07,274 --> 00:19:11,797
And it was just really clear that it was just some sort of weird thing going on with the
charger.

214
00:19:11,797 --> 00:19:16,239
And then once I plugged into the other stuff, it worked fine and I was on my way pretty
quickly.

215
00:19:17,460 --> 00:19:22,363
Not to say, and I think what's interesting is with a lot of electrify America, it's
definitely improved.

216
00:19:22,363 --> 00:19:28,086
And to be honest with you, the experience I have with electrify America is not far off in

217
00:19:28,366 --> 00:19:34,296
user experience and issues I've experienced when using gas stations in very remote areas.

218
00:19:34,296 --> 00:19:36,746
There's usually a pump that's down or something kind of going on.

219
00:19:36,746 --> 00:19:37,936
So it's getting better.

220
00:19:37,936 --> 00:19:42,116
And the card swipe action was really quick when I went to the other one and it all just
worked.

221
00:19:42,116 --> 00:19:46,926
And I was a little nervous just because it wasn't a very remote area or a pretty remote
area.

222
00:19:46,926 --> 00:19:54,178
And this was kind like the long one before a long drive into a slightly less remote area.

223
00:19:54,178 --> 00:19:56,910
But it all worked out and it was overall a pretty positive experience.

224
00:19:56,910 --> 00:20:00,268
it just kind of goes to things are going in the right direction.

225
00:20:02,178 --> 00:20:02,954
Yeah.

226
00:20:02,954 --> 00:20:04,045
on this as well recently.

227
00:20:04,045 --> 00:20:06,496
I'm sure he'll be a better place to speak to it.

228
00:20:06,496 --> 00:20:11,878
the point of this transition eventually is that it should be easier.

229
00:20:11,878 --> 00:20:20,141
mean, know Chase from traveling in the Tesla with plugging it in and going in a private
ecosystem, closed network that just works right off the bat.

230
00:20:20,141 --> 00:20:25,964
Now there's a lot more going on with these third party vendors and talking to another
layer of software and everything else.

231
00:20:25,964 --> 00:20:28,445
But when we get this plug and charge,

232
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fixed across all public options and across all models and all network providers, then we
start to get to a place where it's actually not even as difficult as gas.

233
00:20:38,585 --> 00:20:42,385
You're not having to pump, you're not having to use unless you really want to.

234
00:20:42,385 --> 00:20:52,625
They will need credit card readers just for the exact reason you say, your mom or your dad
or your grandma and people going on, you know, chips that don't necessarily have it all

235
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set up.

236
00:20:53,205 --> 00:20:58,533
But, you know, that will be a backup because once the car is handling everything in the
background with the station, you're not

237
00:20:58,533 --> 00:20:59,044
doing anything.

238
00:20:59,044 --> 00:21:04,625
You're doing exactly what Tesla owners have been used to for all those trips and just
plugging in and walking away.

239
00:21:04,625 --> 00:21:08,392
But Walter, you did the video on that and covered it in pretty good detail.

240
00:21:08,392 --> 00:21:11,157
I'd love to hear like what you're seeing on that.

241
00:21:11,391 --> 00:21:12,361
Thank you.

242
00:21:12,642 --> 00:21:15,785
Subsequent to that, it's been uncovered.

243
00:21:15,785 --> 00:21:21,509
We're looking at a very fast transition to this plug and charge technology.

244
00:21:21,509 --> 00:21:26,813
One of my viewers chimed in and started feeding me some images from his BMW app.

245
00:21:27,034 --> 00:21:31,677
And BMW already has the plug and charge starting to show up in their app.

246
00:21:31,898 --> 00:21:41,165
And it appears as though what's going on is they're lining up with the IANA launch for
plug and charge, this new, what I'm calling a parent plug and charge.

247
00:21:41,567 --> 00:21:57,640
which coalesces the disparate plug and charge and auto charge technologies into a single
authentication commerce marketplace sort of thing, where the authentication transfers

248
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:00,872
through transparently to the end user.

249
00:22:01,053 --> 00:22:02,965
And we're looking at it very fast.

250
00:22:02,965 --> 00:22:09,240
I mean, we're talking weeks away from this actually going live nationwide with all
parties.

251
00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:11,143
And he showed me his app.

252
00:22:11,143 --> 00:22:18,936
It had EPICO, it had ChargePoint, and he actually went to the Mercedes-Benz charging hub
in Sandy Springs and tried it.

253
00:22:18,936 --> 00:22:28,831
And what was displayed on the screen was plug and charge error indicating that the feature
is known within the software.

254
00:22:28,831 --> 00:22:30,221
It's just not working right now.

255
00:22:30,221 --> 00:22:33,123
So very soon, two things are going to be happening.

256
00:22:33,123 --> 00:22:37,284
We're going to be standardizing on J3400 and we're going to have plug and charge.

257
00:22:37,284 --> 00:22:39,225
Just think, plus...

258
00:22:39,485 --> 00:22:46,749
I'm currently tracking somewhere around $50 billion of investment going into the United
States and Canada for DC fast chargers.

259
00:22:46,749 --> 00:22:51,102
So you've got builds of crazy extent going all over the place.

260
00:22:51,102 --> 00:22:55,693
You've got plug and charge coming to the table very soon.

261
00:22:55,693 --> 00:22:59,846
And you've got J3400 standardization going all over the place.

262
00:22:59,846 --> 00:23:03,879
It's going to be a dramatically different landscape come this time next year.

263
00:23:03,879 --> 00:23:08,111
We're going to be talking all kinds of different things occurring.

264
00:23:08,217 --> 00:23:16,787
And as was mentioned, the gold standard of the Tesla Supercharger experience coming to EV
ownership at large.

265
00:23:18,862 --> 00:23:27,642
Yeah, that's great to hear because that's one of the things I've been pushing for so long
because to me, you look at any sort of disruptive force and for something to kind of take

266
00:23:27,642 --> 00:23:30,002
over the status quo, it doesn't have to be just as good.

267
00:23:30,002 --> 00:23:31,142
It has to be better.

268
00:23:31,142 --> 00:23:35,922
And that's really where that plug and charge experience has always shined.

269
00:23:35,922 --> 00:23:41,072
And I know between automakers and OEMs, it's definitely where things are headed.

270
00:23:41,072 --> 00:23:46,362
And I think that is the big thing that just cannot happen soon enough.

271
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Now obviously that's for EA and some of the quite a few of these providers as even you
mentioned I will say I did have probably the low point of my trip was the I'm trying to

272
00:23:57,994 --> 00:23:58,914
look it up right now.

273
00:23:58,914 --> 00:24:14,074
It was the champs Chevron in Austin, Nevada, which was a, I mean, it's a cool, it's a
beautiful drive and it's a wildly remote area, but,

274
00:24:14,862 --> 00:24:20,066
trying remember what it even is as far as the provider, but it's, it's one of these
one-off.

275
00:24:20,565 --> 00:24:22,068
a charge point along that route.

276
00:24:22,068 --> 00:24:23,319
Was it a charge point?

277
00:24:23,830 --> 00:24:24,880
I'm pulling it up right now.

278
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:26,061
I don't think it was.

279
00:24:26,061 --> 00:24:37,094
think it was something else, but it just, and I'm trying to remember, I can't believe I'm
drawing blank on this, but one of the other crazy parts too, was how difficult it was to

280
00:24:37,094 --> 00:24:38,714
get it to start a charge.

281
00:24:38,714 --> 00:24:43,475
And I think this is by far a one-off because it was only about 50 kilowatts.

282
00:24:43,796 --> 00:24:45,616
And that's what it was too.

283
00:24:45,616 --> 00:24:52,898
It was, DC was 75 cents a kilowatt hour and 60 cents to connect.

284
00:24:53,362 --> 00:24:58,043
And because the system wasn't working, it was just free.

285
00:24:59,044 --> 00:25:03,065
And so there was just like a lot of these weird issues with it.

286
00:25:03,065 --> 00:25:09,607
And so this was also another time where it looked like both chargers were working, but one
was also down.

287
00:25:09,607 --> 00:25:11,928
This one was a little bit easier to figure out.

288
00:25:11,928 --> 00:25:13,698
It was down just because it was kind of acting weird.

289
00:25:13,698 --> 00:25:16,809
And I checked it in plug share previously showing up there.

290
00:25:18,449 --> 00:25:20,980
But it's just one of these things that like.

291
00:25:22,208 --> 00:25:27,361
I feel sorry for people that this, these are one offs, but it's in such a remote area.

292
00:25:27,361 --> 00:25:35,806
And if you are doing this drive and you don't have, some like 400 mile vehicle, which
there's only a couple of, it is just like such an important thing to have.

293
00:25:35,806 --> 00:25:41,110
And the sooner that these do go to exactly what you're talking about, Walter, that just
kind of minimize.

294
00:25:41,110 --> 00:25:42,370
Cause like there's one way to do it.

295
00:25:42,370 --> 00:25:44,832
You had to have like RFID, you had to do all these other things.

296
00:25:44,832 --> 00:25:48,714
So are all those the ones that will be supported with

297
00:25:49,018 --> 00:25:49,298
right.

298
00:25:49,298 --> 00:25:51,839
On the BMW app, this is currently what is displayed.

299
00:25:51,839 --> 00:25:58,222
So it's Blink, Flow, Francis Energy, EVgo, ChargePoint, IANA.

300
00:25:58,222 --> 00:25:59,793
all those shall recharge.

301
00:25:59,793 --> 00:26:03,185
All those apparently are going to be participating members in this new plug-in charge.

302
00:26:03,185 --> 00:26:12,046
as you say, the one-offs will still exist, but at least we're getting some very quick
adoption apparently going on here.

303
00:26:12,046 --> 00:26:12,656
No, that's great.

304
00:26:12,656 --> 00:26:17,286
And I, I think to even say as a counterpoint, my trip back.

305
00:26:17,286 --> 00:26:22,186
we went to Phoenix state at a resort for the holidays or Thanksgiving.

306
00:26:22,186 --> 00:26:28,726
And then on our way back, we took a different way to go through Yosemite and then leaving
Yosemite.

307
00:26:28,726 --> 00:26:33,606
We stayed, or we charged at a supercharger in Bakersfield.

308
00:26:33,606 --> 00:26:39,653
And we've kind of been talking about this a little bit Eric before we went live here, but
the big part was.

309
00:26:39,692 --> 00:26:40,693
It was a new V4.

310
00:26:40,693 --> 00:26:46,407
So the actual charging experience was great, but we pull up and my wife has to use the
bathroom like crazy.

311
00:26:46,407 --> 00:26:54,283
And so she's like running around trying to find a place and the place that allegedly had
been said that you can go use the bathroom.

312
00:26:54,283 --> 00:26:59,767
They're now no longer letting EV charger people, charging their EVs use the bathroom
there.

313
00:26:59,767 --> 00:27:01,658
And my mom was like, okay, I got cash 10 bucks.

314
00:27:01,658 --> 00:27:02,088
I don't care.

315
00:27:02,088 --> 00:27:03,920
I just need to use the bathroom.

316
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,682
And they were just kind of putting their foot down about, which was an unfortunate thing
because

317
00:27:07,826 --> 00:27:10,368
for my point, the new view was the first V4 charger I had.

318
00:27:10,368 --> 00:27:12,640
I, it doesn't really matter to my car.

319
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:19,965
was kind of the same all the way, but it's just kind of interesting to look at the site
design, some of these other things, but it totally goes to kind of that grading rubric

320
00:27:19,965 --> 00:27:28,341
that we alluded to earlier, that there are a lot of different factors that go into this
for me personally, when I'm on a road trip, I just want to have charging.

321
00:27:28,341 --> 00:27:30,402
don't really care what the amenities are there.

322
00:27:30,402 --> 00:27:34,445
If there's a simple bathroom thing and there's no canopy, whatever, I just want to have
charging.

323
00:27:34,825 --> 00:27:36,086
but I think.

324
00:27:36,406 --> 00:27:45,410
A lot of the stuff that you've been kind of following along Walter is it is really great
to see more and more of these more advanced and kind of just more fleshed out charging

325
00:27:45,410 --> 00:27:48,031
locations and charging experiences.

326
00:27:48,031 --> 00:27:56,765
And I think that that is also another kind of part to this change to electrification that
really does need to make sure that the gas experience, even if you're at a convenience

327
00:27:56,765 --> 00:28:02,157
store, there's usually a bathroom or something there that really does make it a lot less
stressful when road tripping.

328
00:28:02,157 --> 00:28:05,462
And I'm kind of curious if there's anything you want to add to that Walter and

329
00:28:05,462 --> 00:28:06,963
some of the things you've been saying.

330
00:28:06,993 --> 00:28:20,951
Yes, and I think the long-standing pattern of Eric's approach to grading chargers as a
customer experience has, believe it not, had a rather extensive effect because Tesla left

331
00:28:20,951 --> 00:28:26,704
to its own devices, as you say, would put chargers in the ground at locations where people
could charge their cars.

332
00:28:26,704 --> 00:28:35,249
But even Tesla now is shifting their focus to a more customer experience at their
supercharger locations.

333
00:28:35,485 --> 00:28:48,439
several new ones in North Carolina, my area that are at very nice locations directly off
the interstate paired with a convenience store operator and extensive charging

334
00:28:48,439 --> 00:28:49,349
infrastructure.

335
00:28:49,349 --> 00:29:04,243
It's really a noticeable shift in the Tesla Supercharger team and all these other CPOs
that are starting to focus more on customer experience as well.

336
00:29:04,551 --> 00:29:19,031
I think is because what we've been chiming about all these years is that, you know, it's
not just about getting gas at a pump that is unattended in the middle of nowhere.

337
00:29:19,032 --> 00:29:21,033
You know, as you say, I'd like to use the restroom.

338
00:29:21,033 --> 00:29:29,359
I kind of like to be protected from the elements and I'd like to have somewhere to dump my
trash and I'd like to have maybe somewhere to get some food or some fresh water or

339
00:29:29,359 --> 00:29:29,769
something.

340
00:29:29,769 --> 00:29:31,840
So all these things are.

341
00:29:32,723 --> 00:29:41,145
well known in the gas industry and perfected down to a fine decimal point and it seems as
though the EV charging industry is finally starting to catch up.

342
00:29:41,873 --> 00:29:43,934
think it's also down to competition, right?

343
00:29:43,934 --> 00:29:53,536
I mean, you're just starting to get, it's not just a Tesla supercharger or an Electrify
America and you go to the one that's, you you're able to get to because your range gets

344
00:29:53,536 --> 00:29:53,906
you there.

345
00:29:53,906 --> 00:30:02,599
You've got, you know, if I look back, I always kind of stop into Ellensburg, Washington as
the stop where I got off the interstate and thought there's five options here.

346
00:30:02,599 --> 00:30:08,490
I could go downtown, I could go to the Pilot Flying J, I could go to the Tesla
supercharger with a Magic Dock.

347
00:30:08,490 --> 00:30:11,985
So even for my Onyc 5 pre-adapter, it's ready to go.

348
00:30:11,985 --> 00:30:15,305
There's an Electrify America that's been upgraded.

349
00:30:15,305 --> 00:30:19,255
So it's all coming together, but you can't rest on your laurels.

350
00:30:19,255 --> 00:30:27,625
mean, even the Tesla Supercharger, which a year ago would have been the, you know, I can
charge at Tesla finally, you know, in that particular location, I think it's at a hotel,

351
00:30:27,625 --> 00:30:35,045
which might work great if you're staying at the hotel, but it means that you need to walk
two or three businesses down to the dining.

352
00:30:35,375 --> 00:30:40,408
It comes down to obviously your use case and your road trip, but also, you know, there's
just other places to go now.

353
00:30:40,408 --> 00:30:43,845
If someone gets off at an interstate, they may have three, four, five options.

354
00:30:43,845 --> 00:30:51,353
And that's a great thing for moving EV charging from, you know, the old days of just, hope
anywhere has a charger to where do I want to stop?

355
00:30:51,353 --> 00:30:52,685
Where do I want charge?

356
00:30:53,198 --> 00:30:54,538
No, I think that's a great call.

357
00:30:54,538 --> 00:30:56,928
And especially that location of being right off the highway.

358
00:30:56,928 --> 00:31:01,548
I think that is also what was really interesting about this supercharging location.

359
00:31:01,548 --> 00:31:02,138
just double check.

360
00:31:02,138 --> 00:31:04,088
It only opened 21 days ago.

361
00:31:04,088 --> 00:31:06,538
So it's only been open for a few weeks.

362
00:31:06,538 --> 00:31:14,998
and it was one of the new befores, but as I was looking at what was really interesting was
even the route planner actually had not been recommending for me to go to that one.

363
00:31:15,758 --> 00:31:21,178
because it technically was further off, but because it was kind of a V4 and we were kind
of staying out to the east side of it.

364
00:31:21,178 --> 00:31:23,174
Anyway, I just figured why not go there.

365
00:31:24,291 --> 00:31:25,532
but no, you're totally right.

366
00:31:25,532 --> 00:31:35,850
I think there are so many areas, especially as we look into the new year of areas to where
to be optimistic and finally getting to this point where, I, and I think this has been

367
00:31:35,850 --> 00:31:40,284
true even to Walter's point of like, you really don't have to go that far off the highway
usually.

368
00:31:40,284 --> 00:31:47,300
And it's becoming more and more, especially along big interstates where you actually have
choice in where you charge.

369
00:31:47,300 --> 00:31:52,994
And that has been something I look at more as just like the price and then amenities as to
where.

370
00:31:53,110 --> 00:31:57,705
I would go to kind of choose and how fast I'm trying to get somewhere, honestly.

371
00:31:57,853 --> 00:32:06,917
Yeah, but Chase, think I think your experience it I'm having a little bit of PTSD because
my bones hurt.

372
00:32:06,917 --> 00:32:08,447
I'm an oldie.

373
00:32:08,808 --> 00:32:19,232
When I was traveling way back in the past, know, RV parks were still a very valid location
for charging your car on a road trip.

374
00:32:19,792 --> 00:32:26,899
This is back when, you're talking about hundred and fifty, two hundred, three hundred
miles between superchargers, let alone

375
00:32:26,899 --> 00:32:29,060
you know, public fast chargers.

376
00:32:29,741 --> 00:32:38,966
And I started seeing a lot of pushback about seven, eight years ago where RV park owners
were just saying no more EVs, right?

377
00:32:38,966 --> 00:32:47,740
So it's one thing if every other week or something you have an EV owner to stop in and
plug in, but it's once you get that many numbers.

378
00:32:47,740 --> 00:32:56,369
And we've already seen this with gas stations and I can't remember who I made this comment
to, but people forget that it...

379
00:32:56,369 --> 00:33:06,964
even with the gas station, if all you do is pull your car in, fill up with gas and go in
and use the bathroom and leave, that gas station's lost money on that transaction, right?

380
00:33:06,964 --> 00:33:18,029
They have literally lost money because their margins on selling the gasoline are so low
that you've used more of their resources than what they recouped.

381
00:33:18,029 --> 00:33:23,331
And so that's why we even see gas stations now say customers only using the bathroom.

382
00:33:24,084 --> 00:33:28,427
And that includes people who pull in to plug it or to use the gas pumps.

383
00:33:28,828 --> 00:33:33,422
And now we're introducing chargers at these locations.

384
00:33:33,422 --> 00:33:37,235
And it makes me wonder if this is going to be even more of a case.

385
00:33:37,235 --> 00:33:47,865
And with EV charging, we know that for every one stop that you might need to make in a gas
car, you're likely going to have to make two to three stops on a road trip in an EV.

386
00:33:47,865 --> 00:33:50,909
And so now you're stopping more frequently.

387
00:33:50,909 --> 00:33:54,260
you have more people using these locations.

388
00:33:54,640 --> 00:34:06,673
And if it's a gas station or a convenience store that's there to sell items, they don't
want you plugging in your car, going and using the bathroom and then leaving, right,

389
00:34:06,673 --> 00:34:07,914
without buying something.

390
00:34:07,914 --> 00:34:19,611
So this is something that think it might be interesting to follow because that Dunigan
supercharger site, I think, Walter, you remember the one that I talked about?

391
00:34:19,611 --> 00:34:20,703
I passed that on the way.

392
00:34:20,703 --> 00:34:22,604
Thanksgiving, yeah.

393
00:34:22,765 --> 00:34:27,587
It's right next to a ARCO AMPM convenience store.

394
00:34:27,648 --> 00:34:33,301
And as I was driving by, the trash cans were completely full.

395
00:34:33,301 --> 00:34:36,043
it was clear that that site had been used.

396
00:34:36,043 --> 00:34:45,855
And I can only imagine if over the course of a day, this ARCO AMPM has hundreds of people
coming in wanting to use the bathroom.

397
00:34:45,855 --> 00:34:52,355
and not buying anything because they're just stopping for 10 to 15 minutes and getting
back on the road again.

398
00:34:52,935 --> 00:35:06,055
So this is an issue that I think we could see red flag now, but it's a potential future
issue that I think we could see with some of these chargers and where they're being built.

399
00:35:08,322 --> 00:35:08,647
For sure.

400
00:35:08,647 --> 00:35:15,507
I think one of the other things I'd be kind of curious of your guys, especially your
thoughts, Eric, I know we've kind of disagreed a little bit on this in the past, but one

401
00:35:15,507 --> 00:35:20,210
of the things that really stood out to me on this trip again was like, there could be more
chargers.

402
00:35:21,171 --> 00:35:26,745
especially if you're off I five, the density, and I think it's really interesting.

403
00:35:26,745 --> 00:35:36,672
Even when, I look at a lot of the maps for chargers, even in plug share, there is such a
big density change in DC fast charging.

404
00:35:36,886 --> 00:35:42,091
West of the Missouri River, east of the Missouri River, it's so much more dense.

405
00:35:42,091 --> 00:35:53,141
And then if you're not along I-5, I-84 or like I-90, there's a very significant drop off
of DC fast charging density.

406
00:35:53,262 --> 00:35:59,117
And you do really have to kind of sometimes choose where you're going more and kind of the
strategy to get some of these.

407
00:35:59,117 --> 00:36:02,442
And I'm curious if you have seen that or kind of experienced.

408
00:36:02,442 --> 00:36:12,707
still yourself that Eric that really just stood out to me more on this trip recently
because a little bit the detour we took through Yosemite versus some of the other ways

409
00:36:12,707 --> 00:36:13,628
I've gone.

410
00:36:14,279 --> 00:36:27,171
Yeah, I I still sort of maintain this opinion that once you breach probably 12 to 16
stalls, you've reached the point of diminishing returns.

411
00:36:27,171 --> 00:36:41,725
And in this last trip, I guess maybe spoilers because a BP pulse didn't exactly operate
the way that I wanted it to, but it's a four stall BP pulse at an ARCO AMPM.

412
00:36:41,725 --> 00:36:48,377
But I was just picturing this as I was pulling off the freeway and I'm looking and across
one street, there's another gas station.

413
00:36:48,377 --> 00:36:51,558
And then across the street from that, there's another gas station.

414
00:36:51,558 --> 00:36:59,940
And so we tend to be so fixated on how many pumps there are at a particular location or
how many plugs are at a particular location.

415
00:36:59,940 --> 00:37:11,487
But I would much rather have four stalls at the Arco, four stalls at the 76, four stalls
at the Chevron, than have 12 stalls at just one location.

416
00:37:11,487 --> 00:37:13,407
I still maintain that.

417
00:37:13,407 --> 00:37:25,927
Now what that right number is, because we do have to worry about, there has to be enough
chargers and stalls to match the size of the location and the use case of the location and

418
00:37:25,927 --> 00:37:30,447
the business itself and the typical dwell time.

419
00:37:31,227 --> 00:37:37,551
But I'm not, for a lot of these highway locations, I'm not seeing a justification for more
than.

420
00:37:37,551 --> 00:37:39,362
six to eight to 12 stalls.

421
00:37:39,362 --> 00:37:41,833
Basically the same as gas pumps.

422
00:37:42,694 --> 00:37:50,298
The issue that I have more and it still pervades is the amount of power per stall.

423
00:37:50,358 --> 00:37:53,920
Because that BP pulse, great location for stalls.

424
00:37:53,920 --> 00:38:01,185
If all four stalls are in use, you're looking at a maximum of about 70 to 75 kilowatt per
stall.

425
00:38:01,185 --> 00:38:06,097
For a lot of EVs, what are you going to be there for an hour at an AMPM?

426
00:38:06,243 --> 00:38:19,242
That's not gonna fly for a lot of people and and so I'm more interested in making sure
it's a balance of sufficient stalls for the location and sufficient power to match the use

427
00:38:19,242 --> 00:38:33,622
case of that that location so Steve comes in and his Superlative charging ionic five and
he wants to spend ten minutes going into the ampm to grab a hot dog and use the bathroom

428
00:38:34,599 --> 00:38:37,905
you're not going to do that on a 75 kilowatt charger.

429
00:38:37,905 --> 00:38:45,997
So the chargers need to match and the stall count needs to match the amenities of the
location.

430
00:38:46,275 --> 00:38:52,137
It's cold now and my preconditioning sucks so I only get 17kW for the first 20 minutes.

431
00:38:52,137 --> 00:38:55,291
Anyway, I'm in a good place to slur.

432
00:38:55,291 --> 00:39:07,330
Yeah, I mean, I do see a case maybe, and this is to your point, maybe Chase, having some
centrally located larger charging sites.

433
00:39:07,330 --> 00:39:11,306
But I think we need to be honest about how big they actually need to be.

434
00:39:11,306 --> 00:39:12,907
And I think that's totally fair.

435
00:39:12,907 --> 00:39:19,122
I think a lot of the locations I was talking about eight, six probably would have even
been fine.

436
00:39:19,433 --> 00:39:28,810
it's just like, once you get off that I five, the main interstates kind of going up and
down and maybe other than West and East on parts of the West coast, it is just really

437
00:39:28,810 --> 00:39:39,749
interesting to me, like how there are still some pretty decent gaps or areas that, I'm
hoping, but I, I'm, are you going to say, it looks like you're going to say something

438
00:39:39,749 --> 00:39:40,335
there.

439
00:39:40,335 --> 00:39:49,275
I was gonna say like just a point to consider because I've spent most of my life driving
rural highways even in California.

440
00:39:49,595 --> 00:39:58,135
When you go to a small gas station, it's not uncommon to see only two gas pumps, like
maybe one or two gas pumps.

441
00:39:58,135 --> 00:40:07,881
And so my thinking is, do we on these rural highways, once you get off the interstate, do
we really need more than

442
00:40:07,881 --> 00:40:14,469
two to four stalls per, you know, the Casey's General Store on.

443
00:40:15,054 --> 00:40:24,034
Well, what's kind of funny speaking of that, just, guess, as an antidote is, highway 97,
which essentially starts and kind of ends around Mount Shasta and goes North through

444
00:40:24,034 --> 00:40:25,094
Oregon.

445
00:40:25,634 --> 00:40:27,924
so many, the Rivian adventure network.

446
00:40:27,924 --> 00:40:36,394
And I think, for sure the Chamult V4 that opened, the Tesla supercharger they're at
abandoned gas stations, which is so funny.

447
00:40:36,394 --> 00:40:42,126
And, that was actually one of the other places we had an issue where like we pull up, I
mean, it was so slick in the interface.

448
00:40:42,126 --> 00:40:46,886
We pull up to the Chimult, Oregon and it's also really in the middle of nowhere, but it's
right off the highway.

449
00:40:46,886 --> 00:40:53,786
So we charge and as you pull up a thing, flash is like, okay, bathroom code is like zero
five, something, something, something.

450
00:40:53,786 --> 00:40:55,646
was like slick, great integration.

451
00:40:55,646 --> 00:40:55,906
Great.

452
00:40:55,906 --> 00:40:57,026
We need to use the bathroom.

453
00:40:57,026 --> 00:40:58,436
And then we get out of the car.

454
00:40:58,436 --> 00:41:01,606
get over there and it just says bathroom out of order.

455
00:41:02,366 --> 00:41:05,006
which unfortunate, a very unfortunate experience.

456
00:41:05,006 --> 00:41:12,014
The execution was fantastic, but the implementation and the reality, hit hard there.

457
00:41:12,014 --> 00:41:21,334
But it kind of goes to exactly that point where the Rivian Adventure Network, that one's
actually been there a little bit longer, but maybe a year, 18 months.

458
00:41:21,334 --> 00:41:34,134
There's so many that are just now like finally kind of finishing in that 97 highway and a
lot of these other highways that are really core to not even just people living and like

459
00:41:34,134 --> 00:41:39,494
getting to places, but so much actual commerce.

460
00:41:39,566 --> 00:41:46,326
between businesses and then also semi trucks and that whole space that, I'm very
optimistic.

461
00:41:46,326 --> 00:41:50,786
I'm very happy to see what I've seen, but I think there's still a lot of room for seeing
more.

462
00:41:50,786 --> 00:41:58,326
was potentially a flying J that's going to get some hopefully soon that there's been kind
of rumors off and on along 97, but we'll see what happens there.

463
00:41:58,326 --> 00:42:07,258
But one of the things I wanted to, kind of ask before we get into some of the other topics
was you're now starting to see like obviously.

464
00:42:07,258 --> 00:42:17,091
Bleeding edge of we talked about severe in the ionic some of the high-end IKEA for the
most part minus some of the cold getting issues that can occur the chartings fantastic and

465
00:42:17,091 --> 00:42:26,633
We're seeing that obviously right now kind of reset even with the recent I 90 surge thing
that kind of calcon or that whole group out of spec did with Porsche Taycan bleak of its

466
00:42:26,633 --> 00:42:34,806
own when it comes to charging I'm curious to hear your guys thoughts as to two parts of
this question.

467
00:42:34,806 --> 00:42:36,006
The first is

468
00:42:36,504 --> 00:42:48,577
Do you expect that in five to 10 years, maybe roughly like I would say three to seven
years that that kind of tech we're seeing the Ticon just makes its way down anyway into

469
00:42:48,577 --> 00:42:52,318
more affordable EVs.

470
00:42:52,318 --> 00:42:58,640
then second, one of the things I've thought is really interesting with the other side of
this is the infrastructure to support it.

471
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:00,981
Like IANA and some of these others are kind of coming to market.

472
00:43:00,981 --> 00:43:02,441
Really great to see.

473
00:43:02,481 --> 00:43:05,502
They're really leaning into like having a lot of

474
00:43:06,432 --> 00:43:12,265
Or at least how they're positioning having a lot of amenities at these sites, which seems
like a good thing too.

475
00:43:12,265 --> 00:43:22,369
But I'm kind of curious if we do get to this point where it is like almost or within a
minute or so of gas going to these charging locations, is there the potential for like too

476
00:43:22,369 --> 00:43:31,713
much margin being invested into these locations that people don't really have an interest
in like staying at or using going back to that kind of gas that we that

477
00:43:33,482 --> 00:43:42,382
Metric we've heard about gas stations for so long that the longer people are at these you
see that higher Transaction cost and kind of going on so two questions.

478
00:43:42,382 --> 00:43:44,544
They're curious on your guys thoughts

479
00:43:45,401 --> 00:43:49,114
Yeah, I do think the charging will continue to trickle down.

480
00:43:49,114 --> 00:43:54,869
mean, it's not particularly expensive to get into, you know, IONIQ 5, IONIQ 6 leases right
now.

481
00:43:54,869 --> 00:43:59,763
So that technology is already at a fairly accessible level and it's only going to get
more.

482
00:43:59,763 --> 00:44:06,599
The batteries are going to get a little bit bigger, opening up a bit more room to increase
the speed, know, and throttle back later.

483
00:44:06,599 --> 00:44:08,881
So that's exciting.

484
00:44:08,881 --> 00:44:15,001
But I mean, think what really needs to be focused on is efficiency, know, just being able
to go further between these stops.

485
00:44:15,001 --> 00:44:23,001
mean, we do it and I think we're kind of on the edge of the people that would do it and
quite like to stop and charge and see what's going on.

486
00:44:23,001 --> 00:44:27,621
you know, but that's, this is a select group of nerds.

487
00:44:27,621 --> 00:44:28,141
Yeah.

488
00:44:28,141 --> 00:44:38,441
So it's, it's, it's not something that, I mean, I think it's good to see the
infrastructure expanding, accelerating to meet that 400, 500 kilowatts eventually.

489
00:44:38,810 --> 00:44:43,063
and to trickle that into cars that are accessible to people.

490
00:44:43,063 --> 00:44:52,681
But at the same time, I don't want to see that be the only thing that people focus on
because it's been a game changer for me, moving to an EV that can charge that quickly, but

491
00:44:52,681 --> 00:44:58,046
it's covering over a lot of the same range that the Bolt EV that I had did.

492
00:44:58,046 --> 00:45:02,437
absent the fast charging, this would not be a massive upgrade in terms of...

493
00:45:02,437 --> 00:45:11,495
you know, the actual capabilities of how far I could go on that vehicle, the lengths of
stints of driving that we do are very, similar because it's so much more inefficient than

494
00:45:11,495 --> 00:45:14,287
the bolt TV and it, you know, it charges way quicker.

495
00:45:14,287 --> 00:45:17,810
So you get back on the road, but I don't want to see that be the be all and end all.

496
00:45:17,810 --> 00:45:19,822
it's something to chase because it's the bigger number.

497
00:45:19,822 --> 00:45:22,944
see this with the gravity charging hubs, 500 kilowatts.

498
00:45:22,944 --> 00:45:23,775
Well, fantastic.

499
00:45:23,775 --> 00:45:26,407
But, know, at some point we don't need to do that.

500
00:45:26,407 --> 00:45:30,819
I mean, that gravity charging hub to Walter's point in New York city was

501
00:45:30,819 --> 00:45:40,744
aside from me was only charging busy for exes for rideshare to go around the city to do
you know 1020 mile loops so great it's got massive fast charging but a lot of those cars

502
00:45:40,744 --> 00:45:48,647
were just you know trickling then they'd go off and get a coffee for an hour so let's not
throw the baby out with the bath water to get this technology down to the gas station

503
00:45:48,647 --> 00:45:56,761
phillips and then realize we actually had something very good with alternating power
levels and being able to match dwell time to the map power you need

504
00:45:58,841 --> 00:46:00,645
You wanna go first Walter?

505
00:46:03,669 --> 00:46:11,845
Two things, the great wall of the United States that's trying to block out the Chinese
cars, I think eventually is going to a road.

506
00:46:11,845 --> 00:46:16,058
Chinese technology is advancing for charging speed.

507
00:46:16,058 --> 00:46:23,944
And recently I saw a Tesla Bjorn video where he was inside a Chinese EV and it looked like
a Tesla display.

508
00:46:23,944 --> 00:46:28,907
It was a rectangle LCD and it had like little buttons on the bottom.

509
00:46:28,967 --> 00:46:30,388
I mean, was like a Tesla.

510
00:46:30,388 --> 00:46:31,989
It was, it was.

511
00:46:32,137 --> 00:46:35,119
very obviously reverse engineered Tesla tech.

512
00:46:35,580 --> 00:46:37,001
The opposite can happen.

513
00:46:37,001 --> 00:46:40,094
mean, you know, we've got crafty people over here in the United States.

514
00:46:40,094 --> 00:46:48,050
So either the Chinese are going to show up with a really fast charging cars or someone in
Silicon Valley is going to sit down with one of those things, pick it apart.

515
00:46:48,050 --> 00:46:58,170
And, I don't know about copy, but anyway, the tech is there, you know, in China price
parity has already been passed and it hasn't, you know, we could argue about the whole

516
00:46:58,170 --> 00:47:00,081
price part, but the speed.

517
00:47:00,561 --> 00:47:02,963
the technology of charging speed has increased.

518
00:47:02,963 --> 00:47:17,010
However, like, what Eric was alluding to, if I'm going to sit down and eat a meal, I'm
going to be hit with astronomical, dwell time charges because my car is finished in eight

519
00:47:17,010 --> 00:47:17,970
minutes.

520
00:47:17,991 --> 00:47:21,892
You know, who's going to sit down at a restaurant when your car finishes in eight minutes.

521
00:47:22,313 --> 00:47:30,357
you got to go into the convenience store and grab a cold burrito and run back to the car
and unplug and get on the road again.

522
00:47:30,835 --> 00:47:41,073
so I don't know, it's, it's a rolling, debate whether or not fast charging to that extent
is good or bad.

523
00:47:41,073 --> 00:47:50,199
And I guess it's good as, know, rather have instead of, instead of want, but I don't know.

524
00:47:50,230 --> 00:47:55,924
my personal opinion is I have 155 max speed on my Volvo and for me is perfectly fine.

525
00:47:55,924 --> 00:47:57,445
I can get everywhere I need to.

526
00:47:57,969 --> 00:48:01,230
And remember, it's happening whilst you do those things, right?

527
00:48:01,230 --> 00:48:08,723
And watch how people travel when you go to your next trip over the holidays or whatever
else, and you pull off at a service plaza or whatever the equivalent is where you are.

528
00:48:08,723 --> 00:48:10,134
See if they're rushing.

529
00:48:10,134 --> 00:48:12,805
See if they're first of all not stopping to go into the place.

530
00:48:12,805 --> 00:48:13,936
They need to use the bathroom.

531
00:48:13,936 --> 00:48:15,436
They do need to go and do that.

532
00:48:15,436 --> 00:48:20,318
See if they're just pumping gas and everybody is rushing out and coming back to the car
within two minutes.

533
00:48:20,318 --> 00:48:22,119
It's not the way most people do it.

534
00:48:22,119 --> 00:48:24,120
Most people will probably park.

535
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:24,630
Exactly.

536
00:48:24,630 --> 00:48:25,461
Yeah, you can't do it.

537
00:48:25,461 --> 00:48:26,843
It's not physically possible.

538
00:48:26,843 --> 00:48:35,656
But even the solo or the couple that are going, you they'll, they'll park up most likely,
at least at the service pauses that we have, go in, maybe grab some food, snacks,

539
00:48:35,656 --> 00:48:36,736
whatever, do the restroom.

540
00:48:36,736 --> 00:48:37,966
That's probably 15, 20 minutes.

541
00:48:37,966 --> 00:48:46,229
They'll go out and then they'll go to the gas station on the way out, spend another five,
10 minutes, you know, filling up, paying, and then they'll hit the road.

542
00:48:46,229 --> 00:48:49,833
So what's the cumulative amount of time there and which was more inconvenient?

543
00:48:49,833 --> 00:48:53,101
You know, I mean, some people are road warriors and just need to hit the road again and
go.

544
00:48:53,101 --> 00:48:54,661
I understand that, that, you know,

545
00:48:54,661 --> 00:48:58,627
the huge, huge charging curves and power levels for them will be key.

546
00:48:58,627 --> 00:49:00,641
But I don't think that's most Americans, honestly.

547
00:49:00,641 --> 00:49:04,496
think most people travel much slower than they think they would like to.

548
00:49:05,097 --> 00:49:21,611
Yeah, and I I I think to that Steve right that's to me chase that's the real risk is
catering too much to the cannonball runners is what I would refer to it as because That's

549
00:49:21,611 --> 00:49:24,432
a very unique subset of travelers.

550
00:49:24,432 --> 00:49:25,853
I think you've mentioned yourself.

551
00:49:25,853 --> 00:49:35,027
You probably do fall into that Whereas I think to Steve's point and I've noticed this for
a long time with my bolt EV we're all

552
00:49:35,027 --> 00:49:49,181
plug into a 50 kilowatt charger, get my strong 45 kilowatts of charging power, and I'll
walk in to a restaurant and eat and come back out again to 70, 80 % battery and I'll look

553
00:49:49,181 --> 00:49:55,406
around and all of the same gas cars that were parked there when I arrived are still there
when I leave.

554
00:49:55,567 --> 00:50:00,489
So, you know, there's a massive population of people who just...

555
00:50:00,489 --> 00:50:12,038
don't travel that way and that's the real risk, Is I think, and that was my biggest
takeaway from that I-90 surge video is the charging infrastructure has now exceeded the

556
00:50:12,038 --> 00:50:14,450
capabilities of the cars, right?

557
00:50:14,450 --> 00:50:21,936
Like we literally saw only one car that was able to keep up with the charging
infrastructure and that was the Porsche Taycan.

558
00:50:21,936 --> 00:50:30,461
And if it had more range, it would have actually kept up with the Acura, the gas powered
Acura.

559
00:50:30,461 --> 00:50:41,360
So like literally the only thing, and this is maybe speaking to Steve's point about
efficiency and to me, range is always kind of more paramount because you're no longer

560
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:43,942
reliant on infrastructure.

561
00:50:44,283 --> 00:50:55,322
If you had the Lucid's range with the Porsche Taycan's charging, it would have kept up
with the Acura with existing infrastructure.

562
00:50:55,322 --> 00:50:58,914
And that's, think the thing that to me, that was the biggest.

563
00:50:59,679 --> 00:51:15,047
Takeaway but to your other your other questions chase like I I'll start with an anecdote
or Not an anecdote, but just a saying right you you can have fast charging You can have

564
00:51:15,047 --> 00:51:29,727
long range or you can have low low cost of ownership and you can choose any two so People
yeah because people forget you rewind the clock nine ten years ago

565
00:51:29,727 --> 00:51:39,567
You could get a Chevy Spark EV for $20,000 that would charge from 10 % to 80 % in under 20
minutes.

566
00:51:39,567 --> 00:51:54,607
So this big red line that we've drawn that you need to be able to charge to 80 % in 15 to
20 minutes, well, we had EVs doing that for under $30,000 10 years ago.

567
00:51:54,607 --> 00:51:59,519
Now you could only go 80 to 90 miles on a full charge.

568
00:51:59,519 --> 00:52:01,549
but that was the trade off, right?

569
00:52:01,549 --> 00:52:06,199
So I think that's already sort of been in place.

570
00:52:06,199 --> 00:52:16,159
And I know for me personally, I do not see a benefit with anything faster than a 2C
charging EV.

571
00:52:16,159 --> 00:52:26,651
So for the way that I travel, if an EV can charge from say 10 % to 80 % in roughly 30
minutes,

572
00:52:26,651 --> 00:52:36,059
As long as it has close to 300 miles of range or thereabouts, that is perfect for my
personal travel needs.

573
00:52:36,479 --> 00:52:39,602
And I think a lot of people it works for.

574
00:52:39,602 --> 00:52:53,214
And to me also speaking to that cannonball run crowd, I think one of the questions,
someone asks me what kind of EV they need or how fast it needs to charge, one of the first

575
00:52:53,214 --> 00:52:55,103
questions I would ask

576
00:52:55,103 --> 00:53:01,723
about traveling is how much faster than the speed limit do you normally drive.

577
00:53:01,743 --> 00:53:13,383
Because if you just drive the speed limit, more than likely even a slower charging EV with
decent range is going to serve your needs to the point that you're not even going to

578
00:53:13,383 --> 00:53:15,273
really realize the difference, right?

579
00:53:15,273 --> 00:53:18,515
You're going to be driving for three hours.

580
00:53:18,515 --> 00:53:25,591
you're gonna stop for 30 minutes and you're gonna get back on the road again and drive for
another two to three hours and you're just not even gonna think about it.

581
00:53:25,624 --> 00:53:25,944
For sure.

582
00:53:25,944 --> 00:53:28,016
And I completely agree with Steve's comment.

583
00:53:28,016 --> 00:53:34,441
I mean, I know we've been talking about fast charting and I think it's probably just
inherently quite a bit of what we also do focus on.

584
00:53:34,581 --> 00:53:36,583
But I completely agree.

585
00:53:36,583 --> 00:53:41,026
Like the first things I look at really now are efficiency and range.

586
00:53:41,647 --> 00:53:51,775
And the more of that you have, the more you can kind of get around a lot of these DC fast
charting issues, which admittedly are getting a lot better.

587
00:53:51,775 --> 00:53:54,257
I mean, that was a big reason I chose the car I did recently.

588
00:53:54,257 --> 00:53:55,878
And I

589
00:53:56,000 --> 00:54:02,988
I think that's what is so impressive too is what we are seeing around the efficiency
improvements and what we're seeing kind of consistently for vehicles on the road.

590
00:54:02,988 --> 00:54:11,348
And I hope that trend really does continue just because as a consumer, it also means I'm
spending less when I do have to charge it.

591
00:54:11,489 --> 00:54:14,592
And I can go farther on a charge and stuff like that.

592
00:54:14,592 --> 00:54:16,068
But I think

593
00:54:16,068 --> 00:54:18,474
does the lyric do in terms of range?

594
00:54:18,474 --> 00:54:22,423
always forget kind of how that compares to the charging.

595
00:54:22,901 --> 00:54:23,966
312.

596
00:54:24,518 --> 00:54:26,342
And is that kind of highway speeds?

597
00:54:26,342 --> 00:54:28,126
are you getting out of it?

598
00:54:29,027 --> 00:54:30,243
I mean, that's the difference.

599
00:54:30,243 --> 00:54:31,833
mean, we talk because it's not.

600
00:54:31,833 --> 00:54:34,509
than I can stand being in a car.

601
00:54:34,757 --> 00:54:42,951
I can do 200 miles in the Ionicon, a good jaunt along the Mass Pike and it'll get me to
Albany from Boston, but it's not going further than that.

602
00:54:42,951 --> 00:54:45,543
The Lyric would then get me to Syracuse.

603
00:54:45,543 --> 00:54:53,607
So, and that's, you're starting, so again, you, maybe I can charge faster, hooray, and I'm
back on the road quicker than Walter, but Walter's already gone 100 miles more than me.

604
00:54:53,607 --> 00:54:55,548
So, you know, it's just, there's a trade-off there.

605
00:54:55,548 --> 00:54:58,239
It's just how you prefer to travel to some extent.

606
00:54:59,694 --> 00:55:01,455
Yeah, I completely agree.

607
00:55:01,695 --> 00:55:04,277
and, and I think I'm just kind of curious.

608
00:55:04,377 --> 00:55:14,204
We've all talked about a little bit and then, kind of going back to my question, we all
talk about each on our own channels, but just kind of about the rise of amenities at these

609
00:55:14,204 --> 00:55:18,617
charging locations as to do we see that?

610
00:55:18,617 --> 00:55:29,644
And I think we've also talked about this too, is like, as the prices get more expensive at
some of these locations that have more amenities, does that kind of start becoming a

611
00:55:29,986 --> 00:55:36,598
detriment, a positive, a just benefit of choice to the consumer.

612
00:55:36,598 --> 00:55:41,706
I'm curious how you guys go about it in your own kind of EV road tripping.

613
00:55:44,423 --> 00:55:52,617
Well, I mean, maybe I'm weird, but I actually don't look at the prices, like not in terms
of planning my trip, right?

614
00:55:52,617 --> 00:55:56,689
I drive and then when I need to charge, I stop and charge.

615
00:55:56,689 --> 00:56:02,892
And then when I look at the price, I shake my fist at the sky and yell profanities.

616
00:56:02,892 --> 00:56:09,575
But yeah, I don't plan my trips around the price of the charging.

617
00:56:09,875 --> 00:56:14,838
I do plan my trips around the amenities that are available at the location.

618
00:56:15,378 --> 00:56:28,945
But I know Walter, you probably have something to say to this as well, because we've kind
of chatted on this on the side too, but there is a real fiscal incentive for businesses to

619
00:56:28,945 --> 00:56:31,807
install EV chargers at this point.

620
00:56:31,807 --> 00:56:39,549
And when you see something like an IANA where they're all in, in terms of they're building
everything like that,

621
00:56:39,549 --> 00:56:43,351
That's a little bit of a different model because they're fronting the costs.

622
00:56:43,351 --> 00:56:45,281
They're doing all of that.

623
00:56:45,482 --> 00:56:49,193
And they don't have an existing business that sort of supplements it.

624
00:56:49,193 --> 00:56:52,124
They're looking to local businesses or whatever.

625
00:56:52,124 --> 00:57:04,829
But in terms of if you're a fast food chain, if you're a sit down restaurant chain, if
you're an existing established business that makes money from foot traffic, a Buc-Ease, a

626
00:57:04,829 --> 00:57:08,071
Pilot, a Love's Travel Center, right?

627
00:57:08,787 --> 00:57:25,114
when you put that charger in, it opens up the door for you to actually offer energy at a
subsidized rate because every customer that enters your door is paying 10, 15, 20 % margin

628
00:57:25,114 --> 00:57:29,536
on whatever it is that they consume when they're at your location.

629
00:57:29,536 --> 00:57:38,395
So I actually see amenities and price complementing each other in terms of, if you're
talking about a

630
00:57:38,395 --> 00:57:52,315
charger being added to an existing business that makes decent margins off of foot traffic,
they have no reason to try to then charge more than the most basic rate for power.

631
00:57:55,862 --> 00:57:56,900
No, I think that makes sense.

632
00:57:56,900 --> 00:57:59,455
Walter, Steve, what are your thoughts into that?

633
00:58:02,117 --> 00:58:05,118
I could talk for this on this for hours.

634
00:58:05,138 --> 00:58:05,869
Lots of things.

635
00:58:05,869 --> 00:58:16,483
So first, let me talk about a trend that I'm noticing is that there's a divergence away
from plopping chargers in convenience stores and instead building charging hubs.

636
00:58:16,483 --> 00:58:23,586
Steve did a really good video on that just recently where there's an emergence of charging
hubs throughout the United States.

637
00:58:24,026 --> 00:58:31,657
Large fossil fuel companies like Shell Oil and British Petroleum are spotted

638
00:58:31,657 --> 00:58:33,368
doing exactly what I'm saying.

639
00:58:33,368 --> 00:58:41,823
They're shuttering gas stations and they're green fielding charging hubs at locations that
are just nothing in the ground.

640
00:58:41,823 --> 00:58:43,863
They're just building it from scratch.

641
00:58:44,224 --> 00:58:50,207
so divergent away from the convenience store model, they're forging in a completely new
path.

642
00:58:50,367 --> 00:58:51,588
So that is occurring.

643
00:58:51,588 --> 00:58:55,930
Whether or not that's going to be successful or not is yet to be determined.

644
00:58:56,691 --> 00:59:01,363
But my personal opinion, back to your original question, if I'm stopping to charge,

645
00:59:01,545 --> 00:59:03,026
I want a gas station.

646
00:59:03,026 --> 00:59:11,673
And I think the sleeping giant in the United States, the United States is really a
collection of small medium businesses.

647
00:59:11,673 --> 00:59:17,458
The lion's share of employment in the United States is not in large Fortune 50 companies.

648
00:59:17,458 --> 00:59:21,061
The lion's share of employment is in small medium businesses.

649
00:59:21,061 --> 00:59:31,143
And when it becomes clear that as Eric says, you can increase foot traffic and you could
also receive fuel.

650
00:59:31,143 --> 00:59:36,274
electronically without a truck to your store.

651
00:59:36,554 --> 00:59:49,618
And everyone starts to understand that it's an investment in dwell time, that there's
going to be owner operators of convenience stores all throughout the United States

652
00:59:49,618 --> 00:59:53,159
clamoring to get DC fast chargers installed as fast as they can.

653
00:59:53,419 --> 01:00:00,741
And all of these CPOs out there that are gaining the limelight are just going to be
completely swallowed up by the sea of

654
01:00:00,893 --> 01:00:05,616
independent operators putting in chargers at their properties.

655
01:00:05,696 --> 01:00:11,120
in my opinion, that's the best place to charge because they're already geared for me to be
there.

656
01:00:11,120 --> 01:00:13,011
You know, they have everything I need.

657
01:00:14,481 --> 01:00:17,151
I think it's going to be interesting watching the business models.

658
01:00:17,151 --> 01:00:25,541
This is something to start looking at in 2025 and beyond is what does the entity that's
selling the charging have to gain elsewhere?

659
01:00:25,541 --> 01:00:28,281
To Eric's point, is there a property for you to go into?

660
01:00:28,281 --> 01:00:32,981
Are they putting amenities there so they can service you and your family and your dog?

661
01:00:32,981 --> 01:00:43,123
And this loves is starting to really tell dog parks and the dog rest areas at the truck
stops, which is part of the long haul trucking crowd.

662
01:00:43,165 --> 01:00:51,068
But the pricing is going to be, it's really interested me recently because you're starting
to see like on the lower end of players that are at least in multiple regions or

663
01:00:51,068 --> 01:00:56,668
nationwide, it's the circle K kind of charging solution, which is a bit lower power.

664
01:00:56,668 --> 01:00:58,163
You know, it's 180 kilowatts.

665
01:00:58,163 --> 01:01:05,717
It's not necessarily the fastest charging on the market, but they've, they've cornered the
market of kind of sub 50 cents per kilowatt hour.

666
01:01:05,717 --> 01:01:10,122
They're in 43 to 49 cents per kilowatt hour range, wherever they're operating.

667
01:01:10,122 --> 01:01:11,800
And that's across the board.

668
01:01:12,357 --> 01:01:17,490
Then you have Tesla, who's much more of a, know, this is a kind of, know, we're doing it
because we need to have the network.

669
01:01:17,490 --> 01:01:27,295
We built it so that people would buy the cars and that, know, you have Max Dezega, the
director of charging at Tesla charging saying our role is to force, you know, put downward

670
01:01:27,295 --> 01:01:29,727
pressure on prices to bring the industry down.

671
01:01:29,727 --> 01:01:35,009
So they've cut their prices a little bit recently and starting to see downward trends
there as well.

672
01:01:35,009 --> 01:01:41,433
And then you have the likes of Pilot Flying J who are, you know, as Eric said, incented to
get people into the

673
01:01:41,647 --> 01:01:47,322
the property and start to sell them things, but they're on the higher end of the, you
know, it's around 57 cents.

674
01:01:47,322 --> 01:01:52,156
I think Walter had said that, you know, for average, some of their prices go as high as 69
cents.

675
01:01:52,156 --> 01:01:54,759
The lowest I've seen is 45 cents per kilowatt hour.

676
01:01:54,759 --> 01:01:57,230
So it's mostly on the higher end.

677
01:01:57,531 --> 01:02:00,083
And they, but then you have nicer amenities to an extent.

678
01:02:00,083 --> 01:02:02,545
You may have shelter, you may have the squeegees.

679
01:02:02,545 --> 01:02:04,617
So they've really built out the

680
01:02:04,625 --> 01:02:08,328
quality of as soon as you plug in, you've got an experience around you.

681
01:02:08,328 --> 01:02:16,304
Not every stop, but there's a lot of canopies now in Walter's slide decks that he does at
the end of his pilot flying J updates to show you how many canopies there are and what

682
01:02:16,304 --> 01:02:17,615
kind of quality you're getting.

683
01:02:17,615 --> 01:02:22,639
So it's well lit, it's sheltered, it's fast, it's got the 24 seven.

684
01:02:22,639 --> 01:02:26,081
So then maybe you start to think, well, all right, I'm in the middle of the night.

685
01:02:26,081 --> 01:02:29,745
I'm at the weather, you know, in the Northeast here, it's coming down with snow.

686
01:02:29,745 --> 01:02:31,502
I don't really want to.

687
01:02:31,502 --> 01:02:32,029
friend.

688
01:02:32,029 --> 01:02:40,969
it somewhere where there is a supercharger because a lot of those are uncovered or a
circle cake it's cheaper but you know still I'm not going to get the level of experience

689
01:02:40,969 --> 01:02:44,371
maybe I do want that pilot flying J in that circumstance.

690
01:02:46,271 --> 01:02:50,753
Chase, I just say something that really grinds my reduction gear?

691
01:02:52,355 --> 01:02:58,429
So I recently had to fill out a JD Power survey.

692
01:02:58,429 --> 01:03:04,503
So every time you log in on PlugShare, a lot of times if you've charged there, they'll
send you it.

693
01:03:04,503 --> 01:03:04,844
Yeah.

694
01:03:04,844 --> 01:03:10,433
on my recent road trip and now even Chargeway does consumer reports when you use it.

695
01:03:10,433 --> 01:03:10,873
Yeah.

696
01:03:10,873 --> 01:03:21,572
And so what really bothers me about it though is as you go through the survey, you can
tell that one of the things that they're primarily fishing for is reliability, right?

697
01:03:21,572 --> 01:03:26,105
Like, are you here because your charging session failed somewhere else?

698
01:03:26,105 --> 01:03:27,927
Did your charging session here fail?

699
01:03:27,927 --> 01:03:29,648
Did you have problems making your payment?

700
01:03:29,648 --> 01:03:31,569
Were there any issues actually?

701
01:03:31,870 --> 01:03:38,425
What I would like to see them start asking is did you actually use the business on site?

702
01:03:38,483 --> 01:03:41,104
because that's data that really actually matters.

703
01:03:41,104 --> 01:03:52,989
So if you're doing a survey for an EV owner and you stopped at a Target, did you shop at
that Target or did you shop at a different business nearby?

704
01:03:53,349 --> 01:04:01,062
So if you stop at an EV, go in front of a Chipotle, did you grab yourself a burrito or did
you just sit in your car and check emails?

705
01:04:01,062 --> 01:04:07,295
So to me, that's the kind of data I think that they need to start gathering from
consumers.

706
01:04:07,295 --> 01:04:11,455
because that's actually data that matters to the businesses.

707
01:04:11,995 --> 01:04:20,775
I think we're past the point of fishing for, this charging provider only has 82.3 %
reliability.

708
01:04:21,275 --> 01:04:22,165
I'm charging there.

709
01:04:22,165 --> 01:04:23,915
I told you I'm charging there.

710
01:04:23,915 --> 01:04:25,195
Don't bother me.

711
01:04:25,195 --> 01:04:30,275
Ask me about what I did when I'm there, and then that's useful data for the business.

712
01:04:30,275 --> 01:04:32,705
So that's just kind of my take on it.

713
01:04:32,705 --> 01:04:36,201
I mean, I get that they're trying to give a consumer report

714
01:04:36,201 --> 01:04:39,773
for consumers focused on the charging provider.

715
01:04:40,174 --> 01:04:48,861
But I think we're also at a point now where they could be doing a better job gathering
data that's actually useful for the businesses that might want to be hosting these

716
01:04:48,861 --> 01:04:50,421
charging providers.

717
01:04:51,623 --> 01:04:52,066
So.

718
01:04:52,066 --> 01:04:53,846
that's a fair criticism.

719
01:04:54,146 --> 01:04:58,846
I do know, I mean, a lot of what they're being paid for is to get that reliability data.

720
01:04:58,846 --> 01:05:03,626
So I agree with you that it's probably focusing the wrong area, but it is also it's
vicious cycle.

721
01:05:03,626 --> 01:05:07,166
Cause that's what they're mostly being paid for to get that data for.

722
01:05:07,626 --> 01:05:08,196
but you're right.

723
01:05:08,196 --> 01:05:15,606
There is definitely a kind of a spring well of opportunity when it comes to actually,
cause that is something a lot of different business and a lot of people want to get that

724
01:05:15,606 --> 01:05:20,290
data and are willing to pay for it to find out where those opportunities are for in the
market.

725
01:05:21,390 --> 01:05:29,560
And I realize we're now coming up on an hour and I really appreciate all this conversation
So I do want to kind of address one thing we haven't really talked about.

726
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:41,010
I know this is kind of All you guys discuss this but obviously kind of looking at back
Today, it's december 17th as we're recording this looking back at 2024 and now kind of

727
01:05:41,010 --> 01:05:51,640
looking forward to 2025 obviously there's been Kind of all sorts of different
announcements of what people think will or will not happen with the recent election

728
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:58,255
But I'm kind curious, like, let's just look back real quickly at 2024 and kind of start
with some of the trends and things we've seen with Nevi.

729
01:05:58,255 --> 01:06:07,921
And I know Steve, you're always posting a lot of great content about that specifically,
but I would love to hear maybe just like a few just high, just bullet points about what

730
01:06:07,921 --> 01:06:15,296
are some of the things that you've really, that really stood out to you in this past year,
especially with kind of the Nevi implementations.

731
01:06:17,157 --> 01:06:22,480
I think how much was going on underneath the surface is, is kinda, you know, crucial.

732
01:06:22,480 --> 01:06:26,252
There's you're starting to see now that November was the biggest month.

733
01:06:26,252 --> 01:06:30,404
I think it ended up with 15 activations under the Navy program.

734
01:06:30,945 --> 01:06:37,828
December's lagging it obviously a bit at the moment, but if we get some builds here in the
next week or two subject to the holidays, it will match or exceed.

735
01:06:37,828 --> 01:06:41,950
So we'll be by the end of the year, we're pretty close to 50 active Navy stations.

736
01:06:42,091 --> 01:06:46,493
so what, but all of that was proceeded by two years of.

737
01:06:46,767 --> 01:06:50,593
government agencies trying to figure out how the hell to do what was going on.

738
01:06:50,593 --> 01:06:52,681
I mean, we've spoken to a few people.

739
01:06:53,022 --> 01:06:58,986
Yeah, well, yeah, so I'm still if you look at your Florida or your Wyoming, you'll not
notice any nevi stations popping up soon.

740
01:06:58,986 --> 01:07:03,229
And there's a reason for that the states, you know, have just not shown the interest that
others have.

741
01:07:03,229 --> 01:07:12,616
But you'll see the leaders, the likes of Ohio, who were about a year into their, their
implementation now, and then New York State both had plans beforehand, right.

742
01:07:12,616 --> 01:07:13,911
So they had some

743
01:07:13,911 --> 01:07:19,863
semblance of how they were going to build out charging in their state even before federal
programs came along.

744
01:07:19,863 --> 01:07:21,074
They knew they wanted to do it.

745
01:07:21,074 --> 01:07:22,054
They knew this was the future.

746
01:07:22,054 --> 01:07:23,585
They just had to figure out funding.

747
01:07:23,585 --> 01:07:25,926
Some of it was Volkswagen, Dieselgate based.

748
01:07:25,926 --> 01:07:27,487
Others would be state based.

749
01:07:27,487 --> 01:07:30,588
Whatever they had, they were starting to put plans in place.

750
01:07:30,588 --> 01:07:37,010
So Neve has for those states just supercharged and catalyzed those efforts because they
had the plan.

751
01:07:37,010 --> 01:07:40,752
They said it would maybe take us five, 10 years to do this with the funds that we've got.

752
01:07:40,752 --> 01:07:43,621
And then they've got this big pot of money now to say, well,

753
01:07:43,621 --> 01:07:51,166
we want to empower travel across the country, your state's a big part of this, go and put
charges every 50 miles and they'll say, well, we've got the plan to do it.

754
01:07:51,166 --> 01:07:52,347
We've got some of them done.

755
01:07:52,347 --> 01:07:54,608
Let's just get all these in the ground now.

756
01:07:54,609 --> 01:07:56,660
So that's why you're starting to see so many pop up.

757
01:07:56,660 --> 01:08:03,155
think Ohio was probably 60 or 70 % of the activations last month and pilot flying day has
been a big part of that.

758
01:08:03,155 --> 01:08:13,091
that the money is catalyzing, you know, cross country travel with CCS one connectors at
least, but you're starting to also see it's kind of a light leading indicator.

759
01:08:13,137 --> 01:08:15,617
The J 3400 plugs come online.

760
01:08:15,617 --> 01:08:18,317
Texas had it as part of their requirement from early on.

761
01:08:18,317 --> 01:08:26,377
So the sites in Texas that are going live will all be, whether they're Tesla superchargers
or otherwise, will all have a next J 3400 handles.

762
01:08:26,377 --> 01:08:30,157
You're starting to see that with quick trip up in Wisconsin also putting them on.

763
01:08:30,157 --> 01:08:36,687
So you're seeing a lot of the things that are happening outside of public funding
regardless, you know.

764
01:08:36,687 --> 01:08:41,702
happening in the public funded sector just because they have to meet these requirements.

765
01:08:41,702 --> 01:08:50,611
it's an interesting intersection of what would have happened anyway, but something that's
been criticized for being so slow has actually really started to pick up pace now and is

766
01:08:50,611 --> 01:08:56,587
kind of embodying a lot of these trends that we're seeing in the wider industry that would
have been funded by the private sector.

767
01:08:58,658 --> 01:09:00,905
Walter, I'm sure you have some thoughts on this.

768
01:09:00,999 --> 01:09:01,609
Yes.

769
01:09:01,609 --> 01:09:09,161
I'm very interested to see how the, Neve police enforcement of charger uptime lays out.

770
01:09:09,161 --> 01:09:15,693
And the way I understand that hook occurs is data is required to be fed into the joint
offices.

771
01:09:15,713 --> 01:09:18,929
I think it's the each heart database or something.

772
01:09:18,929 --> 01:09:27,625
forgot the name of the database, but telemetry from chargers that records uptime,
throughput rates, several other.

773
01:09:27,625 --> 01:09:32,448
variables is all recorded into the Joint Office's database.

774
01:09:32,509 --> 01:09:46,480
And from that, it's disseminated off to the states in order to either withhold or disperse
operational expenses for the Navy stations with the awarded operators.

775
01:09:46,480 --> 01:09:56,368
Now, one concern I do have is that when the Trump administration takes over, they may try
to cease the operation of the Joint Office.

776
01:09:56,568 --> 01:09:57,519
I'm thinking

777
01:09:57,519 --> 01:10:07,027
as an executive, as a part of the federal government, I'm not quite sure if that's
achievable, but I do have concern.

778
01:10:07,027 --> 01:10:18,506
If I was a employee of the joint office right now, I'd be pretty nervous, you know, cause
there's a lot of talk about ways that the Trump administration might be able to curtail

779
01:10:18,647 --> 01:10:21,028
spending towards electric vehicles.

780
01:10:21,229 --> 01:10:24,562
And I would say the joint office is probably in the crosshairs right now.

781
01:10:24,562 --> 01:10:26,415
So that is a concern I have.

782
01:10:26,415 --> 01:10:36,190
The NEBI program itself will likely continue just because the allocation of funds has
already occurred, but those roles can be rolled over into a different department.

783
01:10:36,311 --> 01:10:42,304
And it could definitely become less effective, and that would be concerned.

784
01:10:42,304 --> 01:10:53,461
But if it does sustain the effect of that telemetry rolling into the Joint Offices
Database, I think we'll have wide-standing effect for overall.

785
01:10:53,461 --> 01:11:03,321
station reliability because if operators are required to report that data just for Debi
stations, they'll also have similar type of expectations for the rest of their stations as

786
01:11:03,321 --> 01:11:03,521
well.

787
01:11:03,521 --> 01:11:09,061
So it will be a positive effect, ripple effect throughout the entire environment.

788
01:11:09,061 --> 01:11:10,495
At least that's my opinion.

789
01:11:11,247 --> 01:11:20,233
want to kind of separate those things out as well because the NEVI requirement is on
uptime and it's 97 % which kind of sucks as a you know if that's your metric then you're

790
01:11:20,233 --> 01:11:28,829
not doing that great because that's potentially a day or more out every month which is not
going to help people who roll up on that day but I think just looping it back to electric

791
01:11:28,829 --> 01:11:39,576
era I think they've talked about as well as uptime which is kind of crucial successful
charge activation rates scar they're setting up some other metrics which I really kind of

792
01:11:39,576 --> 01:11:40,869
appreciate it because

793
01:11:40,869 --> 01:11:42,581
That's more the user level, right?

794
01:11:42,581 --> 01:11:44,902
If we go back to driver experience, that's what we're talking about.

795
01:11:44,902 --> 01:11:45,974
So yeah, it has to be up.

796
01:11:45,974 --> 01:11:48,015
has to be glowing green when I arrive.

797
01:11:48,015 --> 01:11:48,576
Great.

798
01:11:48,576 --> 01:11:56,373
But it also needs to start my charge without me having to futz with three different types
of activation or, you know, call someone to start it up.

799
01:11:56,373 --> 01:12:01,037
So if I'm started on my first attempt, that's another metric that I want.

800
01:12:01,037 --> 01:12:04,290
And I think that's laudable for anybody who's focusing on that.

801
01:12:04,290 --> 01:12:07,852
think Ken power has done some good work with publishing there.

802
01:12:08,577 --> 01:12:13,879
success as well because the numbers weren't that glowing for Kempa but they literally said
this is about transparency.

803
01:12:13,879 --> 01:12:18,290
We accept that these are great numbers and then these are poor numbers and this is where
we're going to improve.

804
01:12:18,290 --> 01:12:27,263
So if we can kind of start to get that level of not just granularity but transparency from
the providers then we start to really make some inroads into how things are actually on

805
01:12:27,263 --> 01:12:28,160
the ground.

806
01:12:28,160 --> 01:12:38,014
Yeah, I don't know if I share Walter's optimism that that data will be shared at the same
level, but I think those examples of both Kemper and Electric Era that you shared, Steve,

807
01:12:38,014 --> 01:12:41,816
highlight why they do and it's great sales data.

808
01:12:42,196 --> 01:12:50,650
While it would be great to have that data of the providers and have more transparency
around that, if you are a company that's selling hardware like Electric Era or Kemper, now

809
01:12:50,650 --> 01:12:55,852
you're having some pretty good selling points as to why to buy that hardware.

810
01:12:55,854 --> 01:12:59,584
And I do agree that electric area has been really great about sharing their data.

811
01:12:59,584 --> 01:13:06,994
And a big part of that is they're trying to get more funding and they're trying to scale
and they want to highlight and they have, they do also have that, very effective software

812
01:13:06,994 --> 01:13:14,254
capability to have real time results that I think some others have definitely struggled
with getting that data and having that reflective.

813
01:13:14,254 --> 01:13:22,474
mean, even in the electrify America app, I've had that experience where it's just way off
of what it's telling me is live at different sites.

814
01:13:23,702 --> 01:13:24,722
So I would love to see that.

815
01:13:24,722 --> 01:13:25,603
you're totally right.

816
01:13:25,603 --> 01:13:37,322
I think we've seen this by quite a few ChargePoint operators where they have
coincidentally kind of hidden what these numbers actually mean, especially with uptime and

817
01:13:37,322 --> 01:13:45,265
reliability that yeah, the station was up, but maybe half of those chargers were down or
you had to plug in twice to get exactly to what you're talking about.

818
01:13:45,265 --> 01:13:50,181
So you're like, what was the actual experience or how does this kind of work into that?

819
01:13:51,394 --> 01:14:01,005
There's a lot of ways that you can unfortunately use data to say the wrong message and how
can we increase that transparency of the data to find the truth?

820
01:14:01,426 --> 01:14:11,198
And, I hope what Walter is saying comes to fruition, but historically, I have yet to be
more optimistic.

821
01:14:12,521 --> 01:14:18,556
So speaking of that, maybe I should say a couple of negatives about Nevi.

822
01:14:20,017 --> 01:14:29,324
I do actually think Nevi hurt the charging infrastructure development, I think, for at
least a year and a half to two years.

823
01:14:29,705 --> 01:14:40,214
I think there's a lot of people that were building chargers and knowing that these funds
were in the wings, they paused because, maybe we're going to get access to this.

824
01:14:40,214 --> 01:14:41,405
Maybe we can get

825
01:14:41,405 --> 01:14:43,636
get in on this, maybe we can offset our costs.

826
01:14:43,636 --> 01:14:52,958
And that's an unfortunate side effect of promising funds that aren't going to be available
for several years into the future.

827
01:14:53,139 --> 01:15:01,161
But the other sort of unspoken, I think it doesn't get enough acknowledgement, is the
confusion about funding.

828
01:15:01,161 --> 01:15:07,655
And I see this within a lot of the EV community, especially ones from people who are
pushing.

829
01:15:07,655 --> 01:15:17,070
certain sort of tribalism, certain sort of brands, because it's like, so and so isn't
paying for chargers or so and so isn't building chargers, right?

830
01:15:17,070 --> 01:15:19,341
They don't really care about EV owners.

831
01:15:19,341 --> 01:15:24,704
And now that Nevi funds are here, it's GM is building chargers, right?

832
01:15:24,704 --> 01:15:30,387
And I've seen this a lot with the Pilot Flying J and Walter can speak to this too.

833
01:15:30,387 --> 01:15:37,385
There's a completely different funding channel for a lot of those Pilot Flying Js that has
nothing to do with Nevi.

834
01:15:37,385 --> 01:15:41,898
There are a lot that are now Nevi, but they're going to build them regardless.

835
01:15:41,898 --> 01:15:44,320
If they get Nevi funds, great.

836
01:15:44,320 --> 01:15:49,134
But otherwise, no GM is actually putting money into these charging sites.

837
01:15:49,134 --> 01:15:52,516
Mercedes is putting money into these charging sites.

838
01:15:52,516 --> 01:15:58,691
These aren't just automakers that are leaving, you know, EV owners to strand for
themselves.

839
01:15:58,691 --> 01:16:02,674
They're actually committing a lot of funds and a lot of resources.

840
01:16:02,674 --> 01:16:04,659
And unfortunately,

841
01:16:04,659 --> 01:16:16,945
There's an aspect of this where now people are conflating Nevi with work that other
charging providers, other automakers are actually doing that in my opinion, they should be

842
01:16:16,945 --> 01:16:18,266
getting credit for.

843
01:16:18,266 --> 01:16:27,750
And, you know, not to get too political about it, but it was something that rubbed me the
wrong way that President Biden was talking about how, we've put in hundreds of thousands

844
01:16:27,750 --> 01:16:28,851
of plugs.

845
01:16:28,851 --> 01:16:29,853
Who's we?

846
01:16:29,853 --> 01:16:30,063
Right?

847
01:16:30,063 --> 01:16:35,546
Like these were, these were put in before you, these were funded before you, you had
nothing to do with them.

848
01:16:35,546 --> 01:16:42,248
Now you can take credit for the Neve and the infrastructure act, but things that come
after.

849
01:16:42,249 --> 01:16:49,012
But when we're talking about, there's a lot of people who did a lot of hard work that
yeah, could they have done better job?

850
01:16:49,012 --> 01:16:51,413
Probably, but they deserve credit.

851
01:16:51,413 --> 01:16:56,617
think credit, credit where credit's due to a lot of these charging providers and
automakers.

852
01:16:56,617 --> 01:16:59,549
who put in some skin in the game, as they say.

853
01:16:59,549 --> 01:17:11,819
so while I'm impressed by Nevi and I like to see the funding and the build out, I don't
want to take away from the charging providers that really did start laying the groundwork

854
01:17:11,819 --> 01:17:17,413
for it and putting infrastructure in ahead of the Nevi funding.

855
01:17:18,050 --> 01:17:26,085
Yeah, I think that is a fair call out just because that's a conversation we've definitely
had on this channel quite a bit with Lauren McDonald and others about there is kind of,

856
01:17:26,515 --> 01:17:37,502
called the monkeys power, unintended, native consequences that comes out with this, where
we were seeing a couple of years ago, definitely more rollout of DC fast chargers outside

857
01:17:37,502 --> 01:17:39,323
of, across different groups.

858
01:17:39,323 --> 01:17:44,136
And then there was a big step back and kind of scale back and kind of slow down.

859
01:17:44,174 --> 01:17:48,814
around where those funds and execution was being focused by these private companies.

860
01:17:48,814 --> 01:17:58,174
Now, I would say 2024 was the year, especially the last six to eight months, this has
really changed where there is no longer that like, it just kind of got to the point where,

861
01:17:58,174 --> 01:18:05,094
and I think some of that was also just the business climate where it's like, we can't wait
to get Nevi funds if we can get them great.

862
01:18:05,094 --> 01:18:12,300
But I kind of think the market actually forced a lot of these companies hands with some
going out of business, some merging.

863
01:18:12,300 --> 01:18:14,475
by having to like, if we can get the funds, great.

864
01:18:14,475 --> 01:18:16,698
If we can count these approvals, great.

865
01:18:17,041 --> 01:18:19,986
But we actually have to get charges in the ground.

866
01:18:21,341 --> 01:18:27,467
And I would say in the specific case of Pilot Corporation is owned by Warren Buffett.

867
01:18:27,467 --> 01:18:29,108
They're very well funded.

868
01:18:30,070 --> 01:18:32,162
know, Nevi funds, okay, they're there.

869
01:18:32,162 --> 01:18:32,643
That's nice.

870
01:18:32,643 --> 01:18:36,497
But, know, without them, they're still building chargers.

871
01:18:36,497 --> 01:18:37,917
They're not a big winner.

872
01:18:37,917 --> 01:18:46,257
mean, they look big at the moment because Ohio won so many and started off early, but I
Walter has said now there's 100 plus 112 was the last count.

873
01:18:46,257 --> 01:18:49,177
It goes up every week and that's not purely because of Navy.

874
01:18:49,177 --> 01:18:57,837
Maybe 10, 15 % of charges had some Navy funding, but even then it's usually an 80, 20
match or some level of matching from the private entity.

875
01:18:57,837 --> 01:18:59,707
So they've still put money into that.

876
01:18:59,707 --> 01:19:02,177
You know, they've just got some offset from the government to help them.

877
01:19:02,177 --> 01:19:03,473
And then you look at

878
01:19:03,473 --> 01:19:10,133
I can't to Eric's point, you look at a loves who are, the equivalent of pilot and in a lot
of similar places, they're only just starting.

879
01:19:10,133 --> 01:19:16,233
And we know from the kind of testimony that some of the execs have said that, you know, we
need government help.

880
01:19:16,233 --> 01:19:17,033
waiting for this.

881
01:19:17,033 --> 01:19:24,873
So the reason that pilot is at one hundred and twelve and that loves is at one or two now
is because they waited, you know, and pilots way ahead of the game.

882
01:19:24,873 --> 01:19:27,733
They just said, well, we'll get money if we can, but we're spending it, you know.

883
01:19:27,733 --> 01:19:32,111
And I think loves is like third or fourth in the total.

884
01:19:32,111 --> 01:19:33,783
you never you fund awards list.

885
01:19:33,783 --> 01:19:35,895
And that's just why they waited a bit longer.

886
01:19:35,895 --> 01:19:37,897
And they're behind now, you know, pilot flying.

887
01:19:37,897 --> 01:19:42,867
Jay is the one that people associate with a really good charging experience loves is like,
well, maybe one day

888
01:19:42,867 --> 01:19:47,820
Well, and there are two wings of the GM energy network, right?

889
01:19:47,820 --> 01:19:59,396
So there's the EV extend with Pilot Flying J, but there are literally hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of 350 kilowatt GM energy charging sites that have already been

890
01:19:59,396 --> 01:20:04,878
deployed over the last two years that have nothing, no affiliation with Pilot at all.

891
01:20:07,483 --> 01:20:09,935
in Ayanna?

892
01:20:11,637 --> 01:20:15,541
Huge introduction into the charging space.

893
01:20:15,541 --> 01:20:17,822
Again, no federal funds.

894
01:20:17,843 --> 01:20:29,103
my personal opinion, as Steve said, is a, and as Eric said, there was a pause button with
Nevi, but I think Steve will attest we're now past the pause and Nevi funds are getting

895
01:20:29,103 --> 01:20:32,235
dispersed and chargers are getting activated.

896
01:20:32,636 --> 01:20:33,757
it's really...

897
01:20:34,493 --> 01:20:38,713
The golden age of DC fast charger installs coming up here for 2025.

898
01:20:39,631 --> 01:20:43,184
Yeah, once they win the award, they got to get them in the ground so they can get the
money.

899
01:20:43,584 --> 01:20:45,667
Operating and maintenance, cash.

900
01:20:45,667 --> 01:20:48,119
So yeah, now they're incentivized.

901
01:20:49,327 --> 01:21:03,147
So looking forward now to 2025, I'm kind of curious for each of your thoughts as to what
are some of the things that, or I guess real quickly, are there any things that really

902
01:21:03,147 --> 01:21:10,137
surprised any of you about kind of 2024 in the EV in general, kind of automaker or like DC
fast charting space?

903
01:21:10,137 --> 01:21:15,036
Were there any things that really kind of caught you guys or surprised you in this past
year?

904
01:21:17,961 --> 01:21:19,141
I'll go first.

905
01:21:20,002 --> 01:21:27,586
then fast pumping the brakes with the North Carolina factory was a big surprise for me and
their production still coming out of Vietnam.

906
01:21:27,877 --> 01:21:32,129
for the short term, there was a big announcement for the factory in North Carolina.

907
01:21:32,129 --> 01:21:37,193
And I thought that fast was going to be an emerging brand throughout the North American
market.

908
01:21:37,193 --> 01:21:43,026
And although you see them on occasion, they're still very small and all of the cars are
still being made in Vietnam.

909
01:21:43,026 --> 01:21:45,257
So for me, that was a big surprise.

910
01:21:52,408 --> 01:22:01,333
I was going to say, the sort of failures of Freewire and Tridium were a bit of a surprise
to me.

911
01:22:01,333 --> 01:22:10,958
then since I've been on such a Debbie Downer note, you know, one of the things that I
haven't liked seeing is a lot of these stranded assets.

912
01:22:10,958 --> 01:22:13,770
And it's a bit of a concern to me right now.

913
01:22:13,770 --> 01:22:19,965
Yeah, there are some of them that are like the Freewires and things like that, that are
like the...

914
01:22:19,965 --> 01:22:22,318
The actual charges have just gone down.

915
01:22:22,318 --> 01:22:26,623
But we had some older stuff here in California too, like the charge points.

916
01:22:27,064 --> 01:22:29,787
And then there's some networks that I'm worried about, Chase.

917
01:22:29,787 --> 01:22:32,911
I know you had a great experience with EVCS.

918
01:22:33,933 --> 01:22:36,095
And then there's also the...

919
01:22:37,377 --> 01:22:38,469
And then there's also...

920
01:22:38,469 --> 01:22:39,570
be so...

921
01:22:40,704 --> 01:22:42,585
Yeah, there's also EV Gateway.

922
01:22:42,585 --> 01:22:49,040
Kyle on Out of Spec did a fun trip up I-5 in the old Model S and he stopped by that EV
Gateway.

923
01:22:49,040 --> 01:23:01,118
I've actually used that site in Stranded Hardware Now, and then they also have the one at
the Pitt River Casino that looks like it may never be powered on.

924
01:23:01,559 --> 01:23:04,421
And it looked like maybe it was just a funding grab.

925
01:23:04,421 --> 01:23:07,487
They put chargers in the ground and never activated them.

926
01:23:07,487 --> 01:23:18,627
And that's sort of a disturbing thing for me to see is you go through all of this, you do
90, 95 % of the work and then you just leave stranded assets in the ground.

927
01:23:18,627 --> 01:23:20,387
And then, and then what?

928
01:23:20,387 --> 01:23:31,987
So I'm really curious in 2025 to see if we see, see that trend continue grow, or maybe see
someone working really hard to kind of take, take over some of those, those stranded

929
01:23:31,987 --> 01:23:34,709
assets and fixed them up and repair them.

930
01:23:35,246 --> 01:23:35,896
completely agree.

931
01:23:35,896 --> 01:23:40,848
I guess to give historical context with EVCS, I would love to see them succeed.

932
01:23:40,848 --> 01:23:47,130
They have just consistently disappointed me and been the bane of my existence whenever
I've decided to use one.

933
01:23:47,130 --> 01:23:56,613
And just, guess for personal contextual history, they had one, there's a thing called the
West Coast Electric Highway that was built about a decade ago.

934
01:23:56,613 --> 01:24:01,044
And Oregon, believe Washington, and I believe parts of Northern California.

935
01:24:01,098 --> 01:24:10,093
Had I got to work with some of the team and help with some of the promotion of the
original, Locations for these chargers, which were great, go through a lot of beautiful

936
01:24:10,093 --> 01:24:14,666
parts of the state and receive decent amount of funds and then Five or six years ago.

937
01:24:14,666 --> 01:24:24,812
They got more state funds to be upgraded because unfortunately they were old aero
environment ones a lot have gone down they were replaced with a vcs and the experience has

938
01:24:24,812 --> 01:24:28,974
been similar And if anything, it just did not seem like a great,

939
01:24:29,014 --> 01:24:33,675
execution of future proofing unfortunately and I hope that changes.

940
01:24:36,246 --> 01:24:38,910
So, well, go for it.

941
01:24:39,533 --> 01:24:40,413
Yeah.

942
01:24:40,726 --> 01:24:49,030
One thing that I maybe thought was not going to go as well as it has was GM's expansion of
its electric vehicle stable.

943
01:24:49,710 --> 01:24:54,412
This time last year, we were talking about the bolt going away for its hiatus.

944
01:24:54,412 --> 01:24:58,824
And this year, that was something like 75%, 80 % of their sales at the time.

945
01:24:58,824 --> 01:25:06,413
They were having problems with the rollout of a lot of the formerly Altium, now just
whatever they're calling them, F3 models.

946
01:25:06,413 --> 01:25:15,409
And actually, now that you fast forward 12 months, the Lyric sold great guns, the Equinox
EV is the most affordable on the market, know, great deals on that.

947
01:25:15,409 --> 01:25:16,450
They've got them all out.

948
01:25:16,450 --> 01:25:26,047
And if you look at their roster across the board, that's the most, you know, diverse
electric stable from the, you know, not quite that back to the Bolt EV yet, but certainly

949
01:25:26,047 --> 01:25:35,113
the Equinox EV on the affordable end through Blazer and Lyric, through the Silverado EV at
the top end, all of them getting great reviews for what they're at.

950
01:25:35,449 --> 01:25:44,360
Yeah, I just I mean, I thought I always have been on GM's roster as a solid kind of plan,
but I didn't think they would deliver within 12 months,

951
01:25:44,777 --> 01:25:47,224
Did you include the escalate IQ?

952
01:25:48,587 --> 01:25:50,901
I didn't even include the Celestique.

953
01:25:50,901 --> 01:25:52,966
The Solistic or the Prologue.

954
01:25:53,881 --> 01:25:54,222
yeah.

955
01:25:54,222 --> 01:25:54,650
thing.

956
01:25:54,650 --> 01:25:55,781
to actually be popular.

957
01:25:55,781 --> 01:26:00,784
I have seen those around and I'm guessing they must have a really good lease deal going.

958
01:26:00,784 --> 01:26:02,125
and I think they actually look decent.

959
01:26:02,125 --> 01:26:18,594
I'm kind of curious if either, anyone has heard, I have seen a lot of anecdotal data about
some of the GM EVs being on dealerships longer than the dealers with like, and I haven't

960
01:26:18,594 --> 01:26:20,357
paid attention to the last quarter of their sales.

961
01:26:20,357 --> 01:26:22,030
And I'm just kind of curious what you're

962
01:26:22,030 --> 01:26:26,250
You guys seem to be a bit more plugged into the GM sphere.

963
01:26:26,650 --> 01:26:33,070
And I'm kind of curious what you guys have heard or seen around the sales and experience
with these new.

964
01:26:33,070 --> 01:26:34,460
I think I completely agree with you.

965
01:26:34,460 --> 01:26:44,030
think it's great that there has been a expansion of the product and seeing so many more
options for people at different price points, different lifestyles, different makes of

966
01:26:44,030 --> 01:26:44,930
vehicles.

967
01:26:44,930 --> 01:26:50,918
I am worried when companies like this do that and the

968
01:26:51,182 --> 01:27:04,532
public hasn't maybe been, I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm afraid that if sales
aren't going well, that the company may then make incorrect guesses as to why that is, as

969
01:27:04,532 --> 01:27:09,196
we've seen from some automakers and then change their tactic or do other things.

970
01:27:09,196 --> 01:27:17,582
I'm kind of curious if beyond anecdotal data and like experience with, cause I know the
trucks for sure have definitely been on Mark.

971
01:27:17,816 --> 01:27:20,060
the lots a lot longer than the dealers have wanted.

972
01:27:20,060 --> 01:27:28,586
I'm curious with your guys' experience or any hard data especially, but anecdotal data
around moving of these vehicles.

973
01:27:28,703 --> 01:27:40,703
Well, I don't know about the trucks or I mean the data specifically other than maybe if
you're talking about like the Hummer EV in particular, because I think as far as I know,

974
01:27:40,703 --> 01:27:44,403
the Silverado EV is still moving very quickly.

975
01:27:44,523 --> 01:27:54,208
But in the case of the Hummer EV, you're talking about, I feel like a very limited market
and a $100,000 plus vehicle, right?

976
01:27:54,208 --> 01:27:55,549
No, no, no one's buying those.

977
01:27:55,549 --> 01:27:56,851
are leasing them.

978
01:27:56,851 --> 01:28:00,674
when I was just down in Scottsdale, Phoenix, I saw more Hummers than I've ever seen.

979
01:28:00,674 --> 01:28:02,957
And I am convinced no one actually bought them.

980
01:28:02,957 --> 01:28:06,890
There's just really good lease deals and that's like the place to have a flashy vehicle.

981
01:28:07,359 --> 01:28:12,231
Yeah, and I think, I mean, I do see EVs on GM lots now.

982
01:28:12,231 --> 01:28:24,424
And I would also worry about that because we saw the backlash for Ford where we had these
dealerships marking up these EVs like 10,000, $15,000 because they thought they could get

983
01:28:24,424 --> 01:28:25,365
away with it.

984
01:28:25,365 --> 01:28:33,967
And then there was backlash and then people just, and it wasn't that Ford was losing sales
necessarily, but those dealerships were.

985
01:28:34,207 --> 01:28:43,109
And I've seen a lot of backlash against a lot of GM and Chevy dealerships for just
overpriced vehicles in general across the lineup.

986
01:28:43,109 --> 01:28:46,770
So it's not restricted to just the EVs.

987
01:28:47,311 --> 01:28:49,171
But yeah, I haven't seen a lot of data.

988
01:28:49,171 --> 01:29:01,504
I just know that for me personally, with my experience buying Chevy's and Chevy EVs in
particular, there's only a handful of dealerships that I would ever consider going to out

989
01:29:01,504 --> 01:29:02,675
of hundreds, right?

990
01:29:02,675 --> 01:29:03,615
So

991
01:29:04,207 --> 01:29:10,310
So yeah, sometimes this might just be a problem of the dealerships making.

992
01:29:10,931 --> 01:29:21,597
And so if they're not gonna do a good job selling cars or EVs specifically, then they're
gonna end up with EVs stuck on their lot for longer than other dealerships that are

993
01:29:21,597 --> 01:29:23,108
working with customers.

994
01:29:23,108 --> 01:29:25,339
yeah.

995
01:29:26,545 --> 01:29:41,973
And I would say that this year, 2024 is the first year in 15 that on Tesla sales,
outnumbered Tesla sales in the domestic EV market and General Motors family of brands

996
01:29:41,973 --> 01:29:43,614
leads that charge.

997
01:29:43,754 --> 01:29:47,276
So I'm not quite sure what you've heard.

998
01:29:48,017 --> 01:29:56,661
But the reporting from the investor relation slide deck indicates that the sales of
electric vehicles in General Motors.

999
01:29:57,025 --> 01:29:59,447
is surpassing expectations.

1000
01:29:59,468 --> 01:30:05,853
And I think the Cadillac brand in particular would be a shell of what it currently is if
EVs didn't exist.

1001
01:30:05,858 --> 01:30:10,250
Kellogg may be definitely one that's doing differently.

1002
01:30:10,250 --> 01:30:13,461
And once again, I love hearing that.

1003
01:30:13,461 --> 01:30:14,932
I love data versus anecdotal.

1004
01:30:14,932 --> 01:30:26,287
I just know there have been some of the dealerships have struggled, especially, it sounds
like we're already seeing, at least in these few cases, some of the Silverados and others

1005
01:30:26,287 --> 01:30:32,373
being just kind of building up in inventory on dealership lots, similar to kind what we
saw with the GMC.

1006
01:30:32,373 --> 01:30:33,073
of the year, right?

1007
01:30:33,073 --> 01:30:36,687
Because you'll start to see everyone will get the analysis once we get all the numbers in.

1008
01:30:36,687 --> 01:30:46,327
I think it's going to be really interesting to see where things have overlapped there with
brands coming back with the overall brand and what the EV stable looks like.

1009
01:30:46,445 --> 01:30:54,333
and, returning guests, John McRoy always has a great saying about this, that no, no car
stays on a dealership lot.

1010
01:30:54,815 --> 01:30:59,039
They all go eventually it's whether the dealership's happy about it or not.

1011
01:30:59,039 --> 01:31:01,747
And that has those kind of longer term ramifications.

1012
01:31:01,747 --> 01:31:14,253
Well, and I was going to say just to close out on this, Chase, speaking of anecdotes
versus data, I was following the Bull TV very closely about three or four years ago, as

1013
01:31:14,354 --> 01:31:16,615
would be normal as my thing.

1014
01:31:16,935 --> 01:31:26,701
And I was seeing a lot of anecdotal stories of Bull TVs, hundreds of Bull TVs on
dealership lots, languishing on dealership lots.

1015
01:31:26,701 --> 01:31:31,355
And then I looked up the data and the Chevy Bull TV was seventh.

1016
01:31:31,355 --> 01:31:36,760
among all cars for the shortest time period in inventory.

1017
01:31:36,760 --> 01:31:45,006
So there were only six cars in all of America that were selling faster than the Bolt EV
relative to inventory.

1018
01:31:45,667 --> 01:31:53,834
Yet at that same time, I was hearing anecdotal stories about Bolt EVs languishing on
dealership lots.

1019
01:31:53,834 --> 01:31:55,276
data versus anecdotes.

1020
01:31:55,276 --> 01:31:59,719
Yeah, I want to dive into the data a little bit more, but this wouldn't be the

1021
01:31:59,721 --> 01:32:07,118
first time that I've heard that about GMEVs not selling when the actual data says the
exact opposite.

1022
01:32:07,118 --> 01:32:07,978
And that's great.

1023
01:32:07,978 --> 01:32:12,958
And just to clarify, this isn't like headlines because I no longer trust really any auto
related headlines.

1024
01:32:12,958 --> 01:32:18,368
This is purely like people in the space and moving it, but no, I think that's a great
call.

1025
01:32:18,368 --> 01:32:20,738
And that really is great to hear.

1026
01:32:21,058 --> 01:32:26,908
I think with that, since we've already hit the 90 minute mark, I, I want to be optimistic.

1027
01:32:26,908 --> 01:32:28,548
I'm naturally an optimistic person though.

1028
01:32:28,548 --> 01:32:31,318
This episode does not sound like I have been.

1029
01:32:31,478 --> 01:32:37,334
So, like looking forward to 2025 real quickly, I would love to just kind of hear, any

1030
01:32:38,252 --> 01:32:46,531
what you're hoping to see or any kind of optimistic things or trends you're expecting
going in and maybe that we might see in 2025.

1031
01:32:50,690 --> 01:32:52,704
Walter, I'll let you kick it off.

1032
01:32:52,704 --> 01:32:53,202
Yeah.

1033
01:32:53,202 --> 01:32:59,406
I've been hearing a lot of doom and gloom because of the change in administration and
decapping EVs and that type of stuff.

1034
01:32:59,406 --> 01:33:05,580
But what I'm seeing is vast amount of private capital getting invested in EV
infrastructure.

1035
01:33:05,580 --> 01:33:20,160
And when I say vast, mean, very large global players getting into the North American
market, implementing DC fast charging hardware in order to accommodate the inevitable wave

1036
01:33:20,160 --> 01:33:21,493
of transition.

1037
01:33:21,493 --> 01:33:25,215
to electrification of the transportation sector.

1038
01:33:25,215 --> 01:33:38,722
And who's in the White House has apparently to these people who are spending the money, no
bearing because the number of very large scale projects that are currently simultaneously

1039
01:33:38,722 --> 01:33:41,774
in swing is truly staggering.

1040
01:33:41,774 --> 01:33:44,576
I don't think anything has been like this, at least in my lifetime.

1041
01:33:44,576 --> 01:33:46,687
I've never seen anything like this.

1042
01:33:46,687 --> 01:33:48,067
It's remarkable.

1043
01:33:48,067 --> 01:33:51,175
And so the doom and gloom, I just don't.

1044
01:33:51,175 --> 01:33:56,227
see it, there's too much cash getting poured into electric vehicle infrastructure.

1045
01:33:57,049 --> 01:33:59,250
Yeah, on the infrastructure side, I'd echo that.

1046
01:33:59,250 --> 01:34:09,663
I don't think anything's stopping this now that horse is fully bolted and has got an
entire stampede of partners on the planes now to extend that metaphor.

1047
01:34:09,663 --> 01:34:10,253
do.

1048
01:34:10,253 --> 01:34:12,534
Yeah, that's right.

1049
01:34:12,534 --> 01:34:17,246
The thing is, the Dakota planes and now I've run out of space.

1050
01:34:17,246 --> 01:34:21,289
The on the EV sales side, I think we may see more spikes and

1051
01:34:21,289 --> 01:34:29,944
plateaus because obviously if the credit goes away you're gonna get a whole lot of people
buying up to the point where that does get capped and then you may see things tail off

1052
01:34:29,944 --> 01:34:30,835
because of that.

1053
01:34:30,835 --> 01:34:40,430
I don't think it's going to be a long-term decline I think it's just there will be
plateaus in any technology uptake and I think this is going to be one of those where you

1054
01:34:40,430 --> 01:34:48,135
do hit a wall we'll probably get negative headlines for three to six months and then it'll
start climbing again towards the end of the year perhaps but just expect that that's going

1055
01:34:48,135 --> 01:34:49,165
to be the case.

1056
01:34:49,806 --> 01:34:51,422
Great call in for sure.

1057
01:34:51,903 --> 01:34:54,303
Well, how about this for Gloom and Doom to close?

1058
01:34:54,303 --> 01:35:05,879
We keep poking the bear in the Middle East, oil goes up to $500 a gallon or a barrel, and
then people look around and say, why couldn't I have been driving an EV this whole time?

1059
01:35:07,749 --> 01:35:09,591
Yeah, if you want to get rid of subsidies, I don't mind.

1060
01:35:09,591 --> 01:35:12,554
But like Elon said, get rid of all subsidies, right?

1061
01:35:12,554 --> 01:35:14,726
Stop subsidizing the fossil stein as well.

1062
01:35:14,726 --> 01:35:15,767
Then I'm good.

1063
01:35:16,140 --> 01:35:19,056
Yeah, no, I've believed that for the last couple of decades.

1064
01:35:19,056 --> 01:35:24,797
Maybe this administration will change that, but it seems like they have friends in certain
places that disagree with them.

1065
01:35:24,797 --> 01:35:26,329
No.

1066
01:35:26,583 --> 01:35:31,234
any administration is going to poke the bear, that's this one.

1067
01:35:31,234 --> 01:35:39,238
I think there is a lot to be optimistic about, not just on the charger infrastructure,
because I completely agree with that, but also as we've kind of discussed this evening is

1068
01:35:39,238 --> 01:35:44,782
just around automakers and availability of different products and what we're seeing to
come coming to market.

1069
01:35:44,923 --> 01:35:50,716
And as far as the actual technology is improving and yeah, there are headlines.

1070
01:35:50,716 --> 01:35:52,154
Yeah, there is.

1071
01:35:52,154 --> 01:35:57,100
I think the biggest thing that has been missing since day one is still missing is actually
education.

1072
01:35:57,506 --> 01:36:04,110
The thing that's changed since day one is the technology and availability of the product
and also the infrastructure.

1073
01:36:04,271 --> 01:36:09,965
And I think we're starting to see that with some of the traditional legacy automakers are
getting better on that.

1074
01:36:09,965 --> 01:36:19,461
And then also just talking to friends and people that may be curious about EVs that are
now seeing others down their street that have them in the driveway.

1075
01:36:19,902 --> 01:36:26,656
And, I, I'm kind of the mindset, you know, if a of the federal funding goes away, either
way, whatever.

1076
01:36:26,656 --> 01:36:34,712
I completely agree with what you were saying earlier too about like it's, it's already
kind of out there between the infrastructure and also the vehicles.

1077
01:36:34,803 --> 01:36:42,829
this is not the GM EV one sort of, and maybe that's also why, I, I am holding that against
them.

1078
01:36:42,829 --> 01:36:43,480
Still.

1079
01:36:43,480 --> 01:36:45,221
This is not like, it's going to go away.

1080
01:36:45,221 --> 01:36:50,886
There's just too many by too many different people that EVs are obviously going to
continue to grow.

1081
01:36:50,886 --> 01:36:55,764
And one of the big things we talked about in 2024 was just like all the negative headlines
about.

1082
01:36:55,764 --> 01:37:07,484
EVs and yet it's such a and I think this actually this probably had been among many over
the years But this was actually one of the larger reasons I was just so just over Auto

1083
01:37:07,484 --> 01:37:19,634
journalism was the fact that everyone covered that EVs were not working But specifically
they were not growing as fast as they were projected But they were still growing and the

1084
01:37:19,634 --> 01:37:25,400
actual auto industry, especially globally and here in North America was actually shrinking

1085
01:37:25,400 --> 01:37:35,134
Faster than anyone had expected this past year to happen and that part of the math wasn't
being covered and that's the big part of the math the fact you're having any growth should

1086
01:37:35,134 --> 01:37:40,426
be A positive headline and so I I think we're really going to continue to see this
happening.

1087
01:37:40,426 --> 01:37:45,929
I would love to see more 20 000 cars that have taikon level of charging.

1088
01:37:45,929 --> 01:37:54,162
I don't think that's going to happen in 2025 but Realistically, and I think for more, the
most people I would just love to see

1089
01:37:54,572 --> 01:38:02,632
as you've kind of said, Steve, like the big things really are range and efficiency and
battery prices really did take a nose dive.

1090
01:38:02,632 --> 01:38:09,902
think between technology advances, manufacturing, increases and everything else, we're
going to continue to see that in 2025.

1091
01:38:09,902 --> 01:38:22,798
So I hope the battery range and costs coming down are then taken advantage of with good
efficiency in car design and then charging kind of could still be.

1092
01:38:22,798 --> 01:38:31,798
Not a hundred percent perfect to what people would like but a lot of those problems go
away, especially if you have In some of the advances we've seen with level two charting

1093
01:38:31,798 --> 01:38:42,638
improvements and some of the people we've even had on our podcast making that easier that
as long as you can charge day to day, I think Even though I think i'm looking at kind of

1094
01:38:42,638 --> 01:38:50,738
my boxes of this thing I feel like stephen walter at top and then Myself and eric are at
the bottom and we've been like the doom and gloom ones kind of saying all the negativity I

1095
01:38:50,738 --> 01:38:51,948
think all of this

1096
01:38:51,948 --> 01:38:55,749
Going forward though, for people listening are is really great.

1097
01:38:55,749 --> 01:38:59,280
We're going to a great year of opportunity, whatever happens to incentives.

1098
01:38:59,720 --> 01:39:08,922
And as we even had on a recent podcast, Albert Gore, not to be confused with Al Gore, it
was very tempting to do all sorts of fun SEO stuff with that.

1099
01:39:09,203 --> 01:39:19,906
Of the Zero Emission Transportation Alliance even shared with us that so many of these
incentives are in place are no longer really the original incentive for EVs.

1100
01:39:19,906 --> 01:39:22,146
They are now incentives for batteries.

1101
01:39:22,338 --> 01:39:25,820
that consumers just happen to take, be able to take advantage of.

1102
01:39:26,310 --> 01:39:29,824
when these original, the $75 billion really came out, was to sell EVs.

1103
01:39:29,824 --> 01:39:33,748
Now it's to buy things with American made batteries.

1104
01:39:33,748 --> 01:39:41,474
And so, there's still a good argument that a lot of these incentives, maybe consumer
facing will go away, but the backend and the manufacturing will stay because so many are

1105
01:39:41,474 --> 01:39:42,495
in red states.

1106
01:39:42,495 --> 01:39:50,581
But I do just feel like, as we've said this evening, that all of that could go away and
we're still in such a strong position for the continued growth that we've seen in this

1107
01:39:50,581 --> 01:39:51,842
past year or two.

1108
01:39:52,582 --> 01:40:00,068
If at the very least continue but more likely accelerate With that I just want to say
Steve Walter and Eric.

1109
01:40:00,068 --> 01:40:09,024
Thank you so much for coming on this evening This was a great conversation always really
enjoy listening to your separate channels and great to have you on again

1110
01:40:09,141 --> 01:40:10,159
It's been a pleasure.

1111
01:40:10,188 --> 01:40:11,337
Thanks so much.

1112
01:40:11,337 --> 01:40:12,492
Thank you, Chase.

1113
01:40:17,825 --> 01:40:26,503
Huge thanks again to Steve Birkett from Plug and Play EV, Walter Schulze of the Network
Architect channel and Eric Way from NewsColumn for joining us today.

1114
01:40:26,503 --> 01:40:33,229
I really appreciate their insights in the challenges, opportunities and trends shaping the
electric vehicle and charging landscape.

1115
01:40:33,229 --> 01:40:38,073
All of them are voices in the industry that I recommend you follow if you're not already.

1116
01:40:38,073 --> 01:40:44,869
Be sure to check out the show notes for links to Steve, Walter and Eric's channels, plus
all the resources mentioned in today's episode.

1117
01:40:45,079 --> 01:40:50,829
From the current state of EV charging to the state of EV models across price points, we've
covered a lot of ground.

1118
01:40:50,829 --> 01:41:00,539
If there's one thing this conversation proves, it's that the momentum behind
electrification isn't slowing down, it's charging full speed ahead into 2025.

1119
01:41:00,619 --> 01:41:08,079
If you enjoyed this episode, help us keep the energy flowing, share it with a friend,
colleague, or fellow EV enthusiast who needs to hear these insights.

1120
01:41:08,079 --> 01:41:11,055
And of course, we'd love to hear your feedback.

1121
01:41:11,127 --> 01:41:15,291
Please leave us a five star review on your podcast platform of choice.

1122
01:41:15,291 --> 01:41:20,736
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1123
01:41:20,813 --> 01:41:21,418
Thanks again.

1124
01:41:21,418 --> 01:41:23,990
And this is the great connections podcast signing off.