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Good afternoon, Grid Connections listeners.

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We're diving into the big news from last night's election results and what they could mean
for the future of automotive and EV charging industries.

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Our guest, Loren McDonald, chief analyst at Paren shares his thoughts and industry data on
the political policy changes and economic impacts that could reshape incentives,

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regulations, and investment in EV infrastructure under the new administration.

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From EV tax credits to federal programs like NEVI we're breaking down what could shift in
the coming years and how these changes could influence everyone from automakers to

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consumers.

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Loren shares this perspective on what companies in the charging space may need to prepare
for, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

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Wherever you fall on the political scale, Loren does share trends and facts that will give
everyone listening a lot to be excited for in the realm of electric vehicles and EV

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charging.

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Also, please share this episode with someone who'd be interested in electric vehicles and
the industry as well.

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Additionally, please leave us a positive review on our podcast page to support more
in-depth conversations like this.

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With that, enjoy.

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Chase, it's always great to be on your show.

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I think this is, I don't know, maybe my fourth one, couple with the team of a few others
and a couple on my own.

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yeah, excited about it.

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And obviously a little bit of news to potentially talk about this morning.

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Yeah, I think just in case for anyone that may have missed that podcast or are unfamiliar
with Paren or what your team is doing, could just give us kind of a quick overview of that

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and then I think we'll get into the updates from there.

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Yeah, yeah, no thanks.

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Yeah, so Paren is a EV charging mostly focused data and analyst firm.

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we're really, how I like to explain it is we have sort of two businesses that we're
working towards.

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One is the current one, which is really just.

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providing charging industry data and from my former company, EV Adoption, now being part
of it, also EV SalesDate and stuff.

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But fundamentally, we're helping companies in the EV charging ecosystem understand the
dynamics of what's going on in the industry from things like utilization and reliability

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and just all the sort of the data trends around what's going on.

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in fast charging and then long term what we're really building towards is taking hundreds
of data sets and piping them into the in-car navigation to help people find the available

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and safe place to charge with the right amenities and pricing and safety and all those
types of things.

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So kind of, you know,

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building towards the long-term big vision while we're basically working with lot of
companies on the sort of just the B2B side of charging data.

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So it's very exciting.

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Yeah, I think there's a lot of really cool things that your team is working on, especially
just kind of given the, maybe sometimes the gaps in data and knowledge base or kind of

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transparency, especially as to what is working, what isn't.

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yeah, and a lot, lot of the, the, the charging data is hard, hard to get at, right?

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Like a lot of the companies have it for their own business, but they're not necessarily
sharing it publicly.

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So we're able to magically capture a lot of this data and clean it up and aggregate it and
make sense of it.

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And so it's, yeah, there's a lot of really cool, insights that we're starting to see going
on with the, with the industry.

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Well, speaking of the industry, that may be as good of a segue as we get for talking about
what happened last night with the presidential election and even seeing in other races

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with the Senate.

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I actually haven't checked the House.

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I don't know.

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It may be showing up.

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I was up pretty late last night.

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In all transparency, I kind of had a feeling this was the way it was going to go.

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yeah, so.

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I'm trying to catch up on some coffee and be up to speed on this, but I think there's
definitely been a big change, obviously, politically and what's in power, or we will be

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seeing that coming January especially.

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And so definitely curious on your thoughts about this, Lorne, and what maybe are some of
the takeaways or expectations or maybe even some of the wild, unexpected things you're

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thinking will happen with this outcome.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So, I mean, obviously it's early and there are lot of theories about what will happen kind
of to the EV and EV charging ecosystem over the next four years under a Trump

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administration.

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But why don't we tackle sort of a couple of them one by one?

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I think the first one that is the, you know, that sort of...

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Whether it's the top of the list or not is something that a lot of people are curious
about, wondering about, which is like the EV tax incentive, basically the tax rebate,

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right?

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Sort of the federal EV tax rebate that, you know,

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was a tax credit and now you can get it as a off the hood.

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If the dealer participates, if you lease, it can get built into that.

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We won't get in sort of the details of it.

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But that's probably the quickest, easiest thing potentially for Trump to just end.

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Yeah.

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I think, you know, one of the interesting side bits of this is the, you know, the Elon
Musk influence.

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They're obviously sort of wet at the hip now.

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And, you know, Elon plays sort of an interesting role in that, obviously, he wants to sell
more Tesla EVs, but he's also, I don't know if you could call him a libertarian, but he's

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definitely not a fan of big government and incentives and things, even though

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all of his companies that he is CEO of that hugely benefited from government subsidies and
incentives.

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But I think that's one where Musk has long not been necessarily a fan of the EV tax
credit.

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Again, even though it's made his cars more affordable.

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So off the top, I'd say probably the thing that's at most risk is

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is that EV tax credit.

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I've been pretty vocal about the tax credit for the last seven years.

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I think in its various forms, it's not been structured very well.

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So I have a lot of problems with it.

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And fundamentally, I think it's changing now as we're getting into more mainstream
consumers.

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But I think for first several years,

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It was really a discount for middle to upper income people who were going to buy the EV
anyway, right?

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And, you I'm being very stereotypical here, but I think, you know, certainly there were
people who wouldn't have bought an EV without the tax credit.

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But I think the majority, you know, were middle to upper income people who cared about the
planet or whatever, or just like the idea of a fast, you know, EV, et cetera.

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And they would have bought it.

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without the tax credit, right?

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Whether it was $7,500 or whatever it is, right?

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Yeah, it looks like, you're gonna...

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Yeah.

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when you say they would have bought the EV, do you think they would have bought the Tesla
or do you think they would have bought the EV?

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Because I think I agree with the that logic and I think a lot of the time now and
admittedly you do it now.

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I actually I don't know if Mercedes does have any other qualified, but you've got like
BMW.

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You do have more premium luxury vehicles actually competing in that price area.

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But yeah, I do agree with you that.

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For a long time, was kind of more premium to luxury vehicles and it kind of like, it
wasn't necessarily always like the thing that pushed people over, but it was a really nice

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to have.

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And then you do look at other markets like Germany that had a decent incentive, they got
rid of it and then EV sales did go down quite a bit.

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So.

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there's some interesting analysis that I and others did back, I think it was about 2018 or
so.

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So Georgia had...

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some really significant number of incentives for EVs.

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it was, sort of the joke was that the Nissan Leaf, so this sort of gives you sort of the
timeframe, right?

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Sort of, know, 2017 or something like that back then.

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The Nissan Leaf was basically free.

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So at the time I worked for a company headquartered in Atlanta and...

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You know, like there were like 20 employees at the companies that bought Nissan Leafs that
used as a commuter car, because basically the combination of all the different incentives,

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you know, people would say it basically made it free, right?

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When they took those away, EV sales in Georgia tanked, right?

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So that was an example, but I always sort of argued that that was sort of, you know, the
perfect storm of multiple different things.

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The Leaf cost itself.

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fair.

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And you know just all those sort of different different things pulled together, but I
think you know more importantly I think chase where where you and I were headed with this

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is that as we're heading into You know sort of more mainstream consumers so people that
are not making you know two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year and And who don't want

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to buy a hundred thousand dollar electric Mercedes or whatever

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but might be interested in a 35 to 40,000 Chevy Equinox, or the upcoming Kia EV3 or things
like that.

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Some of the more kind of affordable sort of middle America cars, like Chevy Blazer, Chevy
Equinox, some of the cars like that.

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For them, right.

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like the loss of a $7,500 tax credit might mean the difference between, I'm going with the
hybrid, right, or whatever, right?

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So I think it, you know, historically if we'd lost the tax credit, I don't think it would
have had a significant impact on EV sales, but going forward, it could at those, you know,

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sort of, you know, under let's say 40,000.

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right models where the tax credit really has a significant impact.

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when somebody walks into a Chevy dealer in Iowa and they're looking at, you know, a hybrid
or whatever it is versus an EV, that might mean the difference with, I'm going with the

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hybrid.

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It's a no brainer.

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Right.

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I'm kind of curious, do you think, and this I have to admit is kind of a stretch, but on
the campaign trail, know JD Vance had said this, and I think even Trump mentioned once or

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twice that they had an interest in even applying a tax credit to diesel vehicles, but the
focus was it being made in America.

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And kind of some of those things that we ended up seeing why Tesla has benefited so well
with the tax credit, kind of those additions of it having to be really American source and

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American made.

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Do you think that there's any chance of us seeing that?

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Like there being a tax credit, maybe it is even open up more to hybrids and stuff, but
it's more contingent on it being a fully American made or very North American based

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vehicle with American labor.

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Or just too early to tell.

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Yeah.

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think that definitely fit with what we've heard from Trump over the years, right?

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That it's all about choice, right?

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Like choice of powertrain, even Ford, a couple of months ago, I think we talked about this
on previous podcast that Ford came out with in the ad campaign stuff, it's all about

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choice, right?

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Right, right, right.

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know, hybrid, gas, diesel, fully electric, whatever it is, right?

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And I think that's, you know, that's always been sort of a conservative foundation, right?

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Of, you know, of giving people choice.

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Don't have the government tell them what to do.

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So you could see, you know, a Trump administration, just maybe they don't kill certain,
you know,

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EV incentives, like you said, they just convert it into sort of a US-made incentive,
right, based on maybe a certain percentage of the car and parts being made here or

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something like that, right?

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So yeah, that's hard to predict.

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not be a fan of giving it to diesel, but that's just me.

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But yeah, we could definitely see some shifting to...

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kind of US made.

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you know, I mean, the Biden administration, that's been a foundation of what they've done.

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Like you've got all these battery factories and everything that have been built in down in
red states because of the Biden administrative incentives.

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But, you know, I guess the Trump administration would argue that those could have also
been, you know, factories to make gas-powered cars, right?

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Not just EVs and stuff.

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So that's probably...

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you know, part of the shift we will see as well.

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I think it'll be interesting to see if there are tax credits that remain.

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Will they be consumer facing ones or will they be manufacturing?

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Because so much of that, the IRA investment tax credit is actually around the
manufacturing of batteries and this stuff that indirectly consumers will see through

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ideally the price of the car coming down.

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but that's dependent on a lot of things.

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so, yeah, I guess at this point, it's pretty much just looking to a crystal ball that
neither of us have and trying to figure out, will there be any?

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Will there be some that are more consumer facing or none at all?

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Yeah, I mean, if I had to guess and it's just a guess that, you know, partially with the
influence of Elon Musk, they might be geared more towards consumers as opposed to giving

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money to his competitors, the other automakers, right?

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So let's give it to the consumers to sort of make the choice of how to spend that instead
of, you know, to GM or Ford or Stellantis or whomever, you know, Honda to go build a new,

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you know, new factory and stuff.

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But, you know,

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I'm not good at predicting things when it comes to politics.

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But I think that the second area, Chase, is that a lot of people have been curious about
for months is what happens to the federal EV charging incentive programs like Nevi and CFI

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and things like that.

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And again, I'm not...

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I haven't worked in the Beltway in DC area for years and stuff, but everybody I've talked
to who is an expert tells me that the way that the NEVI program was designed and

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structured is it can't be overturned.

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So I think we're okay with NEVI and CFI and those programs because of how they were
structured.

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And even if there was some way to sort of overturn them or whatever the money has already
been allocated To the states for like three years for for actually four years is my

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understanding, right?

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It's five-year program, but it sort of works in a fiscal calendar thing.

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And so The first year of the pro we're in a third year of the program, but the first year
had two years of funding so

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Hmm.

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Basically, and the plans have just been approved like this this month for that sort of the
next year.

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So My understanding that you know, yeah And so if there was some magic way that the Trump
administration could sort of overturn or send stop whatever it is I mean most of the money

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has been allocated and will have been allocated by the time they were able to do that So I
think I think we're okay there I think all of a sudden we're not going to see like money

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pulled from the states to build

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you know, Navy, Navy funded charging stations.

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I think the one impact we could see is that some of the states like Florida and Wyoming
who were not particularly excited about the Navy program might just go, thanks for the

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money, but we're, we're not going to spend it.

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We're not going to, we don't believe in this and we're not going to build it.

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And one of the things I learned, Chase, actually while I was in,

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DC just a couple of weeks ago, talked to some people is the money actually.

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let's say Florida, right?

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Which has been basically, you know, saying, actually built a website basically anti-nevi,
right?

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It was pretty crazy.

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And so, you know, they haven't launched their, their Nevi RFP or anything like that.

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And so I think as of today, it's definitely probably on hold for a long time, but if they
don't use that money.

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It actually goes back into a pool and the Federal Highway Administration then will take
that Florida money and reallocate it out to the other states, right?

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So it's their loss and everybody else's gain.

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And I'm not predicting that's what will happen.

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But I think on that front, that's something that could happen is just some of the laggard
states might just continue to lag and maybe not move forward and use the money.

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Yeah, that was one of the things I wanted to ask you about was kind of around what that
looks like from the, and I think in some ways that also goes to the question of, it going

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to be consumer focused?

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Are we going to continue to see business focus, federal incentives?

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And I know there's probably more you want to discuss around NEVI and I don't want this all
to be about politics, but I think one final question I have is,

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in this regard is what do you think is going on in the legacy domestic automakers this
morning when they see and hear this news?

199
00:19:15,180 --> 00:19:23,987
Well, I think the CFOs of the companies and the compliance people are probably jumping
with joy.

200
00:19:23,987 --> 00:19:28,642
They're probably going, OK, we're going to have less pressure.

201
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We can focus much more on profitability of our existing power trains.

202
00:19:35,988 --> 00:19:40,467
Because I think that the one thing that we haven't got to is I think one of the

203
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the sort of the clearest impacts is probably going to be slowdown and lessening and
lightening of sort of emissions requirements.

204
00:19:49,511 --> 00:19:52,662
And maybe some repealing of some things there.

205
00:19:52,662 --> 00:20:04,837
That's always been something that, you know, Trump has not been a fan of, of forcing and
requiring, you know, sort of higher and higher, you know, MPG and lower emissions and that

206
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type of thing.

207
00:20:05,477 --> 00:20:06,183
So.

208
00:20:06,183 --> 00:20:13,230
I think that's one of the most likely things to happen is a of a rollback on some of those
things.

209
00:20:13,230 --> 00:20:22,657
And that's potentially great for the profits of Ford and GM and Stellantis and others in
sort of the near term, right?

210
00:20:22,657 --> 00:20:26,459
Because they can just keep pumping out F-150s and Rams and...

211
00:20:27,682 --> 00:20:38,911
GMC Sierras and Chevy Silverado's and stuff that get you know 20 miles to the gallon or
whatever I don't actually I'm not exactly sure what that what they get but it's somewhere

212
00:20:38,911 --> 00:20:47,680
in that range right or less depending on the the model but But that you know the concern
is is You know the the Chinese are coming.

213
00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:49,571
They're already here, right?

214
00:20:50,512 --> 00:20:53,934
and You know

215
00:20:54,115 --> 00:21:01,295
America in general and automakers tend to often not do things unless they're forced to.

216
00:21:01,675 --> 00:21:11,235
so the concern is that if we sort of slow down, Kia and Hyundai are not slowing down,
right?

217
00:21:11,235 --> 00:21:14,035
The Chinese automakers are not going to slow down.

218
00:21:14,035 --> 00:21:22,711
We might wake up in five, six, seven years and while everybody else has sort of put the
pedal to the metal on like

219
00:21:22,711 --> 00:21:24,572
BEV technology.

220
00:21:26,974 --> 00:21:30,037
And then now we're like, crap, right?

221
00:21:30,037 --> 00:21:32,408
Like we're so far behind on some of this stuff.

222
00:21:32,408 --> 00:21:48,388
And so that's the concern is that while it's great that we have maybe a government that's
sort of less intrusive and forcing companies to do things a certain way.

223
00:21:48,421 --> 00:21:55,261
it also puts, puts our competitiveness at risk longer term because it takes, you know, it
takes a long time.

224
00:21:55,261 --> 00:22:03,051
I mean, it took, as you know, it took Tesla about 10 years to really, to really get to a
point where they were humming and profitable.

225
00:22:03,051 --> 00:22:03,791
Right.

226
00:22:03,791 --> 00:22:05,871
And so if we, yeah.

227
00:22:05,871 --> 00:22:07,692
So if we slow down, right.

228
00:22:07,692 --> 00:22:09,832
what does that do to our competitiveness?

229
00:22:09,832 --> 00:22:14,635
So, but yeah, so I think there, there are a lot of people inside.

230
00:22:14,635 --> 00:22:18,971
you know, those companies in Detroit that are that are happy and jumping for joy.

231
00:22:18,971 --> 00:22:24,798
But, you know, let's see what they're doing, you know, seven to 10 years from now, they
might be out of a job.

232
00:22:24,798 --> 00:22:27,412
Yeah, yeah.

233
00:22:27,412 --> 00:22:27,876
Yeah.

234
00:22:27,876 --> 00:22:29,396
package or whatever.

235
00:22:29,636 --> 00:22:30,395
Yeah.

236
00:22:30,436 --> 00:22:33,336
Yeah, I think it is kind of interesting.

237
00:22:34,116 --> 00:22:36,946
I think you're 100 % right on the competitiveness part.

238
00:22:36,946 --> 00:22:54,476
And it does really make me wonder if what this hap- if this continues, if it is even more
like a lot of these credits, whether it be consumer or manufacturing or business focus do

239
00:22:54,476 --> 00:22:55,596
go away.

240
00:22:55,962 --> 00:23:08,342
To me, think there is definitely, like you're saying, a short-term bonus with a long-term
loss for the legacy domestic auto manufacturers.

241
00:23:08,342 --> 00:23:17,139
And I think whether pretty much the startups or the companies like Tesla who are all in,
like the Rivians and the others of the world, I think it's interesting you mentioned Kia

242
00:23:17,139 --> 00:23:24,635
and Hyundai because that is a really, they're probably, I think one of the more
successful, if not the most successful, like legacy automaker who's making this

243
00:23:24,635 --> 00:23:25,648
transition.

244
00:23:25,648 --> 00:23:29,388
And they are investing a lot in domestic manufacturing here in the US.

245
00:23:29,388 --> 00:23:41,727
But it kind of does mean that if you're all in on EVs, it really almost makes the
long-term, like if you can get kind of through the short-term sales stuff, which for some

246
00:23:41,727 --> 00:23:44,048
companies right now, it is a big thing.

247
00:23:44,508 --> 00:23:48,478
It kind of sets you up long-term to be in a really strong position.

248
00:23:49,581 --> 00:23:50,622
Yeah, absolutely.

249
00:23:50,622 --> 00:23:57,562
We'll get to that in kind of our third section of today's conversation around some of the
sales trends.

250
00:23:57,562 --> 00:23:59,499
But yeah, mean, like you made.

251
00:23:59,499 --> 00:24:01,171
I know we had an election last night.

252
00:24:01,171 --> 00:24:03,354
I know we had all this and I know your time's valuable.

253
00:24:03,354 --> 00:24:06,959
So we've already used almost half an hour.

254
00:24:06,959 --> 00:24:11,465
So let's help over to, let's look at the sales trends.

255
00:24:11,465 --> 00:24:16,531
So let's kind of start with, I mean, is there somewhere you want to start with or?

256
00:24:17,092 --> 00:24:23,125
Yeah, I was going to go with charging, we can go to sales trends.

257
00:24:23,125 --> 00:24:26,207
So that's probably a better transition anyway.

258
00:24:26,207 --> 00:24:43,375
yeah, mean, think when we've talked about this on previous podcasts, depending on what you
read in the media and stuff is, EV sales are either tanking or they're still growing.

259
00:24:43,819 --> 00:24:50,171
like, you know, sort of like politics, it's right, you which narrative do you want to
believe?

260
00:24:50,171 --> 00:25:04,927
But, you know, here's as far as I'm concerned is sort of the reality is, you know, full
battery electric vehicle sales are clearly sort of slowing, right?

261
00:25:04,927 --> 00:25:05,717
But

262
00:25:07,267 --> 00:25:09,967
That's almost so much sort of a misnomer, right?

263
00:25:09,967 --> 00:25:16,727
As I sort of explained on the previous one is, if you go back like five years ago, right?

264
00:25:16,727 --> 00:25:22,387
When we had sales, EV sales of like 300,000.

265
00:25:22,387 --> 00:25:26,967
When the next year, it jumped to like 600,000, right?

266
00:25:26,967 --> 00:25:29,587
Or 550,000, whatever it was, right?

267
00:25:29,587 --> 00:25:31,447
That's like an 85%.

268
00:25:31,447 --> 00:25:34,371
I remember one year we had an 85%.

269
00:25:34,371 --> 00:25:35,791
year over year increase.

270
00:25:35,791 --> 00:25:42,271
Well, we're going to be at like 1.2 or 1.3 million, something like that, sort of this year
and stuff.

271
00:25:42,271 --> 00:25:50,591
And so a couple hundred thousand increase is no longer an 85 % increase.

272
00:25:50,591 --> 00:25:54,431
Whatever that math is, it's like a 20 % increase.

273
00:25:54,491 --> 00:26:02,664
so I think one thing to look at is just sort of more volume.

274
00:26:02,664 --> 00:26:15,239
Growth, like how are we doing sort of on like sort of the volume numbers and less on sort
of the percentage increase because the percentage increase is just naturally even in a

275
00:26:15,239 --> 00:26:18,452
good year of growth, just the way math works, right?

276
00:26:18,452 --> 00:26:20,722
It's just that those numbers are not gonna be as big.

277
00:26:20,722 --> 00:26:25,835
I mean, the analogy I always use is, you know, like smartphone sales or iPhone sales,
right?

278
00:26:25,835 --> 00:26:27,766
The first few years, right?

279
00:26:27,766 --> 00:26:32,167
You'd go from 5 million to 50 million or whatever in a couple of years, right?

280
00:26:32,167 --> 00:26:40,119
And it's like, well, now, Apple's sales, yeah.

281
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:48,761
But I mean, yeah, mean, when they're like, yeah, whatever they are, 50 million a year or
something, I have no idea what it is right now.

282
00:26:48,761 --> 00:26:54,349
yeah, it's like, if they grow one million year over year, it's like,

283
00:26:54,349 --> 00:26:57,285
You know, it's nothing, right?

284
00:26:57,318 --> 00:26:57,878
For sure.

285
00:26:57,878 --> 00:27:09,678
I think one of the big stories, and not to make it political, but it's like this election,
especially it's like media focus on narrative versus fact is in just like two completely

286
00:27:09,678 --> 00:27:10,939
different realms.

287
00:27:10,939 --> 00:27:20,276
And I think the bigger story that's been missed for this year, especially when it comes to
auto sales is overall auto sales are way down than what was projected and has been

288
00:27:20,276 --> 00:27:22,132
repeatedly re.

289
00:27:22,132 --> 00:27:30,417
The predictions have had to been adjusted multiple times because it kept going down
further and further and further as to what the overall, it doesn't matter if it's electric

290
00:27:30,417 --> 00:27:32,417
or not, sales were going to be.

291
00:27:32,538 --> 00:27:43,654
And so the fact that the overall auto industry is shrinking, yet EVs in general are even
growing, I think that unto itself is a huge win and a big story.

292
00:27:43,654 --> 00:27:47,329
just, it makes it really easy to say, EV sales aren't growing and stuff.

293
00:27:47,329 --> 00:27:48,867
like, so they must be dead.

294
00:27:48,867 --> 00:27:51,141
First is like getting into the nuance of it.

295
00:27:51,141 --> 00:27:51,910
Yeah, yeah.

296
00:27:51,910 --> 00:28:05,024
is actually, that to me I think is an even bigger story is that they're still growing in a
very weak automotive sales economy versus like, when interest rates are low and everyone's

297
00:28:05,024 --> 00:28:08,187
buying cars and they're growing, that's great, obviously.

298
00:28:08,187 --> 00:28:13,632
But to see growth in such a down market for auto sales domestically, I think that's
actually a big win.

299
00:28:13,632 --> 00:28:16,814
It's just hard to convey that into a headline.

300
00:28:16,818 --> 00:28:26,838
I agree and I don't have the analysis handy, but I think another sort of metric that's
important to look at is sort of what is the, you know, the BEV and plug-in hybrid and

301
00:28:26,838 --> 00:28:34,358
hybrid share growth of an automakers sort of overall numbers, right?

302
00:28:34,358 --> 00:28:37,198
So what is sort of the mixed growth looking like?

303
00:28:37,198 --> 00:28:46,812
And, you know, if you look at somebody like Toyota, you know, their hybrid, plug-in hybrid
and BEV sales are just, you

304
00:28:46,812 --> 00:28:48,603
going through the roof as a percentage.

305
00:28:48,603 --> 00:28:53,156
And in their case, it's fundamentally supply driven, right?

306
00:28:53,156 --> 00:28:59,090
Like they now have several models that are hybrid only, right?

307
00:29:00,212 --> 00:29:07,457
And so, they're what they call electrified sales shares.

308
00:29:07,457 --> 00:29:11,480
I'm gonna probably get this wrong, but I think it's north of 50 % now, right?

309
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:13,982
It's something like that.

310
00:29:14,799 --> 00:29:15,589
I mean, you're totally right.

311
00:29:15,589 --> 00:29:20,921
So many of their models now you can only get as a hybrid and it's just like to what level
of hybridization you want.

312
00:29:21,002 --> 00:29:23,643
And it's really funny.

313
00:29:23,923 --> 00:29:31,146
know you're, this is something we've kind of disagreed up about in the past is around the
value of plug-in hybrids.

314
00:29:31,406 --> 00:29:33,047
Yeah.

315
00:29:33,047 --> 00:29:40,521
But I think to speak, now there's definitely some interesting caveats, but coincidentally
in the past year, coincidentally both my mother-in-law

316
00:29:40,663 --> 00:29:43,605
and my own mother have bought plug-in hybrids.

317
00:29:43,946 --> 00:29:50,552
And what's funny is both of them had other cars available to them that are fully electric.

318
00:29:51,093 --> 00:30:00,523
And their takeaway is they love it, and John Volcker will not believe this when I tell
him, but they both regularly plug in.

319
00:30:00,523 --> 00:30:05,078
But that's also partially because they already had the infrastructure for the EV they
already had in their house.

320
00:30:05,078 --> 00:30:05,792
interesting.

321
00:30:05,792 --> 00:30:06,401
Yeah.

322
00:30:06,401 --> 00:30:09,965
And so it made it easier for them to make this adoption.

323
00:30:09,965 --> 00:30:16,305
And so I think it's really interesting to me that you're kind of getting that early Chevy
Volt thing.

324
00:30:16,305 --> 00:30:22,737
It's like, you know, I'm driving so much on electricity anyway, if I could only go so much
farther, I wouldn't really need gas at all.

325
00:30:22,737 --> 00:30:30,344
And I think it obviously helps that they both have had experience with Teslas and kind of
that knowledge base to know what kind of charging is.

326
00:30:30,344 --> 00:30:32,480
But I think it is really.

327
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:39,302
That to me is such a big thing, is if you're gonna go P-Hav, they have to have the EV
charger installed.

328
00:30:39,302 --> 00:30:48,714
And then once they've had that experience, which is a huge hurdle, and especially in a
dealership realm, I mean, one of the cars they bought was a Volvo, and so I think they

329
00:30:48,714 --> 00:30:52,725
probably had better EV kind of knowledge and education around that.

330
00:30:52,785 --> 00:31:00,167
But it's just been really fascinating to me to hear that what their issues have been, and
what their takeaways have been from it.

331
00:31:00,167 --> 00:31:02,247
So one of them...

332
00:31:02,911 --> 00:31:13,278
They were really annoyed because they replaced one of their Mercedes with a Tesla Model Y
and then they replaced their other car with this Volvo plug-in hybrid.

333
00:31:13,278 --> 00:31:20,822
And she was annoyed that it didn't charge as fast as the Tesla does on level two.

334
00:31:20,823 --> 00:31:28,047
And so to her, that was kind of annoying because like, yeah, if it would just charge
faster, I could do all my driving on the 40 miles of range it has.

335
00:31:28,113 --> 00:31:30,084
But there's been a couple times where it needs to kick in.

336
00:31:30,084 --> 00:31:43,508
And so obviously these are kind of these little interesting standpoints from people who
are aware of electric vehicles, who have access to electric vehicles, but we're not fully

337
00:31:43,789 --> 00:31:48,930
confident in going to the range of society and that experience of it.

338
00:31:48,930 --> 00:31:53,292
And then once you've had it, you're kind like, okay, I get this, I can do this.

339
00:31:53,292 --> 00:31:56,161
And it's interesting to me that I think

340
00:31:56,161 --> 00:32:06,785
I agree with you that P-Hubs are a good starting point, but it just seems like so much an
experience that it just, and maybe this is what has to be anyway, is kind of this band-aid

341
00:32:06,785 --> 00:32:09,355
or process where it's just like, I could have gotten electric.

342
00:32:09,355 --> 00:32:12,115
Yeah, mean, yeah, it's fascinating.

343
00:32:12,115 --> 00:32:23,615
I hadn't sort of really heard of this concept before, of like, you know, BEV people then
getting, you know, instead of like an ICE backup, they have a plug-in hybrid sort of

344
00:32:23,615 --> 00:32:30,396
backup, but sort of the seamlessness of that sort of second car, right?

345
00:32:30,396 --> 00:32:31,729
Like you said.

346
00:32:31,729 --> 00:32:40,009
it's obviously kind of a small demographic, but it's really interesting that both of their
husbands have bought Bevs and both of them probably aren't the most, especially for my

347
00:32:40,009 --> 00:32:42,109
mother, dare I say, not tech savvy.

348
00:32:42,109 --> 00:32:48,249
And so there's like kind of an apprehension and they're both really comfortable with the
brands that they bought Plug and Hybrids from.

349
00:32:48,249 --> 00:32:54,190
Also not very cost effective if you just work with the brands they went with, but they're
very nice cars.

350
00:32:54,190 --> 00:32:56,464
And so just, it has been really...

351
00:32:56,464 --> 00:33:02,302
This is obviously a small subset of a small subset, but it's just been really fascinating
to hear their take.

352
00:33:02,302 --> 00:33:02,683
Yeah.

353
00:33:02,683 --> 00:33:06,486
are always fun and educational.

354
00:33:06,486 --> 00:33:12,831
They may or may not translate to the broader market, but that's sort of fascinating.

355
00:33:12,831 --> 00:33:26,042
let's stick with plugin hybrids for a minute because I'm looking at a chart here I created
around trends in California over since 2020 and then the three quarters this year.

356
00:33:26,042 --> 00:33:27,803
And basically,

357
00:33:28,216 --> 00:33:45,271
You know, BEV sales sort of exploded over the, you from 2020, you know, to 2023, they went
from 5.8 % to 21.5 % sales share in California, right?

358
00:33:45,271 --> 00:33:47,051
This is pretty, pretty significant, right?

359
00:33:47,051 --> 00:33:55,375
One out of more than one out of five cars purchased in California last year were full
BEVs, right?

360
00:33:55,402 --> 00:34:09,792
But year-to-date we're at 22.2 percent Although we were up to 23.7 percent in in q3 but
the point being is that you know, bev sales in California are still growing but you know,

361
00:34:09,792 --> 00:34:20,900
we're We're growing at sort of a slower rate and again, right like out here where I live
in the East Bay like, you know everybody drives a Tesla Model Y right like they're they're

362
00:34:20,900 --> 00:34:22,957
they're sort of rampant so it's like

363
00:34:22,957 --> 00:34:27,647
the number of, and we're already past early adopters and into mainstream.

364
00:34:27,647 --> 00:34:31,497
And so that's sort of our challenge, which we'll get to more in a minute.

365
00:34:32,197 --> 00:34:44,397
you know, the interesting thing is, you know, hybrid sales are now sort of growing really
pretty significantly, but plug-in hybrid sales have basically been flat for the last sort

366
00:34:44,397 --> 00:34:45,237
of year and a half.

367
00:34:45,237 --> 00:34:51,817
basically, they were 3.4 % sales share through the end of 2023.

368
00:34:51,853 --> 00:34:54,413
year to date, they're 3.4%.

369
00:34:54,413 --> 00:35:00,973
So while the other two power trains are growing, plug-in hybrids are flat.

370
00:35:01,013 --> 00:35:16,093
And we could spend an hour just on why that is, but I think one thing, Chase, that I think
to me is kind of fascinating is you think about sort of the consumer buying process and

371
00:35:16,093 --> 00:35:17,013
choice.

372
00:35:17,013 --> 00:35:20,645
So if I walk into a Best Buy,

373
00:35:21,253 --> 00:35:28,496
and I'm interested in computing technology, maybe I look at desktop, laptop, and a tablet,
right?

374
00:35:28,496 --> 00:35:39,992
And each of them has their role and benefits and stuff and based on my needs and price
points and things like that and the ability of the salesperson to push me in one direction

375
00:35:39,992 --> 00:35:41,292
or another, right?

376
00:35:41,292 --> 00:35:48,295
It helps determine which of those sort of three platforms I go with.

377
00:35:48,373 --> 00:35:53,186
And while not a perfect analogy, I think we've reached this point with powertrains, right?

378
00:35:53,186 --> 00:35:57,890
Where you've got ICE hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and BEV.

379
00:35:57,890 --> 00:36:04,744
And what's happening now, and I think, you know, going back to our first topic with Trump,
I think the big winners are going to be hybrids, right?

380
00:36:04,744 --> 00:36:16,814
I think what's happening now is when a consumer goes into a dealer and there's these
multiple powertrains with, you know, kind of significant

381
00:36:17,433 --> 00:36:25,114
and compelling BEV options and now growing number of hybrid options, right?

382
00:36:25,114 --> 00:36:35,044
Like the Honda Accord hybrid is now more than 50 % in the US of Accord sales.

383
00:36:35,044 --> 00:36:37,154
That's crazy, right?

384
00:36:37,154 --> 00:36:45,334
We think about like Toyota being sort of the hybrid leader, but we're starting to see some
of the other automakers do really well as well.

385
00:36:45,269 --> 00:36:52,655
one of the things with plug-in hybrids is just sort of the competitive positioning now
when consumer walks into a dealer, right?

386
00:36:52,655 --> 00:36:57,259
So many automakers now have multiple power trains for lot of their different models,
right?

387
00:36:57,259 --> 00:37:03,293
So everything from ICE to hybrid to plug-in hybrid to full BEV.

388
00:37:03,394 --> 00:37:11,256
And I think one of the things is as a lot of the BEV models have gotten more compelling
and stuff,

389
00:37:11,256 --> 00:37:21,296
that consumers are now looking at sort of the advantages of a BEV, but the cost, the extra
cost and things like that, and I'm not comfortable with charging and stuff.

390
00:37:21,296 --> 00:37:34,637
And then they're going, but I can get a hybrid that has 35 miles of MPG versus the ICE
version, which is 22, and it's only like $1,500 more.

391
00:37:34,917 --> 00:37:40,201
And then there's the plug-in hybrid in the middle, which is $10,000 more.

392
00:37:40,201 --> 00:37:40,711
Right.

393
00:37:40,711 --> 00:37:44,607
it's like, but I've got to plug it in and you know, all this kind of stuff.

394
00:37:44,607 --> 00:37:48,810
think that was my big takeaway too is like, and it totally makes sense.

395
00:37:48,810 --> 00:37:54,094
And I don't think people enough talk about it's like, of course you're not gonna plug in a
plugin hybrid if you don't have the charging at home.

396
00:37:54,135 --> 00:37:58,858
And I think it like going full bed is enough of a forcing function to do that.

397
00:37:59,392 --> 00:38:05,239
And it's a whole, and it requires a lot of work, a lot of research, a lot of different
parties to be working together.

398
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:10,987
But like seeing with my mom and mother-in-law, just like, yeah, they have it because they
have access to it.

399
00:38:10,987 --> 00:38:14,111
Like who would go through all of that without having it?

400
00:38:14,111 --> 00:38:14,572
I don't know.

401
00:38:14,572 --> 00:38:18,399
I think it's then a very small force unless they can charge a worker or something.

402
00:38:18,399 --> 00:38:30,529
And I guess my point really is just to sum it up and then can move on is that I think
there's a lot more hybrids coming out and they're much more compelling and they're much

403
00:38:30,529 --> 00:38:31,729
more cost competitive.

404
00:38:31,729 --> 00:38:37,090
They're only oftentimes $1,500, $2,000 more than the ICE version.

405
00:38:37,090 --> 00:38:42,530
And my point is that for several years in a lot of these brands and models,

406
00:38:42,826 --> 00:38:48,669
You know, the choice may have been BEV or plug-in hybrid or ICE, right?

407
00:38:48,669 --> 00:39:03,307
But now with so many hybrids, you know, coming to market that, you know, the choice is,
you know, if it's, you know, ICE hybrid, plug-in hybrid in BEV, it's like the plug-in

408
00:39:03,307 --> 00:39:06,199
hybrids are sort of getting lost in the mix, right?

409
00:39:06,199 --> 00:39:06,889
Because of...

410
00:39:06,889 --> 00:39:12,180
going to say, do you think that this is really just another disadvantage for kind of like
the traditional automotive legacy?

411
00:39:12,180 --> 00:39:17,712
Because it's like you have to sell so many and educate so much and then you don't have the
dealership control.

412
00:39:17,712 --> 00:39:23,493
But it does, I don't want to say it's a death spire, but it just seems like it creates
more and more problems.

413
00:39:23,493 --> 00:39:26,414
And I get why they do it and what the advantage to it is.

414
00:39:26,414 --> 00:39:34,956
it is, it just seems like the dealership and like that in consumer experience has been
such a big uphill battle for BEVs.

415
00:39:34,979 --> 00:39:41,236
and now throwing in hybrids, plugging hybrids, having these manufacturers have to build so
many different ranges of the same thing.

416
00:39:41,457 --> 00:39:47,364
It just seems like there's so many financial and educational and experience hurdles.

417
00:39:49,227 --> 00:39:50,649
I don't know.

418
00:39:50,717 --> 00:40:01,915
we're finding and then yeah, then we can move on is that to your point, right, for a lot
of people, they're not necessarily, as John Volcker always says, which I don't necessarily

419
00:40:01,915 --> 00:40:09,436
100 % agree with, says, nobody walks into a dealership saying, you know, I want a car with
like two power trains kind of thing, right?

420
00:40:09,436 --> 00:40:13,249
But I think there are a lot of people that understand plug-in hybrids.

421
00:40:13,939 --> 00:40:25,898
And want them and love them, you know, like your mother-in-mother-in-law But but I think
what we're finding is that for a lot of people The simple choice now is just get a regular

422
00:40:25,898 --> 00:40:38,527
hybrid Right and and that and so that you know, yeah so we're sort of kind of going down
these paths of which ultimately is good for the planet, right is because

423
00:40:38,527 --> 00:40:38,936
Correct.

424
00:40:38,936 --> 00:40:40,667
I'm a big fan of hybrids, right?

425
00:40:40,667 --> 00:40:47,773
Because I'd much rather have somebody driving a car getting 35 miles to the gallon than 20
miles to the gallon, right?

426
00:40:47,773 --> 00:40:50,235
it's just, yeah, yeah.

427
00:40:50,235 --> 00:40:52,557
So, and it's going to take a long time.

428
00:40:52,557 --> 00:41:05,407
I think just, you know, sort of the last sort of car trend thing is that one thing that's
becoming clear is that, you know, BEV pickups are not doing well, right?

429
00:41:05,407 --> 00:41:09,150
Like, you know, even though, you know, the F-150 is

430
00:41:09,166 --> 00:41:11,347
had sort of growth in sales this year, right?

431
00:41:11,347 --> 00:41:16,871
Like Ford is pausing production this next month and things like that.

432
00:41:16,871 --> 00:41:20,254
But we're definitely, we've sort of seen the plateau, right?

433
00:41:20,254 --> 00:41:31,632
Like even the Rivian R1T is outsold by the R1S SUV, three to one, right?

434
00:41:31,632 --> 00:41:34,944
The Silverado and stuff is not necessarily.

435
00:41:34,944 --> 00:41:42,669
You know, so I think that's why I'm really excited to see what happens next year with the
RAM charger with the extended range.

436
00:41:42,769 --> 00:41:53,957
I think that's going to be a real bell weather of sort of the future of how we electrify
trucks and what sort of the truck buyers are willing to go with.

437
00:41:53,957 --> 00:41:58,540
So I think that's going to be a winner, but you know, we'll see.

438
00:41:59,750 --> 00:42:02,862
Yeah, I think the truck market is a really interesting one.

439
00:42:03,503 --> 00:42:11,780
I mean, it is funny that like the best selling EV truck right now is the Cybertruck, which
I think a lot of people either were like, of course, or other people were like, I didn't

440
00:42:11,780 --> 00:42:12,930
see that coming.

441
00:42:13,051 --> 00:42:14,749
But you're.

442
00:42:14,749 --> 00:42:19,420
hasn't sold millions and millions yet, but yeah, I mean, it's...

443
00:42:19,420 --> 00:42:25,260
and to your point that just kind of shows how weak right now, like the people who wanted
them pretty much got them.

444
00:42:25,260 --> 00:42:33,879
And we're starting to see, and I'm kind of wondering if some of this is marketing related,
but we're already starting to see, and this is anecdotal too, but we're seeing like a lot

445
00:42:33,879 --> 00:42:40,620
of dealerships with Hummer EVs, which that's kind of a repeat of history, just different
reasons.

446
00:42:40,620 --> 00:42:45,363
And then a lot of like the Silverado and the

447
00:42:46,128 --> 00:42:49,269
Denali like already like piling up on dealerships.

448
00:42:49,289 --> 00:42:56,713
And so like, think if you can grab one for cheap, which I think will be possible, that's a
great deal.

449
00:42:56,713 --> 00:42:58,571
But it is just really interesting to me.

450
00:42:58,571 --> 00:43:03,978
like, okay, where was the figure out like this?

451
00:43:03,978 --> 00:43:07,800
You're making the product and just because you make it doesn't mean they're going to come
to you.

452
00:43:08,100 --> 00:43:09,550
And I don't know.

453
00:43:09,550 --> 00:43:10,681
It's

454
00:43:11,465 --> 00:43:16,817
I think it's going to be a really interesting, I think we're really just trying to, we're
just starting to see this as an issue.

455
00:43:16,817 --> 00:43:19,788
And I think it'll be interesting in the next six months.

456
00:43:19,788 --> 00:43:29,438
then like you're saying, whenever I talk to like my really conservative, like people who
are truck buyers, who love the Midwest and stuff, they, they, they're always wowed by like

457
00:43:29,438 --> 00:43:30,082
an electric vehicle.

458
00:43:30,082 --> 00:43:33,293
think like, especially for like a sedan or crossover, they think it's really cool.

459
00:43:33,334 --> 00:43:36,685
But anytime it comes up for a truck, they're like, eh, I don't know about that.

460
00:43:36,685 --> 00:43:39,684
But they're like, but one of those EREV or.

461
00:43:39,684 --> 00:43:49,784
plug-in hybrid things that seems kind of like the best of both worlds and I'm not a
hundred percent sold on it but it makes sense the fact that it's even being a conversation

462
00:43:49,784 --> 00:43:54,243
thing and that's how they're approaching it like I get it so the point

463
00:43:54,243 --> 00:44:06,286
think before we move on to charging trends, I think that's where a lot of the domestic
automakers made their mistake is betting on full BEV pickups, because it's just completely

464
00:44:06,286 --> 00:44:16,731
different buyer demographic, psychographic, and you have the towing issue and all those
kinds of things, and that they really should have, I think, focused on plug-in hybrids

465
00:44:16,731 --> 00:44:17,258
and...

466
00:44:17,258 --> 00:44:26,340
I think it also looking at who's bought the Ford F-150 Lightning outside of some like city
and governments that kind of bought it as, which makes sense.

467
00:44:26,801 --> 00:44:33,122
A lot of people use it as kind of a lifestyle truck or an around town truck, which once
again, totally a market for it.

468
00:44:33,122 --> 00:44:39,364
But then you look at like the R1T and Cybertruck and those are kind of like the epitome of
like lifestyle trucks and kind of do that.

469
00:44:39,424 --> 00:44:40,364
Which.

470
00:44:41,604 --> 00:44:41,954
Right.

471
00:44:41,954 --> 00:44:44,555
And I think that's where it's kind of interesting to see.

472
00:44:45,026 --> 00:44:53,269
Once again, for probably a couple of reasons, but you're seeing the Silverado and the
Hummer EV also total, or not, I'm sorry, not Silverado, but like the Denali already.

473
00:44:53,269 --> 00:44:59,311
Those are much more kind of the comfy lifestyle trucks that are kind of building up an
inventory.

474
00:44:59,311 --> 00:45:05,944
I also understand why they would go for that first, because there's such high margin, but
it's really going to be interesting to see how this all plays out.

475
00:45:05,944 --> 00:45:14,897
Because I do think that that specific area of the EV market right now, especially for like
the traditional truck buyers who trying to sell into middle of.

476
00:45:15,298 --> 00:45:18,599
is really going to be a difficult sell.

477
00:45:18,599 --> 00:45:20,759
I wish them the best of luck in doing that.

478
00:45:20,759 --> 00:45:28,061
But I in some ways this has been a making of their own decisions leading up to
electrification.

479
00:45:28,758 --> 00:45:32,042
And it of goes back to our earlier statement of just leaning.

480
00:45:32,323 --> 00:45:39,504
Do you go into electrification or do you lean in with what you know and what you think the
traditional truck buyer is going to buy?

481
00:45:40,865 --> 00:45:42,059
Pro and Cal in there.

482
00:45:42,059 --> 00:45:42,496
Yep.

483
00:45:42,496 --> 00:45:43,302
Yep.

484
00:45:43,821 --> 00:45:47,079
So that's a podcast series for another day.

485
00:45:47,079 --> 00:45:48,563
Let's go to something more positive.

486
00:45:48,563 --> 00:45:51,167
Maybe let's talk about charging.

487
00:45:51,167 --> 00:45:54,947
favorite topic, charging industry and charging trends.

488
00:45:54,947 --> 00:45:57,268
you know, just a couple of things.

489
00:45:57,268 --> 00:46:08,128
You know, one, just sort of big picture trends chase is that we're seeing is, you know,
kind of a shift in who the sort of the charging companies are, right?

490
00:46:08,128 --> 00:46:12,368
So, you know, it was started off by a lot of like, you know, what...

491
00:46:12,368 --> 00:46:20,011
They're now mature companies, but they were startup several years ago, very dependent on
incentives and things like that and sort of a growing market.

492
00:46:20,011 --> 00:46:30,946
And now we're reaching, you know, sort of this next wave where you have, you know, the
companies like Iona, which is the, you know, the company formed by now eight automakers.

493
00:46:30,946 --> 00:46:33,698
You've got Mercedes Benz, high power charging network.

494
00:46:33,698 --> 00:46:36,289
You know, you got Walmart coming into the space.

495
00:46:36,289 --> 00:46:38,880
You have companies like, you know, BP.

496
00:46:39,684 --> 00:46:42,377
and, you know, and pilot and loves.

497
00:46:42,377 --> 00:46:53,377
And so you have, you know, kind of this sort of next wave of sort of the maturation of,
of, of the charging industry with companies with either, you know, sort of big pockets

498
00:46:53,377 --> 00:46:59,763
that, that want to come in and basically reshape the sort of the charging industry with
sort of a better experience.

499
00:46:59,763 --> 00:47:03,146
And it's, they're not necessarily incentive driven, right?

500
00:47:03,146 --> 00:47:04,828
Like, you know, government grants and stuff.

501
00:47:04,828 --> 00:47:05,718
They're like,

502
00:47:06,514 --> 00:47:07,654
to not try and make it political.

503
00:47:07,654 --> 00:47:16,954
I that was the big conversation I had with my wife, like, seeing what happened is like, if
you are an EV charger only business and you have not figured out and you're still like

504
00:47:16,954 --> 00:47:22,324
getting by, like, I think this is really gonna, and in some ways, to be honest with you, I
think from a market perspective, that's a good thing.

505
00:47:22,324 --> 00:47:29,414
That's either gonna force you to either get it all together and start really making money
or it's gonna force consolidation or you to go out of business.

506
00:47:29,414 --> 00:47:34,126
And I think we'll make the market itself probably stronger and more serious.

507
00:47:34,126 --> 00:47:34,476
Yeah.

508
00:47:34,476 --> 00:47:34,776
Yeah.

509
00:47:34,776 --> 00:47:40,399
And so the second piece of this is really sort of really around kind of the economics,
right?

510
00:47:40,399 --> 00:47:51,083
So as we move into kind of what I call charging 2.0, if we move into this next phase,
right, with sort of different and bigger companies, and sometimes they're smaller, like

511
00:47:51,083 --> 00:48:02,508
you look at Rove, which is a startup out of Southern California that launched a 40 charger
station with a store and awnings and all sorts of stuff, that that's kind of

512
00:48:02,628 --> 00:48:15,238
You know, the next piece of this is that the charging stations are getting, you know, sort
of bigger and bigger, you know, 20, 40 chargers, et cetera, and with, you know, canopies

513
00:48:15,238 --> 00:48:19,161
and stores and food service and things like that, right?

514
00:48:19,161 --> 00:48:22,073
Which means that, you know, they're getting really expensive too.

515
00:48:22,073 --> 00:48:28,237
They're costing, you know, instead of a million dollars, they're costing two, three, you
know, or more.

516
00:48:28,237 --> 00:48:34,491
the rates they have to charge for charging are becoming to a point now where it's like, I
don't know, let's chip in the gas now.

517
00:48:34,491 --> 00:48:37,603
And, really, if you're charging at home, it's an issue here and there.

518
00:48:37,603 --> 00:48:40,140
But it has been really interesting to see that come up.

519
00:48:40,140 --> 00:48:49,788
But, so, you know, kind of the sort of the, the kind of couple of things that are going on
with the shift and sort of these, what I call sort of greenfield rights or these charging

520
00:48:49,788 --> 00:48:58,335
centers that are, that are being built sort of from the ground up with like stores and all
that kind of stuff, or the ones that are where you're adding chargers to a circle K, a

521
00:48:58,335 --> 00:49:04,168
seven 11, you know, a quick stop, a loves a pilot, cetera.

522
00:49:05,018 --> 00:49:10,190
It's moving into kind of more of the old, you know, supermarket or gas station model,
right?

523
00:49:10,190 --> 00:49:14,833
Where, you know, sort of the volume is, be the charging business, right?

524
00:49:14,833 --> 00:49:20,445
But where you make your margins is on the food and stuff inside, right?

525
00:49:20,445 --> 00:49:24,177
And so, you know, not all charging stations are going to be that way, right?

526
00:49:24,177 --> 00:49:30,229
We still have, we're going to have thousands of legacy stations that are in a back corner
lot of some parking lot, right?

527
00:49:30,229 --> 00:49:38,694
almost most of the new ones sort of being built right are these sort of from ground up
with amenities or what I call sort of additive stuff.

528
00:49:38,694 --> 00:49:47,509
And so then, you know, as you get these sort of higher costs to sort of build these
charging stations, you know, how do they become profitable?

529
00:49:47,509 --> 00:49:54,222
Well, again, it's partially it's like those amenities and things like that, maybe higher
pricing as you intimated.

530
00:49:54,222 --> 00:49:58,915
the other, the sort of one of the most significant trends chase that

531
00:49:58,915 --> 00:50:08,509
that we're seeing this year is there's been a significant increase in utilization over the
last year.

532
00:50:08,769 --> 00:50:16,713
And one of the things that's driving that in particularly a lot of sort of the major urban
markets and stuff is rideshare drivers.

533
00:50:16,873 --> 00:50:24,489
So one of the most eye-popping, and I wrote an article about this a couple months ago, one
of the most eye-popping stats

534
00:50:24,489 --> 00:50:38,638
that I saw in EVgo's Q2 earnings presentation was that 25 % of their throughput in Q2 was
from rideshare drivers.

535
00:50:39,059 --> 00:50:43,852
Meaning 25 % of the energy dispensed went to rideshare drivers.

536
00:50:43,852 --> 00:50:53,609
And you think about that and most people, unless they live in an apartment and have to
depend on...

537
00:50:53,929 --> 00:50:55,649
public fast chargers.

538
00:50:55,850 --> 00:51:00,611
Most people might only use fast charging a couple of times a year when they go on road
trips and things like that.

539
00:51:00,611 --> 00:51:10,894
Right, shared drivers might go to a fast charger two or three times a day, five, six days
a week, right?

540
00:51:10,894 --> 00:51:17,796
And so what we have is we have this sort of, you know, typical sort of customer
segmentation of like an 80-20 rule, right?

541
00:51:17,796 --> 00:51:21,983
Where you have this growing

542
00:51:21,983 --> 00:51:32,581
you know, small number of rideshare drivers just like starting to sort of dominate and
being maybe what determines being profitable or not, right?

543
00:51:32,581 --> 00:51:33,700
So, you have...

544
00:51:33,700 --> 00:51:38,650
and it's interesting, too, because that's where we're seeing a lot of the negative
headlines around charging experience.

545
00:51:38,650 --> 00:51:47,140
Because, like when there's that big winter storm in Chicago and all this stuff, well, it
turned out a lot of the backup was and understandably so, they still use it.

546
00:51:47,140 --> 00:51:50,760
Were these rideshare drivers trying to charge their E's and stuff?

547
00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:55,940
And I think one of the things I've talked about is like with the gas experience.

548
00:51:55,940 --> 00:51:56,595
Yeah.

549
00:51:56,595 --> 00:51:58,905
Maybe a taxi could go into a gas station, but that's pretty rare.

550
00:51:58,905 --> 00:52:04,935
They usually go to specifically commercial fueling stations for their own taxi, ran one.

551
00:52:04,935 --> 00:52:08,505
And that's clearly just something that needs to happen in the electric vehicle space.

552
00:52:08,505 --> 00:52:12,450
And there's been like some talk of it, but yeah.

553
00:52:12,450 --> 00:52:21,279
one of the companies and actually met with them just a couple of weeks ago in New York is
Revel.

554
00:52:21,279 --> 00:52:24,662
They started off as basically a ride share company.

555
00:52:24,662 --> 00:52:28,785
They got the blue cars and they had motor scooters and things like that.

556
00:52:28,785 --> 00:52:36,422
And they're kind of basically getting out of that business and focusing almost 100 % on
charging.

557
00:52:36,422 --> 00:52:37,533
they're building

558
00:52:37,557 --> 00:52:46,637
charging centers, large charging centers in the New York area and they're coming to San
Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles in the next two years.

559
00:52:46,637 --> 00:52:58,097
And so yeah, they're focused basically on building charging centers for rideshare drivers,
because they understand that that's where the utilization and the revenue is, right?

560
00:52:58,097 --> 00:53:03,477
Like, you wanna, think about it as a coffee shop, right?

561
00:53:03,477 --> 00:53:15,397
Do you know, think about the commuter who stops every morning on their way to work to stop
in and spend, you know, $5 on or $6 or $7 on a coffee and a bagel or whatever it is versus

562
00:53:15,397 --> 00:53:19,456
somebody that visits your coffee shop once a month, right?

563
00:53:19,456 --> 00:53:21,457
Like who are you going to focus on?

564
00:53:21,457 --> 00:53:22,577
Right.

565
00:53:22,577 --> 00:53:24,503
Well, that brings up kind of an interesting thing.

566
00:53:24,503 --> 00:53:26,920
I wanted to get your thoughts and I realized we're kind of out of time.

567
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:29,047
So what.

568
00:53:29,047 --> 00:53:31,491
mean, we still have a little bit to go, so I'm fine.

569
00:53:31,491 --> 00:53:32,204
you know.

570
00:53:32,204 --> 00:53:38,866
With I think there's been a lot of like really positive news and it's great to see like
Iona come into the market.

571
00:53:38,866 --> 00:53:47,448
And I think it's really cool that they're trying to make more of a kind of high tier
experience, which obviously is going to be and if they can kind of get some of these other

572
00:53:47,448 --> 00:53:51,769
ways they make business or make sales to get that margin like we're talking about, that's
great.

573
00:53:51,770 --> 00:53:55,760
But to me, it seems like we're really seeing two kind of parts of the market.

574
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:58,541
And I think they're going to really have a strong or a

575
00:53:58,831 --> 00:54:08,483
big uphill to kind of face when you have like the circle case and the traditional players
of the space come into that that already have all of this infrastructure and locations and

576
00:54:08,483 --> 00:54:13,875
they just have to do the site upgrades that it seems like they could take off.

577
00:54:13,875 --> 00:54:25,237
I'm not saying they can't, but it just seems like you're really starting to see with this
wave of after consolidation, we're seeing the market really be much more commoditized.

578
00:54:25,237 --> 00:54:28,955
And I think that maybe Tesla will be kind of

579
00:54:28,955 --> 00:54:36,875
what we might start seeing is Tesla's kind of like, I don't want to say like low end, but
it's like, they don't have canopies, they're usually a pretty decent margin cheaper, and

580
00:54:36,875 --> 00:54:38,095
they have just locations.

581
00:54:38,095 --> 00:54:40,375
And if you're in a rush, most of the time you don't care.

582
00:54:40,375 --> 00:54:43,896
Like if you know you're going to be somewhere longer, then yeah, maybe you go to a Circle
K or an IANA.

583
00:54:43,896 --> 00:54:53,676
And I'm kind of curious if that conversation's kind of come up at all around like, do you
focus, I mean, we're starting to see like, I think two different markets, like the

584
00:54:53,676 --> 00:54:55,277
electrified Americas of the world.

585
00:54:55,277 --> 00:55:03,516
are really having a challenge being just the competitor to Tesla, like you're saying, in
the back of a Walmart parking lot or something, and then fighting on price.

586
00:55:03,516 --> 00:55:06,879
And I think that's gonna be really hard to make a business case for.

587
00:55:06,879 --> 00:55:15,147
But if you can do the margin thing, but then if you're a new player trying to come in to
compete with Circle Ks of the world, it just seems like long-term, that's a really strong,

588
00:55:15,888 --> 00:55:18,586
that's a really competitive space to be in.

589
00:55:18,586 --> 00:55:26,533
I mean, think Chase, what you're really getting at too is that what we're seeing is the
maturation and the evolution of the charging industry.

590
00:55:26,533 --> 00:55:34,138
And what that means is, is, you know, it's going to be like all other industries, like the
airline industry or whatever it is, right?

591
00:55:34,138 --> 00:55:41,104
Where you have, you know, companies that focus on low cost or their regional players.

592
00:55:41,162 --> 00:55:48,544
And then you have like bigger companies that are going to focus on, you know, better
experience and stuff with loyalty programs, et cetera.

593
00:55:48,544 --> 00:55:54,806
And you're going to be willing to pay for that because you're going to get a better
experience.

594
00:55:54,806 --> 00:55:57,198
You're going to get points, you know, things like that.

595
00:55:57,198 --> 00:56:06,662
Speaking of Tesla though, Bill Farrow, my data partner in crime here at Peren, who I know
you had on recently as well, just...

596
00:56:06,946 --> 00:56:23,360
gave me some hot off the press data this morning, which is really kind of fascinating that
Tesla quietly now is not only the largest fast charging network in the US, it is now the

597
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:28,392
largest fast charging network open to non-Tesla drivers.

598
00:56:28,913 --> 00:56:31,707
So they basically have surpassed

599
00:56:31,707 --> 00:56:49,796
all other charging networks, Electify America, EVgo, ChargePoint, et cetera, as far as the
number of superchargers that a driver of, let's say, a Mustang can charge at either using

600
00:56:49,796 --> 00:56:54,745
the Magic Dock, which is that built-in adapter.

601
00:56:54,745 --> 00:57:01,186
since all these next announcements, really does seem to be, there have been a few going,
but like it.

602
00:57:01,186 --> 00:57:01,877
quite a few.

603
00:57:01,877 --> 00:57:03,299
We've got numbers on that.

604
00:57:03,299 --> 00:57:06,961
or you can use an adapter, right?

605
00:57:07,802 --> 00:57:22,041
basically about 63 % of Tesla's supercharger stalls, if you will, are now open to
non-Tesla drivers, right?

606
00:57:22,041 --> 00:57:26,094
So it's like miles above everybody else.

607
00:57:26,094 --> 00:57:27,625
And that's sort of like

608
00:57:27,907 --> 00:57:29,268
The untold story.

609
00:57:29,268 --> 00:57:41,645
other thing, Chase, just kind of using some of some of our data is one of the fascinating
things we're seeing is, and this is partially driven by both the growth in EV sales and

610
00:57:41,645 --> 00:57:52,192
rideshare drivers and stuff is year over year, we're seeing a 70 % increase in the volume
of charging sessions, right?

611
00:57:52,192 --> 00:57:54,423
So like a massive increase.

612
00:57:54,423 --> 00:58:01,603
But utilization has basically stayed about flat at about 20 % nationally.

613
00:58:02,278 --> 00:58:06,218
What do mean by that when you say utilization at 20 %?

614
00:58:06,552 --> 00:58:20,621
So utilization is the, if you look at the 24 hour period and you look at the number of
minutes of charging sessions, and you divide that by the 24 hours, you get utilization

615
00:58:20,621 --> 00:58:21,122
rate.

616
00:58:21,122 --> 00:58:25,154
So 20 % utilization is one fifth.

617
00:58:25,154 --> 00:58:28,146
So whatever that is, that's like, what is that?

618
00:58:28,146 --> 00:58:31,487
Five and a half hours or something like that.

619
00:58:31,487 --> 00:58:31,928
Right.

620
00:58:31,928 --> 00:58:34,697
So that means that, you know, a charger is busy.

621
00:58:34,697 --> 00:58:36,607
five and a half out of 24 hours.

622
00:58:36,607 --> 00:58:37,420
So that's what that.

623
00:58:37,420 --> 00:58:42,884
Now is that per station or is that per station port?

624
00:58:43,826 --> 00:58:45,007
Per charger, okay.

625
00:58:45,007 --> 00:58:45,947
Yeah.

626
00:58:46,208 --> 00:58:46,988
Wow.

627
00:58:47,002 --> 00:58:59,375
and again, you know, what's, what's driving that is, is there, you know, there are a lot
of, charging stations in, you know, like San Francisco, Los Angeles, you know, downtown

628
00:58:59,375 --> 00:59:01,496
Atlanta, Boston, Austin, et cetera.

629
00:59:01,496 --> 00:59:03,232
You put these sort of.

630
00:59:03,232 --> 00:59:07,795
like 25, eight than the others that might be, yeah.

631
00:59:07,795 --> 00:59:12,088
they're getting 50, 60, 70, 80 % utilization, right?

632
00:59:12,088 --> 00:59:13,839
Like just sort of off the charts.

633
00:59:13,839 --> 00:59:17,141
So the ones they're only getting 5%, right?

634
00:59:17,141 --> 00:59:21,003
You throw it into the pie and it sort of averages out, right?

635
00:59:21,003 --> 00:59:32,669
But the interesting thing is the point was in looking at the data this morning was that
while the charging sessions are growing utilization,

636
00:59:34,244 --> 00:59:37,557
is in many of these is sort of relatively flat.

637
00:59:37,557 --> 00:59:41,620
And it's because we're building a lot of new charging stations in these bigger ones.

638
00:59:41,620 --> 00:59:43,621
So the capacity is growing.

639
00:59:43,621 --> 00:59:45,663
So a lot more charging.

640
00:59:45,663 --> 00:59:55,690
we're actually, the point is that people are concerned, are we building enough fast
chargers to keep up with the EV sales?

641
00:59:55,690 --> 00:59:59,193
And our data has looked like it's showing, yes, it is.

642
00:59:59,193 --> 01:00:01,474
We're building so many that

643
01:00:01,474 --> 01:00:12,875
It actually can easily handle the increase in charging sessions, but it's sort of slowing
the overall utilization numbers.

644
01:00:12,875 --> 01:00:16,015
It's sort of spreading it out.

645
01:00:17,261 --> 01:00:21,012
And I'm sorry, was that for charging in general or just Teslas?

646
01:00:21,157 --> 01:00:24,139
No, that's actually for not including Tesla.

647
01:00:24,139 --> 01:00:27,011
So that's non-Tesla.

648
01:00:27,011 --> 01:00:30,293
Yeah, so that's your non-Tesla.

649
01:00:30,714 --> 01:00:32,675
everybody else, basically.

650
01:00:33,576 --> 01:00:38,632
But yeah, but again, there's sort of these, it's sort of the nuance in the data, right?

651
01:00:38,632 --> 01:00:46,637
But if you look at, like I said, if you look at sort of same store sales, right, the
utilization is growing.

652
01:00:46,637 --> 01:00:49,023
In fact, we did some fascinating,

653
01:00:49,023 --> 01:01:00,824
analysis around the Labor Day period and year over year comparing this Labor Day sort of
period, of like Thursday to Monday kind of thing.

654
01:01:00,824 --> 01:01:05,604
And session growth was up about 30 to 35%.

655
01:01:05,604 --> 01:01:10,524
So, you know, basically about a third more sessions.

656
01:01:11,504 --> 01:01:20,405
and utilization increased from about 15 % to about 17.5 % on average, again, at non-Tesla.

657
01:01:20,405 --> 01:01:32,725
you know, again, the, you know, and so the utilization increase was about half the session
volume increase, if that makes sense, right?

658
01:01:32,725 --> 01:01:39,169
But yeah, so the capacity is keeping up.

659
01:01:39,169 --> 01:01:41,789
with charging demand.

660
01:01:41,929 --> 01:01:45,670
we're doing pretty well.

661
01:01:45,670 --> 01:01:50,050
And a lot of these stations, as we've discussed, are getting bigger and bigger.

662
01:01:50,050 --> 01:02:00,270
Like the days of 200 kilowatt chargers in the back of a parking lot, that's going to
continue.

663
01:02:00,270 --> 01:02:02,271
That's going to continue a bit.

664
01:02:02,271 --> 01:02:04,631
But where do people want to charge?

665
01:02:04,631 --> 01:02:07,947
They want to get off at the exit where there's

666
01:02:08,291 --> 01:02:15,983
an Electify America, a Tesla, an EVgo, a Francis and a, you know, EV range, like whatever,
right?

667
01:02:15,983 --> 01:02:19,054
Where there's like, like, like sort of the gas station, right?

668
01:02:19,054 --> 01:02:28,076
When we're driving down that highway and you see, you know, all those signs and all the
logos on the, on the sign, you're like, okay, I've got choice.

669
01:02:28,076 --> 01:02:32,098
and there's also a Burger King, a Taco Bell, a Chipotle, a blah, blah, blah.

670
01:02:32,098 --> 01:02:33,018
Right.

671
01:02:33,138 --> 01:02:37,599
And, and so that's really what's happening is these are sort of becoming magnets.

672
01:02:38,507 --> 01:02:44,072
And that's going to help sort of drive where people want to stop.

673
01:02:44,172 --> 01:02:49,697
And especially they're attracted to larger charging centers, right?

674
01:02:49,697 --> 01:03:05,720
If you know a charging center has 12 or 20 or 40 chargers versus one that has four, you're
like, okay, if a couple of them don't work and it's really busy, like, I'm either not

675
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:07,463
going to have to wait or

676
01:03:07,463 --> 01:03:12,387
you know, I'll only have to wait a couple of minutes, right, because somebody's always
going to be leaving, right?

677
01:03:12,808 --> 01:03:27,951
And so I think consumers are really waking up to that as well as the charging hardware
companies that while it costs more, right, utilization can often be much higher when you

678
01:03:27,951 --> 01:03:30,043
actually have more chargers.

679
01:03:30,935 --> 01:03:39,688
I think that brings up another question that's been brought up is I think this past year,
maybe in two years, people have talked about, know, range anxiety isn't so much the thing

680
01:03:39,688 --> 01:03:40,058
anymore.

681
01:03:40,058 --> 01:03:41,699
It's charger anxiety.

682
01:03:41,699 --> 01:03:44,019
So hearing this utilization is great.

683
01:03:44,019 --> 01:03:54,981
Are you seeing any trends for uptime or other things like that that also are kind of
helping not only just with that utilization, but things to be optimistic about.

684
01:03:54,981 --> 01:04:02,955
Yeah, yeah, we're definitely seeing an improvement in reliability and uptime and there's
sort of several things driving that.

685
01:04:02,955 --> 01:04:11,459
One is that a lot of the companies that had problems were sort of working through and
switching and trying new hardware and stuff.

686
01:04:11,459 --> 01:04:18,323
so they basically, so, EVgo and Electrify America in particular,

687
01:04:18,867 --> 01:04:23,800
both sort of had like branded programs where basically they're ripping and replacing,
right?

688
01:04:23,800 --> 01:04:29,283
So they're going through and they're replacing the hardware that had issues and stuff like
that.

689
01:04:29,283 --> 01:04:30,964
And so they're sort of cleaning through that.

690
01:04:30,964 --> 01:04:37,177
And as they do it, they're like, those new chargers might have both NACs and CCS.

691
01:04:37,177 --> 01:04:40,649
They might be higher power, 350, 400 KW, right?

692
01:04:40,649 --> 01:04:47,081
So not only they're becoming more reliable, but sort of providing potentially a faster and
better.

693
01:04:47,081 --> 01:04:49,233
better customer experience and stuff.

694
01:04:49,233 --> 01:04:59,512
And we're also, obviously seeing as you kind of referenced that we're seeing a shakeout in
the industry and we're seeing new entrants into the market like from Europe, like

695
01:04:59,512 --> 01:05:05,187
ChemPower and Alpatronic are coming in and with great brands and reputation.

696
01:05:05,568 --> 01:05:13,715
And we're seeing companies actually valuing, meaning sort of the charging networks and
stuff valuing.

697
01:05:13,664 --> 01:05:16,836
warranties and higher quality and

698
01:05:16,836 --> 01:05:27,221
seeing a lot of these, field tech companies that worked with like the gas stations and
stuff, like get into this space and, we're, starting to track, like when a station, when a

699
01:05:27,221 --> 01:05:32,324
charger goes down, how long does it take before it's sort of back online?

700
01:05:32,324 --> 01:05:32,704
Right.

701
01:05:32,704 --> 01:05:41,889
And so we're definitely seeing, and we'll have some really cool data around that, pretty
soon, but yeah, we're definitely seeing improvement in that because that's been the black

702
01:05:41,889 --> 01:05:43,439
eye in the industry.

703
01:05:44,051 --> 01:05:53,591
and so there's a lot of, a lot of companies getting into the space and using AI and
everything like that to sort of predict when a charger might go down, but then track it in

704
01:05:53,591 --> 01:06:00,126
real time and then get somebody out there in a truck and to fix it, not in like a week or
two weeks, but in like,

705
01:06:00,126 --> 01:06:10,966
no, we're definitely seeing a much more proactive versus reactive with the addition of a
very effective and functional software layer to get much more of this versus the other

706
01:06:10,966 --> 01:06:12,406
ones out there.

707
01:06:12,477 --> 01:06:25,417
know, competition and brand and, and, know, just, and, and growing utilization is like,
okay, you know, it used to be, we're just happy to have a charger.

708
01:06:25,417 --> 01:06:36,164
And now it's like, no, it's, it's, it's, it's gotta be, it needs to be reliable, high
power and, and a good experience.

709
01:06:36,164 --> 01:06:37,035
So,

710
01:06:37,311 --> 01:06:40,502
With that on a positive note, this has been great.

711
01:06:40,947 --> 01:06:42,438
Yeah, thank you so much, Loren.

712
01:06:42,438 --> 01:06:46,952
I realize we've gone over time and we could easily keep talking about some of these
subjects.

713
01:06:46,952 --> 01:06:51,241
And I think it's been so great with you joining the parent team and what you guys are
working on.

714
01:06:51,241 --> 01:06:55,568
we're going to have you actually back on and count the panel thing I know in a couple of
weeks anyway.

715
01:06:55,568 --> 01:07:03,444
But for anyone that's listening and want to kind of learn more and especially just stay up
to date with kind of a blog post, all the data you guys are releasing about this, what's

716
01:07:03,444 --> 01:07:06,539
the best way for people to connect with you and the company?

717
01:07:06,539 --> 01:07:18,419
Yeah, yeah, you can go to paren.app, so p-a-r-e-n.app, A-P-P, yeah, so we don't have a
.com domain, we've got a .app domain, but you can go there and we've got a lot of cool

718
01:07:18,419 --> 01:07:18,779
stuff.

719
01:07:18,779 --> 01:07:28,499
just really, you know, we're a startup, we're just building this up, but we've got a blog
and we're gonna be building out a bunch of resources with some really cool charging data.

720
01:07:28,499 --> 01:07:31,201
So stay tuned, stay tuned for that.

721
01:07:32,213 --> 01:07:33,796
Loren, thank you so much.

722
01:07:33,796 --> 01:07:35,018
Always a pleasure.

723
01:07:35,018 --> 01:07:38,252
And I'm sure we'll have so much more to talk about again the next time we talk.

724
01:07:38,252 --> 01:07:39,957
So with that, have a great day.

725
01:07:39,957 --> 01:07:40,860
Take care, everyone.

726
01:07:46,054 --> 01:07:52,274
Thanks for tuning into this 2024 US elections focused episode of grid connections.

727
01:07:52,274 --> 01:08:00,374
hope Loren McDonald's analysis gave you a picture of how last night's election results
should reshape the future of the automotive and EV charging landscape.

728
01:08:00,374 --> 01:08:05,114
From potential shifts in tax incentives to the role of data and optimizing EV
infrastructure.

729
01:08:05,114 --> 01:08:10,314
There's no shortage of change on the horizon, but still plenty to be optimistic about.

730
01:08:10,314 --> 01:08:14,775
As always, we're here to keep you updated on the latest developments impacting the EV
industry.

731
01:08:14,775 --> 01:08:19,870
If you enjoyed today's conversation, please share this episode with a friend who'd benefit
from staying informed.

732
01:08:19,870 --> 01:08:22,383
And don't forget to leave us a review on our podcast page.

733
01:08:22,383 --> 01:08:27,257
It really helps us reach more listeners and bring you valuable insights from industry
experts.

734
01:08:27,538 --> 01:08:30,735
Until next week, this is The Grid Connections podcast signing off.