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Good morning grid connections listeners.

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Welcome back to grid connections, the podcast where we explore all things transportation,
clean energy, and our power grid connecting all of these systems together.

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The auto industry is in flux and our March panel is here to break it all down.

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John McRoy, the president of Auto Line Network, Loren McDonald, the chief data analyst at
PRIN and Matt Teske, CEO of Chargeway, all join us again to unpack the shifting EV market,

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dealership

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and the policy changes shaping the future of electric mobility.

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We discuss everything from Trump's tariffs and their impact on electric vehicles
automakers.

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Tesla's brand shift, how Elon's politics are reshaping its customer base, the state of EV
charging, Nevi delays, infrastructure expansion, and Tesla's gold standard network, along

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with the fight over direct consumer EV sales, Volkswagen's scout motors versus dealership
lobbyists.

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Who will win all of these things we discuss in today's episode.

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If you're passionate about the future of electric vehicles, this is an episode you won't
want to miss.

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Share it with at least one person who would enjoy the conversation too.

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Plus leave us a positive review and sign up for our brand new grid connections newsletter
via the link in today's show notes.

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All of these things help us to continue to bring great episodes like today to you and
many, many more with that.

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Enjoy.

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I think anyone that's been listening to our series for quite a while is probably familiar
with all these faces and I'm just going to do an intro anyway for any new listeners, but,

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I'm going to go in order of who I see in the tiles here, but, we were greeted today by
Loren McDonald, the chief analyst of Pren Matt Teske founder and CEO of chargeway.

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And of course, John McIlroy, the founder of blue sky productions and

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As many of you probably know, auto line and auto line after hours.

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Thank you gentlemen for all being on today.

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I think we have quite a few topics to cover and a real briefly.

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If you guys can do the one sentence, two sentence, elevator pitch of what you guys do for
those who may not be familiar and a Loren, I'll let you kick it off.

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Yeah, hi.

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Yeah, Chief Analyst with Paren and we are an EV charging and electric vehicle data firm
and focused particularly around reliability, usability, session data on almost all of the

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US fast charging stations.

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Matt, I'll let you go next.

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All right, I'm Matt Teske.

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I'm the founder and CEO of Chargeway.

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And it is the best mobile app out there for finding EV charging stations and planning road
trips.

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It makes it super simple.

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You just add your EV and we color code the plugs and show you power out on the map to make
it super simple.

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You can download that on iOS and Android.

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And we also work directly with lot of partners, including electric utility companies, auto
dealers, and as well as even policymakers around how we just make the EV experience for

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charging better.

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And I'm John McElroy.

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Yeah, no, thanks for that, Chase.

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Yeah, I'm John McElroy, the president of Blue Sky Productions.

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We put out all kinds of video and other coverage of the global automotive industry,
anything and everything to do with the automotive industry.

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Well, I think that's a pretty good point to kind of jump off today because what isn't
going on in the auto industry today, John, nothing I, business as normal is not kind of

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what we would be even having this conversation about one, but two, like John, what.

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Let's I mean, we got so many great topics to go over today, but let's I'm curious as
someone who has been kind of a part of the industry and just tracking the industry for so

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long.

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What about right now?

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I was going to say maybe since we last spoke a couple of months ago, but that there's too
many things that have happened even since then, but like within the last month, what to

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you is just like really standing out about what is making this time so unique and so
different in the automotive industry right now.

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Well, know, in case people don't know, there's a new president in the United States and
his name is Donald J.

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Trump.

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And in one month, he has turned the industry completely upside down.

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Nobody knows what's going to happen next.

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We're talking tariffs, of course, but also government regulation.

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He's going to gut everything to do with EVs.

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He can get his hands on.

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I would love to hear Max talk about this too.

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when we get to that, gutting everything to do with EV charging.

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He wants to destroy the California ZEV mandate.

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I don't know what I'm leaving out, but Jace, this industry is in shell shop.

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Yeah, I was going to say for maybe our one listener who's waking up out of a coma today.

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maybe those are headlines they haven't seen yet, but yeah, I think those are a lot of the
topics we've really wanted to cover today.

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So, let's you said it, let's kick it off.

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Let's go with the terrorists.

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feel like that keeps changing every day, what we're expecting to happen.

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And then there's a new development in it.

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John, why, don't, mean, maybe once you kind of, I mean, you're the one that has been so
locked into this and being in Detroit, you're hearing from everyone about what is.

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They think it's going to happen.

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What then actually happens and how they're reacting to it.

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So like, maybe let's, let's just kick off there, what you're hearing and seeing and how
people are reacting to all this.

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Well, look, everyone's trying to figure out this president.

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mean, he's something of a chameleon.

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He's very unpredictable.

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He changes things a lot.

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I think part of his modus operandi is to make sure that he's at the top of the news cycle
24-7.

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And he...

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All right.

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being, know, right?

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Remember, let's go, it goes back to the, my audience is the biggest audience.

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So that's literally, you know, the number one goal is I just want to be the top of the
news and the topic of discussion.

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And two, I want to create chaos, which feeds point one.

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Yeah, exactly.

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you know, at the beginning of the year, he said, look, I'm going to lay tariffs out there.

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And then when we got up to his deadline, he said, OK, I'm going to delay it a month.

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And of course, for the first month, everyone's talking about it.

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Now for the second month, everybody's talking about it.

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And we get up to the deadline and he says, OK, I've I put the tariffs in place.

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And then the next day or two later, he goes, you know what?

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We're going to delay it another month.

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And so again, boom, he's at the top of the news cycle.

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Everybody in the world.

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is constantly talking about Donald Trump, which is exactly the way he wants it.

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So the people in the industry are trying to figure out what is he really going for here?

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And it's pretty clear.

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mean, you you have to parse through everything he's saying, but he feels that the U.S.

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has been something of a Paxi, letting so many imports into this, imported cars and trucks
into the U.S.

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Meanwhile, most other countries have

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import tariffs on American vehicles that are significantly higher than what the US
charges.

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I mean, the US charges next to nothing, 2.5 % for passenger vehicles.

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If it's a truck, like a pickup truck or a commercial truck, it's 25%.

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Although Trump did not put that in.

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That goes back to the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration when that went in.

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But anyway, Trump says, hey, wait a minute.

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I want to bring more jobs back to the US.

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And he's...

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definitely going to renegotiate the USMCA, you know, the free trade agreement, the free
trade agreement, by the way, which he negotiated in this.

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catch you off, but I guess for anyone listening, who's familiar with that was kind of what
NAFTA 2.0 during his last administration.

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Yeah, USMCA, US, Mexico, Canada, free trade agreement.

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So Trump renegotiated NAFTA and now he's trashing the very pact that he negotiated.

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what he wants is clear.

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He wants to renegotiate.

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It's up for review.

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I think it's June or July, 2026.

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And what he's saying, I believe is, I want these negotiations to start a whole lot faster.

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And so he's pressuring the Canadians and the Mexicans.

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And when he's done with that, we don't know when that's going to done, he's gonna turn his
guns on the Europeans, the Japanese and the South Koreans.

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I mean, it's pretty clear here.

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And he's talking in terms of reciprocity.

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And I kind of agree with him on that.

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It's like, we're gonna charge you the same tariffs you charge us.

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And so you can either lower your tariffs or we're gonna charge your tariffs.

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And the net result of this, I think, will be some more production in the US, some more US
jobs.

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But look, what's going to happen is prices of vehicles are going to go up.

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What happens when prices go up, sales go down.

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What happens when sales go down, you start laying people off.

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So I don't see a big net gain in production and jobs coming out of it.

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And by the way,

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And we're already seeing it happen.

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The supplier industry especially is going crazy with robotics and automation because they
don't want to pay, end up paying UAW wages.

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And the cost of robots and automation is coming down so fast right now.

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And remember these robots, they never get tired.

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They never take a break.

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They don't go on vacation.

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They don't show up late for work.

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They can work.

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Two shifts back to back.

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I mean, so the ROI on getting these robots, even though they're kind of expensive compared
to a full blown UAW job, the ROI is like two years.

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So anyway, that's in a nutshell what I think is going on with the industry now.

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Well, and I think before, before John and Matt, I mean, before Loren and Matt hop and I
know they're going to have all sorts of interesting takes on this.

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But one thing I just want to add to that was, the auto line daily you had today about kind
of BMW having a Mexican factory and how that plays into this.

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They're like, there's certain specifics now of what vehicles can qualify from Mexico, but
now there's, think you said like VW's plant does qualify.

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BMW unfortunately doesn't make, can you just add a little bit of context for that for
listeners to, cause that's really interesting that plays into all of this.

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right.

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So there's local content rules, I guess I would call it, that if you wanna bring vehicles
in from Canada or Mexico, tariff free, 70 % of the aluminum and steel has to come from

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North America.

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75 % of the parts and components have to come from North America.

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40 % of the labor,

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has to be on average jobs that pay at least $16 an hour.

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And there's another one that I'm missing there.

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Oh yeah, the core components like engines and transmissions have to be made in North
America.

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But the penalty, if you don't meet any of those and you gotta meet all of them to not pay
the tariff, you pay a 2.5 % tariff.

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So BMW is figuring screw it, you know.

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We'll just eat the tariff.

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And if we build a whole lot more stuff in Mexico,

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will save more than like paying the tariff is going to cost us.

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So they are not compliant.

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And again, this gets back to why Trump wants to raise the tariff.

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He doesn't want it to be two and a half percent.

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I don't know what the final number will be, but he's gonna force companies like BMW to
become compliant.

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John, I was just gonna add, I think it's interesting to look at the two different
approaches of how sort of Biden was approaching sort of build cars in America through

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incentives.

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So offering loans to Kia and Hyundai and companies like that to build factories in the
South and battery factories.

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And so we saw

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joint ventures between non-US Asian battery companies and US companies to open and build
factories.

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We saw the rules and requirements around the tax credits of requiring more and more of the
minerals and stuff be from North America or free trade countries that we have agreements

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with, cetera.

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Like Biden's approach was, yes, we're going to require more things be made in America, but
we're going to help you with that.

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We're going to provide loans, grants, incentives.

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You do this, we'll give you this, I encourage you and that type of thing.

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Consumers will be rewarded if they buy those vehicles.

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Whereas Trump, it's a real estate deal.

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It's just all a negotiation, right?

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It's just, you I'm going to offer you this.

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What are you going to offer me back?

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Right.

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It's a sort of completely different style, but it feels like they're sort of the same goal
though, right?

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Which is, which is to have more cars built and assembled in America.

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No, you're right, Loren.

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There's one key difference though.

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The Biden stuff was all about electric vehicles.

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And the Trump administration and Donald J himself wants nothing to do with electric
vehicles.

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So you're right.

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The Biden administration provided really good incentives to get the EV industry launched
in the United States and not rely on China.

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And that was what the bottom line is.

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We did not want to be reliant on China.

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And this need to not rely on China goes well beyond the auto industry.

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It has a lot of national security implications, aerospace, space, military stuff and the
like.

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yeah, you would have thought maybe Trump would keep that stuff that Biden put there in
place because I mean, it unleashed, don't know, tens of billions, if not more of foreign

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investment in the US.

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Yeah.

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And by the way, and you guys know this better than I do, most of those battery plants are
in red states, Republican states.

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now having said, he's trashed the EV subsidies and expressed that he doesn't like EVs and
the like, nothing has happened yet.

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I mean, they have not been cut yet.

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And so I see a couple of other things going on here.

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Number one, dealers.

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And dealers are overwhelmingly Republican.

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And dealers have made it very clear, they're not enamored of EVs.

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But as of right now, they have something like $7 billion worth of EVs sitting on their
lots in inventory.

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So they're telling the administration, don't pull the plug yet, we gotta sell these
things.

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So if and when the administration drops the $7,500 sales rebate.

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it'll probably be phased in over many months to allow the dealers to clear their
inventory.

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Because, I mean, the NADA, the National Auto Dealers Association, in my humble opinion, is
probably the most powerful lobbying group in Washington.

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More powerful than the NRA, the National Rifle Association.

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And that's because there's a dealership in every single community, all across the country.

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They...

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They sponsor the little league teams and the soccer teams.

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They provide the convertibles for the Labor Day Parade.

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They donate to the political campaigns of every politician in their district, state or
county.

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And so they're very powerful.

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And so if they say, hey, Mr.

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President, we love you dearly, but don't yank those just yet, he will pay attention to
that.

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Yeah, and I think the bigger impact since the tax credit is only available to whatever it
is, it changes constantly like 13, 12, 15 EVs is the loss of the lease loophole, right?

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Because the real thing, this is, Chase, probably a whole separate topic we might get into,
but just the...

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the growth and shift to people realizing that leasing an EVA is both they can get a better
EV at a much lower monthly payment.

211
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But also the EV is getting better every like 18 months.

212
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I might as well lease do a three year lease and then get one that's got, you know, 50 more
miles of range.

213
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It can charge faster.

214
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has better software, better, you know, like on and on and on.

215
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And so I think

216
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You know, we've seen a lot of people move, start to understand that and move to the
leasing.

217
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And then you get the loophole and get the full 7,500 credit built into your monthly
payments.

218
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So I think that's the bigger impact than the direct 7,500 loss if that goes away.

219
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I think, I mean, all of this conversation, the thing that I think about is it's the amount
of noise that is being created through all of this and the amount of, you know, then

220
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analyzing of what's going on.

221
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What is the game plan here?

222
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And frankly, the I mean, where I've landed for, I mean, just personally is I'm tired of
hearing about Trump.

223
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I'm tired of hear about Musk.

224
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I think that the

225
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ramifications of what they're both doing and the impact, what will happen on a local level
from a community perspective, then you go up to the states and, you county state and

226
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everything else, it's going to be felt in a very real way.

227
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And we're already seeing it and it's just going to continue to get worse.

228
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like as to asking, what is his game plan?

229
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I don't think there is a plan.

230
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Most of what he does is for just pure attention or for, we're also seeing basically
vengeance.

231
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As it relates to like, what was happening when I was not in office?

232
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I was being investigated by whom and who else?

233
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And okay, well then we'll just take care of that.

234
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And I think that, you know, I mean, all the things that will happen with the automotive
sector, I mean, we're going to have to figure it out.

235
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There's no way around that.

236
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I think that if you take a step back and really look at it from a global perspective, I
think that if you're a General Motors or if you're at Ford or any of the big 2.5 is you're

237
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looking at it saying, well, we still compete globally.

238
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We still do.

239
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We have to.

240
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And we have to maintain innovating because everybody else outside, mean, everybody on
across the Atlantic and across the Pacific, they're all trying to figure out how they

241
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maintain innovating as it relates to the automotive industry.

242
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And we are basically throwing a stick in the spokes of progress related to what we've been
trying to do with that domestically right now.

243
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And part of what's wielding that is Musk and the things that he's doing.

244
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I just, frankly, I...

245
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It's just gonna get worse.

246
00:19:21,355 --> 00:19:24,535
I don't want to try to figure out like, oh, like, what was he thinking?

247
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He's not.

248
00:19:26,215 --> 00:19:26,815
He's not.

249
00:19:26,815 --> 00:19:28,875
That's giving him way too much credit.

250
00:19:28,875 --> 00:19:37,675
And he, you know, he'd rather have a photo op with his signature on a piece of paper
saying, I made another erroneous opinion or another EO about like, this is going to change

251
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now.

252
00:19:37,955 --> 00:19:40,895
It's like not with Congress, you know, without them on board.

253
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No, it won't.

254
00:19:41,455 --> 00:19:48,207
And I'm at least happy to see the judiciary stepping in and finally putting a pause on the
pauses they're making and saying, you can't do this.

255
00:19:48,207 --> 00:19:51,827
And so that's, there's a glimmer of hope there, but what happens in install this?

256
00:19:51,827 --> 00:20:02,667
We all podcast communities, industry, everybody spend exhausted amount of time talking
about it and asking like, and that's part of the game plan is like, we're all so

257
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distracted by all this.

258
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And I just want to take a step back and say, well, brass tacks.

259
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What is it?

260
00:20:07,787 --> 00:20:09,467
Trump is a terrible diplomat.

261
00:20:09,467 --> 00:20:11,087
He's a terrible deal maker.

262
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He's trying to dismantle his own deal.

263
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He made four or five years ago.

264
00:20:14,307 --> 00:20:15,651
It's just like, I'm.

265
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The obviousness of how bad it is to me is just, okay, let's just call it for what it is.

266
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He's not good at this.

267
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And the people that he's also bringing into help are not good at this.

268
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And we're all going to suffer for it, industry and individuals alike.

269
00:20:29,838 --> 00:20:37,232
And I guess where we go from there, to me, that's where we go from there is how do we talk
about the solutions that's not analyzing what he was thinking?

270
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I mean, that's just my two cents.

271
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just, I'm.

272
00:20:39,624 --> 00:20:46,956
I think that's a great call out, Matt, because I was really hoping that this conversation
wouldn't be, I mean, obviously there's impacts of the decisions and what we're seeing in

273
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the industry, but I completely agree with you that a lot of the takes are focused on like
headline Trump, yada, yada, yada.

274
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Like the actual takes and like substance of it are very low level.

275
00:20:57,309 --> 00:21:06,402
and it really just seems to be like clicks ads and selling newspapers, whoever five people
that still buy physical newspapers, but exactly.

276
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Yeah.

277
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Yeah.

278
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I mean, it's,

279
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And I think it's like a kind of self propelled doom loop as far as like people just tuning
out more and more.

280
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Yeah.

281
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conversation.

282
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You said clicks and sells, whatever.

283
00:21:18,304 --> 00:21:21,957
and I, it's just, again, it is exhausting.

284
00:21:21,957 --> 00:21:30,344
And the worst part about it is, is if you actually take some time to have conversations
with people that again, the social media narrative and like that type of discourse never

285
00:21:30,344 --> 00:21:31,695
helps, doesn't work.

286
00:21:31,695 --> 00:21:39,562
I've had some inner, you know, some phone calls with friends who we clearly aren't on the
same page about things, but we've had some conversations where it's like, okay, that's a,

287
00:21:39,562 --> 00:21:41,005
there's a promise here.

288
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that we're at least on the same page that we can all agree that this is not, no one voted
for this.

289
00:21:47,078 --> 00:21:52,401
Like no one voted for what's happening right now, but we can, I think for the most part
agree about that.

290
00:21:52,401 --> 00:21:54,283
But then it's the, do we go from here?

291
00:21:54,283 --> 00:22:02,467
And you see these local town halls for, know, in, in red States where these GOP
representatives are just getting shouted down when they make these just like talking point

292
00:22:02,467 --> 00:22:08,831
remarks about, the things that are happening with Doge are really having a positive and
these people just start yelling and booing.

293
00:22:08,831 --> 00:22:09,581
And then they just.

294
00:22:09,581 --> 00:22:11,672
these representatives just walk out?

295
00:22:12,113 --> 00:22:18,859
It's like, okay, so at what point do we actually say, all right, we collectively agree
this is not working.

296
00:22:18,859 --> 00:22:23,783
And I mean, we're only seven weeks, eight weeks into this or not even.

297
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And so.

298
00:22:24,501 --> 00:22:28,203
I kind of agree with you, but what I will say that's two things there.

299
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One is, mean, you live in Oregon, live in Oregon too.

300
00:22:30,695 --> 00:22:41,032
I'm out the gorge now and that there is a huge difference between like four to six years
ago when Trump was, it just seems so much more muted.

301
00:22:41,032 --> 00:22:44,597
It's just like, okay, what, whatever we're starting to see like more people do.

302
00:22:44,597 --> 00:22:52,736
And there's like protests here and there, but it's like nothing to the scale it was, but
what you bring up is really interesting and we'll get to actually.

303
00:22:52,736 --> 00:22:55,216
the important stuff, the cars and electric vehicles here a second.

304
00:22:55,216 --> 00:23:02,476
But what's really interesting to what you're talking about with like some of these
in-person like town hall protests is it does remind me a lot of kind like the tea party

305
00:23:02,476 --> 00:23:06,616
movement on the like the right in 2012 where it's like people kind of disregarded.

306
00:23:06,616 --> 00:23:08,656
It was quieter for a while.

307
00:23:08,656 --> 00:23:09,416
Oh, let's see.

308
00:23:09,416 --> 00:23:14,816
We might have lost you on there for a second, but then it kind of has now grown and
shifted.

309
00:23:14,816 --> 00:23:20,824
And I think it is a large response to the fact that like the actual Democratic Party is
just like.

310
00:23:20,882 --> 00:23:22,984
Enchambles and confused as what to do themselves.

311
00:23:22,984 --> 00:23:31,240
Like their messaging has just been awful wherever you lie on the on the political spectrum
I think they have just leaned into we'll see it's still early on.

312
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:40,108
Hopefully they figure something out Competition is good doesn't matter what the medium but
what I what I'm really kind of interested about is like obviously we're talking about the

313
00:23:40,108 --> 00:23:50,756
larger automotive Impacts and kind of what it means for trade, but my we'll see if John
comes back for this but what I think is really interesting is

314
00:23:50,984 --> 00:23:52,905
Everyone's talking about electric vehicles.

315
00:23:52,905 --> 00:24:05,228
Everyone's talking about like how these impacts affect the automakers, but no one's really
talking about what we're seeing is like, EV growth is still going, but the actual overall

316
00:24:05,228 --> 00:24:07,568
auto market is shrinking.

317
00:24:08,549 --> 00:24:13,071
And so I'm kind of curious on your guys' thoughts with what that actually means.

318
00:24:13,071 --> 00:24:18,366
And there is kind of a point, like if that keeps growing and the rest of it keeps
shrinking that

319
00:24:18,366 --> 00:24:24,732
you can have to face the facts, especially if you want to keep some of these jobs that you
have to put some investments and double down on electric vehicles.

320
00:24:25,007 --> 00:24:26,968
Do want to pause there to see if we can get John back in?

321
00:24:26,968 --> 00:24:34,115
once you I'm sure Loren and you've got some thoughts on that or at least maybe what you're
seeing and hopefully we'll have John back here shortly.

322
00:24:34,115 --> 00:24:39,668
Well, I think to the point that you made about it, is still naturally growing in the way
that it's year over year, we're still seeing growth.

323
00:24:39,668 --> 00:24:46,681
mean, Loren, you had a really insightful post today on LinkedIn about that year over year
growth as it related to new models hitting the market.

324
00:24:46,681 --> 00:24:50,613
And what was it that was existing growth as opposed to new growth?

325
00:24:50,613 --> 00:24:52,444
And I thought that was a really good call out.

326
00:24:52,444 --> 00:24:54,405
It still points to the fact that there's growth.

327
00:24:54,405 --> 00:24:59,527
But as we maintain bringing new models to market and new options to market, I think it's
helpful.

328
00:25:00,131 --> 00:25:09,908
the damage that's been done and is being done daily still to the Tesla brand because of
what is happening with Musk and his, know, what he's doing within the political realm is

329
00:25:09,908 --> 00:25:11,159
very, very real.

330
00:25:11,159 --> 00:25:18,664
And then it provides opportunity for other brands to step up and say, well, hey, can you
know, we are, we also make electric cars.

331
00:25:18,664 --> 00:25:26,430
And, and I saw that firsthand, the forlano show a few weeks ago when people that were, you
know, interested in talking about electric cars, a lot of them, I mean, I literally dozens

332
00:25:26,430 --> 00:25:28,495
of conversations with people saying, and again,

333
00:25:28,495 --> 00:25:34,925
Portland is a, just like San Francisco where are Loren, it's a Tesla stronghold in the
sense it's one of the cities that grew the quickest.

334
00:25:35,047 --> 00:25:40,957
But also very, very liberal and politically correct markets, right?

335
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:42,841
Yeah.

336
00:25:42,975 --> 00:25:49,035
And so a lot of those people that we talked to weren't just saying, I've had a Tesla for X
amount of years and we just want to get rid of it.

337
00:25:49,035 --> 00:25:51,135
So we're looking at what our options are.

338
00:25:51,135 --> 00:25:57,855
And, and so that, I mean, those are very real things that are going to have, you know,
very real impacts on the industry.

339
00:25:57,855 --> 00:26:05,155
so to your point, Chase, about the, know whether it John that said about, you know, over
$7 billion of inventory that's sitting on these dealer lots that are, it's like, we got to

340
00:26:05,155 --> 00:26:06,495
move these things too.

341
00:26:06,511 --> 00:26:08,911
how effective will they be at that?

342
00:26:08,911 --> 00:26:18,091
Or are we just in another weird moment of the EV adoption cycle where we didn't see this
coming, but now all of a sudden we're gonna see interest in non-Tesla EVs potentially

343
00:26:18,091 --> 00:26:23,371
selling, but to existing EV drivers who just wanna get out of what they have.

344
00:26:23,371 --> 00:26:28,951
So we're not exactly moving the market as much as we're just like, know, shuffling the
cards.

345
00:26:29,151 --> 00:26:29,298
So.

346
00:26:29,298 --> 00:26:32,730
not 100 % convinced that that isn't just narrative.

347
00:26:34,131 --> 00:26:38,814
because like, feel like some of, I think is that definitely a thing for sure.

348
00:26:38,814 --> 00:26:47,959
But is that like what people kind of, I I think there's so many of these kind of going
back to like what people print and what people talk about as narrative versus like factual

349
00:26:47,959 --> 00:26:49,240
was like, blame up the election.

350
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:51,438
There was a lot of stuff like, I think Kamala Harris is going to win.

351
00:26:51,438 --> 00:26:51,651
Come on.

352
00:26:51,651 --> 00:26:53,735
And it was once again, not to make a blow.

353
00:26:53,735 --> 00:26:55,083
It was kind of a blowout.

354
00:26:55,283 --> 00:26:56,864
And I think.

355
00:26:56,864 --> 00:26:58,084
just what I'm seeing already.

356
00:26:58,084 --> 00:27:02,504
Like I feel like there was a huge and once again, this is very anecdotal and this is why I
don't like it.

357
00:27:02,504 --> 00:27:08,264
Um, but what is fascinating to me is like as a counterpoint, not that I necessarily agree
with it.

358
00:27:08,264 --> 00:27:11,004
New model wise going at shipping out.

359
00:27:11,044 --> 00:27:18,864
I was just before this me, uh, before this, I was just like hopping on and looking at like
a lot of the famous YouTubers who post all sorts of cars.

360
00:27:18,864 --> 00:27:20,324
They're doing model Y reviews.

361
00:27:20,324 --> 00:27:23,024
You go like a week ago or two weeks ago.

362
00:27:23,084 --> 00:27:25,958
First thing would be all these things that anti-elite and all this stuff.

363
00:27:25,958 --> 00:27:27,909
None of those were even in the comments this time.

364
00:27:27,909 --> 00:27:32,492
So I'm like, I, totally, I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I totally agree with you.

365
00:27:32,492 --> 00:27:35,174
It doesn't actually move the needle for EV sales.

366
00:27:35,234 --> 00:27:44,583
And I do think that wherever you fall in the political spectrum, his, Elon and Tesla's
kind of image, it's obviously shifted a bit, but I just don't think.

367
00:27:44,583 --> 00:27:45,697
than a bit.

368
00:27:46,354 --> 00:27:47,729
Yeah, yeah.

369
00:27:47,729 --> 00:27:52,151
I once again, I think this is also like, I agree with it is a thing.

370
00:27:52,151 --> 00:28:01,557
But I also think it is kind of the bubble effect because I talked to people I consistently
hear and I'm now once again, I do not think it's a one for one, but I am seeing people who

371
00:28:01,557 --> 00:28:04,138
are conserved who are buying some EVs and I'm like, what?

372
00:28:05,159 --> 00:28:09,181
I and I and and once again, I don't think it's a one for one.

373
00:28:09,181 --> 00:28:13,950
But it is and once again, there's something there's still a big gap.

374
00:28:13,950 --> 00:28:23,786
Between all of this inventory sitting on dealership the electric vehicle sitting on
dealerships and I do think that there has just been this Idea that well since Elon's gone

375
00:28:23,786 --> 00:28:36,293
the right all these other EVs are just gonna start magically selling and I just I Yeah and
I I'm not saying it is but I I just wanted to kind of jump in and just say like that seems

376
00:28:36,293 --> 00:28:40,847
to be so much of the Commentary I've been hearing from that bubble

377
00:28:40,847 --> 00:28:41,359
So.

378
00:28:41,359 --> 00:28:41,710
right.

379
00:28:41,710 --> 00:28:44,091
want to, and I want to, can I have a conversation with this panel?

380
00:28:44,091 --> 00:28:48,841
Especially like what is it that's actually going to move that metal, whether it's Elon or
not.

381
00:28:48,841 --> 00:28:51,223
Cause I was talking to someone the other day who bought a ribbon, great cars.

382
00:28:51,223 --> 00:28:55,114
Like, well, I bought it cause I didn't like, you know, it's like, did you, is that the
only reason you must have bought for some other reason?

383
00:28:55,114 --> 00:28:58,785
Is that literally, cause that's not a business model for them as a company.

384
00:28:58,785 --> 00:29:00,065
And they're like, well, it was also cool.

385
00:29:00,065 --> 00:29:00,775
Like, yeah, that's great.

386
00:29:00,775 --> 00:29:03,106
You don't it's that optics level.

387
00:29:03,106 --> 00:29:07,127
I, I always just am always trying to push back on like antidote versus the fact.

388
00:29:07,127 --> 00:29:10,068
And I know I just use a lot of anecdotes, but this is my show.

389
00:29:10,900 --> 00:29:17,229
But I am curious, I'm generally just curious on what you guys think of that and like
trying to distill it further.

390
00:29:17,229 --> 00:29:22,784
I don't think Elon being, you know, divisive is going to move a bunch of other brands EVs.

391
00:29:22,784 --> 00:29:23,985
I don't think that's true.

392
00:29:23,985 --> 00:29:29,499
I think that we're going to see some people like we saw at the ProLado show saying like,
Hey, I'm just, I'm looking for options.

393
00:29:29,499 --> 00:29:31,671
Cause I frankly just don't want to have this vehicle anymore.

394
00:29:31,671 --> 00:29:32,642
I mean, that's happening.

395
00:29:32,642 --> 00:29:36,325
I mean, we're, we're seeing a variety of talking points around people.

396
00:29:36,325 --> 00:29:39,358
I mean, they're calling it things like swastika and things like that.

397
00:29:39,358 --> 00:29:40,899
And, we're seeing vandalism.

398
00:29:40,899 --> 00:29:45,993
I mean, the, Tesla showroom here in Portland was, was shot up yesterday morning.

399
00:29:46,187 --> 00:29:50,371
And so that it happened in Salem, Oregon a few weeks ago where they had to it shut down
for two weeks.

400
00:29:50,371 --> 00:30:00,689
And the one comment I did hear from a friend of mine who will remain nameless though, who
works at Tesla, he said, he's like, our foot traffic has completely died as it relates to

401
00:30:00,689 --> 00:30:02,261
people coming in, looking at the vehicles.

402
00:30:02,261 --> 00:30:07,544
He said, our foot traffic where we have, you know, showrooms in red States has gone up.

403
00:30:08,045 --> 00:30:15,125
said, however, those people that are coming in saying they really think Elon's great for
whatever reason they've they've concluded from their perspective.

404
00:30:15,125 --> 00:30:21,197
if it's politically driven, he's like, they don't have the income to buy our cars.

405
00:30:21,718 --> 00:30:30,581
He said, so they might have interest from a political or emotional or ideological
perspective about what he's doing, but they're not, it's not going to help us move metal.

406
00:30:30,581 --> 00:30:32,472
So who cares?

407
00:30:32,472 --> 00:30:34,488
You know, it's actually destructive to our company.

408
00:30:34,488 --> 00:30:36,188
do the $25,000 car?

409
00:30:36,188 --> 00:30:37,248
Is that the?

410
00:30:37,619 --> 00:30:39,739
We would not have been nice.

411
00:30:39,919 --> 00:30:41,111
No, mean, by the way...

412
00:30:41,111 --> 00:30:45,254
he was actually running the company and making decisions around that, right?

413
00:30:45,254 --> 00:30:45,866
You know.

414
00:30:45,866 --> 00:30:46,177
point.

415
00:30:46,177 --> 00:30:48,711
I finally said to somebody the other asked me, like, what is he doing?

416
00:30:48,711 --> 00:30:51,546
I said, he got bored with running Tesla.

417
00:30:51,546 --> 00:30:53,748
He doesn't care anymore.

418
00:30:53,891 --> 00:30:58,177
In his mind, he solved that thing and it's just doing its thing now.

419
00:30:58,959 --> 00:31:00,220
that's a really good point.

420
00:31:00,220 --> 00:31:06,825
And I was thinking about that this morning, not to get off topic because I want to come
back to the Tesla owner kind of thing.

421
00:31:06,825 --> 00:31:13,501
But yeah, mean, if we think about Elon, you know what, he helped start PayPal.

422
00:31:13,501 --> 00:31:15,883
He solved like a financial payment thing.

423
00:31:15,883 --> 00:31:26,681
Then he did, you know, Tesla, SpaceX, boring tunnel, like whatever it is, he's a starter,
not a finisher.

424
00:31:26,855 --> 00:31:27,366
Right?

425
00:31:27,366 --> 00:31:38,360
Like he, he, he solves his, his, his mission in life is to be thought of as the smartest
guy ever and to solve every problem known to man.

426
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:39,381
And so he just moves.

427
00:31:39,381 --> 00:31:42,445
And so I solved the electric vehicle issue.

428
00:31:42,445 --> 00:31:44,047
Like, so now he's bored with it.

429
00:31:44,047 --> 00:31:45,952
Now he's solving government waste or

430
00:31:45,952 --> 00:31:52,176
it is it is interesting because it's always like phrase now anytime it comes up about
Tesla specifically, it's like autonomy.

431
00:31:52,576 --> 00:31:55,278
And I think you can maybe say is he trying to hype the stock?

432
00:31:55,278 --> 00:31:55,718
Whatever.

433
00:31:55,718 --> 00:31:56,078
Sure.

434
00:31:56,078 --> 00:32:04,704
But that seems to genuinely be it seems like he's way more interested in autonomous and
robotics than he has anything in the actual car product.

435
00:32:04,704 --> 00:32:05,351
Yeah.

436
00:32:05,351 --> 00:32:06,956
is all these different things.

437
00:32:06,982 --> 00:32:08,264
he needs autonomy.

438
00:32:08,264 --> 00:32:13,994
He needs a whole bunch of people paying $8,800 or whatever he's charging for FSD, right?

439
00:32:13,994 --> 00:32:16,418
And look what just happened in China.

440
00:32:16,418 --> 00:32:19,483
BYD said, meh, let's make it free.

441
00:32:19,860 --> 00:32:21,831
That's wild, yeah.

442
00:32:21,921 --> 00:32:23,021
Yeah, yeah.

443
00:32:23,021 --> 00:32:28,898
try charging customers 8,000 bucks when a just as good a system is free.

444
00:32:29,625 --> 00:32:30,457
Yep.

445
00:32:30,705 --> 00:32:31,496
Yep.

446
00:32:31,686 --> 00:32:37,550
Chase, I want to come back to the kind of your previous point in Matt's comments around
Tesla's.

447
00:32:38,951 --> 00:32:49,298
you know, I don't have good data on this, but I've always wondered each year what
percentage of Tesla's sales are to existing owners.

448
00:32:49,318 --> 00:32:53,480
you know, we're on our third Tesla lease, right?

449
00:32:53,501 --> 00:32:59,665
We got our first one in December of 2016 and it's going to be our last.

450
00:32:59,665 --> 00:33:00,286
Right.

451
00:33:00,286 --> 00:33:07,681
And, not, not just for political reasons is my wife and I are just tired of the windshield
wipers not working, right.

452
00:33:07,681 --> 00:33:10,874
Because they still can't get the software.

453
00:33:12,236 --> 00:33:13,297
No, I don't.

454
00:33:13,297 --> 00:33:21,845
Or when it's like a thunderstorm and the wipers go like this, you know, or don't come on.

455
00:33:21,845 --> 00:33:22,565
Right.

456
00:33:22,565 --> 00:33:27,209
And that we have to, to stop and go into the.

457
00:33:27,347 --> 00:33:36,940
the TV screen in our car and trying to find the button that we pushed to open the glove
box instead of reaching over and pressing a button.

458
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:45,743
Now, my wife and I, as you can tell by the wrinkles on my face, are not young kids and
stuff.

459
00:33:45,823 --> 00:33:48,924
yeah, so the politics is part of it.

460
00:33:48,924 --> 00:33:52,505
But yeah, we're just not fans of like...

461
00:33:53,054 --> 00:33:55,788
the experience and I think that's totally fair.

462
00:33:55,810 --> 00:33:56,710
and stuff like that.

463
00:33:56,710 --> 00:34:10,466
But my point is not to make it sort of personal, but yeah, I think one of Tesla's problems
is just the significant percentage of existing owners that are just going to not buy

464
00:34:10,466 --> 00:34:13,237
another Tesla or not lease another Tesla.

465
00:34:13,237 --> 00:34:22,361
And I don't know if that's 10 % each year or 20 % or whatever it is, but it's a
significant nut to crack right off the top.

466
00:34:22,730 --> 00:34:23,165
John?

467
00:34:23,165 --> 00:34:32,565
of attracting, you know, like somebody buying a Tesla versus a Lucid or a, you know, a
Chevy or whatever it is, right.

468
00:34:32,565 --> 00:34:35,185
And I think that's a big problem.

469
00:34:35,185 --> 00:34:44,825
The second thing is, and I meant to look it up before I jumped on, but I didn't, but I did
some analysis a few weeks ago.

470
00:34:44,825 --> 00:34:51,393
And I think I determined that there's something like 40 BEV models that

471
00:34:52,233 --> 00:34:54,893
in essence, compete with the Model Y.

472
00:34:54,973 --> 00:35:02,433
They're in the $40,000 to $70,000 price range, and they're an SUV crossover, et cetera, or
something like that.

473
00:35:04,393 --> 00:35:12,733
Because if you look at all the models coming to market, they're in that typically
mid-sized SUV crossover range.

474
00:35:13,053 --> 00:35:20,353
And so if you're thinking of getting a Tesla Model Y, which is the most popular vehicle in
the world,

475
00:35:22,035 --> 00:35:26,067
A few years ago, you know, there was 10 legitimate competitors.

476
00:35:26,067 --> 00:35:28,798
Now there's 30, 40 legitimate competitors.

477
00:35:28,798 --> 00:35:36,251
And so I don't think the refresh is going to have much impact at all.

478
00:35:36,851 --> 00:35:48,306
It might get 2 % of people, you know, to go for it, but it's still a Tesla model Y that
has a few improvements and stuff.

479
00:35:48,306 --> 00:35:49,856
I don't think it's going to move the needle.

480
00:35:49,856 --> 00:35:52,007
think there are too many other.

481
00:35:52,473 --> 00:35:55,715
Options and negative factors going on so

482
00:35:55,715 --> 00:35:56,587
Yeah, I agree.

483
00:35:56,587 --> 00:35:57,518
those are good points.

484
00:35:57,518 --> 00:36:05,566
now that we have John back, I don't know if you, I'm pretty sure this was an auto line
daily, like a week ago that there was still a poll that Tesla's did have like still the,

485
00:36:05,566 --> 00:36:11,663
was, I want to say it was like then GM had the still the highest brand loyalty for resale.

486
00:36:11,663 --> 00:36:16,415
I don't know if you remember that John, or I thought that was like one of the things that
was from a recent thing you guys covered.

487
00:36:16,415 --> 00:36:25,051
what we recently reported on vis-a-vis General Motors is it scored spectacularly well on
JD Power's vehicle dependability study.

488
00:36:25,051 --> 00:36:32,046
Now remember, this is a study that JD Powers does after three years of ownership.

489
00:36:32,206 --> 00:36:44,534
like Buick was second to Lexus and Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac scored better than Porsche
and Mercedes and BMW and...

490
00:36:45,367 --> 00:36:50,427
everybody sort of looked at it wow, Tesla was way down the list, by the way.

491
00:36:51,047 --> 00:36:59,427
so, going back to what you were just saying, Loren, Tesla heretofore has had the highest
loyalty in the business.

492
00:36:59,427 --> 00:37:11,087
And in fact, like one or two years ago, the Y, the Model Y, scored unbelievable numbers,
like 70 % loyalty, over 70%, which is unheard of in the industry.

493
00:37:11,147 --> 00:37:13,027
But I agree with you guys.

494
00:37:13,027 --> 00:37:14,307
I think...

495
00:37:14,593 --> 00:37:19,967
the Model Y refresh is not going to be enough to put it back to be in number one again.

496
00:37:19,967 --> 00:37:33,115
Now, having said that, in Outline Daily today, we reported that there's a media source in
China saying Tesla got 200,000 pre-orders for the refresh, the Juniper model.

497
00:37:33,296 --> 00:37:35,878
Now, we'll see if that makes a difference.

498
00:37:35,878 --> 00:37:43,283
Maybe in China it will, but you guys have seen the sales numbers coming out of Europe,
coming out of Australia.

499
00:37:44,262 --> 00:37:45,124
Yeah.

500
00:37:45,877 --> 00:37:47,778
50, 60 % down.

501
00:37:49,139 --> 00:37:57,275
And again, and when people say, it's because of the Model Y refresh and people weren't
terribly excited about it or, they had to retool some stuff.

502
00:37:57,275 --> 00:38:00,047
like, I'm sorry, I have eyes and ears.

503
00:38:00,628 --> 00:38:07,833
If when you have a toxic CEO, then it impacts that is intertwined with your brand.

504
00:38:07,833 --> 00:38:11,755
That impacts people's perception of what they're willing to put their money toward.

505
00:38:11,759 --> 00:38:15,623
I mean, it's not 100 % just that, but...

506
00:38:17,149 --> 00:38:22,531
want this to be the whole conversation today, but I'm going to throw something past
everyone.

507
00:38:23,011 --> 00:38:30,133
Coincidentally, Tesla isn't the first car brand around today that's had a very
controversial founder.

508
00:38:30,613 --> 00:38:33,074
How does Tesla move forward?

509
00:38:33,574 --> 00:38:35,274
Does he move?

510
00:38:35,755 --> 00:38:37,275
That's one of a few.

511
00:38:37,275 --> 00:38:38,965
think John's kind of cracking a laugh.

512
00:38:38,965 --> 00:38:41,426
I know he can think of probably a couple of names.

513
00:38:42,488 --> 00:38:49,014
but what I'm, I'm curious on your thoughts is like, does he just become like chairman of
the board or something like that?

514
00:38:49,014 --> 00:38:54,049
Does he have to sell all his shares or what, what, what realistically do you think that
step looks forward?

515
00:38:54,049 --> 00:39:00,444
I mean, and I think you all kind of said it, he's the only thing that he seems really
interested with Tesla right now at the moment is autonomy.

516
00:39:00,444 --> 00:39:09,352
If they do actually start launching full self-driving, like they've talked about in some
of these cities into this year and next, then it kind of.

517
00:39:09,352 --> 00:39:10,533
He's kind of achieved all the steps.

518
00:39:10,533 --> 00:39:17,801
I mean, other than the optimist robot thing, but that's a whole nother story, but it seems
like he's achieved a lot of the things that he wants to do.

519
00:39:18,263 --> 00:39:19,314
And yeah.

520
00:39:19,314 --> 00:39:21,096
where the board's got to step up.

521
00:39:21,096 --> 00:39:26,490
And any other board at any other publicly traded company would have said, hey Jack, you're
out of here.

522
00:39:27,071 --> 00:39:30,774
You can't do all this stuff that's destroying the shareholder value.

523
00:39:30,774 --> 00:39:33,556
We have a fiduciary duty to do something here.

524
00:39:33,556 --> 00:39:35,198
Well, what's the board doing?

525
00:39:35,198 --> 00:39:36,739
They're dumping their stock.

526
00:39:36,739 --> 00:39:39,482
They're trying to cash out as fast as they can.

527
00:39:39,482 --> 00:39:46,191
Or at least we know the chairperson, the chair board, or the board chair.

528
00:39:46,191 --> 00:39:49,485
saw Kimball and some of the other ones have been selling as well.

529
00:39:49,485 --> 00:39:51,183
I believe I saw, yeah.

530
00:39:51,183 --> 00:39:56,217
this is you do not have an independent board in the case of Tesla.

531
00:39:56,217 --> 00:40:06,265
And shareholders should be the ones that are screaming bloody murder about this, because
he's wiped out just in the last two months or the last month.

532
00:40:06,285 --> 00:40:07,478
What?

533
00:40:07,478 --> 00:40:11,489
200, 300 billion dollars of value.

534
00:40:11,550 --> 00:40:14,312
mean, no other company would stand for this.

535
00:40:14,312 --> 00:40:18,545
But Elon's got, you know, the board in his pocket.

536
00:40:18,915 --> 00:40:20,380
Yeah, you made them all rich.

537
00:40:20,382 --> 00:40:21,253
yeah, John.

538
00:40:21,253 --> 00:40:24,688
I think, I think, I don't think the board is going to do anything.

539
00:40:24,688 --> 00:40:25,399
That's clear.

540
00:40:25,399 --> 00:40:32,840
think what's going to be interesting to see is if some of the major institutional
investors start, start pulling out, right?

541
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:33,460
I forget.

542
00:40:33,460 --> 00:40:36,781
Loren, but they're still mesmerized too.

543
00:40:37,043 --> 00:40:39,685
It's hard to bet against Elon and Tesla.

544
00:40:39,685 --> 00:40:44,367
It's hard to do it because anybody who's done it in the past got their clocks cleaned.

545
00:40:45,028 --> 00:40:55,576
And there's still this hope, some of the investors have said, they're down on their knees
praying that the robo taxi thing really happens and proves to be brilliant, that FSD truly

546
00:40:55,576 --> 00:41:00,073
is autonomous and that the optimist robots start building cars.

547
00:41:00,073 --> 00:41:02,285
and then it goes back to over a trillion dollars.

548
00:41:02,285 --> 00:41:06,128
So they're gonna keep their powder dry for the moment.

549
00:41:06,128 --> 00:41:17,686
But I gotta tell ya, if the Q1 sales look as bad as it sounds like they're gonna be, and
maybe it's gotta go to the end of Q2 to really verify it, then I think you'll see the

550
00:41:17,686 --> 00:41:22,139
institutional investors screaming at the board, gotta do something.

551
00:41:22,450 --> 00:41:34,736
Yeah, John, that was, that was the point I wanted to make earlier is that I think Q2 is
going to be the one that really tells us what's going on because I think, because I think

552
00:41:34,736 --> 00:41:45,122
there's, there's, there's a lot of people like every day that goes by, you know, Musk is,
is pissing off more and more people that don't like his politics and what, what he's

553
00:41:45,122 --> 00:41:45,502
doing.

554
00:41:45,502 --> 00:41:45,822
Right.

555
00:41:45,822 --> 00:41:50,129
And so, people don't just, you know, it's not like running out to the store and buying
milk.

556
00:41:50,129 --> 00:41:50,449
Right?

557
00:41:50,449 --> 00:41:54,613
Like car is like, when is my, my lease up?

558
00:41:54,613 --> 00:41:59,537
When does my, when are my kids going to college and I have to, you know, buy a new car?

559
00:41:59,537 --> 00:42:03,900
what, like there's a lot of other factors that determine the timing of when you buy it.

560
00:42:03,900 --> 00:42:06,942
And so I think we're, could see a delay.

561
00:42:07,183 --> 00:42:17,241
If you will, of, really start to seeing people say, Nope, I'm not getting another Tesla or
I'm not getting a Tesla starting in the next couple of months, as things just get worse

562
00:42:17,241 --> 00:42:19,122
and worse and worse from their perspective.

563
00:42:19,122 --> 00:42:19,849
So.

564
00:42:19,849 --> 00:42:24,860
Q1 is probably going to be fairly ugly, but Q2 could be even worse.

565
00:42:25,982 --> 00:42:27,893
Now I will say, I literally just looked it up.

566
00:42:27,893 --> 00:42:37,776
Tesla stock is still up 46 % from one year ago today, even with the slide back and GM's is
only up 18%.

567
00:42:37,776 --> 00:42:49,589
So take that data with it, what you will, it is, and I think the only thing I would add to
that is I agree with the thoughts on the institutional investors, but the big thing is it

568
00:42:49,589 --> 00:42:54,512
is like the key retail meme stock and

569
00:42:54,526 --> 00:42:55,197
Good or bad.

570
00:42:55,197 --> 00:42:59,931
I think a lot of that was originally because of their mission compared to others that
people were investing in it.

571
00:42:59,931 --> 00:43:04,936
And now it's kind of become a bit of a kind of like a Bitcoin pump stock and all that
stuff.

572
00:43:04,936 --> 00:43:13,484
But the other interesting thing, because I was talking with someone about this the other
day, is that this would make you're totally right, John, like any other board of the

573
00:43:13,484 --> 00:43:17,177
automotive company would have jumped in and done something.

574
00:43:17,177 --> 00:43:20,440
But with Tesla, I mean, they are kind of the

575
00:43:21,352 --> 00:43:29,318
Whether you want to, mean, they're valued as one, whether you want to look at them as a
tech stock or not, that's a whole nother idea, but they have the setup of a tech company

576
00:43:29,318 --> 00:43:32,260
and follow that kind of legendary Steve jobs.

577
00:43:32,260 --> 00:43:41,406
And this is kind of what we've seen with all the tech companies since then, where like
with Zuckerberg yet meta that they have so much of their own ownership of the company and

578
00:43:41,406 --> 00:43:46,560
kind of who they choose for the board to prevent being pushed out and good or bad.

579
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:49,692
I mean, I think that really is what.

580
00:43:50,164 --> 00:43:54,049
I don't really see how that would change unless he wants to step down.

581
00:43:54,049 --> 00:44:00,776
I think it would be really hard for even some of the institutional ones just because they
seem so set with that vision.

582
00:44:01,397 --> 00:44:07,516
Not saying that it can't happen, but it is just such a fascinating, unique position that
they're in.

583
00:44:07,516 --> 00:44:15,800
think the only thing that's going to change this is basically consumers where they're
shopping and shareholders and individual shareholders saying, we're done.

584
00:44:15,900 --> 00:44:21,363
I don't see the board doing what would be traditionally done.

585
00:44:21,363 --> 00:44:27,517
Institutional investors to the argument of like, it's going to take some more time for
them to see real pain through Q2.

586
00:44:27,517 --> 00:44:32,189
I agree with that because again, they're not going to make a 90-day assessment on this.

587
00:44:32,389 --> 00:44:35,711
I don't, short of some very

588
00:44:35,819 --> 00:44:41,271
like, you know, come to Jesus type moments from Musk where he's like, okay, yeah, I'm
okay.

589
00:44:41,271 --> 00:44:42,242
I got it wrong here a bit.

590
00:44:42,242 --> 00:44:43,583
Sorry, everybody.

591
00:44:43,583 --> 00:44:45,954
And last time I checked, he doesn't do that.

592
00:44:45,954 --> 00:44:48,385
It just like Donald Trump doesn't do that.

593
00:44:48,385 --> 00:44:56,448
So, I mean, I when the damage like this is done to this scale, you don't just turn it
around and come back.

594
00:44:56,448 --> 00:44:59,650
I mean, this was this was a legitimate turning point for this company.

595
00:44:59,650 --> 00:45:02,637
And we're like where it can and where it can go.

596
00:45:02,637 --> 00:45:08,369
And I don't think optimists and autonomy and FSD is going to save what's happening right
now.

597
00:45:08,369 --> 00:45:10,410
There's too much toxicity around it.

598
00:45:10,410 --> 00:45:14,152
And at the end of the day, humans have to be buying in on products and services and
brands.

599
00:45:14,152 --> 00:45:21,415
And there's now a ton of people that made the foundation of Tesla's cult following what it
has been.

600
00:45:21,415 --> 00:45:23,756
There's a lot of those people hitting the eject button.

601
00:45:23,756 --> 00:45:32,323
Now, does that mean that are those gaps can be filled by people that are in red states
that are really excited about what Elon's up to from a political perspective?

602
00:45:32,323 --> 00:45:36,725
We've already heard, I mean, I've heard from people that are working at Tesla saying they
can't fill the gap.

603
00:45:37,106 --> 00:45:41,999
So I just, I mean, by the way, I think I'm to go back and just rewind on one of our last
conversations.

604
00:45:41,999 --> 00:45:46,372
And I am going to stick to the fact that I just don't think the Cybertruck is going to be
around in three years.

605
00:45:46,372 --> 00:45:53,796
And I did say, okay, maybe five, but gosh, here's $6,000 off and free supercharging for
life.

606
00:45:53,796 --> 00:45:55,998
Please take these things off our hands.

607
00:45:55,998 --> 00:45:57,338
Hmm.

608
00:45:57,619 --> 00:45:58,849
I mean, I'm just.

609
00:45:59,130 --> 00:46:06,925
think you had, it was Michael Murphy, The guy on recently, I haven't had a chance to watch
that.

610
00:46:06,925 --> 00:46:07,766
I apologize.

611
00:46:07,766 --> 00:46:12,429
But he had a fascinating survey, right?

612
00:46:12,429 --> 00:46:15,701
That showed that, what was it?

613
00:46:15,881 --> 00:46:26,078
I might get this wrong, but the Tesla brand is now more popular with people that drive gas
cars than people that drive EVs.

614
00:46:26,078 --> 00:46:27,191
Yeah, gas trucks.

615
00:46:27,191 --> 00:46:28,324
talked to them too, didn't you?

616
00:46:28,324 --> 00:46:29,879
I think you guys had a similar conversation.

617
00:46:29,879 --> 00:46:30,440
Murphy.

618
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:31,491
He's great to talk to you.

619
00:46:31,491 --> 00:46:39,634
But that was the point he made is that MAGA loves Musk, but they don't love EVs.

620
00:46:40,305 --> 00:46:41,245
Yeah.

621
00:46:41,325 --> 00:46:41,625
Yeah.

622
00:46:41,625 --> 00:46:45,305
And they don't buy them, you know, that at that level, right?

623
00:46:45,305 --> 00:46:46,965
mean, Republicans do, right?

624
00:46:46,965 --> 00:46:49,845
I live in a very upscale concern.

625
00:46:49,845 --> 00:46:56,425
I call it the orange county of the North market here in the, in in the East Bay, my
little, little town and stuff.

626
00:46:56,425 --> 00:46:56,645
Right.

627
00:46:56,645 --> 00:46:59,945
And, you know, there's, there's, you know, gazillion Teslas.

628
00:46:59,945 --> 00:47:02,641
pull up to stoplight and every car is a Tesla.

629
00:47:02,641 --> 00:47:03,521
Right.

630
00:47:03,962 --> 00:47:13,618
and so conservatives do buy Teslas, but not at the number and volume across the U S that,
that those on the left side of the spectrum do.

631
00:47:13,618 --> 00:47:25,236
And so it isn't, you know, it isn't a one for one thing to use your, your term, chase, but
you know, the other, the other thing, and then I think you'll come back to this that I

632
00:47:25,236 --> 00:47:26,017
think is fascinating.

633
00:47:26,017 --> 00:47:27,938
We just talk about like, what is Tesla?

634
00:47:27,938 --> 00:47:32,433
Remember when Tesla was going to be like this energy company?

635
00:47:32,433 --> 00:47:32,764
Right?

636
00:47:32,764 --> 00:47:44,532
That the sales of power walls and storage and batteries and everything like that was going
to outsell the automotive revenue.

637
00:47:44,532 --> 00:47:48,207
He doesn't even talk about solar and batteries anymore.

638
00:47:48,207 --> 00:47:49,547
It wasn't even his idea.

639
00:47:49,547 --> 00:47:50,967
was JB Straubel's idea.

640
00:47:50,967 --> 00:47:58,207
And JB had to make a skunkworks team in Tesla to even build out that product line and then
show it to when they were done.

641
00:47:58,207 --> 00:48:07,327
now again, in Trump and Musk are very similar in that way in the sense that they just have
some kind of a tunnel vision sometimes on what they want to think and talk about.

642
00:48:07,327 --> 00:48:14,465
They'll take full credit all the time if something goes right, you know, but I just, don't
see how, I mean,

643
00:48:14,465 --> 00:48:22,023
Again, I think he just boarded the company and, Laurie, you bring up a good point, things
that were supposed to be these mainstay elements of the business, all of a sudden it's

644
00:48:22,023 --> 00:48:24,085
like, wait, we never even hear about it.

645
00:48:24,085 --> 00:48:26,566
And I wish that...

646
00:48:27,041 --> 00:48:32,543
haven't heard much about the 20 million units in sales in 2030 recently.

647
00:48:32,543 --> 00:48:33,835
Has anybody noticed that?

648
00:48:33,835 --> 00:48:34,765
Remember that?

649
00:48:34,765 --> 00:48:37,385
Yeah, that's probably not gonna be achieved.

650
00:48:37,385 --> 00:48:39,262
that Mexican plant, too?

651
00:48:39,661 --> 00:48:42,426
Yeah, those renderings were, they were, they were good.

652
00:48:42,436 --> 00:48:47,377
I will say, mean, their Powerwall growth and that has been actually pretty decent, but I
agree with you.

653
00:48:47,377 --> 00:48:48,958
He doesn't really cover it.

654
00:48:49,839 --> 00:49:01,852
and I think, I mean, we could easily, this could be the whole, episode, just kind of
talking about all these different dynamics, but let's kind of shift, I guess, to, there's

655
00:49:01,852 --> 00:49:09,144
anything else you guys want to talk about around that, but I guess kind of stay on the
topic of Tesla a bit is around their supercharging network and team.

656
00:49:09,982 --> 00:49:20,397
I think one of really fascinating things that, I guess speaking some of the protests and
all that stuff going around with that was there was a supercharger that was, vandalized.

657
00:49:20,397 --> 00:49:23,418
was on fire in Littleton, Massachusetts.

658
00:49:23,418 --> 00:49:28,140
And within 48 hours, you would never have known.

659
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:34,003
And I mean, so many of the people that I know that are far from a must cheerleaders quite
the opposite.

660
00:49:34,003 --> 00:49:36,344
They just like you that that's the gold standard.

661
00:49:36,344 --> 00:49:37,894
Like you just can't.

662
00:49:38,474 --> 00:49:40,345
do better than that.

663
00:49:40,385 --> 00:49:48,940
And that, mean, that even puts like some, gas, locations and providers to shame if a gas
pump is down and being able to get that back and running.

664
00:49:48,940 --> 00:49:58,635
But I mean, looking at the kind of state of things where EV charging is going and
obviously Loren, this is kind of your demeanor of expertise around Nevi and that stuff.

665
00:49:58,635 --> 00:50:01,366
But I'm kind of curious on what your thoughts and what you're saying.

666
00:50:01,366 --> 00:50:08,298
Cause obviously Nevi has been a bit of a, a thing, kind of pushing the industry forward as
we've talked about on this channel.

667
00:50:08,298 --> 00:50:12,769
But we're also just seeing so much more momentum from a lot of the different players in
the space.

668
00:50:12,769 --> 00:50:17,008
And we'd just love to kind of hear your thoughts on where this is going and what you're
seeing.

669
00:50:17,061 --> 00:50:28,576
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's obviously a lot of buzz and, and, know, media coverage and
stuff and consternation industry about the, the Nevi pause, as we call, call it in the

670
00:50:28,576 --> 00:50:29,136
industry.

671
00:50:29,136 --> 00:50:42,533
But, and I think Matt, were referencing this, there was a, a court order yesterday that is
looking like that it's basically overruling the, the Trump pause, right?

672
00:50:42,533 --> 00:50:43,729
Across everything.

673
00:50:43,729 --> 00:50:44,310
Right.

674
00:50:44,310 --> 00:50:50,344
so, you know, still I've, it's like, I don't know, 80 pages and I've only had the chance
to read part of it.

675
00:50:50,344 --> 00:51:01,422
But from what I can tell, it looks like, that, that Trump and in our case with, with Neve,
FHWA cannot stop anything.

676
00:51:01,422 --> 00:51:01,792
Right.

677
00:51:01,792 --> 00:51:08,487
Now they can, they can pause the redoing of the rules, which is separate from
congressional approval and stuff.

678
00:51:08,487 --> 00:51:11,687
But, what.

679
00:51:11,687 --> 00:51:16,089
What we're seeing though is just mass confusion and consternation.

680
00:51:16,089 --> 00:51:24,343
In fact, I just was drafted a survey that's going out to a number of the state DOTs.

681
00:51:24,343 --> 00:51:35,658
And so I've started to see some of the responses already, but we're interested to learn
what the states are ultimately going to do because what we're seeing is that the states

682
00:51:35,658 --> 00:51:38,709
are just totally confused and totally

683
00:51:38,887 --> 00:51:40,367
responding differently.

684
00:51:40,367 --> 00:51:48,400
We've seen a red state, blue state divide that the blue states are basically saying, we're
not stopping what we're doing, right?

685
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:50,180
They can't, we're moving forward.

686
00:51:50,180 --> 00:51:51,630
These things are going to continue.

687
00:51:51,630 --> 00:51:53,901
We're still working on our RFPs.

688
00:51:53,901 --> 00:51:58,922
We're not going to announce new award winners, but we're continuing our process.

689
00:51:58,922 --> 00:52:01,543
And the red states are going, whoa, we're not going to do anything.

690
00:52:01,543 --> 00:52:03,383
We're told to stop, right?

691
00:52:03,484 --> 00:52:08,777
And, sort of a few in between, but the net effect chase is that

692
00:52:08,777 --> 00:52:17,977
Um, what we're seeing is, that companies that were sort of very dependent on Nevi, shall I
say, right?

693
00:52:17,977 --> 00:52:28,297
That that was sort of a key part of their strategy where there were large companies or
small companies are nervous and hurting potentially, right?

694
00:52:28,297 --> 00:52:35,357
And, um, and so they're, they're starting to pivot on looking for other grants and
incentives.

695
00:52:35,357 --> 00:52:38,657
So utility incentives, state incentives, and center, in other words,

696
00:52:38,837 --> 00:52:45,780
For those companies, and it's actually just a really small number that were very focused
and dependent on Nevi.

697
00:52:45,780 --> 00:52:50,002
They're just going, okay, we've got to expand the horizon.

698
00:52:50,002 --> 00:52:51,623
can't bet on Nevi.

699
00:52:51,623 --> 00:53:07,559
But really, most of the companies, you look at the IONAs, you look at the Mercedes-Benz,
the Walmarts, the BP pulses, most of the companies that are now have entered the industry.

700
00:53:09,257 --> 00:53:17,977
They have billions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars of capital that they're
planning to build out charging network.

701
00:53:17,977 --> 00:53:28,797
Many of them have publicly stated goals of opening 5,000, 10,000 charging ports by the end
of this decade.

702
00:53:29,157 --> 00:53:30,747
Mevi was never...

703
00:53:32,265 --> 00:53:35,445
important part of their plan, right?

704
00:53:35,445 --> 00:53:53,705
So the reality is, and I think you saw it, I think both of you saw my post this morning,
you and Chase, you and Matt, around that like, I'm looking at more than 16,000 fast

705
00:53:53,705 --> 00:53:56,245
charging ports being opened this year, right?

706
00:53:56,245 --> 00:54:01,537
11,000 of those being non-Tesla, right?

707
00:54:01,834 --> 00:54:09,319
and so, you know, despite any pauses with Nevi, like the industry knows that we need to
build out.

708
00:54:09,660 --> 00:54:10,090
Yeah.

709
00:54:10,090 --> 00:54:14,764
The industry knows we need to build out charging infrastructure in order to sell more EVs.

710
00:54:14,764 --> 00:54:16,626
Companies have bought into it.

711
00:54:16,626 --> 00:54:21,970
They've already, they've already, you know, carved out billions of dollars.

712
00:54:21,970 --> 00:54:30,887
And so they're moving forward and incentives and grants are still part of how the industry
works, but it's just going to shift more to.

713
00:54:30,887 --> 00:54:34,142
like utility incentives, state incentives, things like that.

714
00:54:34,142 --> 00:54:34,463
Yeah.

715
00:54:34,463 --> 00:54:41,131
Now, John, I remember last time we had this panel, I put you on the spot and asked what
Nevi stood for.

716
00:54:44,096 --> 00:54:45,624
Do know what it stands for?

717
00:54:47,041 --> 00:54:48,686
I'm to make it up again.

718
00:54:48,914 --> 00:54:49,804
Yeah.

719
00:54:50,686 --> 00:54:53,448
And in your defense, I know I should know this.

720
00:54:53,448 --> 00:54:57,368
I usually have to Google it like once a week because I can always get the eye confused.

721
00:54:57,368 --> 00:55:01,552
say National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure.

722
00:55:02,635 --> 00:55:03,145
Is that it?

723
00:55:03,145 --> 00:55:04,116
Really?

724
00:55:04,517 --> 00:55:05,328
All right.

725
00:55:05,328 --> 00:55:09,623
I'm patting myself on the back for everybody who's just listening to this.

726
00:55:10,681 --> 00:55:19,396
And we lost you there for a little bit John, but now that we do have you back what you
kind of came back into the middle of in some extent was like you were you'd mentioned

727
00:55:19,396 --> 00:55:32,254
earlier about the seven billion vehicle seven billion in vehicles on dealership lots and I
know we've kind of pivoted to obviously the charging infrastructure, but being in Detroit,

728
00:55:32,254 --> 00:55:36,016
I mean with so many of the automakers there I am kind of curious like

729
00:55:36,818 --> 00:55:42,833
I know that was a big shift for a lot of the automakers to say, Hey, we're moving to the
North American charging standard from CCS.

730
00:55:42,833 --> 00:55:45,675
This EV charging thing is figured.

731
00:55:46,116 --> 00:55:50,039
And that wasn't been a hundred percent, but I'm kind of curious.

732
00:55:50,039 --> 00:56:02,249
Do you, if you build it, will they come now that we have the charger infrastructure more
and more now that some of these vehicles are coming to market with the, North American

733
00:56:02,249 --> 00:56:05,091
charging standard is kind of the preferred plug type in the vehicle.

734
00:56:05,091 --> 00:56:06,502
Do you think that that.

735
00:56:07,008 --> 00:56:14,908
moves the needle in any measurable way for actually people to start getting any of these
and kind of exploring and actually charging on them?

736
00:56:14,908 --> 00:56:20,647
Or where do you see the gaps as far as that kind of perception with maybe some of the
automakers?

737
00:56:20,647 --> 00:56:23,827
look, let me start off by saying this way.

738
00:56:23,827 --> 00:56:28,527
Imagine if Tesla had never built the supercharging system.

739
00:56:29,067 --> 00:56:32,587
I mean, that alone tells you absolutely you need to have this.

740
00:56:32,587 --> 00:56:35,967
What's one of the number one complaints of people about EVs?

741
00:56:35,967 --> 00:56:41,867
Well, they're expensive and they don't know how far they can go, but they all say, I don't
know where I can plug in.

742
00:56:41,867 --> 00:56:50,133
And so the more they see, oh, there's a station, there's a station, and there's cars
plugged in there, they start to get comfortable with the idea that

743
00:56:50,133 --> 00:56:53,566
Hey, I can go out here and travel with my EV.

744
00:56:53,566 --> 00:56:56,108
Doesn't just have to be around the neighborhood.

745
00:56:56,108 --> 00:57:04,345
So yeah, I think building out the infrastructure, I still think going with the NACS
system, it's better.

746
00:57:04,345 --> 00:57:05,195
I mean, come on.

747
00:57:05,195 --> 00:57:13,642
I mean, I'm not the first to say it, but it's almost as if the government should just give
all the money to Tesla and say, build it out for us, because they got the best system.

748
00:57:13,642 --> 00:57:15,263
It's the most reliable.

749
00:57:15,484 --> 00:57:17,105
you know, it's software defined.

750
00:57:17,105 --> 00:57:20,027
They can do software updates for this thing.

751
00:57:20,119 --> 00:57:22,781
I don't know is that anybody else has got that.

752
00:57:22,781 --> 00:57:31,828
So in my book, to get more people into EVs, you got to continue to build out the
infrastructure.

753
00:57:31,828 --> 00:57:43,308
And we know, mean, all the studies show there's a big chunk, a big cohort of car buyers
out there that says, you know, when I'm comfortable, I'm buying, but they got to see those

754
00:57:43,308 --> 00:57:45,479
chargers out there to be comfortable.

755
00:57:46,905 --> 00:57:47,379
Bye.

756
00:57:47,379 --> 00:57:48,170
So...

757
00:57:48,639 --> 00:57:50,125
Yeah, now go ahead man.

758
00:57:51,695 --> 00:58:01,655
I always think back to the UC Davis study from like five years ago in California when they
asked people if they were comfortable with buying an EV and what percentage said yes or no

759
00:58:01,655 --> 00:58:03,875
based on the infrastructure that existed.

760
00:58:03,875 --> 00:58:08,815
And then two or three years passed and they doubled the amount of charging ports in
California.

761
00:58:08,815 --> 00:58:10,675
And they did the exact same study again.

762
00:58:10,675 --> 00:58:13,435
And they asked people, are you comfortable with buying an EV now?

763
00:58:13,435 --> 00:58:16,075
And the amount of people that said no doubled.

764
00:58:16,775 --> 00:58:18,861
And I thought, okay.

765
00:58:18,861 --> 00:58:22,192
Like it's yes, we need to have more infrastructure.

766
00:58:22,192 --> 00:58:32,195
do, but the whole just build it for build it sake doesn't translate to the, the car buying
journey as to how people understand that.

767
00:58:32,255 --> 00:58:38,187
And seeing it as one thing, but having it reinforced through the research process, the
buying process.

768
00:58:38,187 --> 00:58:46,287
And then when you're into ownership and having there be an actual narrative around that, I
mean, I will, I will go to my grave one day being the guy that said.

769
00:58:46,287 --> 00:58:51,307
We never explained to people that you could use a different fuel other than gasoline in a
way that made sense to the public.

770
00:58:51,307 --> 00:58:53,607
We forced people to figure it out too much.

771
00:58:53,907 --> 00:58:59,607
yes, I mean, stations like IANA and like what they're building out, which have awnings and
bathrooms.

772
00:58:59,607 --> 00:59:07,947
it's really, I mean, very well thought out for placement as opposed to it's on a curb at a
Walmart because that's the place we could find the power.

773
00:59:07,947 --> 00:59:14,927
And it's like, yeah, we're doing a much better job of how we're designing where the
stations should go for humans.

774
00:59:15,265 --> 00:59:17,597
But that's not enough.

775
00:59:17,597 --> 00:59:19,842
It's a great step, but it's not enough.

776
00:59:19,842 --> 00:59:22,599
Matt, would add that, go ahead, Loren.

777
00:59:23,198 --> 00:59:33,741
I was just going to say, and Matt, and I think I've shared this on a previous show, but
another UC Davis study that came out last year was fascinating, John, in that it, it

778
00:59:33,741 --> 00:59:48,265
basically said is that for people that aren't interested in EVs, the actual seeing or not
seeing EV charging stations had no impact on because they weren't looking for them.

779
00:59:48,265 --> 00:59:49,005
Right.

780
00:59:49,005 --> 00:59:49,885
So.

781
00:59:50,742 --> 01:00:01,251
But the people who owned and drove EVs who were considering an EV, seeing or not seeing
charging stations actually did matter, right?

782
01:00:01,251 --> 01:00:14,752
So the point being is that if there's a brand new, exciting, I own a charging station down
the street and you're driving a Ram pickup and you have no intent to buy, you won't even

783
01:00:14,752 --> 01:00:15,623
see it.

784
01:00:15,623 --> 01:00:18,065
It'll be invisible.

785
01:00:18,065 --> 01:00:18,781
Yeah.

786
01:00:18,781 --> 01:00:27,661
you're driving a Prius and you're thinking your next car is going to be a BEV, you're
like, oh, yeah, charging station.

787
01:00:27,661 --> 01:00:29,541
That's where I could charge.

788
01:00:30,661 --> 01:00:32,721
It's just human nature.

789
01:00:32,721 --> 01:00:33,802
And so I think.

790
01:00:33,802 --> 01:00:43,067
of it is what we've needed, not just the chargers being out in the wild, but the fact that
it's a destination in the sense that like when you are driving from maybe a few blocks

791
01:00:43,067 --> 01:00:47,550
away, you see an awning with a big logo and you go, what's that logo mean?

792
01:00:47,550 --> 01:00:50,021
And then as you go by, you see people connected and charging.

793
01:00:50,021 --> 01:00:59,487
So there's an element about, yeah, the visibility messaging and visibility of it plays a
huge role into how they will then inevitably be looking for it, like you're describing.

794
01:00:59,487 --> 01:01:00,017
yeah.

795
01:01:00,017 --> 01:01:11,946
think Matt, to that point on the visibility and something that doesn't probably get enough
discussion is, know, most of these charging stations are not charging stations, right?

796
01:01:11,946 --> 01:01:19,952
They're two, four, eight chargers out in the parking lot at a shopping mall, right?

797
01:01:21,913 --> 01:01:30,017
If you're driving an EV, you're looking for them, you're aware of it, you go, there's the
supercharger, there's the new Electify America station or whatever it is.

798
01:01:30,438 --> 01:01:42,514
But what we don't have is on every four corners, like we have in many cities of America,
there's a McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Hardee's or whatever it is, or there's a

799
01:01:42,514 --> 01:01:46,246
Chevron, an Exxon on every four corners.

800
01:01:46,246 --> 01:01:49,388
It's either fast food or it's gas stations.

801
01:01:49,408 --> 01:01:51,037
Once we start seeing

802
01:01:51,037 --> 01:02:05,883
you know, a BP and I own a, a, you know, circle K and a, you know, whatever other Electify
America like on the four corners and it's big signage and awnings and, you know, lounges

803
01:02:05,883 --> 01:02:09,144
and people are going there for lots of things, right?

804
01:02:09,144 --> 01:02:11,775
Like that's going to probably start to move the needle.

805
01:02:11,775 --> 01:02:17,360
Yeah, how about just putting big signage where those chargers are that says EV charging?

806
01:02:17,360 --> 01:02:21,804
Because a lot of people will drive by these things, and if no one's charging, they don't
know what it is.

807
01:02:21,804 --> 01:02:24,386
They think it's some sort of transformer or something.

808
01:02:24,386 --> 01:02:29,110
But I would go back and challenge that UC study to this degree.

809
01:02:29,150 --> 01:02:31,012
Pull all those chargers out, like I said.

810
01:02:31,012 --> 01:02:34,563
Just rip them out of the ground and see what happens to EV sales.

811
01:02:34,563 --> 01:02:40,300
Like we're doing to the GSA chargers that have already been paid for and used.

812
01:02:40,300 --> 01:02:41,088
Yeah.

813
01:02:41,088 --> 01:02:50,673
I have not read the UC study, but I've heard about it and people are arguing there's no
correlation between building out the infrastructure and EV sales.

814
01:02:50,673 --> 01:02:57,236
But I would also say if you go back a few years ago, there was just a lack of knowledge of
anything EV.

815
01:02:57,236 --> 01:02:59,848
And what has filled the gap in the last few years?

816
01:02:59,848 --> 01:03:02,579
It's become entirely politicized.

817
01:03:02,579 --> 01:03:04,120
You have all these attacks.

818
01:03:04,120 --> 01:03:06,972
They catch fire, they burn down garages.

819
01:03:06,972 --> 01:03:09,342
You don't want to park it in your garage.

820
01:03:09,971 --> 01:03:13,302
It takes tens of thousands of gallons to put this out.

821
01:03:13,302 --> 01:03:17,653
And boy, when one catches fire, it's national news.

822
01:03:18,574 --> 01:03:23,455
There's all kinds of attacks on EVs.

823
01:03:23,455 --> 01:03:29,957
So if a few years ago, you didn't think much about it and you thought, yeah, should there
be more charges?

824
01:03:29,957 --> 01:03:31,347
And now there's more charges.

825
01:03:31,347 --> 01:03:33,038
And what do you think about EVs?

826
01:03:33,458 --> 01:03:37,673
I don't think they're the right thing because people have been bombarded.

827
01:03:37,673 --> 01:03:40,358
with negative EV information.

828
01:03:40,653 --> 01:03:41,363
Yeah.

829
01:03:41,363 --> 01:03:42,516
Well, this is where it

830
01:03:43,199 --> 01:03:54,228
you know, Matt and I could talk about this topic for hours, but, you know, in the EV
industry, right, what's the first thing that people say about EV charging?

831
01:03:54,228 --> 01:03:58,951
you're going to do 80%, 85, 90, 95 % of your charging at home.

832
01:03:59,192 --> 01:03:59,772
Right.

833
01:03:59,772 --> 01:04:08,239
And the only time you use, you know, fast chargers is the once or twice you go out on a
road trip, unless you're somebody that, you know, goes out on road trips every day.

834
01:04:08,239 --> 01:04:09,159
Right.

835
01:04:09,380 --> 01:04:10,697
And people who...

836
01:04:10,697 --> 01:04:18,357
don't have an EV and are thinking about one, they think about, need public fast charging
like a gas station, right?

837
01:04:18,357 --> 01:04:19,837
Cause I'm going to go to it all the time.

838
01:04:19,837 --> 01:04:20,877
Where am I going to charge?

839
01:04:20,877 --> 01:04:31,877
Like people that don't own EVs don't think in the terms that the EV owners do, which is if
they do live in a single family home, they charged like we charged 98 % of the time at

840
01:04:31,877 --> 01:04:33,060
home, right?

841
01:04:33,060 --> 01:04:41,285
well, that's the conditioning factor that we're fighting over a century of using liquid
fuel that is on every street corner that's highly visible.

842
01:04:41,285 --> 01:04:48,290
mean, that's the huge part of that fight is all about messaging and explaining how the
experience works.

843
01:04:48,290 --> 01:04:57,616
And then the aspect of, your point, again, if you have a single family home, yeah, you
don't fill up away from home unless it is a momentous thing for like a road trip or

844
01:04:57,616 --> 01:04:58,597
something random.

845
01:04:58,597 --> 01:05:00,558
And that is another part of the conditioning factor.

846
01:05:00,558 --> 01:05:02,159
And the lifestyle piece is

847
01:05:02,159 --> 01:05:03,779
hugely important.

848
01:05:04,119 --> 01:05:14,299
Because if you if you have a single family home, you again, your entire world has changed
for how you fill up, you know, and and that and this is where I mean, like, like the Frank

849
01:05:14,299 --> 01:05:23,679
Luntz's of the world, you know, who's a great communicator, and he helped create the
narrative around, let's not call it, you know, climate change is called global warming,

850
01:05:23,679 --> 01:05:30,619
let's call it this, like, he led the GOP narrative around how to basically just say, we're
gonna spin

851
01:05:30,637 --> 01:05:35,789
Yeah, we're going to spin this so hard that it's going to make it so people just have a
doubt in all of it.

852
01:05:35,789 --> 01:05:44,654
But because he knew how to create a communication narrative around that and people that
are the very good communicators need to be leveraged in this topic.

853
01:05:44,654 --> 01:05:52,387
And, and he's even gone and spoken to people, you know, that from the democratic party,
because, know, of things he's now experienced with climate change and it kind of opened

854
01:05:52,387 --> 01:05:56,227
his eyes around like, no, like, but I can help you change your narrative.

855
01:05:56,227 --> 01:06:04,332
And I think one of the biggest things that's still in the way of the EV effort is that
there's a lot of folks that are well intended, but they are not good communicators.

856
01:06:04,573 --> 01:06:07,924
And that is going to maintain being a big issue.

857
01:06:07,924 --> 01:06:08,315
mildly.

858
01:06:08,315 --> 01:06:08,615
Yeah.

859
01:06:08,615 --> 01:06:11,535
No, I, and I, I, I completely agree with that.

860
01:06:11,535 --> 01:06:16,000
I think what's really interesting too is like for the longest time, I go back a decade.

861
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:20,053
The thing that people used to say about electric vehicles is, it's just about butts and
seats.

862
01:06:20,053 --> 01:06:23,595
So when sits in electric vehicle, they'll start to finally get and understand it.

863
01:06:23,595 --> 01:06:24,815
And I think.

864
01:06:25,496 --> 01:06:28,878
Go back a few years ago, people are like, Tesla's everywhere.

865
01:06:28,919 --> 01:06:31,600
Or they, just, EVs were becoming more and more of a thing.

866
01:06:31,600 --> 01:06:33,661
And people kind of got away from that.

867
01:06:33,702 --> 01:06:35,893
And they're like, we just have to advertise to it.

868
01:06:35,893 --> 01:06:36,990
Or we have to figure out.

869
01:06:36,990 --> 01:06:38,620
the EV charging part of it.

870
01:06:38,620 --> 01:06:49,754
But consistently, I would say within this past year, again, I was reminded that the best
way for people to actually understand and buy an EV is when someone either they know

871
01:06:49,754 --> 01:06:59,536
directly, let's them sit in their electric vehicle and drive around or B it's also some
guy in their corner or on their like cul-de-sac somewhere that buys an electric vehicle.

872
01:06:59,536 --> 01:07:02,847
like, well, if Joe can do it, Joe's an idiot.

873
01:07:02,847 --> 01:07:05,920
So if he can do an EV, maybe I can do one.

874
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:10,300
Or just like you start seeing it in the real world as like a practical kind of thing.

875
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:16,120
Um, and it's just consistently the best understanding for people to change that mind
shift.

876
01:07:16,120 --> 01:07:25,020
And I, I don't know if that also kind of goes into the conversation we might be wanting to
have around the challenges of the dealerships with it, but, what were you going to add

877
01:07:25,020 --> 01:07:25,900
there, Loren?

878
01:07:26,057 --> 01:07:29,597
I was just going to say what you're referring to is what's called the neighborhood effect.

879
01:07:29,597 --> 01:07:32,797
There's a lot of sort of research around this, like with solar, right?

880
01:07:32,797 --> 01:07:39,597
Where they discovered that once one person in the neighborhood gets solar, then everybody
starts talking to them.

881
01:07:40,717 --> 01:07:44,637
I mean, it's sort of weird and obvious, right?

882
01:07:44,637 --> 01:07:48,777
But yeah, if a neighborhood never gets the first solar, it doesn't go solar.

883
01:07:48,777 --> 01:07:51,957
But once somebody does, it like, and that's what's happened on our neighborhood.

884
01:07:51,957 --> 01:07:53,849
I think we were the first or second.

885
01:07:53,849 --> 01:07:58,792
second, I think in our neighborhood to get it now, like half the neighborhood has solar,
right?

886
01:07:58,792 --> 01:08:04,476
But the other thing I was going mention, I had a question yesterday from a national media
reporter.

887
01:08:04,736 --> 01:08:11,481
He's working on the Nevi story and he was looking for the latest numbers on how many
chargers there are and stuff.

888
01:08:11,481 --> 01:08:18,865
And he said something like, and there's 4 million households have chargers at home.

889
01:08:19,506 --> 01:08:23,789
And I responded to him and so like, you know,

890
01:08:23,945 --> 01:08:35,505
That's probably not the best way to think about it because every home has an electrical
outlet and you can charge your car with a just a 110 outlet, a 220 outlet.

891
01:08:35,505 --> 01:08:42,445
A lot of homes have washer and dryers in them and you can use the mobile connector that
comes with your car and plug in.

892
01:08:42,545 --> 01:08:53,145
you know, and so again, it's that idea that, you have to go out and spend a thousand
dollars on an electrician and a level two charger in order to fuel your car at home when

893
01:08:53,145 --> 01:08:54,105
no.

894
01:08:54,825 --> 01:09:06,185
The single biggest advantage of electric vehicles for those people that live in a single
family home is to just pull into the garage and plug in, just like your smartphone, right?

895
01:09:06,525 --> 01:09:12,545
Whole separate issue of infrastructure for people that live in apartments and urban
settings and things like that.

896
01:09:12,545 --> 01:09:14,865
That's a problem that we have to solve.

897
01:09:15,225 --> 01:09:16,233
Sorry, go ahead.

898
01:09:16,233 --> 01:09:21,205
I know I think this gets to an interesting thing that is more on the product side.

899
01:09:21,205 --> 01:09:25,457
But we got another electric vehicle a few months ago.

900
01:09:25,758 --> 01:09:29,460
And we don't really have a great level two charger for it.

901
01:09:29,460 --> 01:09:33,022
So I've literally just been plugging the wall using it as a level one charger.

902
01:09:33,022 --> 01:09:36,413
And it has not been an issue, which even kind of surprised me.

903
01:09:36,413 --> 01:09:37,465
And it's like, and

904
01:09:37,465 --> 01:09:41,085
you don't drive 300 miles every day?

905
01:09:41,214 --> 01:09:42,465
I do pretty regularly too.

906
01:09:42,465 --> 01:09:43,526
That's the crazy part.

907
01:09:43,526 --> 01:09:44,546
Loren.

908
01:09:44,967 --> 01:09:45,226
Yeah.

909
01:09:45,226 --> 01:09:51,162
I mean, between my wife and I, at least do a couple, few hundred mile trips per week.

910
01:09:51,162 --> 01:09:55,374
And even then it really hasn't been an issue, which is so crazy to think about.

911
01:09:55,735 --> 01:10:00,839
And I still to this day am fascinated by the fact that I can even do that.

912
01:10:00,839 --> 01:10:06,575
I think it is so crazy that the same outlet I put my electric toothbrush in can actually
do my car.

913
01:10:06,575 --> 01:10:07,928
You're brushing your teeth in the garage?

914
01:10:07,928 --> 01:10:10,019
this is a weird thing to admit right now.

915
01:10:10,019 --> 01:10:12,546
I thought you were going to say you're brushing your teeth.

916
01:10:12,971 --> 01:10:15,293
Yeah.

917
01:10:15,294 --> 01:10:20,020
No, but all this topic makes me think of like how many single family homes are there in
the US?

918
01:10:20,020 --> 01:10:24,871
mean, I mean, honestly, like 100, 100 million, hundreds of tens of millions.

919
01:10:25,266 --> 01:10:25,698
Yeah.

920
01:10:25,698 --> 01:10:26,320
Yeah.

921
01:10:26,320 --> 01:10:30,319
is 120 million in that ballpark.

922
01:10:30,769 --> 01:10:39,555
but that's, that's, that's the feedback that one journalist you were talking to Loren is
to say, actually there's 120 million fill up.

923
01:10:39,555 --> 01:10:40,515
Yeah.

924
01:10:42,277 --> 01:10:42,697
Yeah.

925
01:10:42,697 --> 01:10:49,442
For, for, your, your, for your lowest power charging, there's 120 million of those and
cars are parked at them every day.

926
01:10:49,627 --> 01:10:50,035
You know I mean?

927
01:10:50,035 --> 01:10:56,303
Like somehow we have to get more creative about how we express the opportunity and.

928
01:10:56,303 --> 01:11:05,143
But this gets to even the discussion, I mean, we have this conversation all the time in
the industry of, but then someone says, well, how long does it take me to charge at home?

929
01:11:05,143 --> 01:11:13,823
And then if someone says, oh, it takes me 10 seconds, I want to just rip the rest of my
hair out and say, don't say that because it takes 10 seconds to connect to a gas nozzle

930
01:11:13,823 --> 01:11:14,703
too.

931
01:11:15,043 --> 01:11:21,163
Their concern isn't the act of connecting to the fuel, it's the, how long does it take to
get me back on the road?

932
01:11:21,163 --> 01:11:22,519
That's what they're asking.

933
01:11:22,519 --> 01:11:27,271
So again, the communication aspect of this is so fundamental in how we can do a better
job.

934
01:11:27,271 --> 01:11:27,501
Yeah.

935
01:11:27,501 --> 01:11:29,292
And to that point, Matt, right.

936
01:11:29,292 --> 01:11:40,623
You also then hear the people's argument of, well, I'm concerned because if my little
Billy falls down and gets hurt on his bicycle and I have to rush him to the emergency

937
01:11:40,623 --> 01:11:45,698
room, am I going to have enough range left in my vehicle to do that?

938
01:11:45,698 --> 01:11:46,238
Right.

939
01:11:46,238 --> 01:11:49,441
And, you know, and there's sort of two responses to that.

940
01:11:49,441 --> 01:11:53,979
One is probably, you know, at most 10 to 15 miles.

941
01:11:53,979 --> 01:11:58,292
unless you're out in the country and then you're not driving an EV anyway, right?

942
01:11:59,293 --> 01:12:08,599
To get to the hospital and be, know, most of us don't run our EV down to like five miles
of range every night, right?

943
01:12:08,599 --> 01:12:11,135
Like, you know, you have that buffer.

944
01:12:11,135 --> 01:12:17,955
that's that that's conditioning thing of I always drive it down to E and then I go back to
F and I go to E and I go to F.

945
01:12:17,955 --> 01:12:26,055
I mean, the amount of times I've had to remind friends of mine, even family members that
have bought EVs that they will say things to me like, oh, yeah, had to just for some

946
01:12:26,055 --> 01:12:29,175
reason to drive out to the outskirts of town and only had like 28%.

947
01:12:29,175 --> 01:12:32,915
I'm like, have a garage and your car's in it every night.

948
01:12:32,915 --> 01:12:33,355
Why?

949
01:12:33,355 --> 01:12:35,935
And they go, well, yeah, but I don't plug in unless I got it.

950
01:12:35,935 --> 01:12:38,893
Again, it's that is a mental switch of

951
01:12:38,893 --> 01:12:40,645
You can always be connected to your fueling source.

952
01:12:40,645 --> 01:12:43,749
It can slowly get you back to where you want all the time.

953
01:12:43,749 --> 01:12:48,765
And again, this is a consumer psychology thing that requires better messaging without a
doubt.

954
01:12:51,055 --> 01:12:53,335
and chase to brush his teeth in his garage.

955
01:12:55,395 --> 01:13:02,135
I just have this picture in my mind of you like, you're just like going into the garage
and I'm plugging the toothbrush, plugging the car in and then just standing staring at

956
01:13:02,135 --> 01:13:03,644
your car and brushing your teeth.

957
01:13:03,644 --> 01:13:05,183
a fuse the other day.

958
01:13:05,183 --> 01:13:16,694
speaking of messaging, I mean, to your point, again, this is something that we could riff
on for hours, Matt, but I think, you know, we've not done a good job of messaging around

959
01:13:16,694 --> 01:13:20,047
the value of EVs in this industry, right?

960
01:13:20,047 --> 01:13:23,671
Like, you know, for the first 10 years, it was to save the planet, right?

961
01:13:23,671 --> 01:13:25,423
Like climate change.

962
01:13:25,423 --> 01:13:28,195
then we, you know, somebody figured out.

963
01:13:28,273 --> 01:13:30,294
not everybody believes in that.

964
01:13:30,294 --> 01:13:34,515
Maybe that's not the right way to message the value of these.

965
01:13:35,195 --> 01:13:51,670
Maybe we'll talk about this on a future show, Chase, but I provided some data to some
researchers up in University of Toronto around the EV cells, and they did research on the

966
01:13:51,670 --> 01:13:53,900
impact on air quality.

967
01:13:55,969 --> 01:14:01,411
And anyway, that'll be coming out in the next couple of weeks and stuff.

968
01:14:01,411 --> 01:14:09,995
what they found was that it had for those markets that have a high growth of EVs that
dramatically improve the air quality.

969
01:14:13,196 --> 01:14:24,628
it's like, you know, I've always wondered, like, why we don't talk about, like, reducing
air pollution, like things that you can actually visually see, like,

970
01:14:24,628 --> 01:14:26,689
that's actually, that's a great call out.

971
01:14:26,689 --> 01:14:32,812
Cause I was going to say that the biggest, the best thing about smog is it makes great
sunsets.

972
01:14:32,832 --> 01:14:35,413
Otherwise it is pretty horrible.

973
01:14:35,413 --> 01:14:40,846
it, it, and that, I think that's, that's inherently like the issue when people talk about
global warming is like, sure.

974
01:14:40,846 --> 01:14:45,158
can do all these research papers and I'll be the first like, yeah, there's really good
data for it.

975
01:14:45,158 --> 01:14:48,643
But I like visually for someone to see it's such a hard concept.

976
01:14:48,643 --> 01:14:49,424
Yeah.

977
01:14:49,550 --> 01:14:51,736
Visual aids always help explain things better.

978
01:14:51,736 --> 01:14:57,733
to like anyone that's been LA or any major city you like it's something you can actually
see and point to.

979
01:14:57,733 --> 01:14:58,274
Yeah.

980
01:14:58,274 --> 01:15:03,289
mean, look at the photos of LA from like, you know, the, the seventies versus today.

981
01:15:03,289 --> 01:15:05,976
again, guys, who values that really?

982
01:15:06,490 --> 01:15:12,546
And I was actually just going to say that to Matt, cause even our conversation with Mike
Murphy the other day kind of goes back to this.

983
01:15:12,546 --> 01:15:16,640
Like there is people don't really buy on that factor.

984
01:15:16,640 --> 01:15:25,747
is kind of sometimes a nice feel good followup, but I really do think the biggest thing
that seems to really align with people, especially once they've owned it is kind of like

985
01:15:25,747 --> 01:15:29,510
the independence and having your own fueling station at home.

986
01:15:29,510 --> 01:15:32,092
And then obviously like lower overall.

987
01:15:32,256 --> 01:15:33,957
operational costs to.

988
01:15:34,018 --> 01:15:44,780
Well, and to that point you just made about revisiting the feeling at home part and that's
like having that autonomy is we are creating a class system within the fill up.

989
01:15:44,780 --> 01:15:46,970
mean, that's never been a thing with gas.

990
01:15:46,970 --> 01:15:54,732
It's like you could drive a Bentley and live in the Hills and you could have, you know,
old, you know, an old Honda Civic that barely runs and you'll pull up at the same gas

991
01:15:54,732 --> 01:15:57,082
station and be like, hi.

992
01:15:57,082 --> 01:16:01,243
And it's, it unifies the fact that like, yep, we're all the same still.

993
01:16:01,539 --> 01:16:05,940
But when it comes to electricity and how and where you can fill up, no, it's separate now.

994
01:16:05,940 --> 01:16:06,981
It's very different.

995
01:16:06,981 --> 01:16:12,762
If you want an EV but you rent in street park, you are going to go find your public
chargers and that is your new world.

996
01:16:12,762 --> 01:16:19,724
Whereas as we've discussed is, yeah, but if I got a garage, I don't even think about that
unless I'm like, I got to go to Seattle from Portland.

997
01:16:19,724 --> 01:16:21,299
Okay, I got to go find a fill up.

998
01:16:21,299 --> 01:16:27,967
I mean, it is that consumer psychology piece has to be communicated far more effectively
than what we've been doing.

999
01:16:29,866 --> 01:16:33,778
Well, I realized we're coming up on 75 minutes.

1000
01:16:33,778 --> 01:16:35,951
And so I want to be respectful of your guys' time too.

1001
01:16:35,951 --> 01:16:45,269
And I know we could easily keep talking for another 75 minutes, but one thing that we've
kind of mentioned about, haven't touched on that I think would be kind of a good place to

1002
01:16:45,269 --> 01:16:52,394
end is we've talked about messaging, but also then there's the buying and purchasing
experience through the dealerships.

1003
01:16:52,895 --> 01:16:58,912
And I recently had another experience kind of just talking with someone about

1004
01:16:58,912 --> 01:17:01,632
when they were trying to buy an EV and just the education around that.

1005
01:17:01,632 --> 01:17:10,172
then John, I think it's been really fascinating watching online and how you guys are kind
of covering the feud between Scout Motors, who's trying to relaunch their electric line

1006
01:17:10,172 --> 01:17:12,752
and the pushback from the dealerships.

1007
01:17:13,912 --> 01:17:16,412
mean, what, I mean, why don't you just kind of let's start there.

1008
01:17:16,412 --> 01:17:22,027
Why don't you kind of share what you're seeing, John, and for those who might not be
familiar, just give them an overview of what's going on.

1009
01:17:22,027 --> 01:17:22,517
sure thing.

1010
01:17:22,517 --> 01:17:27,309
So Scout is an old brand.

1011
01:17:27,309 --> 01:17:32,210
Volkswagen got its mitts on it when it bought Navistar, the big truck maker.

1012
01:17:32,210 --> 01:17:36,952
Navistar in its earlier history was International Harvester.

1013
01:17:36,952 --> 01:17:38,382
They're the ones who started Scout.

1014
01:17:38,382 --> 01:17:47,415
So when Volkswagen bought Navistar, got the Scout brand and some very astute product
planners inside of Volkswagen went, Yowza.

1015
01:17:47,415 --> 01:17:54,417
You know, we could go after Jeep, we could go after Rivian, you we got a brand here that
resonates.

1016
01:17:55,557 --> 01:18:08,101
so they started this as a standalone company and they want to sell direct because
everybody in the industry pretty much understands that selling through the franchise

1017
01:18:08,101 --> 01:18:13,202
dealership network adds a couple of thousand bucks cost to a car.

1018
01:18:13,262 --> 01:18:17,011
And Tesla paved the way of doing it direct.

1019
01:18:17,011 --> 01:18:23,745
In the United States, we have very strict dealer franchise laws and the laws are written
state by state.

1020
01:18:23,745 --> 01:18:25,436
There's no nationwide one.

1021
01:18:25,436 --> 01:18:35,662
Every one of the 50 states has its own dealer franchise law and they're written pretty
much in a way that says, if you are a manufacturer and you have used franchise dealers,

1022
01:18:35,662 --> 01:18:40,625
you have to use them for the rest of eternity.

1023
01:18:40,625 --> 01:18:44,427
And if you're a startup like Tesla,

1024
01:18:44,457 --> 01:18:47,768
or Rivian or Scout or Lucid or anyone.

1025
01:18:48,129 --> 01:18:53,202
It's been pretty vague, but Tesla plowed the way and said, look, we're a brand new
company.

1026
01:18:53,202 --> 01:18:55,793
We've never used these dealerships before.

1027
01:18:55,793 --> 01:18:57,774
We don't have to.

1028
01:18:57,794 --> 01:19:01,496
Well, Tesla's still fighting the war with one arm tied behind its back.

1029
01:19:01,496 --> 01:19:12,302
Every state pretty much, I shouldn't say every, but most states limit Tesla's ability in
some way, or form to sell cars.

1030
01:19:12,322 --> 01:19:14,089
So anyway, here comes Scout.

1031
01:19:14,089 --> 01:19:22,521
It says, we're gonna do direct and Volkswagen dealers have said, the hell you are,
Volkswagen owns Scout.

1032
01:19:22,521 --> 01:19:23,642
It has used dealers.

1033
01:19:23,642 --> 01:19:30,644
So by the franchise laws, you have to do it, which I find supremely ironic because here
are the dealers who say, we want nothing to do with electric cars.

1034
01:19:30,644 --> 01:19:38,506
Nobody wants them, but they're fighting tooth and nail to have this brand that's all,
well, I guess it's going to be EREV2, but we didn't know that earlier.

1035
01:19:38,506 --> 01:19:42,927
So now the NADA, the National Auto Dealers Association is getting involved.

1036
01:19:43,029 --> 01:19:48,963
And what they've essentially told Volkswagen is, we're gonna fight tooth and nail on this,
every single state.

1037
01:19:48,963 --> 01:19:51,705
So I wondered why Tesla hadn't done this.

1038
01:19:51,705 --> 01:19:54,206
And I know we've talked about this before.

1039
01:19:54,927 --> 01:19:59,210
Take it to the circuit courts, take it to the Supreme Court.

1040
01:19:59,210 --> 01:20:03,833
Don't waste your time trying to fight 50 states of legal battles.

1041
01:20:03,933 --> 01:20:05,434
Get this thing appealed.

1042
01:20:05,434 --> 01:20:07,235
My own personal opinion, I'm not a lawyer.

1043
01:20:07,235 --> 01:20:12,789
I don't know the legality of all this, but I learned back in the high school that...

1044
01:20:13,435 --> 01:20:17,857
restraint of interstate trade is illegal.

1045
01:20:17,898 --> 01:20:27,003
And to tell a company that is building cars that, no, no, no, no, you can only sell your
cars through franchise dealers.

1046
01:20:27,003 --> 01:20:36,828
I mean, that's like telling the public you can only buy hamburgers through franchisees
like McDonald's and Burger King and things like that.

1047
01:20:36,828 --> 01:20:41,230
So Volkswagen and Scout say they're gonna fight this thing.

1048
01:20:41,611 --> 01:20:42,911
They've clearly

1049
01:20:44,784 --> 01:20:46,565
are going to fight it.

1050
01:20:46,746 --> 01:20:51,188
My question is, are they gonna fight it in every one of the 50 states?

1051
01:20:51,188 --> 01:20:56,131
as I said earlier, I believe the NADA is the most powerful lobby in Washington.

1052
01:20:56,131 --> 01:21:00,294
They got an uphill fight against, and by the way, Honda's in the mix now too, right?

1053
01:21:00,294 --> 01:21:09,309
Because it's working with Sony on this new brand called Afila, and they wanna go direct,
and the Honda dealers are going, wait a minute, no you're not.

1054
01:21:09,309 --> 01:21:16,050
So this is going to build to ahead and it's gonna be fascinating to see how it works out.

1055
01:21:16,050 --> 01:21:19,475
one thing's for sure, the lawyers are gonna make a boatload of money.

1056
01:21:20,039 --> 01:21:20,411
Yeah.

1057
01:21:20,411 --> 01:21:25,572
And John, it's interesting because, yeah, if it does go to the Supreme Court.

1058
01:21:27,741 --> 01:21:29,742
Which way would they go on this?

1059
01:21:31,044 --> 01:21:43,143
Because on one hand, don't like to, the conservative side doesn't like to inhibit people
and companies from doing things.

1060
01:21:43,143 --> 01:21:44,493
That's the mantra.

1061
01:21:44,554 --> 01:21:50,778
On the other hand, who funds their campaigns?

1062
01:21:51,899 --> 01:21:53,316
Auto dealers.

1063
01:21:53,316 --> 01:21:54,268
that's in Congress.

1064
01:21:54,268 --> 01:21:56,903
So it'll be interesting to see what the Supreme Court does.

1065
01:21:56,903 --> 01:22:00,108
And what role does Elon Musk play in this?

1066
01:22:00,108 --> 01:22:02,251
What effect is he going to have?

1067
01:22:02,616 --> 01:22:12,300
I have a very interesting anecdotal experience to share with this actually, because in the
state of Washington where I live now, it is illegal for like Rivian and other electric

1068
01:22:12,300 --> 01:22:15,901
vehicle companies to sell here direct.

1069
01:22:16,102 --> 01:22:20,264
And or even have like showrooms where they can show price and all that stuff.

1070
01:22:20,264 --> 01:22:24,085
And about a decade ago, Tesla did get a carve out.

1071
01:22:24,085 --> 01:22:26,426
And back then they're just like, this little electric car.

1072
01:22:26,426 --> 01:22:28,047
And nothing's going to happen.

1073
01:22:28,047 --> 01:22:31,108
And even since then, they've tried to kind of tamper it down a little bit.

1074
01:22:31,204 --> 01:22:41,452
And I actually had the opportunity to go to the beautiful Olympia, Washington, the state's
capital and meet with some legislators about changing this.

1075
01:22:42,033 --> 01:22:49,539
And I think what's so funny was this became a conversation about being pro-choice.

1076
01:22:49,820 --> 01:22:51,922
And that usually means something else.

1077
01:22:51,922 --> 01:22:56,745
And coincidentally, the Republicans that I met with were actually the most open to it.

1078
01:22:56,946 --> 01:23:00,048
And the Democrats actually kind of pushed back.

1079
01:23:00,160 --> 01:23:03,200
lot of concerns around jobs for those who are in their district.

1080
01:23:03,200 --> 01:23:10,640
So there's this kind of really, it doesn't always follow the political lines that I think
most people expect.

1081
01:23:10,640 --> 01:23:22,220
And what I found like really fascinating not to tie it back to this, usually the biggest
thing, wasn't even the jobs, it wasn't the education, it wasn't even the very aggressive

1082
01:23:22,220 --> 01:23:30,060
clean energy goals that the state of Washington has that allow more electric vehicles
would help them get to.

1083
01:23:30,106 --> 01:23:34,870
It was, well, you know, I mean, Tesla has a carve out and this would cause competition to
Tesla.

1084
01:23:34,870 --> 01:23:42,367
And every time whichever Democratic representative or person I was talking to, like, they
kind of pop, like I could hurt Elon Musk.

1085
01:23:42,367 --> 01:23:47,571
And it just like, and that to me was so disappointing as a citizen.

1086
01:23:47,571 --> 01:23:49,493
It's like, I don't care about that.

1087
01:23:49,493 --> 01:23:52,375
I don't care about your speaker, like getting a little sound bite.

1088
01:23:52,375 --> 01:23:58,338
It's just like, I, as a consumer would like the choice and two, like there's environmental
and also job.

1089
01:23:58,388 --> 01:24:07,092
Relations to it and but it goes back to what you're saying like the North American
dealership association quite a few other Groups that have been paid were there to

1090
01:24:07,092 --> 01:24:15,175
represent and the first thing they said well We always hire the little league baseball
things, but both the Republican Represents I met were like really honest about it, but

1091
01:24:15,175 --> 01:24:24,799
they're like the same thing like I don't see why this wouldn't be a thing When we're the
only state on west coast that doesn't do this and the dealerships have continued to grow

1092
01:24:25,440 --> 01:24:26,800
so that is

1093
01:24:27,304 --> 01:24:30,356
I don't know if that, I think it just goes to what you're talking about.

1094
01:24:30,356 --> 01:24:35,631
Like I think it could go to the Supreme court and it wouldn't surprise me if it did pass.

1095
01:24:35,631 --> 01:24:37,973
But also is just how these things have been going.

1096
01:24:37,973 --> 01:24:51,524
just doesn't, it isn't as linear or the outcomes don't really tie to the expectations that
I'm seeing just because of how crazy the current political environment is just across the

1097
01:24:51,524 --> 01:24:52,342
board.

1098
01:24:52,342 --> 01:24:56,305
yeah, yeah, and go ahead.

1099
01:24:56,364 --> 01:25:04,593
was just going to ask John a question and you know, cause Vinfast sort of was going to
initially go direct, right?

1100
01:25:04,593 --> 01:25:10,020
And then they started working with dealers, but I've not heard much on how that's going.

1101
01:25:10,020 --> 01:25:14,720
I mean, obviously they're very low volume, are you up on what's going on with them?

1102
01:25:14,720 --> 01:25:18,722
I don't know what the status of that is, know, Fisker ran into the same thing.

1103
01:25:18,722 --> 01:25:26,388
Remember, Fisker was going to sell direct and then they realized, man, there's a lot of
dealers out there and they could really help us move the metal.

1104
01:25:26,388 --> 01:25:31,691
So, you know, maybe it's cheaper to go direct, but we got to sell cars.

1105
01:25:31,691 --> 01:25:33,853
so there's always going to be a balance.

1106
01:25:33,853 --> 01:25:36,555
I mean, there's an advantage to dealerships.

1107
01:25:36,555 --> 01:25:37,915
There really is.

1108
01:25:37,956 --> 01:25:43,279
There's disadvantages, don't get me wrong, but you you got to go someplace to pick the car
up.

1109
01:25:43,303 --> 01:25:47,006
And you got to take it someplace to be serviced.

1110
01:25:47,006 --> 01:25:54,973
so I don't know if we end up with a hybrid system somewhere down the road, but right now
I'm telling you, the dealers are in the driver's seat.

1111
01:25:54,973 --> 01:25:57,275
They've got all the legal power.

1112
01:25:59,349 --> 01:26:00,901
It's, mean, no other way to put it.

1113
01:26:00,901 --> 01:26:05,124
mean, they, they, they hold the purse strings in, in the local communities.

1114
01:26:05,124 --> 01:26:11,630
And as a collective, they are, I totally agree with your assessment that they're the
strongest lobbying group without a doubt.

1115
01:26:11,630 --> 01:26:20,658
And I think that, so I mean, anecdotally, I did a training this week with, a showroom that
has one of our charge weight beacons in it.

1116
01:26:20,658 --> 01:26:24,491
And which is our kiosk that explains how EV charging works for any EV.

1117
01:26:24,491 --> 01:26:27,151
And, and they've got new and used vehicles on the lot.

1118
01:26:27,151 --> 01:26:33,191
And the team that was there that we did this again, was a, it was a web training and, went
through all the features and everything else and how it worked.

1119
01:26:33,191 --> 01:26:35,551
And some of these people have been working there for years.

1120
01:26:35,631 --> 01:26:45,811
And it was very interesting just how, again, in that just single moment, that one showroom
of at the end of a 30 minute phone call, having them all say, this was really informative.

1121
01:26:45,811 --> 01:26:47,791
We, none of us knew anything about this.

1122
01:26:47,791 --> 01:26:53,591
we, didn't know that that was a thing where there was a tool that showed how you could use
an adapter with just that car and everything else.

1123
01:26:53,691 --> 01:26:55,695
And it was just, again,

1124
01:26:55,695 --> 01:27:02,455
tiny sliver window into the 10, mean, there's over what 15,000 franchise new, new
franchise dealers.

1125
01:27:02,455 --> 01:27:10,015
And there's, mean, thousands of used car dealerships around the US that was just a little
window into they don't know what they don't know.

1126
01:27:10,335 --> 01:27:18,215
And part of the fight I think we see is that again, I love the comment of like, you know,
John, to your point, like, well, they're saying they don't want to be because they can't

1127
01:27:18,215 --> 01:27:19,235
sell them, but they don't know how to sell them.

1128
01:27:19,235 --> 01:27:22,775
But then they're fighting tooth and nail to say, no, no, you got to sell your V's through
us.

1129
01:27:22,775 --> 01:27:24,103
So it's

1130
01:27:24,103 --> 01:27:34,230
They understand that it is part of their future, but they don't have a good answer as to
how to basically be a player in this space right now that shows they have, you know,

1131
01:27:34,230 --> 01:27:37,313
basically the ability to say, but no, no, we know what we're doing too.

1132
01:27:37,313 --> 01:27:46,779
And again, I think that it's because of, again, back to the conditioning thing, whether
it's people buying the cars and people selling them, we are still decoding what we've

1133
01:27:46,779 --> 01:27:48,180
known for a long time.

1134
01:27:48,180 --> 01:27:52,833
And to try to sell both of those side by side, the gas car experience, the electric car
experience.

1135
01:27:52,931 --> 01:27:56,994
That is an education and that is something that needs to be managed.

1136
01:27:56,994 --> 01:28:00,336
And right now we've seen efforts that have been made even through the NADA.

1137
01:28:00,336 --> 01:28:03,379
And I mean, my team has worked with the team at the NADA before.

1138
01:28:03,379 --> 01:28:07,982
The scale of which we have to do it is massive and there has to be a lot of funding for
it.

1139
01:28:07,982 --> 01:28:13,246
And maybe that could have happened with the previous administration, but something tells
me that won't happen with the current administration.

1140
01:28:13,546 --> 01:28:14,667
Just a guess.

1141
01:28:14,796 --> 01:28:20,359
I think the NADA thing unto itself is its own very large challenge.

1142
01:28:20,359 --> 01:28:28,782
But I will say one of the things I've heard from a few different people, and it was even
brought up again with the dealership I was talking to about a month ago, where as far as

1143
01:28:28,782 --> 01:28:37,445
that education component, they found by far the most effective way is to let their
salespeople have one for like 72 hours.

1144
01:28:37,586 --> 01:28:43,444
Let them take the EV or like 72 hours to have it for like a long weekend and just

1145
01:28:43,444 --> 01:28:46,145
drive it around and use it as like their personal car.

1146
01:28:46,145 --> 01:28:53,647
And they found that so many of their salespeople not only kind of got it, but they
actually were just actively selling it because they just thought it was so cool.

1147
01:28:53,647 --> 01:28:55,867
They didn't have to go to the gas station, all this other stuff.

1148
01:28:55,867 --> 01:29:06,564
Now that I don't know if that's going to solve the problem, but I think that is definitely
a big part of kind of that education piece to at least the, all the strings and stuff kind

1149
01:29:06,564 --> 01:29:10,882
of being pulled and going on the background between the dealership owners and like the
dealership associations.

1150
01:29:10,882 --> 01:29:12,458
That's a whole nother challenge.

1151
01:29:12,458 --> 01:29:23,030
But I think just having the interaction between the person buying a car and the person
either selling or educating the car, knowing what they're talking about, actually being

1152
01:29:23,030 --> 01:29:26,864
passionate about it makes such a night and day difference.

1153
01:29:27,986 --> 01:29:28,737
Yeah, exactly.

1154
01:29:28,737 --> 01:29:30,428
Right.

1155
01:29:30,453 --> 01:29:40,337
Right now, is there another industry that we know that has had these types of evolutions
where the traditional salespeople have had to try to sell this evolution of the product

1156
01:29:40,337 --> 01:29:43,918
and it's obvious they don't know how to talk about it.

1157
01:29:43,918 --> 01:29:46,179
That's not a pathway to success.

1158
01:29:46,179 --> 01:29:53,322
And this is precisely why Tesla years ago said, we're not going to try to get dealers to
sell what we're building because they're not going to be able to explain it for us.

1159
01:29:53,322 --> 01:29:55,521
That was a big part of what their motivation was.

1160
01:29:55,521 --> 01:30:01,946
And so, yeah, I think, John, I think your comment of on one hand, saying people don't want
them.

1161
01:30:01,946 --> 01:30:03,137
We don't know how to sell them.

1162
01:30:03,137 --> 01:30:04,138
This is a struggle.

1163
01:30:04,138 --> 01:30:07,140
And on the other hand, they're saying, you got to sell them through us, though.

1164
01:30:07,140 --> 01:30:12,263
It's the acknowledgement of we recognize this is something we have to we have to be a part
of.

1165
01:30:12,564 --> 01:30:19,379
We're just still at the very early stages of how this entire market is going to grow and
have an impact.

1166
01:30:19,379 --> 01:30:22,721
So even though we've all been doing it for years and decades.

1167
01:30:22,887 --> 01:30:23,117
Yeah.

1168
01:30:23,117 --> 01:30:26,258
And Matt, and we, think we've talked about this on, on past shows.

1169
01:30:26,258 --> 01:30:28,209
It's, know, it's a bit of a chicken and the egg.

1170
01:30:28,209 --> 01:30:41,004
mean, remember years ago, I was part of a small group of four reporters that got to go in
a private room with, with Mark Royce, the, number two guy at, at GM.

1171
01:30:41,004 --> 01:30:44,026
And we were talking to him a lot about things and he was pretty candid.

1172
01:30:44,026 --> 01:30:49,508
And he said, you know, EVs are a hobby for deal for our dealers, right?

1173
01:30:49,508 --> 01:30:52,889
Like if, if they have one EV model.

1174
01:30:53,445 --> 01:30:56,156
out of 20 models or whatever.

1175
01:30:56,156 --> 01:30:59,488
It's like, yeah, it's like, whatever, they're not gonna get.

1176
01:30:59,748 --> 01:31:07,753
But when we get to the point where they're kind of are now right where there's like, what
is it five, five Chevrolet EVs or something, right?

1177
01:31:07,753 --> 01:31:13,546
Like, and, a couple of them are selling well, the Equinox and the Blazer and stuff like
that.

1178
01:31:13,546 --> 01:31:16,287
And then know, the Cadillac Lyric is selling well and stuff.

1179
01:31:16,287 --> 01:31:23,283
And now there's what three, you know, electric Cadillacs now out on the market or if
they're not, they will be in the next

1180
01:31:23,283 --> 01:31:25,973
couple of days or weeks or whatever it is.

1181
01:31:26,174 --> 01:31:36,917
you know, then it's like, shit, if we've got like multiple models and they're selling well
and people are coming in asking for maybe we actually have to start knowing what

1182
01:31:36,917 --> 01:31:41,039
regenerative braking is because we didn't know it last year.

1183
01:31:41,039 --> 01:31:48,797
Like I've literally had that experience right where my wife and I took a test drive from
Mercedes a couple years ago and

1184
01:31:50,076 --> 01:31:55,420
The sales guy, like he's, I don't think, I don't think the car has regenerative braking.

1185
01:31:56,271 --> 01:32:06,771
Well, in fairness, like I bought an Audi in 2003 and I was at the Audi showroom and I was
telling the guy what I wanted and I said, and I said, what do you have in the lot?

1186
01:32:06,771 --> 01:32:13,971
And I wanted an A4 and I wanted a 1.8T because I wanted a turboed car because I wanted to
maybe upgrade the turbo one day and everything else.

1187
01:32:13,971 --> 01:32:16,651
And I said, well, he said, well, no, we got an A4 right there.

1188
01:32:16,651 --> 01:32:18,271
I said, yeah, but that's a 3.0.

1189
01:32:18,271 --> 01:32:20,311
I said, I want the 1.8T because it's turboed.

1190
01:32:20,311 --> 01:32:22,951
He goes, oh man, all Audis are turboed.

1191
01:32:22,951 --> 01:32:24,011
And I went.

1192
01:32:25,205 --> 01:32:29,212
It's not, you know, so this, yeah.

1193
01:32:29,212 --> 01:32:29,542
thing.

1194
01:32:29,542 --> 01:32:39,534
It's such an interesting time too, that the consumer is usually, in a lot of cases, better
informed than sometimes the people selling these vehicles, unfortunately, especially with

1195
01:32:39,534 --> 01:32:40,656
electric vehicles.

1196
01:32:40,656 --> 01:32:41,051
Yeah.

1197
01:32:41,051 --> 01:32:49,311
some of these folks, they're just, again, this is again, the human element is so much of
what we're talking about of, you know, people being passionate, wanting to be informed,

1198
01:32:49,311 --> 01:32:54,691
just having basic information, tools that they can leverage to do their jobs better.

1199
01:32:54,851 --> 01:33:00,431
And kind of full circle on our entire conversation is just, but man, right now there's so
much noise.

1200
01:33:00,431 --> 01:33:02,831
We're all, we're all tired.

1201
01:33:02,831 --> 01:33:06,751
I mean, I don't know how many times you hang out with your friends and family and it's
like, how you doing?

1202
01:33:08,055 --> 01:33:09,635
I'm just tired, man.

1203
01:33:10,277 --> 01:33:19,503
And so when it gets to that point where we're all kind of like overloaded, that's part of
the challenge too, is we have to be just even slightly motivated to be engaged, to have

1204
01:33:19,503 --> 01:33:22,695
these discussions and learn something new.

1205
01:33:22,695 --> 01:33:31,190
that's how we move forward in this industry is going to require those of us who've been
doing it for long time to maintain some level of energy around, we can keep going.

1206
01:33:31,311 --> 01:33:36,954
Even though right now it's not a clean pathway of how we can solve all these problems, but
we just got to keep going.

1207
01:33:38,083 --> 01:33:39,085
Yeah, all out.

1208
01:33:39,085 --> 01:33:43,250
that's about as good of a point to wrap it on with some optimism there in the end.

1209
01:33:43,572 --> 01:33:44,874
John, one, one final question.

1210
01:33:44,874 --> 01:33:50,752
Wasn't the reason that Scout Motors even went out of business anyway, was due to bad
dealership sales or something like that?

1211
01:33:50,752 --> 01:33:52,366
Or do you remember the history of that?

1212
01:33:52,366 --> 01:33:53,658
you know, they were part of Navistar.

1213
01:33:53,658 --> 01:33:54,809
What's Navistar sell?

1214
01:33:54,809 --> 01:33:57,183
Class seven and eight semi trucks, you know?

1215
01:33:57,183 --> 01:34:03,311
So they're not in exactly the urban centers where most buyers are.

1216
01:34:04,558 --> 01:34:05,639
No, that's a good point.

1217
01:34:05,639 --> 01:34:06,159
But

1218
01:34:06,159 --> 01:34:09,139
the first car wreck I was ever in, I got hit by an international scout.

1219
01:34:10,519 --> 01:34:12,855
And boy, that thing was like a tank.

1220
01:34:12,855 --> 01:34:15,335
Listen, I actually test drove one.

1221
01:34:15,475 --> 01:34:17,015
That's how long I've been in the business.

1222
01:34:17,015 --> 01:34:20,735
I think it was either 1979 or 1980.

1223
01:34:20,835 --> 01:34:24,375
And I think they went out of business in 80 or 81.

1224
01:34:24,555 --> 01:34:27,975
But I lived just outside Detroit, place called Farmington Hills.

1225
01:34:27,975 --> 01:34:31,575
And Farmington Hills actually had a dealer that had them.

1226
01:34:31,575 --> 01:34:36,135
I called up Scout and arranged to do a test drive for a week.

1227
01:34:36,295 --> 01:34:38,155
Had a lot of fun with it.

1228
01:34:38,155 --> 01:34:40,299
This was, by the way, should have

1229
01:34:40,299 --> 01:34:48,004
When I was in high school, my first job was washing US post office trucks for the city of
Farmington.

1230
01:34:48,105 --> 01:34:56,219
And it had a number of scouts, right hand steering with a three on the floor.

1231
01:34:56,219 --> 01:35:01,775
And as a 16 year old, I was in heaven getting to drive these things.

1232
01:35:02,396 --> 01:35:13,437
So John, I'm not quite this old, but I think my first vehicle was a 1954 International
Harvester pickup, which I inherited from my grandfather.

1233
01:35:13,477 --> 01:35:13,985
So.

1234
01:35:14,730 --> 01:35:15,981
Those are also great.

1235
01:35:15,981 --> 01:35:17,252
mean, yeah, I gotta be honest.

1236
01:35:17,252 --> 01:35:21,004
I'm actually pretty excited with at least some of the products that scouts announced.

1237
01:35:21,004 --> 01:35:24,196
We'll see how, if it's even possible or how easy they are to buy.

1238
01:35:24,196 --> 01:35:28,389
But, with that, I think we're we've crossed the 90 minute mark.

1239
01:35:28,389 --> 01:35:30,610
So I'm going to just cut it off now.

1240
01:35:30,749 --> 01:35:33,672
John, Loren Matt, thank you so much for coming on again.

1241
01:35:33,672 --> 01:35:35,523
We'll have to do this again soon.

1242
01:35:35,914 --> 01:35:40,016
this has just always been a fun conversation and can't wait to do the next one.

1243
01:35:40,331 --> 01:35:44,411
And we're guaranteed to have something to talk about, I'm sure.

1244
01:35:46,291 --> 01:35:47,049
job.

1245
01:35:47,049 --> 01:35:47,867
All right, thanks.

1246
01:35:52,992 --> 01:35:55,192
That's a wrap on today's Grid Connections panel.

1247
01:35:55,192 --> 01:36:04,092
Huge thanks again to John McElroy, Loren McDonald, and Matt Teske for all of their
insights on the evolving electric vehicle landscape, from shifting policies and dealership

1248
01:36:04,092 --> 01:36:08,332
battles to Tesla's brand shakeup and the state of EV charging infrastructure.

1249
01:36:08,512 --> 01:36:11,732
If you found this discussion valuable, don't keep it to yourself.

1250
01:36:11,732 --> 01:36:14,512
Share this episode with at least one person who'd enjoy it too.

1251
01:36:14,512 --> 01:36:18,192
And while you're at it, leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.

1252
01:36:18,192 --> 01:36:22,572
It helps more people discover Grid Connections and keeps the conversation going.

1253
01:36:22,666 --> 01:36:25,581
Want to stay ahead of the latest electric vehicle trends?

1254
01:36:25,581 --> 01:36:30,027
Sign up for our brand new Grid Connections newsletter using the link in today's show
notes.

1255
01:36:30,027 --> 01:36:33,434
Until next week, this is the Grid Connections podcast signing off.