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Good morning Grid Connections listeners.

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We've got a great panel for you today.

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We're joined again by Loren McDonald, Chief Analyst at Paren Matt Teske, the founder of
Chargeway, and John McElroy, the mastermind behind the Autoline Network.

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Together we tackle the big questions.

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How will recent political shifts shape the EV landscape?

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What role will EV infrastructure play in this evolution?

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And what does it all mean for automakers, consumers, and global competition?

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From the challenges of EV adoption and charging economics to the latest on tariffs and
automaker strategies.

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This discussion highlights the tectonic shifts happening in the automotive industry.

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Whether you're an EV enthusiast, a policy wonk, or just curious about the road ahead, this
episode is packed with insights you can't miss.

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If you find our conversation as electrifying as we do, share this episode with at least
one person who would enjoy it as well.

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And don't forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

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It helps us power up grid connections and bring you more episodes like this.

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With that, enjoy.

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John, Loren and Matt, thank you all three of you for joining today.

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real briefly for anyone, if somehow they're not familiar with you guys work,

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each do a quick intro and John, I'll let you kick it off first.

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Yeah, no, sure thing.

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I own a small media company called Blue Sky Productions.

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We put out a bunch of coverage of the global automotive industry under the Auto Line
brand.

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And, you know, I got into this business because I'm a hardcore car enthusiast.

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And now I tell everybody I'm a hardcore automotive industry enthusiast.

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Matt, how about you next?

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That was perfect, John.

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Yeah, my name is Matt Teske.

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I'm the founder and CEO of Chargeway.

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It is a mobile app and software company for simplifying EV charging.

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And so if you're listening, download the Chargeway mobile app to iOS and Android and
choose whatever EV you want.

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Makes it super easy.

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You can plan road trips, find charging and enjoy the app.

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our goal is to make EV charging simple.

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And I've been an automotive enthusiast and in the industry for a long time as well.

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yeah, so I share John's excitement and sense about where things are going.

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Thanks, Matt.

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was even just using Chargeway yesterday myself.

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with that, Loren, how about you give us a little update?

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I know you were just recently on the podcast anyways, but just in case no one somehow
missed it.

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Yeah.

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Thanks again for having me on with this esteemed group, but Loren McDonald, Chief Analyst
with Paren.

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So some big news since the four of us were last together, my company, EV Adoption, was
acquired by Paren.

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Back in September, I joined Paren as Chief Analyst and basically we track all things
charging.

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So we have the biggest, deepest, most comprehensive database about everything from where
the chargers are to utilization, reliability.

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And I also, from my past, track a lot of things going on with EV sales and stuff.

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we're bringing like VIO data together with the charging data to help companies understand
where this market is going.

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Thank you, gents.

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guess with that, let's kick it off into just maybe looking at maybe real quickly, if
everyone wants to just give their thoughts on where they see here, what their takeaways

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have been already for the automotive industry since the election last week.

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Do you have a little sound clip of taps?

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Because I think that would be perfect to play right now.

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Sadly, that might be correct.

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yeah.

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Are you done?

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Are you suggesting you thinking it's over?

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Like, like

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no, I wouldn't go that far, Loren.

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But look, this is gonna hurt and it's gonna hurt badly.

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And it's gonna hurt everybody that's selling electric cars in the United States right now.

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And, know, aside from Tesla, they're all losing big money, billions on it.

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And this is going to make a very, very difficult job even more difficult.

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You know, to pull out those consumer subsidies, that was a big allure for people.

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You know, the biggest complaint about EVs really is they're so expensive.

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that $7,500 in most cases went a long way to helping that.

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And taking that away is really going to hurt sales immediately.

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And we know this because we saw it happen in Germany already.

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We saw it happen in China.

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Yeah, I have a bit of a different take, John.

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mean, clearly we've, yeah, yeah, no, it's more in like the level of impact, right?

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I mean, clearly, you know, it's not a hundred percent, but it's probably what?

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99.5 % certain that the EV tax credit is going to be going away.

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And it's clearly going to affect

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all of the automakers that make and sell EVs and consumers interested in them.

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It's gonna hurt, I believe as Elon Musk predicted a long time ago when he said we should
get rid of the tax credit, it's gonna hurt the other automakers more than Tesla because

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Tesla's brand kind of...

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adds a level of sort of value in it that so people are sort of, think out of the gate
willing to pay more for a BEV from Tesla.

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Cause that's all they make, right?

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Where if I go to Chevrolet dealer and I'm looking at the Equinox and the Blazers and
there's like, there's like a ICE version and there's a EV version and one costs a lot

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more.

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You know, my mental process is, is, I need some help.

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In equalizing the cost between the two, because after all, they're just cars that are
going to get me to and from, you know, work and stuff.

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And so I think that tax credit, especially the loss of it, especially for like the, maybe
the under 40,000 vehicles, like the Equinox where $7,500 is a significant percentage of

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the cost.

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Right.

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I don't think it's going to have much impact on a $79,000 Rivian.

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Right.

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Or something like that.

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Cause people that.

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that want to buy a Rivian or, or, you know, fill in the blank, want it anyway.

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Right.

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know, income-wise, they probably don't even qualify for it.

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Right, right.

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And then of course, you we could spend whole hour just talking about the leasing loophole
that sort of gets around all of this.

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But I guess where I was going, John, it kind of gets at that, that I did some analysis a
few years ago using IRS data around who actually filed for the tax credit back in the

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days.

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And as the people on the right spectrum of...

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the political spectrum, conservatives basically were generally right, that most of the
people taking advantage of it were higher income.

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And so I think the biggest impact going forward is as we get into the people in Iowa and
middle America who are looking at the $40,000 or whatever it costs, Equinox and

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you know, they're not making $300,000 a year because they're not Silicon Valley software
engineers, right?

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That might mean the difference between pulling the trigger on that Equinox or not, right?

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Because of kind of their situation and that comparison.

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So that's a long way of saying that I do think the loss is going to have an impact, but I
don't think it's going to be like...

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We're going to lose hundreds of thousands of purchases annually from this.

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think it's going to be much smaller number than that.

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And with that, I'll shut up.

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Matt, anything you want to add to that?

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Well, I mean, there's no simple answer to any of this.

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mean, honestly.

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My gut reaction to all of the news, mean, election aside, just what it means beyond just
even the EV market is there is, it's just be very messy moving forward for a lot of

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reasons.

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I think that the tax credit, as it was originally designed and as it was augmented and
changed in the last couple of years, it's still lent to confusion around how people were

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understanding the value.

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I mean, there's the number value, but then how to actually apply it, whether you were
talking to someone in a showroom or that you were talking to a consumer.

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So.

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I think to Loren's point, you know, it's the there's going to be damage done.

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But again, if you really look at who was understanding how to take best advantage of that,
it was skewed to a certain demographic even even till recently.

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And so I don't at the end of the day, subsidies have been in the automotive sector in a
variety of formats for a very long time.

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And EVs have needed something to get some traction with certain people to say, that does
sound attractive.

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So if we're taking that away and we're just going to have

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what arguably is supposed to look like a level playing field of like, no vehicle
subsidies.

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We'll just sell cars for car's sake.

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Well, then it gets back to where the other subsidies that people may not actively think
about, but that they understand through their wallet, which is on fuel.

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And that's still there.

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so, you know, I think that we've we've we've been throwing money at a problem, which is
consumer psychology of why they would value buying the EV in the first place.

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And I think that it was with the best of intentions, but it was never well designed.

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And I think if it does go away, it is going to then put more pressure on the industry of
doing a better job of explaining the value proposition of EVs in general, which frankly,

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that's got to fucking happen.

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Yeah.

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Like that has to happen anyway.

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So, you know, that's my first reaction to this, but we'll have to see how that continues
to play as it relates to is, is the industry that has made EVs possible and the people on

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the policy side who have made EVs possible in the last 10, 15, 20 years.

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Are they gonna understand how to make that pivot or are they gonna get entrenched into the
typical talking points, the typical strategies around what they've been doing, which won't

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work.

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So that to me is very telling about what I think could happen, but we will now see how it
plays out in the next 12, 18, 24 months.

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Yeah, Chase, I wanted to follow up on two things that Matt said.

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One is that I was looking at the vehicles yesterday that qualify for the tax credit.

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first of all, it's not very many, right?

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So when we talk about the tax credit going away, it's not like all 100 BEVs and plug-in
hybrids qualify for it, right?

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It's a handful.

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Well, for purchase, because remember, for leasing, just about anybody could get it.

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yeah, for, and I'm, playing by the strict rules, not the lease end run.

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Right.

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But, but I mean, to Matt's point, right.

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Like how many people even knew, you know, how many, how many car shoppers that aren't like
who don't live this, like we do know that, there's a, there's an end run.

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can do around this, right?

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I can get the lucid air.

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you know, I can get a tax credit for the lucid air because I can lease it.

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Right?

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That type of thing.

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But my point was going to be if you just look at the straight non-leasing loophole number
of models available, first of all, it's not a lot.

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And there's only a handful that are sort of where I think the tax credit is really of
significant value to the potential buyer.

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And that's like the Nissan Leaf, which is going away, and the Chevy.

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at least two now.

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Equinox and the VW ID4.

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Those are the ones that qualify.

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mean, the Hondas, I think it's a little bit higher level and I think people that want that
car probably wanted it anyway.

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So I'm not sure.

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I think there's certain EVs that are sort of people buy them for budget reasons.

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They're buying it for a commuter car or whatever it is.

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And the tax credit just makes it a...

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Like an easy decision, right?

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And I think that's cars like the ID4 and the Equinox and things like that.

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Then I do, it would be like the Cadillac Lyric, right?

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Or, or, or the Rivian R1, you know, T or S or something like that.

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Yeah, I think there's two things or is there one other thing you're going to say there,
Loren?

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just the other thing, is, which is I made a list of potential things to talk about today
and Matt hit hit on one of them, which is why should I buy an EV?

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Right.

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And I think Matt made a really stellar point is, is while there's, we're talking about
sort of the negative impacts of this, the, the, potential positive impact is maybe the

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auto industry has to do a better job of actually figuring out.

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why people should buy an EV and learn how to make them more compelling and how to market
and sell them better instead of relying on the financial aspect.

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I think one thing to add to that is totally the dealership experience.

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Like in California and maybe in Portland and Seattle, the dealers know how to make those,
tax credits work out if they're not doing the least thing.

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I mean, I even went to a Ford dealership in Roseburg and they hated dealing with the tax
credit for the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Mach-E because it's like, well, this one

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qualifies for half of it.

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This qualifies for us.

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We don't even care.

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We're just going to go push the regular F-150 because that sells.

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It's a more rural area for sure.

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But I do think that, that just adds another layer that makes the sales from the dealership
side so much more difficult.

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And the, the end of the day, there's no incentive for most of these salespeople to try and
move it.

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It's like, they want to remove as much friction to the sale.

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And pretty quickly, if they can't, if there isn't some of that's frugal enough or a tax
accountant that's interested or coming in for that 37 50 that only the F one 50 lightning

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qualified for.

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They're probably not going to care.

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at the end of the day, and I think John, you've actually covered this pretty well on auto
line Ford and so many of these four dealerships are just reducing the price on them

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anyway, without any of these like actual discounts that that seems to be more effective in
getting these sales moving.

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And I'm curious if either you are really anyone on here knows, but kind of around the
topic of leases, I do feel like that has been a big thing.

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Only anecdotally, I mean, I know some who have, who have done it for like Tesla and I've
known some people have done it for Nissan Leafs, but it's like, it was less than a hundred

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bucks a month or something so cheap.

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It was worth doing, but it seems anecdotally, one of the automakers with their EVs I've
heard of being leased like almost exclusively is Kia and Hyundai.

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And I'm just curious if anyone on this conversation has any data around any brands that
have like the highest lease rates for their EVs, or if that's kind of something that's

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hard to know or track.

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And to me, that seems like the red flag of who's going to see the 180 in EV sales if
they're moving a lot of these VLEs.

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Yeah, I've seen some numbers out there.

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I haven't seen it broken down by company.

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I don't know if that data is publicly available, but the lease rate for Hyundai's and
Kia's EVs is very high.

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And in fact, it's so high, it's dragged the entire lease rate for the entire industry up,
even including non-EVs.

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Yeah, like Chase, like, like John, I know, I think I can't remember if it was Cox or, or
Experian or whoever it was, but somebody in the last couple of months published some

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really solid data around lease rates.

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Yeah.

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And, and the, the, percentage of cars and EVs leased is just like gone up significantly.

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and yeah, there were a couple of brands again, I, unfortunately, I can't remember which
ones they were.

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Where I think it was like 80 % or something like that.

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It was, was, it was, it was really high.

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Yeah.

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mean, we've, we're on our third Tesla lease, right?

205
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Like we've, you know, cause I, I personally believe, you know, leasing and EV is the
better way to go because.

206
00:16:09,235 --> 00:16:16,751
You know, they're, they're like, they're like an Apple iPhone used to be where, you know,
they got really better every like couple of years, right?

207
00:16:16,751 --> 00:16:20,142
Now they get sort of incrementally better, but I think,

208
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you know, that, that with, you know, all the hardware improvements, the battery
improvements, you know, everything about EVs, know, the amount of range you get at the

209
00:16:29,855 --> 00:16:33,609
fasting, the, how fast you can charge the car.

210
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All those things are getting better.

211
00:16:35,010 --> 00:16:37,581
Like, you know, every 18 months or something.

212
00:16:37,581 --> 00:16:45,146
And so that's why I always tell people like least, because then you're just going to get
a, you know, a better car in a couple of years.

213
00:16:45,362 --> 00:16:55,515
Well, that's the most approachable buying experience that most consumers can understand,
which is well, and then frankly, dealers and OEMs have been leveraging that approach,

214
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which is, OK, we can give you a bang and lease deal on this with very little down or
something maybe significantly down, but your monthly payment will be approachable.

215
00:17:04,628 --> 00:17:14,971
And if it is a second car or if it's your first step into trying a plug-in car or an EV,
it's a way to just test the waters, you know, and that's

216
00:17:15,041 --> 00:17:16,292
Consumers can grasp that.

217
00:17:16,292 --> 00:17:23,826
So if it's cost effective without having to worry about explaining a credit of some
nature, but it's like, my monthly payment is approachable and I've got some dollars I can

218
00:17:23,826 --> 00:17:26,918
throw the down payment and it gives me a chance to try this thing out.

219
00:17:26,918 --> 00:17:29,599
Then it just comes out of the daft, the demographic of who that person is.

220
00:17:29,599 --> 00:17:33,021
If it's a homeowner, then they can take immediate advantage of what the experience will
be.

221
00:17:33,021 --> 00:17:36,623
And then they'll have three years of seeing how it works.

222
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And I think that that's them.

223
00:17:38,104 --> 00:17:43,625
There's that the most approachable narrative around how they can get exposed to the
experience.

224
00:17:43,625 --> 00:17:46,777
is something that I think we're seeing through the leasing process.

225
00:17:46,777 --> 00:17:51,081
And the OEMs that have leveraged that the best, Hyundai and Kia, I think they've done a
good job of that.

226
00:17:51,081 --> 00:17:59,608
You then look at Ford just dropping prices is one thing, but then Ford, I forget exactly
what the exact terminology was for the program, but like, we're just going to pay for your

227
00:17:59,608 --> 00:18:02,130
home charging now, like just buy the damn car.

228
00:18:02,130 --> 00:18:10,460
That's another example of let's just remove the barrier of entry down to, we're just going
to do all the thinking for you and get you into the vehicle so that we can get

229
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birthday cars off of our dealer lots and just get them into your hands to experience them.

230
00:18:15,301 --> 00:18:21,863
And we'll give you as much benefit of that, you know, that we know you're going to need to
just have a turnkey experience.

231
00:18:21,863 --> 00:18:24,104
And I think we're seeing OEMs step in a little bit harder.

232
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The Ford example being that you're the charging aspect of it where they tried to educate
dealers around, okay, here's what we need you thinking and saying and doing.

233
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And they just, think finally cut to the chase of as one OEM example saying, we're not even
going to bother trying to explain this anymore.

234
00:18:37,187 --> 00:18:40,578
We're just tell the damn customer that we're just going to pay for

235
00:18:40,712 --> 00:18:42,242
And it's going to be super great.

236
00:18:42,242 --> 00:18:45,033
And so I think that we're going to see more of that.

237
00:18:45,033 --> 00:18:52,153
And then again, all the vehicles that are coming off lease that have been leased, that are
about to flood the market from a use perspective, that's also going to change a lot of the

238
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conversation around people that can say, I'd like to get an EV, but $45,000 is still
pretty rich for my blood.

239
00:18:59,313 --> 00:19:08,833
But all of a sudden we're going to have some pretty compelling EVs, IONIQ 5s, EV 6s, and
others that have been leased for a couple of years, hit in the market, used for high 20s,

240
00:19:08,833 --> 00:19:09,761
maybe.

241
00:19:09,893 --> 00:19:13,453
That is going to change more, but that least goes out of question.

242
00:19:13,453 --> 00:19:15,603
Now we're talking buying, getting that loan.

243
00:19:15,603 --> 00:19:16,313
What's that percentage?

244
00:19:16,313 --> 00:19:21,363
That's a whole new quagmire, but we're just, still so far at the beginning.

245
00:19:21,363 --> 00:19:24,553
We're at the beginning of so much of this to see what happens as the market responds.

246
00:19:24,553 --> 00:19:31,213
But as we've been discussing about the financial aspects of it, I still think this comes
back to the fact that we have to have discussions around how do we make the conversation

247
00:19:31,213 --> 00:19:38,677
truly compelling to everyday people without having to talk about just the pure finance of
we're just going to save you thousands as this is why this will work for you.

248
00:19:38,677 --> 00:19:41,566
And that's going to start really bubbling to the surface more and more.

249
00:19:43,788 --> 00:19:55,137
I think one of the questions I'm kind of curious about too is how these changes, I know
this is something Loren, you talk a lot about, then actually John, like P have any revs as

250
00:19:55,137 --> 00:20:03,749
we're kind of go in this conversation on what that's going to be like moving forward in
the product positioning of those and like the actual adoption.

251
00:20:03,749 --> 00:20:11,806
and I think there there's a few other things I want to talk about, but I think just given
the theme we're discussing in the moment, we might as well kind of talk about it anyways,

252
00:20:11,806 --> 00:20:12,536
like

253
00:20:12,768 --> 00:20:16,448
What you were talking about earlier, Loren, like why buy an EV?

254
00:20:16,448 --> 00:20:17,758
Like how do you position this?

255
00:20:17,758 --> 00:20:24,677
And I think you're going to have the same challenges with any version of electrification
right now with these products.

256
00:20:24,677 --> 00:20:28,267
Except for regular hybrids, right?

257
00:20:28,267 --> 00:20:44,438
Like I'm going to preach the Teske philosophy, Which is consumers don't have to change
anything about their behavior with a hybrid, right?

258
00:20:44,438 --> 00:20:49,714
But you get instead of 21 miles per gallon, you get 35 miles per gallon.

259
00:20:49,714 --> 00:20:50,114
Right.

260
00:20:50,114 --> 00:20:55,744
The only change in your behavior is you go to the gas station fewer times, right.

261
00:20:55,744 --> 00:21:01,884
But you don't have to install for, you know, $1,500 total in a level two charger at home.

262
00:21:01,884 --> 00:21:06,754
You don't have to learn how to plug in and download apps.

263
00:21:07,015 --> 00:21:11,355
and unfortunately you don't have to like learn how to use Matt's Chargeway app.

264
00:21:11,355 --> 00:21:12,295
Right.

265
00:21:12,695 --> 00:21:16,695
but, you know,

266
00:21:17,599 --> 00:21:19,190
It was just a joke, right?

267
00:21:19,190 --> 00:21:24,284
you that, yeah, you don't like need all these other things.

268
00:21:24,284 --> 00:21:26,645
You don't have to learn all these new behaviors, right?

269
00:21:26,645 --> 00:21:36,503
So, yeah, I mean, that was sort of my, you know, my take on Trump and the Trump and Musk
win is that hybrids win, right?

270
00:21:36,503 --> 00:21:39,195
I think the net of all of this is...

271
00:21:40,615 --> 00:21:49,422
that we're going to see a lot more emphasis from the automakers on regular hybrids and
consumers going, I get that.

272
00:21:50,231 --> 00:21:52,615
Well, doesn't challenge, yeah, TearPoint doesn't challenge anybody.

273
00:21:52,615 --> 00:21:57,200
I mean, the sales process is you want to save money on gas, buy that thing.

274
00:21:57,462 --> 00:21:58,503
Anything else got to change?

275
00:21:58,503 --> 00:21:59,171
Nope.

276
00:21:59,171 --> 00:22:00,585
You'll just save some money.

277
00:22:00,786 --> 00:22:03,610
But TearPoint, it's like the experience doesn't at all change.

278
00:22:03,610 --> 00:22:04,411
So.

279
00:22:04,468 --> 00:22:11,792
And Toyota is making the decision even easier because they're increasingly only making
hybrid versions of their models.

280
00:22:12,212 --> 00:22:17,395
So, you know, they're taking that decision away in many cases.

281
00:22:17,687 --> 00:22:28,427
It's just the election and everything that happened, think, was it's really an indictment
on how we communicate as an industry, but also just in general within our society is, you

282
00:22:28,427 --> 00:22:30,088
what is it people understand?

283
00:22:30,088 --> 00:22:38,908
And it's, you got to keep it simple and you can try to say that that was done on, from
both sides of the perspective.

284
00:22:38,908 --> 00:22:45,292
But in reality, you know, it's just, you know, you go all the way back and, you know, to
when I was basically born.

285
00:22:45,292 --> 00:22:48,933
You know, and you got the Reagan approach to like, just be happy.

286
00:22:48,933 --> 00:22:51,834
Like, you know, Carter made you try to think, don't worry about that.

287
00:22:51,834 --> 00:22:52,414
That's bad.

288
00:22:52,414 --> 00:22:53,434
Just be happy.

289
00:22:53,434 --> 00:22:55,125
And if you're happy, well, hey, you'll be great.

290
00:22:55,125 --> 00:22:57,435
You know, and that's all we're seeing still.

291
00:22:57,435 --> 00:23:03,057
And it doesn't challenge the public to engage on understanding anything other than, well,
we'll just keep consuming.

292
00:23:03,057 --> 00:23:04,542
And corporations love that.

293
00:23:04,542 --> 00:23:07,608
Cause they're like, cool, then we'll keep selling your product that you can easily buy and
be happy about.

294
00:23:07,608 --> 00:23:09,419
that's path of least resistance.

295
00:23:09,419 --> 00:23:14,143
Just look at it in every, every angle, whether it's buying a product or voting for a
president and

296
00:23:14,143 --> 00:23:21,797
That's the pity of it is that we still as the EV industry in total is just like, we do
have, but we have to actually educate people.

297
00:23:21,797 --> 00:23:25,359
We actually have to help them understand what all of this means.

298
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:32,672
And again, to your point, Loren, mean, this is what I've, the drum I've been beating for
the better part of a decade now, which is it's not about education.

299
00:23:32,672 --> 00:23:37,544
It's about approachability and it's about helping them see themselves in the experience.

300
00:23:37,544 --> 00:23:42,618
And that includes the B2B side, the industry side, that includes the consumer side of
saying, I understand what you're.

301
00:23:42,618 --> 00:23:43,780
presenting to me as an option.

302
00:23:43,780 --> 00:23:55,212
And it's, I, yeah, to me, the election was a, a, just a ringing of a bell to say, yeah, if
you want people to buy in, don't make them think that hard.

303
00:23:55,212 --> 00:23:59,275
And that's where hybrids as your point is like, yeah, no thing in there.

304
00:23:59,275 --> 00:24:06,882
So how do we then change that conversations or like P have irrev and like acronyms about
G, can we please just fucking stop?

305
00:24:06,882 --> 00:24:07,752
Like it doesn't sell.

306
00:24:07,752 --> 00:24:08,293
doesn't make sense.

307
00:24:08,293 --> 00:24:09,051
Stop it.

308
00:24:09,051 --> 00:24:18,234
is if someone is staring at a gigantic piece of metal with four doors and four wheels and
a steering wheel, and you say, this runs on one fuel that is liquid, that one runs on two

309
00:24:18,234 --> 00:24:23,956
fuels, this is a liquid and this is electricity, and that one runs on one fuel, which is
electricity, that's where you start.

310
00:24:23,956 --> 00:24:26,236
Cause that's the user experience change.

311
00:24:26,457 --> 00:24:30,668
And I'm going to say that I think until I'm dead and I don't like that.

312
00:24:30,668 --> 00:24:33,705
But I think that this selection cycle just proved

313
00:24:33,705 --> 00:24:37,717
We have to understand and appreciate how the vast majority of people are thinking.

314
00:24:37,717 --> 00:24:43,640
And that's not just to say that like 80 million people voted for Trump and 70 plus million
people voted for Harris.

315
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:48,552
Even within that swath of people that voted for Harris, that wasn't that they were
thinking about that they understood certain things.

316
00:24:48,552 --> 00:24:52,644
That was more of an ideological position saying I didn't really want to vote for Trump for
whatever reason.

317
00:24:52,644 --> 00:24:59,229
And we still have to understand that most people are not, to your point, Loren, it's like
people are in the weeds of this like we are every day.

318
00:24:59,229 --> 00:25:06,986
And we just have this sometimes as an industry, we just kind of keep bouncing around
inside of our bubble rehashing the problem and we have to get outside of that bubble.

319
00:25:06,986 --> 00:25:08,507
And if we don't, we're in trouble.

320
00:25:08,567 --> 00:25:14,672
Matt, I've got some interesting data on that that gets to Chase's question earlier on.

321
00:25:14,672 --> 00:25:18,014
I live in Michigan, very much a swing state.

322
00:25:18,095 --> 00:25:21,128
EVs played a massive part of this election.

323
00:25:21,128 --> 00:25:23,961
So get some of these stats here.

324
00:25:23,961 --> 00:25:31,587
Nationwide, $36 million was spent on political advertising that mentioned EVs.

325
00:25:31,587 --> 00:25:32,947
$36 million nationwide.

326
00:25:32,947 --> 00:25:36,273
$30 million of that was spent in Michigan.

327
00:25:36,273 --> 00:25:37,264
Wow.

328
00:25:38,830 --> 00:25:39,890
Yeah, I know.

329
00:25:41,073 --> 00:25:44,815
89 % of that advertising was anti-EV.

330
00:25:44,815 --> 00:25:55,364
50 % of Michigan voters said the candidate's position on EVs absolutely influenced who
they voted for.

331
00:25:55,504 --> 00:25:59,346
And 60 % of them said that EVs would be bad for Michigan.

332
00:25:59,346 --> 00:26:01,697
But here's where it gets really interesting.

333
00:26:02,139 --> 00:26:07,242
Kamala Harris never fought back against any of the anti-EV stuff.

334
00:26:07,242 --> 00:26:10,323
In she barely even mentioned EVs in her campaign.

335
00:26:10,323 --> 00:26:14,340
Here in Michigan, we had an extremely tight race for Senate.

336
00:26:14,340 --> 00:26:26,769
There was a guy named Mike Rogers, very anti-EV, running against a woman called Alyssa
Slotkin, who's been very nuanced, pro-EV, but for the message in Michigan was, look.

337
00:26:26,945 --> 00:26:29,327
We need to do these and I want these jobs in Michigan.

338
00:26:29,327 --> 00:26:32,890
So that was her position, but she fought back against it.

339
00:26:32,890 --> 00:26:34,791
Harris got clobbered in Michigan.

340
00:26:34,791 --> 00:26:38,203
Alyssa Slotkin eeked out a very narrow win.

341
00:26:38,203 --> 00:26:45,018
And I'm not saying it's all because of that, but she fought back against the anti-EV
stuff.

342
00:26:45,018 --> 00:26:49,034
it absolutely had an influence in the outcome.

343
00:26:49,034 --> 00:26:50,554
Yeah.

344
00:26:50,715 --> 00:26:51,075
Yeah.

345
00:26:51,075 --> 00:27:01,099
Well, and it's interesting about how all of the irony of Musk being just effectively
co-president now, whatever they're calling him, because he's now living in Mar-a-Lago for

346
00:27:01,099 --> 00:27:01,720
crying out loud.

347
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:10,134
you know, it's it's such an interesting again, if again, people's brains that are breaking
inside of the industry, that if you rewind five years or especially 10 years and if you

348
00:27:10,134 --> 00:27:16,007
said, yeah, yeah, the twenty twenty four election like Elon is going to be all in for
Trump, you'd be like, what?

349
00:27:16,007 --> 00:27:16,639
Like how?

350
00:27:16,639 --> 00:27:19,486
think 10 years ago, would be like, wait, Trump's running.

351
00:27:19,748 --> 00:27:20,851
Wait, he's running again?

352
00:27:20,851 --> 00:27:21,949
He was president?

353
00:27:21,949 --> 00:27:22,380
Right.

354
00:27:22,380 --> 00:27:22,850
Yeah.

355
00:27:22,850 --> 00:27:28,495
Well, it's just, it's so striking around again, the politicization, you know,
politicization around EVs in general.

356
00:27:28,495 --> 00:27:36,733
John, to everything you just described, the lack of understanding of how to reframe some
of that messaging from the democratic side of like, yeah, in this state, this is so

357
00:27:36,733 --> 00:27:37,404
fundamental.

358
00:27:37,404 --> 00:27:40,627
And we just didn't didn't even address it, didn't even approach it.

359
00:27:40,627 --> 00:27:45,474
And I think that that battle that's happening inside of our own internal politics here
domestically.

360
00:27:45,474 --> 00:27:51,186
Then you look outside of the United States and who's just rubbing their hands together
watching the chaos.

361
00:27:51,246 --> 00:27:56,891
China and others are like, you guys keep having this problem internally, but we're going
to keep moving ahead.

362
00:27:56,891 --> 00:28:01,242
that's just the pity of it is we're so good at fighting with each other.

363
00:28:01,242 --> 00:28:07,476
We're not recognizing what's happening outside of that that's going to directly impact
industry and our lives for decades to come.

364
00:28:07,476 --> 00:28:09,067
It's very short-sighted in that respect.

365
00:28:09,067 --> 00:28:11,058
But again, the simple messaging wins.

366
00:28:11,058 --> 00:28:12,266
Don't make them think.

367
00:28:12,266 --> 00:28:19,110
Make them, you know, get them wrapped up in something that makes them feel like, you heard
me and I will respond positively to that.

368
00:28:19,110 --> 00:28:26,643
And it's a pity that the Harris campaign didn't see what was happening on a congressional
level for the messaging to then address that in any of the campaigning that they were

369
00:28:26,643 --> 00:28:28,314
doing in Michigan.

370
00:28:28,361 --> 00:28:28,631
Yeah.

371
00:28:28,631 --> 00:28:36,686
I think to kind of, mean, I think she had that issue with a lot of things like what she
was experiencing with like fracking and Pennsylvania, just like not really giving people a

372
00:28:36,686 --> 00:28:40,128
clear answer one way or the other, which I don't think helped her in EVs.

373
00:28:40,128 --> 00:28:45,791
And that, that number is wild 30 million of 36 million in one state.

374
00:28:46,071 --> 00:28:55,157
So I, curious then like, what are your, I mean, what, what are kind of the vibes, the,
feelings in Michigan right now that

375
00:28:55,157 --> 00:29:01,809
That is kind of where the dice have landed and like people, the UAW kind of thoughts on
this.

376
00:29:01,809 --> 00:29:09,121
Cause it seemed like the leadership was kind of trying to kind of push, but didn't want to
go too hard behind Kamala Harris.

377
00:29:09,121 --> 00:29:18,683
And then it just seemed like there was also a lot of mixed messaging or just kind of
players in the UAW and also kind of the big three, almost just kind of staying on the

378
00:29:18,683 --> 00:29:21,574
side, sidelines and just kind of seeing where things were.

379
00:29:21,574 --> 00:29:23,885
least that was kind of, think the perception to me.

380
00:29:23,885 --> 00:29:25,065
And I'm curious if.

381
00:29:25,238 --> 00:29:26,889
You think that's accurate, John?

382
00:29:26,889 --> 00:29:31,293
Yeah, well, look, you know, the UAW has not been very keen on EVs.

383
00:29:31,293 --> 00:29:41,203
They put out a white paper in 2019 saying that just in Michigan and Ohio alone, 20,000
jobs were at risk, union jobs.

384
00:29:41,203 --> 00:29:46,808
So, you know, if EVs slow down or go away, I don't think the union cares one way or the
other.

385
00:29:47,609 --> 00:29:49,905
For the automakers, this is...

386
00:29:49,905 --> 00:29:54,147
Taking, you know, so, you know, of course we got GM and Ford and Stellantis here.

387
00:29:54,147 --> 00:29:56,908
Toyota's got a huge engineering campus here.

388
00:29:56,908 --> 00:30:02,210
Nissan's got a pretty good size, one so does Hyundai and Kia.

389
00:30:02,911 --> 00:30:10,234
Definitely not counting Toyota because it's been preaching its hybrid message forever,
right?

390
00:30:10,234 --> 00:30:16,433
But the others have got their hair on fire because they've all invested heavily, heavily,
heavily into making EVs.

391
00:30:16,433 --> 00:30:18,073
and there wasn't billions on it.

392
00:30:18,073 --> 00:30:21,634
Now they just think, my God, it's going to be even worse.

393
00:30:21,634 --> 00:30:25,824
So, and then politically, just depends, are you a Republican or a Democrat?

394
00:30:25,824 --> 00:30:35,754
And if you're a Republican, you're glad that this thing's going down in flames, even
though they're turning down billions of investment from Goshen, you know, to build a

395
00:30:35,754 --> 00:30:44,957
battery plant here, billions for Ford to work with CATL to build a battery plant here,
half a billion for GM to convert one of its assembly plants to make EVs.

396
00:30:44,957 --> 00:30:49,471
You you would think with the right messaging, was be like, hey, free money.

397
00:30:49,471 --> 00:30:50,702
This is going to create jobs.

398
00:30:50,702 --> 00:30:52,093
This is going to be wonderful.

399
00:30:52,093 --> 00:30:56,097
But instead, with the battery plants, it all became this thing about national security.

400
00:30:56,097 --> 00:30:57,548
Those are Chinese companies.

401
00:30:57,548 --> 00:30:59,580
They're going to be spying on us.

402
00:30:59,580 --> 00:31:00,401
It's terrible.

403
00:31:00,401 --> 00:31:04,907
And then with the GM plant, was, the government shouldn't be giving out subsidies.

404
00:31:04,907 --> 00:31:11,104
And if you're on the Democrat side, you know, you're looking at your wounds, knowing that
this is going to hurt the EV effort.

405
00:31:12,859 --> 00:31:15,582
Which is so shocking because GM led on EVs.

406
00:31:15,582 --> 00:31:26,985
I mean, I heard President Biden say that, you know, I, and to that, to that point, I mean,
I mean, I'm joking, but also that was one of the worst political self owns in recent

407
00:31:26,985 --> 00:31:27,456
memory.

408
00:31:27,456 --> 00:31:30,259
Anybody that has eyes and ears watched that happen.

409
00:31:30,259 --> 00:31:34,003
And it was like, okay, you're playing politics, you know, and

410
00:31:34,003 --> 00:31:37,239
Matt, this is why Elon's living in Mar-a-Lago.

411
00:31:37,239 --> 00:31:37,700
yes.

412
00:31:37,700 --> 00:31:41,791
And that's what I think that they miscalculated in a big way.

413
00:31:41,791 --> 00:31:43,992
They were like, okay, this guy's done all he's done.

414
00:31:43,992 --> 00:31:44,591
He's rich.

415
00:31:44,591 --> 00:31:45,703
He's, okay.

416
00:31:45,703 --> 00:31:47,613
We've patted him on the back for 10 years.

417
00:31:47,613 --> 00:31:52,284
mean, but we gotta get like our domestic industry to light up and be excited about this.

418
00:31:52,284 --> 00:31:56,946
So let's start patting them on the back and make it look good for jobs for the UAW.

419
00:31:56,946 --> 00:32:00,687
We'll show that we're supporting domestic manufacturing and domestic brands too.

420
00:32:00,687 --> 00:32:05,328
But the tone deafness of just the, and the lack of authenticity around.

421
00:32:05,384 --> 00:32:07,185
What are you talking about?

422
00:32:07,185 --> 00:32:09,196
Like this was not GM.

423
00:32:09,196 --> 00:32:11,007
This was not anybody else.

424
00:32:11,007 --> 00:32:13,148
Tesla spearheaded this.

425
00:32:13,148 --> 00:32:17,170
And to just be like, well, we'll just not say that.

426
00:32:17,391 --> 00:32:18,051
Ignore him.

427
00:32:18,051 --> 00:32:25,336
It's like, I don't think the Democrats and frankly expected that Musk would respond in
such a vengeful way, but here we are.

428
00:32:25,336 --> 00:32:28,157
And I think that is something that you can't deny now.

429
00:32:28,157 --> 00:32:30,799
And the interesting aspect of that is then it's okay.

430
00:32:30,799 --> 00:32:33,720
Well, if that's true for what Musk has did to the Democrats,

431
00:32:33,890 --> 00:32:42,623
well, boy howdy, is it gonna be fun to watch two megalomaniac narcissists try to have a
marriage together around decision making?

432
00:32:42,623 --> 00:32:45,674
it's, yeah, that's gonna just get ugly in and of itself.

433
00:32:45,674 --> 00:32:48,785
But that's the Democrats created the Musk response.

434
00:32:48,785 --> 00:32:50,285
And I know people don't like hearing that.

435
00:32:50,285 --> 00:32:52,026
They're like, Musk should have been an adult about it.

436
00:32:52,026 --> 00:32:55,467
Well, clearly he's got human flaws and he's putting a spotlight on them.

437
00:32:55,467 --> 00:32:59,856
But it's like, yeah, they in California when they said COVID were shutting down.

438
00:32:59,856 --> 00:33:05,896
One of the state representatives told Musk, like, Elon Musk, and his response on Twitter
at the time was, message received.

439
00:33:05,896 --> 00:33:08,676
And they just kept beating the hell out of him from a political perspective.

440
00:33:08,676 --> 00:33:10,456
And he finally went, fine, screw you.

441
00:33:10,456 --> 00:33:11,937
I'm done listening to you.

442
00:33:11,937 --> 00:33:13,577
that's also, there's no check there.

443
00:33:13,577 --> 00:33:17,017
He's the most powerful, influential, and wealthy person on the planet right now.

444
00:33:17,017 --> 00:33:21,207
And he decided to go all in on identity politics because why?

445
00:33:21,207 --> 00:33:23,997
It benefits him financially and from a power perspective.

446
00:33:23,997 --> 00:33:27,307
And the Democrats were just kind of like, who cares?

447
00:33:27,307 --> 00:33:28,937
It's like, well, here we are.

448
00:33:29,074 --> 00:33:39,923
And by the way, the richest man in the world who has a 14 year old, you know, basically
mentality and personality moved his company outside of California to Texas.

449
00:33:39,923 --> 00:33:40,623
Right.

450
00:33:40,623 --> 00:33:51,561
So yeah, I mean, the idea that when Biden didn't give him any credit and Tesla and didn't
invite him to the meetings and said GM was the leader, like if the Democrats didn't

451
00:33:51,561 --> 00:33:53,392
understand how this

452
00:33:53,508 --> 00:33:58,093
14 year old brain, you know, teenage mentality works.

453
00:33:58,093 --> 00:34:00,573
mean, this is a guy that makes your car fart, right?

454
00:34:00,573 --> 00:34:03,368
Like, like what did people expect?

455
00:34:03,631 --> 00:34:04,128
You know,

456
00:34:04,128 --> 00:34:09,773
again, I just, is evidence of just not reading the damn room and also lacking
authenticity.

457
00:34:09,874 --> 00:34:14,199
Like, I mean, again, and I think anybody in our industry saw that and went, give me a
break.

458
00:34:14,199 --> 00:34:18,283
But we all kind of like probably, again, I think a lot of people said, no, that's
politics.

459
00:34:18,283 --> 00:34:19,344
Biden wants those votes.

460
00:34:19,344 --> 00:34:20,535
He's got to prop them up.

461
00:34:20,535 --> 00:34:25,480
He's got to make them look good and make them feel like he's coddling them and be like,
look, see, I like you, we're helping out your industry.

462
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:26,831
You're not going to get left behind.

463
00:34:26,831 --> 00:34:29,613
I get the political game, but it fucking failed.

464
00:34:29,646 --> 00:34:30,415
Yeah.

465
00:34:30,415 --> 00:34:35,528
It blew up in his face and anybody paying attention was like, yeah, that's a bad move.

466
00:34:35,528 --> 00:34:38,551
And then they just sorta kept going down that line.

467
00:34:38,551 --> 00:34:47,917
again, Musk, just to your point, he just kept revealing things from his perspective, woke
mind virus narrative and how he's treating his child who transitioned.

468
00:34:47,917 --> 00:34:55,131
Clearly he's got an angle on what he feels is, again, in his view, almost evil from this
side of the conversation.

469
00:34:55,131 --> 00:34:56,176
And he's willing to...

470
00:34:56,176 --> 00:34:59,569
invest as much time, energy, money and his world into fighting it.

471
00:34:59,569 --> 00:35:01,610
And clearly it's more powerful.

472
00:35:01,610 --> 00:35:09,356
The most striking thing I saw from an exit, you know, a voter coming to an exit poll and a
voter coming out in Arizona was they were asking, who'd you vote for?

473
00:35:09,356 --> 00:35:10,116
Some young guy.

474
00:35:10,116 --> 00:35:11,247
And he said, I voted for Trump.

475
00:35:11,247 --> 00:35:12,458
And they went, really?

476
00:35:12,458 --> 00:35:13,128
What was why?

477
00:35:13,128 --> 00:35:14,849
He goes, well, I was kind of up in the air.

478
00:35:14,849 --> 00:35:16,460
I was waffling between Harris for Trump.

479
00:35:16,460 --> 00:35:18,542
And frankly, Trump went on Rogan.

480
00:35:19,122 --> 00:35:22,424
And I thought if Harris didn't go on Rogan, she's got something to hide.

481
00:35:22,865 --> 00:35:24,726
You know, and you just kind of go.

482
00:35:25,296 --> 00:35:27,988
crap, like you're not thinking about it any further than that.

483
00:35:27,988 --> 00:35:37,543
But frankly, that's, mean, how, how many times do we talk about the narrative that comes
out of certain places and angles where you can tell they're just kind of blowing smoke.

484
00:35:37,543 --> 00:35:39,554
And that happens on both the left and the right.

485
00:35:39,554 --> 00:35:47,749
But if that's the depth of which someone understands what's going on and that's what
they're willing to think of, Harris was invited to go on Rogan and they said, that's a

486
00:35:47,749 --> 00:35:48,349
three hour flight.

487
00:35:48,349 --> 00:35:50,700
He wants her to come to Austin.

488
00:35:50,700 --> 00:35:52,141
No, that's not worth our time.

489
00:35:52,141 --> 00:35:54,272
And then you hear something like that and you go.

490
00:35:54,698 --> 00:35:59,407
Again, you're not paying attention to how the narrative is being created and it's a pity.

491
00:35:59,407 --> 00:36:01,134
So here we are.

492
00:36:01,134 --> 00:36:11,161
yeah, I think, I, I, this will be the kind of last thing I say about the election side of
stuff, but I, I honestly thought like this whole election cycle, he had it.

493
00:36:11,161 --> 00:36:15,123
I think that's what was so interesting to me was there were so many places.

494
00:36:15,143 --> 00:36:19,295
And I mean, I live in a pretty liberal area and I've never seen Trump signs up.

495
00:36:19,295 --> 00:36:20,366
I'd be walking around.

496
00:36:20,366 --> 00:36:21,426
I'd see Trump signs.

497
00:36:21,426 --> 00:36:24,118
There was just a whole, and I think it totally goes to what you're saying.

498
00:36:24,118 --> 00:36:28,510
Well, like I just, one, I think she was dealt the worst hand in political history.

499
00:36:28,510 --> 00:36:30,071
of trying within a hundred days.

500
00:36:30,071 --> 00:36:30,872
doesn't matter who you are.

501
00:36:30,872 --> 00:36:34,614
You have to a hundred days for the American people to find out who are you.

502
00:36:34,894 --> 00:36:43,160
And she has the unfortunate, like all the negatives of being the incumbent when you're a
vice president who also just doesn't really have power in general.

503
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:50,425
So it's like, I, I, I was, I really had, did not think she had a chance to do it even with
all of that.

504
00:36:50,425 --> 00:36:53,994
And I think once again, like with this, it is just messaging.

505
00:36:53,994 --> 00:36:57,671
I think, they just could not get

506
00:36:57,747 --> 00:37:00,151
the right message to the right people.

507
00:37:00,151 --> 00:37:05,910
And even then, I just think the message they were putting out there was really, it would
change with the week.

508
00:37:05,910 --> 00:37:07,621
wasn't a strong message.

509
00:37:07,771 --> 00:37:14,431
look, if you look at the vote turnout, nine million Democrats sought out this election.

510
00:37:14,431 --> 00:37:15,751
Nine million.

511
00:37:15,751 --> 00:37:18,863
And that's it in a nutshell.

512
00:37:19,007 --> 00:37:28,967
You know, one thing I'll say about that, that I think is really interesting is so many
people voted in 2020 because there were mail-in ballots and people were still locked in in

513
00:37:28,967 --> 00:37:29,947
COVID.

514
00:37:30,067 --> 00:37:38,369
And I do think that part of it, cause if you actually look at like the last, I think it
goes like back 20 years, every, presidential election, goes up by like a few million

515
00:37:38,369 --> 00:37:43,599
people are voting and it went up by 15 million for 2020.

516
00:37:43,599 --> 00:37:47,233
Now, of course that's where all the conspiracy theories say those are fake votes and
stuff.

517
00:37:47,233 --> 00:37:51,553
But I just remember people talking to people in 2020 like, yeah, I vote for the first
time.

518
00:37:51,553 --> 00:37:52,693
I've never voted.

519
00:37:52,693 --> 00:37:55,153
I was just bored and it was right there.

520
00:37:55,153 --> 00:37:57,573
And I'd been doing a crossword puzzle all day.

521
00:37:57,573 --> 00:38:02,693
So I just started filling in these bubbles too, which I, my family is always big about
voting.

522
00:38:02,693 --> 00:38:03,943
Whoever you vote for, you should go and vote.

523
00:38:03,943 --> 00:38:09,213
But I just, I think that was, that is something I keep hearing is like, these people
didn't show up.

524
00:38:09,213 --> 00:38:12,913
And I was like, I think that was just a weird election cycle for a lot of reasons.

525
00:38:12,913 --> 00:38:17,139
And I don't think that there was like 15 million people.

526
00:38:17,685 --> 00:38:18,685
got out of their seats.

527
00:38:18,685 --> 00:38:25,728
mean, it was, it had never been easier to vote just because so many people are dealing
with mail-in ballots and stuff in a lot of other states that normally hadn't that I think

528
00:38:25,728 --> 00:38:26,768
it was.

529
00:38:26,988 --> 00:38:32,250
That's part of that trend that people are talking about post-election that there was this
big plunge.

530
00:38:32,250 --> 00:38:34,911
I just think it was more people had access.

531
00:38:34,911 --> 00:38:39,512
It was never easier for more people to vote in that election cycle to vote.

532
00:38:39,792 --> 00:38:43,253
And maybe that says something on a whole different topic.

533
00:38:43,445 --> 00:38:45,097
But to me, I don't know.

534
00:38:45,097 --> 00:38:48,872
I'm not sure that that is necessarily the right thing the Democrats need to look at.

535
00:38:48,872 --> 00:38:53,376
I think it truly is just really bad messaging.

536
00:38:53,376 --> 00:38:58,429
Well, a hundred million people that could have voted this election cycle didn't.

537
00:38:59,170 --> 00:39:01,031
That's a big number.

538
00:39:01,112 --> 00:39:01,632
All right.

539
00:39:01,632 --> 00:39:05,465
So this, this is not a political talk show, but now we've become one,

540
00:39:05,364 --> 00:39:11,396
I'm just kind of curious on the panel's thoughts around what this will mean for, Mexico
and Canada

541
00:39:11,396 --> 00:39:19,595
we're going to see even more companies building here in the US or it's just we're going to
have to deal with more expensive cars in general and tariffs be damned?

542
00:39:19,595 --> 00:39:23,057
Yeah, it remains to be seen, but Trump actually does, right?

543
00:39:23,057 --> 00:39:28,780
You know, he's threatening all this tariff stuff, but let's see what he actually does and
how.

544
00:39:28,780 --> 00:39:37,425
But vis-a-vis Canada and Mexico, the USMCA is up for revisiting in 2026.

545
00:39:37,425 --> 00:39:38,215
Nobody's waiting.

546
00:39:38,215 --> 00:39:41,048
I mean, they're already negotiating right now as we speak.

547
00:39:41,048 --> 00:39:45,412
And both the US and Canada are zeroing in on Mexico.

548
00:39:45,412 --> 00:39:48,357
They don't like this idea that China is going to

549
00:39:48,357 --> 00:39:51,448
put all these plants up in Mexico and start shipping all kinds of things.

550
00:39:51,448 --> 00:39:53,699
I'm not even talking cars beyond that.

551
00:39:53,699 --> 00:39:54,959
And they don't like that idea.

552
00:39:54,959 --> 00:40:04,782
In fact, this is why, you know, Gina Raimondo, who runs the commerce department in the
Biden administration, came up with this idea of somebody on her staff, why don't we ban

553
00:40:04,782 --> 00:40:09,963
all Chinese cars, connected cars, that have Chinese hardware and software?

554
00:40:10,003 --> 00:40:16,485
And that's going to be a far more effective way of keeping the Chinese out of the American
market than tariffs are.

555
00:40:16,825 --> 00:40:17,586
But

556
00:40:17,586 --> 00:40:28,382
That's where the focus is on right now amongst the automakers and the new Trump
administration is putting the heat on Mexico to slow the Chinese down, not let so much

557
00:40:28,382 --> 00:40:29,394
into their country.

558
00:40:29,394 --> 00:40:34,326
And especially when it comes to cars, batteries, electric or not.

559
00:40:35,911 --> 00:40:36,492
Yeah.

560
00:40:36,492 --> 00:40:40,567
And to follow up on that, John, I've been seeing some articles about that.

561
00:40:40,567 --> 00:40:52,993
Mexico is saying, all right, if you're going to make it difficult for companies that are
setting up shop in Mexico to export to the US, then we're going to retaliate with tariffs

562
00:40:52,993 --> 00:40:54,594
and trade wars and stuff like that.

563
00:40:54,594 --> 00:40:57,348
somebody told me yesterday, you don't do that with Trump.

564
00:40:57,348 --> 00:41:00,169
If he threatens you, you don't threaten him back.

565
00:41:00,169 --> 00:41:06,271
And look, the US is in a far, we have far more leverage over Mexico than they do of us.

566
00:41:06,371 --> 00:41:15,604
And so I think this was bravado on the part of the Mexicans, but yeah.

567
00:41:16,461 --> 00:41:19,012
We'll get them to pay for that wall in a minute.

568
00:41:19,612 --> 00:41:21,962
So I don't know.

569
00:41:21,962 --> 00:41:30,635
mean, honestly, like this is as an American citizen, I, you know, hearing us talk about
all this and most people, again, they're not actively thinking of it.

570
00:41:30,635 --> 00:41:34,996
But the impact of how all this will start just trickling down.

571
00:41:34,996 --> 00:41:42,118
If there's one trickle down thing that's going to happen in the United States of America
that isn't money, it's going to be the impact of all these decisions.

572
00:41:42,118 --> 00:41:46,191
And then how does that impact everyday people's ability to just, again, have access to

573
00:41:46,191 --> 00:41:49,183
product, what the cost of those products are going to be, et cetera.

574
00:41:49,183 --> 00:41:54,657
And I think that that, you know, to your point, John, like the bravado of Trump, like,
I'll threaten you, you threaten me back.

575
00:41:54,657 --> 00:41:59,691
I will, I will up the ante on the threat, you know, and that's part of what some citizens
said.

576
00:41:59,691 --> 00:42:00,421
I like that.

577
00:42:00,421 --> 00:42:09,968
I like the fact where you put somebody in charge who backs down from no one, but at some
point you have to have a nuanced understanding of what the ramifications are of that

578
00:42:09,968 --> 00:42:11,629
continued escalation.

579
00:42:11,629 --> 00:42:12,031
Right.

580
00:42:12,031 --> 00:42:13,848
And he doesn't, he doesn't even care.

581
00:42:13,848 --> 00:42:17,121
Because he's not looking at this from a public service perspective.

582
00:42:17,121 --> 00:42:21,774
He's looking at it from a how are you making me feel perspective about my image of myself.

583
00:42:21,774 --> 00:42:25,337
And he doesn't care how that impacts people and whether it's industry or individuals.

584
00:42:25,337 --> 00:42:31,763
And that's what's most concerning from my perspective is that we can talk about all that
all day, but then what is the end result?

585
00:42:31,763 --> 00:42:40,690
And that's where we have an uninformed and an electorate that, again, they just didn't see
that that's what was going to happen if they put someone like Kim into power.

586
00:42:40,772 --> 00:42:52,471
No, I honestly think that, yeah, the decision to say if it's anything Chinese part
related, then as the current administration is focusing on, as you described, that's much

587
00:42:52,471 --> 00:42:57,646
more, that's cutting with a scalpel, not with a butcher knife of understanding how to
approach these issues.

588
00:42:57,646 --> 00:43:02,690
But we're not, again, if that gets thrown out the window moving forward, yeah, it'll be
very, very interesting to see what happens.

589
00:43:02,690 --> 00:43:05,952
And then again, how that impacts citizens as a whole.

590
00:43:07,104 --> 00:43:12,539
Yeah, Chase, think the, it's, it's, as John said, you know, we don't know, right?

591
00:43:12,539 --> 00:43:15,181
It's, we'll, we'll, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

592
00:43:15,181 --> 00:43:24,647
But I think that, I think that the, yeah, I think the China, Mexico, U S triangle is going
to really be sort of fascinating to watch.

593
00:43:24,647 --> 00:43:25,048
Right.

594
00:43:25,048 --> 00:43:35,276
And it's all speculation at this point, but I mean, one angle that, you know, people like
Michael Dunn who've chatted with before and stuff think that that could happen is it's

595
00:43:35,276 --> 00:43:35,606
like.

596
00:43:35,606 --> 00:43:51,030
Trump says, okay, we want your low priced, fast, cool, know, really good software,
software, you know, Chinese EVs here in the US, but we're going to play the game that you

597
00:43:51,030 --> 00:43:52,191
played with us, right?

598
00:43:52,191 --> 00:43:55,474
So you've got to have 50, 50 joint ventures, right?

599
00:43:55,474 --> 00:44:01,043
So if you want to, if you want to sell cars here, then we're going to half own your
company, right?

600
00:44:01,043 --> 00:44:03,884
And we're going to control the technology and

601
00:44:04,108 --> 00:44:08,510
And then at some point we'll say, goodbye, we don't need you anymore.

602
00:44:08,510 --> 00:44:09,230
Right.

603
00:44:09,230 --> 00:44:13,210
Thanks for, thanks for setting up the factory and spending all that money.

604
00:44:13,210 --> 00:44:16,160
And we're now going to take those, those brands back.

605
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:16,540
Right.

606
00:44:16,540 --> 00:44:17,890
But I mean, but, but who knows?

607
00:44:17,890 --> 00:44:22,690
So that's, you know, I don't know if Trump will do that or not, but that's, that's one
potential avenue.

608
00:44:22,690 --> 00:44:26,016
It's like, yeah, bring, bring your money to us.

609
00:44:26,016 --> 00:44:29,841
look, Trump has already said, if you want to build cars in America, no problem.

610
00:44:29,841 --> 00:44:31,724
So, or batteries or whatever.

611
00:44:31,724 --> 00:44:36,309
But it's like I said, right now it's a lot of posturing.

612
00:44:36,309 --> 00:44:40,023
And you know, I'm dying to see what he actually pulls the trigger on.

613
00:44:41,225 --> 00:44:51,685
So one thing I kind wanted to ask the panel about, guess John, you've been covering this a
lot too, is like looking in Europe right now from their automotive scene.

614
00:44:51,965 --> 00:44:56,695
There's, I believe it's Audi or I'm trying to remember if it's Audi or VW.

615
00:44:56,695 --> 00:45:01,441
They're looking at closing quite a few EV focus.

616
00:45:01,441 --> 00:45:03,744
Audi's closing the plant in Belgium.

617
00:45:04,105 --> 00:45:09,800
look, Europe is a deep trouble, the European auto industry, man, I'm worried about it.

618
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:11,111
You I love this industry.

619
00:45:11,111 --> 00:45:12,964
So I don't like seeing parts get...

620
00:45:12,964 --> 00:45:14,757
you think who's in a worse position right now?

621
00:45:14,757 --> 00:45:16,770
Us or the European auto?

622
00:45:16,770 --> 00:45:17,211
Yeah.

623
00:45:17,211 --> 00:45:18,171
Yeah.

624
00:45:18,333 --> 00:45:19,013
Yeah.

625
00:45:19,013 --> 00:45:20,203
worse.

626
00:45:20,203 --> 00:45:24,346
know, Volkswagen, you know, it's a disaster there.

627
00:45:24,346 --> 00:45:32,069
And you know, I looked at their latest financials, Porsche's profits way down, Audi's
profits way down.

628
00:45:32,069 --> 00:45:40,094
In fact, the heavy truck group Trayton and Volkswagen now makes more profit than Audi,
Bentley and Lamborghini and Ducati put together.

629
00:45:40,094 --> 00:45:43,105
So that shows you how far they've sunk.

630
00:45:43,295 --> 00:45:45,206
And it doesn't look good.

631
00:45:45,206 --> 00:45:47,058
They're talking about closing three plants.

632
00:45:47,058 --> 00:45:49,349
The German unions don't like this one little bit.

633
00:45:49,349 --> 00:45:51,940
We haven't even started to see the pushback yet.

634
00:45:51,940 --> 00:45:58,143
And remember, half the board of supervisors, which is like a special board of directors
for German companies, half of it is labor.

635
00:45:58,143 --> 00:46:00,504
They don't want to see these jobs go away at all.

636
00:46:00,504 --> 00:46:08,805
And then you've got Stellantis that's done a full face plant in front of us that, you
know, a year ago, I was like, wow, are these guys good?

637
00:46:08,805 --> 00:46:17,767
Highest profit per unit for any luxury brand, highest operating profits for any full line
manufacturer and blammo today.

638
00:46:17,767 --> 00:46:19,645
What a mess over there.

639
00:46:19,645 --> 00:46:26,292
And plus the European market, the US market is 2 million units below pre-COVID levels.

640
00:46:26,292 --> 00:46:31,293
The European market is 4 million units below pre-COVID.

641
00:46:31,414 --> 00:46:37,131
And now you've got all these Chinese racing in because remember the tariffs don't apply to
PFs or gas, you know.

642
00:46:37,131 --> 00:46:38,192
It's electric.

643
00:46:38,192 --> 00:46:41,035
And so they're racing in to see what they can grab on it.

644
00:46:41,035 --> 00:46:50,842
you know, countries like Germany that has a lot of trade with China, they don't want to
pick a fight with China and neither does Spain.

645
00:46:50,842 --> 00:46:56,736
But the French and the Italians are like, no, we got to keep these guys out.

646
00:46:56,736 --> 00:46:59,548
And it's going to be a, I mean,

647
00:46:59,645 --> 00:47:09,264
I would not be surprised to see Volkswagen or, I don't think Volkswagen and Stellantis
will go out of business, but they're going to come out of this severely crippled.

648
00:47:10,546 --> 00:47:13,051
So I mean, go for it Matt.

649
00:47:13,051 --> 00:47:19,817
Well, just the I mean, the discussion of the relationship between Volkswagen and Rivian as
an example about where that was.

650
00:47:19,817 --> 00:47:27,183
What I read this morning is they have like a 20 percent like a 20 percent stake or
something into that ballpark of what the Volkswagen relationship is now with Rivian.

651
00:47:27,183 --> 00:47:32,787
And the the the final conclusion was this is a marriage that's just going to happen.

652
00:47:32,788 --> 00:47:35,611
Like it's it's it's just it's on it's on the pathway there.

653
00:47:35,611 --> 00:47:38,505
And that I mean, again, it bodes well for Rivian.

654
00:47:38,505 --> 00:47:44,785
Maybe that's the lifeline that Volkswagen needs to pivot that, you know, what the, you
know, as an organization, how they can be thinking about what their connected car looks

655
00:47:44,785 --> 00:47:46,454
like, what a software based car looks like.

656
00:47:46,454 --> 00:47:50,745
Cariad was a, was, it just kind of never got anything going.

657
00:47:50,745 --> 00:47:54,386
So if they can actually make some of those strategic pivots, maybe that's the lifeline.

658
00:47:54,386 --> 00:48:00,306
and some of these, you know, collaborations that turn into, you know, something bigger is
what we could see come out of that for some of European brands.

659
00:48:00,306 --> 00:48:03,707
But yeah, I, I, again, no crystal ball.

660
00:48:03,707 --> 00:48:06,027
we're have to see how this all starts to play out, but.

661
00:48:06,027 --> 00:48:16,032
to the point about the Chinese and how they can come into market on P-Hevs and just even
other vehicles that don't have those restrictions, yeah, it's gonna start eating the lunch

662
00:48:16,032 --> 00:48:20,078
of some of these companies that just weren't prepared for how fast the Chinese were ready
to do it.

663
00:48:20,078 --> 00:48:22,142
And that's, think, what's been most interesting.

664
00:48:22,142 --> 00:48:22,993
Right.

665
00:48:24,021 --> 00:48:30,207
I'm kind of curious, are there lessons that can be learned from the European situation?

666
00:48:30,207 --> 00:48:39,847
Is it that more of these need to be built in the US or is that kind of the room for
tariffs to prevent this kind of issues?

667
00:48:39,847 --> 00:48:41,630
Or what do you guys think?

668
00:48:43,998 --> 00:48:49,531
Well, look, you know, the Europeans have been too accommodating for the Chinese.

669
00:48:49,531 --> 00:48:54,073
They have, before the Chinese even got in, they had massive overcapacity in Europe.

670
00:48:54,073 --> 00:48:57,395
mean, millions and millions of units of overcapacity.

671
00:48:57,395 --> 00:49:00,757
You've got FIAT that doesn't make any money at all.

672
00:49:00,757 --> 00:49:04,159
You've got JOR, well, the J, Jaguar.

673
00:49:04,159 --> 00:49:09,081
mean, I don't think they're going to make it to the end of the decade, Jaguar.

674
00:49:09,266 --> 00:49:10,121
Yeah.

675
00:49:10,307 --> 00:49:19,343
You know, you've got just a lot of operations, say at SCOTA, know, the branches of the
Volkswagen Group that really don't make any money at all.

676
00:49:19,343 --> 00:49:24,111
And they've been too accommodating, in my opinion, to the Chinese.

677
00:49:24,111 --> 00:49:26,217
It should have been, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

678
00:49:26,217 --> 00:49:35,422
You know, we don't want to see, you know, these plants closing down that tear down these
communities as they lose their tax base and all the desolation and hopelessness that

679
00:49:35,422 --> 00:49:36,892
follows with that.

680
00:49:37,257 --> 00:49:43,822
And, but the big thing is, like I said before, the European market sales wise is so weak.

681
00:49:43,822 --> 00:49:51,044
You know, if they were at our level, if their sales were up a couple of million units,
that would solve a lot of problems.

682
00:49:51,044 --> 00:50:02,800
But I, you know, I believe we're at peak auto in the U S in Europe, in China, in South
Korea, sales are in my opinion, never going to go back to their prior levels, just not

683
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:04,120
going to happen.

684
00:50:04,297 --> 00:50:10,019
Yeah, John, I mean, if you think, if you think about it from a, you know, a pie chart
perspective, right?

685
00:50:10,019 --> 00:50:13,520
So you had all the European automaker brands, right?

686
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:16,080
And then what's happened in the last couple of years?

687
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:18,111
had Tesla come into the market.

688
00:50:18,111 --> 00:50:22,212
You had the Chinese come into the market and Kia and Hyundai.

689
00:50:22,212 --> 00:50:27,283
I mean, I was, I was in over in Europe for about three weeks in, in, August.

690
00:50:27,283 --> 00:50:33,921
And that was the one of the things that sort of blew my mind is how many Kia's and
Hyundai's I saw on the road there.

691
00:50:33,921 --> 00:50:34,541
Right?

692
00:50:34,541 --> 00:50:38,701
Like I didn't see very many Chinese EVs on the road.

693
00:50:38,701 --> 00:50:43,151
saw, I saw like Kia EV 9s all over the place.

694
00:50:43,151 --> 00:50:43,431
Right?

695
00:50:43,431 --> 00:50:44,821
I'm like, what?

696
00:50:44,821 --> 00:50:55,061
You know, it's like in Hyundai Alnick 5s, like, you know, so you literally have sort of
three groups of new entrants into what, you know, as you said, the pie chart actually got

697
00:50:55,061 --> 00:50:56,121
smaller.

698
00:50:56,607 --> 00:51:01,410
And then you had sort of three groups of new brand entrance, basically.

699
00:51:01,410 --> 00:51:07,884
Key and Hyundai obviously been around for a while, but they, you know, they're really
taking market share here and there.

700
00:51:07,884 --> 00:51:08,314
Right.

701
00:51:08,314 --> 00:51:16,909
And so, you know, when, when you can sell fewer cars and then now you have three different
types of new competitors coming in all very aggressive.

702
00:51:16,909 --> 00:51:17,829
Ouch.

703
00:51:17,968 --> 00:51:18,818
Yeah.

704
00:51:18,939 --> 00:51:23,463
So right to your point, just in the last five years, I got these numbers, I've been going
through it.

705
00:51:23,463 --> 00:51:30,638
Just in the last five years, global market share, the Americans have lost 6.6 percentage
points.

706
00:51:30,638 --> 00:51:35,854
That represents about six, between five and six million units of capacity.

707
00:51:35,854 --> 00:51:37,755
The Germans have lost about 3%.

708
00:51:37,755 --> 00:51:41,978
The Japanese have lost one and a half percent.

709
00:51:41,978 --> 00:51:44,680
The Koreans have not lost any share at all.

710
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:50,916
And all the gains came from the Chinese and the startups, which really means Tesla.

711
00:51:53,866 --> 00:52:04,900
So, mean, I guess one question I do have is like with some of these plant closures in
Europe and you're talking about the heavy influence of labor on their boards, what, it

712
00:52:04,900 --> 00:52:17,704
just, it just seems like it, I'm kind of confused as to what they can even do when it is
this bad or how, like what can be done or if it's, the numbers are so clearly off.

713
00:52:17,704 --> 00:52:18,484
Yeah.

714
00:52:18,552 --> 00:52:20,834
it in Detroit during the Great Recession.

715
00:52:20,834 --> 00:52:27,589
People are gonna panic and they're going to start to look to all kinds of other things of,
hey, wait a minute, instead of cutting here, why don't we do this?

716
00:52:27,589 --> 00:52:32,893
So if I was Scott Keough at Scout, I'd be deeply, deeply worried.

717
00:52:32,893 --> 00:52:43,640
What's the Volkswagen board going to do when Volkswagen is talking about closing three
plants in Germany at the same time you're building a brand new one in the United States?

718
00:52:43,900 --> 00:52:50,238
And I know what the unions are going to say, stop that plant in America, build those damn
vehicles in Germany.

719
00:52:50,915 --> 00:52:55,700
Yeah, they weren't particularly happy about the 5.8 billion that they gave to Rivian
either.

720
00:52:55,700 --> 00:52:57,943
It's like, wait, wait a minute.

721
00:52:57,943 --> 00:53:05,785
You're, you're, you're, you're getting rid of us, but you're sending a check over to the U
S what am I missing?

722
00:53:05,785 --> 00:53:07,189
wasn't five point eight out the gate.

723
00:53:07,189 --> 00:53:08,683
I think it was a billion out the gate.

724
00:53:08,683 --> 00:53:13,972
And there was like some hooks on like the rest of the funding for how that would look over
time, if I understand it correctly.

725
00:53:13,972 --> 00:53:15,644
No, you're exactly right, Matt.

726
00:53:15,644 --> 00:53:16,995
But Loren, you're right.

727
00:53:16,995 --> 00:53:23,207
mean, it's going to be, you're losing all this money and you're paying the startup that by
the way is losing all this money.

728
00:53:23,207 --> 00:53:33,580
And you you spent 10 billion euros on Cariad and now you're spending 5.8 billion for
Rivian to do exactly what Cariad was supposed to do.

729
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:41,055
And so, you know, and the unions very rightfully are gonna say, we're paying the price for
extremely poor management decisions.

730
00:53:41,055 --> 00:53:49,535
passing it just the end game is there has been poor leadership across the board, you know,
and and and again, that's true in Europe and it's true in the States as to how they've

731
00:53:49,535 --> 00:53:50,555
responded to various things.

732
00:53:50,555 --> 00:53:53,095
But but Europe's in much deeper water.

733
00:53:53,095 --> 00:53:55,535
And I don't I mean, chase your question.

734
00:53:55,535 --> 00:53:57,405
Just kind of like, so what what can they do?

735
00:53:57,405 --> 00:53:58,295
What are they going to do?

736
00:53:58,295 --> 00:54:00,295
Some of this is too far gone.

737
00:54:00,295 --> 00:54:04,675
And to John's point about the about the panic is, yeah, that's that's going to start
hitting.

738
00:54:04,675 --> 00:54:09,407
But then if you're in you already got poor leadership making these the

739
00:54:09,407 --> 00:54:17,399
the lack of understanding of the strategic decisions for the long term and how the impacts
of these things are going to affecting them not only just regionally but globally, then

740
00:54:17,399 --> 00:54:19,642
how's that panic going to resolve any of that?

741
00:54:19,642 --> 00:54:21,385
It's going to be ugly.

742
00:54:21,385 --> 00:54:22,722
There's no easy answer.

743
00:54:22,722 --> 00:54:27,307
I will add this, you know the old saying, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

744
00:54:27,307 --> 00:54:28,929
And they're hitting a crisis.

745
00:54:28,929 --> 00:54:38,857
And I'm telling you, the crisis of the Great Recession in Detroit was one of the best ever
things that happened to the city of Detroit and to GM Ford and the old Chrysler Group.

746
00:54:38,857 --> 00:54:43,421
They got rid of a lot of bad things, a lot of bad things.

747
00:54:43,421 --> 00:54:49,828
They got rid of the jobs bank, they got rid of retiree healthcare, they got rid of fully
defined pensions.

748
00:54:49,828 --> 00:54:58,060
And I know to the workers, that's not good news, but these were the things that were
dragging GM Ford and the old Chrysler group down more than anything.

749
00:54:58,060 --> 00:55:00,061
And they were able to get rid of that.

750
00:55:00,061 --> 00:55:02,522
And they instantly became more competitive.

751
00:55:02,522 --> 00:55:08,043
Now the question is, will Europe be willing to take that kind of drastic action?

752
00:55:08,043 --> 00:55:11,574
I mean, what we did here, that's the American way, right?

753
00:55:11,574 --> 00:55:13,965
You you grab it by the neck and chop the head off.

754
00:55:13,965 --> 00:55:18,156
And I'm not sure that Europe's going to want to be able to do that.

755
00:55:18,619 --> 00:55:19,577
No, think it's right.

756
00:55:19,577 --> 00:55:20,605
Culturally, think it's right.

757
00:55:20,605 --> 00:55:25,981
five weeks of vacation away, right?

758
00:55:25,981 --> 00:55:26,532
always fun.

759
00:55:26,532 --> 00:55:33,962
Every time I do get a chance to travel abroad and we have to explain to whomever we meet
as Americans, like, we're only on the road for about two weeks and they all kind of look

760
00:55:33,962 --> 00:55:34,814
at you like you're crazy.

761
00:55:34,814 --> 00:55:37,599
And it's like, yeah, sorry, that's all we really can do.

762
00:55:37,599 --> 00:55:39,991
And they're like, they're like, shit, we're on our eighth week.

763
00:55:39,991 --> 00:55:41,543
Like you guys don't know how to vacation.

764
00:55:41,543 --> 00:55:42,976
It's like, yeah, that's true.

765
00:55:42,976 --> 00:55:44,461
take the summer off.

766
00:55:44,461 --> 00:55:45,916
What are you talking about?

767
00:55:45,916 --> 00:55:47,582
Italy, they just closed for August.

768
00:55:47,582 --> 00:55:50,354
They're like, screw it, like, we just won't be here.

769
00:55:50,354 --> 00:55:50,754
Germany too.

770
00:55:50,754 --> 00:55:59,375
But I mean, I guess the inverse then is China where it's like for the longest time it was
what what's the it's 996 or something.

771
00:55:59,375 --> 00:56:00,275
Yeah.

772
00:56:00,275 --> 00:56:00,995
Yeah.

773
00:56:00,995 --> 00:56:01,429
9 a.m.

774
00:56:01,429 --> 00:56:02,169
to 9 p.m.

775
00:56:02,169 --> 00:56:03,720
six days a week.

776
00:56:03,801 --> 00:56:05,619
But who wants to live like that?

777
00:56:05,619 --> 00:56:08,149
Yeah, there is, there is a limit.

778
00:56:08,149 --> 00:56:09,300
There is a limit.

779
00:56:09,300 --> 00:56:09,580
okay.

780
00:56:09,580 --> 00:56:18,001
Well, now that we do have you back, Loren, I guess, we've, we've probably talked about
everything we can about manufacturing and with how positive that was, let's turn to

781
00:56:18,001 --> 00:56:20,312
charging, in the, EV space, at least in North America.

782
00:56:20,312 --> 00:56:30,103
mean, I would say overall that is probably positive, but my first question for you was
just around, we even talked about this a little bit was around Nevi and how a lot of the

783
00:56:30,103 --> 00:56:30,611
funds have

784
00:56:30,611 --> 00:56:33,191
been allocated for it.

785
00:56:33,191 --> 00:56:42,631
But now that it's kind of become clear that the Republicans have the House, the Senate and
the executive branch and the courts more or less.

786
00:56:42,631 --> 00:56:47,011
And their big thing that everyone's talking about right now is cutting money and saving
money.

787
00:56:47,011 --> 00:56:52,971
mean, do you really think that to me this and there's been already a lot of talk of the
IRA being kind of up there.

788
00:56:52,971 --> 00:56:59,901
This seems like something that I know some of the funds have been dispersed to the states
already.

789
00:56:59,901 --> 00:57:06,667
But how are you looking at this and do you think that that could change going into 2025?

790
00:57:06,903 --> 00:57:07,303
no.

791
00:57:07,303 --> 00:57:15,646
So all the experts I've talked to, in fact, I'm talking to one after this call, a
gentleman who actually designed Nevi program.

792
00:57:15,646 --> 00:57:21,948
And he has assured me that Nevi CFI, all those sort of government federal programs are
safe.

793
00:57:21,948 --> 00:57:26,269
They cannot be killed, overturned, rescinded, anything else.

794
00:57:26,369 --> 00:57:31,855
So, you know, there can be a lot of talk about it, but apparently the way they were
structured,

795
00:57:31,855 --> 00:57:33,575
they can't be killed.

796
00:57:33,575 --> 00:57:45,675
as I always sort of say, and even if somehow they could be, know, most of the money will
have been dispersed, you know, because they're sort of on a fiscal year cycle with these

797
00:57:45,675 --> 00:57:53,965
things and three years have already been allocated to the states and the fourth is in the
process of being allocated and it would probably take them a year to kill it.

798
00:57:53,965 --> 00:58:00,255
So even if they could, the money would would basically be already allocated anyway.

799
00:58:00,255 --> 00:58:00,505
So

800
00:58:00,505 --> 00:58:04,978
That's a long way of saying there should be zero impact.

801
00:58:05,139 --> 00:58:20,974
The only impact could be that Florida, which basically Governor Santos there has said,
he's been cantankerous and not in favor of spending the Navy money, is that they may not,

802
00:58:20,974 --> 00:58:21,794
right?

803
00:58:23,273 --> 00:58:23,854
Yeah.

804
00:58:23,854 --> 00:58:30,449
May just not like those are the two most sort of obvious States that may just say we're
not going to, we're not going to use the Navy money.

805
00:58:30,590 --> 00:58:41,240
But what happens is, the way the Navy is structured is if any state does not use their
money within a certain period of time, it's put back into a pool and recal, reallocated

806
00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:42,741
out to the States.

807
00:58:42,741 --> 00:58:50,986
So if, if, and I think I don't have it memorized, but I might, I think Florida probably
has, over 200.

808
00:58:51,077 --> 00:58:56,837
million dollars for for NEVI program that would go into the pool and all the states would
get a piece of that.

809
00:58:57,880 --> 00:58:59,362
So NEVI is safe.

810
00:59:00,188 --> 00:59:04,437
Chase, one other thing too, not apropos of Nevi, but still EVs.

811
00:59:04,437 --> 00:59:10,092
I was talking to one of the chief lobbyists for one of the large car companies that was on
background, so I'm not going to mention which or who.

812
00:59:10,092 --> 00:59:21,555
But their thinking is that while the consumer credits will go or subsidies will go away,
Trump will probably keep the subsidies for the battery plants because building battery

813
00:59:21,555 --> 00:59:25,104
plants directly creates jobs and guess what?

814
00:59:25,104 --> 00:59:27,645
Most of those battery plants are in red states.

815
00:59:27,645 --> 00:59:30,726
So yeah, that's right.

816
00:59:30,726 --> 00:59:33,966
So we'll see what actually happens here.

817
00:59:33,966 --> 00:59:38,786
But some of the thinking is that the battery subsidies are safe.

818
00:59:38,994 --> 00:59:48,407
But in some ways that also makes sense with EV charging, since it is a hardware
infrastructure and there have been so many now EV charging companies, EV charging

819
00:59:48,407 --> 00:59:56,340
infrastructure companies building here in North America, Georgia or North Carolina has
like Alpetronic and all these others building there.

820
00:59:56,400 --> 01:00:01,392
And I guess Loren, since you are kind of, I mean, actually both Loren and Matt.

821
01:00:01,481 --> 01:00:03,659
is in Wisconsin, but that's it.

822
01:00:03,659 --> 01:00:04,713
We're in the weeds there.

823
01:00:04,713 --> 01:00:05,835
But yeah.

824
01:00:06,199 --> 01:00:06,637
Yeah.

825
01:00:06,637 --> 01:00:17,437
guess I'm kind of curious with since both of your guys realms are so focused on the
charging landscape if there's been any interesting trends that you've seen Election 2024

826
01:00:17,437 --> 01:00:24,088
or not and kind of like looking forward as to Going into 2025 any interesting things that
really stand out

827
01:00:24,088 --> 01:00:31,671
Yeah, there's two and one of them, think Matt will probably smile at and enjoy discussion
around.

828
01:00:31,671 --> 01:00:44,825
one is, and I think we talked about this on the episode I was on a few weeks ago, that
utilization is like through the roof now in fast charging and it's all being driven by

829
01:00:44,825 --> 01:00:45,917
ride share.

830
01:00:45,917 --> 01:00:45,920
crap.

831
01:00:45,842 --> 01:00:52,825
one thing we talked about the beginning of this year when we were even prognosticating
about what our thoughts were about where things were headed, we've already seen the

832
01:00:52,825 --> 01:00:56,727
shakeout happening as it relates to certain companies that just basically just folded.

833
01:00:56,727 --> 01:01:06,951
And I think that moreover, because the Nevi dollars are safe, we're not going to have,
we're just going to continue to see some of the shakeout is from what I can see.

834
01:01:07,071 --> 01:01:12,012
from a network side and then obviously from a manufacturing side, we'll see how that
plays.

835
01:01:12,012 --> 01:01:18,924
But overall, I don't think that the overall impact, I don't think is gonna be very
negative.

836
01:01:18,924 --> 01:01:24,776
I think we're seeing consolidation and we're gonna see a little bit less of a messy
experience as it relates to what's going on in the industry side.

837
01:01:24,776 --> 01:01:33,988
The thing that still keeps creeping up though, from what I've seen, is we still continue
to see networks crop up that are small and want to keep growing out what they think they

838
01:01:33,988 --> 01:01:34,520
can build.

839
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:35,762
I think within...

840
01:01:35,762 --> 01:01:40,996
within DOE tracking to the Alton Fuels database, it's over 70 networks now that exist
within the United States.

841
01:01:40,996 --> 01:01:52,985
That consolidation is gonna become far more abrupt, in my opinion, in the next year or
two, because they just can't, mean, there's just not that much room for that level of

842
01:01:53,185 --> 01:01:53,966
volume.

843
01:01:53,962 --> 01:02:02,800
I think there's a couple of interesting trends going on in, in especially the fast
charging industry right now, which is utilization has basically about doubled, on, on

844
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:06,603
average across the U S and what's driving that is not that like,

845
01:02:06,603 --> 01:02:09,203
There's millions of more EV drivers out there.

846
01:02:09,203 --> 01:02:11,763
It's rideshare drivers are driving this.

847
01:02:11,763 --> 01:02:26,863
It's now, you know, 25 % of EV goes throughput, meaning the power dispensed at EV
charging, EV go charging stations is to rideshare drivers.

848
01:02:26,863 --> 01:02:35,243
Cause if you think about it, you know, somebody like Matt and I, you know, use public
charging, you know, when we go out on a road trip a couple of times a year or whatever it

849
01:02:35,243 --> 01:02:36,195
is, right.

850
01:02:37,171 --> 01:02:43,134
ride share drivers use sometimes three times a day, six days a week, right?

851
01:02:43,134 --> 01:02:47,117
And so, and the charging networks now understand this.

852
01:02:47,117 --> 01:02:58,246
So they're designing and building and locating their new fast chargers like near airports
and in certain locations where they know there's a company out of New York called Revel

853
01:02:58,246 --> 01:03:03,931
that, you know, many of the listeners have probably heard of that started off as a ride
share company.

854
01:03:03,931 --> 01:03:10,465
They're basically now have pivoted to becoming an EV charging infrastructure company for
rideshare drivers, right?

855
01:03:10,465 --> 01:03:12,997
Like that, that is their, their strategy.

856
01:03:12,997 --> 01:03:19,006
So that's kind of the first thing, chase is that, you know, I don't think anybody really
saw this coming.

857
01:03:19,006 --> 01:03:23,628
Like a few years ago, my God, the fast charging industry is the worst business ever.

858
01:03:23,749 --> 01:03:24,249
Right.

859
01:03:24,249 --> 01:03:30,713
It's like, you know, build it and they will come cross our fingers that a whole bunch of
people will buy an EV.

860
01:03:31,894 --> 01:03:32,829
And then, yeah.

861
01:03:32,829 --> 01:03:34,826
high hardware costs that take a year to build.

862
01:03:34,826 --> 01:03:36,132
Yeah.

863
01:03:36,132 --> 01:03:40,736
and that'll take five years to break even, but we're counting on more people buying EVs.

864
01:03:40,736 --> 01:03:47,071
And then like rideshare drivers have come in and are changing the economics.

865
01:03:47,593 --> 01:03:49,265
And so, you know, that's.

866
01:03:49,265 --> 01:03:56,805
And it's it's partly due to I mean, just anecdotally, I mean, I there was a one ride share
driver I remember I was talking to the gave me a ride to the airport and we're talking

867
01:03:56,805 --> 01:04:01,485
about where they charge and they even said to me, I have a home and I don't drive enough.

868
01:04:01,485 --> 01:04:04,725
don't drive enough and I'd have an empty battery throughout my day.

869
01:04:04,725 --> 01:04:15,535
I could go home and home charge but I live two blocks from a fast charger and they have a
rate offering that I can use as a ride share driver for like $25 flat rate a month.

870
01:04:15,535 --> 01:04:17,616
So I always go and use that.

871
01:04:17,616 --> 01:04:18,278
as

872
01:04:18,413 --> 01:04:21,658
And I thought, wow, okay, again, that's how the consumers think.

873
01:04:21,658 --> 01:04:24,102
It's like, well, that's That's money back in my pocket.

874
01:04:24,102 --> 01:04:27,547
And also they perceive it as a time savings as well.

875
01:04:27,547 --> 01:04:31,414
And so those two things combined, yeah, we're going to continue to see that on the
increase.

876
01:04:31,414 --> 01:04:42,263
And I think, you know, following on what you just said was, which was the other trend that
I thought was fascinating and EVGO's Q3 earnings presentation that went out a couple of

877
01:04:42,263 --> 01:04:53,848
days ago, they said that they're deploying customer acquisition programs using organic and
paid, you know, techniques and stuff.

878
01:04:53,848 --> 01:04:59,105
And I'm like, as somebody who spent, you know, Jace, you know, as you know, like, you
know,

879
01:04:59,439 --> 01:05:01,380
30 plus years in marketing industry.

880
01:05:01,380 --> 01:05:02,560
Like what?

881
01:05:03,341 --> 01:05:05,301
They're acting like a normal business.

882
01:05:05,301 --> 01:05:11,394
They're actually doing marketing and going out and acquiring customers.

883
01:05:11,394 --> 01:05:17,266
And Matt, to your point, they're probably targeting rideshare drivers.

884
01:05:17,266 --> 01:05:26,941
They're probably buying Google AdWords ads for rideshare drivers and targeting them
because that's where the money is now.

885
01:05:26,941 --> 01:05:37,221
But I mean, to me, it was funny and fascinating that the industry is moving to what I call
charging 2.0.

886
01:05:39,037 --> 01:05:44,398
They're thinking about customer experience and brand and we're going to have loyalty.

887
01:05:45,296 --> 01:05:54,919
We're going to have loyalty programs and they're figuring out pricing and you know, design
of the stations and like, wow.

888
01:05:54,919 --> 01:06:02,081
Like it's not just, you know, put a couple of hundred KW charges in the back corner of a
dark parking lot.

889
01:06:03,174 --> 01:06:04,796
You know, it's like.

890
01:06:04,796 --> 01:06:05,888
first strategy.

891
01:06:05,888 --> 01:06:07,482
Go figure.

892
01:06:07,761 --> 01:06:08,490
Yeah.

893
01:06:08,490 --> 01:06:17,036
you're talking about around, especially, mean, a lot of those topics, but especially
around the ride share is really interesting because this is kind of anecdotal, but this

894
01:06:17,036 --> 01:06:17,916
was a few months back.

895
01:06:17,916 --> 01:06:28,194
I was kind of on a road trip and I rolled up to this one like right before 10 o'clock and
I just, I think there's 12, maybe it was a Tesla one, 12, maybe 16 stalls.

896
01:06:28,194 --> 01:06:30,179
I was literally the only one there.

897
01:06:30,179 --> 01:06:32,719
I plug in and I, I, I called my wife and I started talking.

898
01:06:32,719 --> 01:06:38,359
And then also like, it looks like they're, didn't know if it was like a local Tesla group,
if there was like some.

899
01:06:38,359 --> 01:06:43,159
Evie fast, the furious thing going on or what they're just this mob of lights in this
empty parking lot.

900
01:06:43,159 --> 01:06:46,529
Just all of a sudden circum and they halt, they all pull up to the charger.

901
01:06:46,529 --> 01:06:47,839
I'm like, what the hell?

902
01:06:47,839 --> 01:06:50,519
And I looked down and it was 10 to one.

903
01:06:50,519 --> 01:06:51,729
And I was like, this is so weird.

904
01:06:51,729 --> 01:06:54,739
And I go and look in the.

905
01:06:54,739 --> 01:06:56,827
It went, and it was like.

906
01:06:56,840 --> 01:06:58,288
Time of use rate.

907
01:06:58,288 --> 01:07:01,629
was like 25 cents per kilo, which is pretty good.

908
01:07:01,629 --> 01:07:05,511
And then I looked at like 10, goes down to I think eight cents.

909
01:07:05,511 --> 01:07:11,023
And so all of these like ride share drivers are just coming in and just charging up.

910
01:07:11,023 --> 01:07:12,553
And then the instant one was gone.

911
01:07:12,553 --> 01:07:14,385
Another would come in and just like recharge.

912
01:07:14,385 --> 01:07:16,525
And so it totally is a thing.

913
01:07:16,525 --> 01:07:24,030
And I think, this is something we've talked a lot about that there is definitely a need
for like a commercial EV charging or to kind of better figure this out.

914
01:07:24,030 --> 01:07:25,092
Like you do with.

915
01:07:25,092 --> 01:07:27,907
commercial fueling and with taxi fleets and others.

916
01:07:27,907 --> 01:07:30,261
And, and rebel is kind of doing that.

917
01:07:30,261 --> 01:07:31,883
They've, they've already done for their own brands.

918
01:07:31,883 --> 01:07:38,713
Obviously I hope to see more of these just because it definitely is having an impact on
some of these charging locations.

919
01:07:38,855 --> 01:07:39,517
But,

920
01:07:39,517 --> 01:07:40,387
Yeah.

921
01:07:41,328 --> 01:07:42,509
Yeah, it was interesting.

922
01:07:42,509 --> 01:07:57,561
I was looking at some of our data last night around the time of day of by hour segment of,
of when people charge and in the San Francisco Bay area between 6 AM and 9 PM.

923
01:07:57,561 --> 01:08:01,223
There's a little bit of up and down, but it's basically flat like.

924
01:08:01,687 --> 01:08:06,689
It's a sort of, know, that's when everybody is charging and then, you know, outside of
those hours.

925
01:08:06,689 --> 01:08:14,013
So, you know, one of the things we're going to start seeing is, is what I'm calling a
prime time utilization, right?

926
01:08:14,013 --> 01:08:20,076
That in many urban locations, it's going to be basically 80 to a hundred percent.

927
01:08:20,076 --> 01:08:27,933
Like there's going to be no capacity to grow the business during those sort of prime,
prime hours during the day.

928
01:08:27,933 --> 01:08:32,711
And so then we might see to your point, Chase, with that eight cents pricing, right?

929
01:08:32,711 --> 01:08:36,987
We're going to see those kinds of pricing like half off if you charge it 2 a.m.

930
01:08:36,987 --> 01:08:37,979
in the morning, right?

931
01:08:37,979 --> 01:08:39,723
And things like that, right?

932
01:08:39,723 --> 01:08:44,868
Well, then that and that that I mean, that's price is one thing, but then it lends to
things like, okay, safety.

933
01:08:44,868 --> 01:08:53,144
And, you know, like some I mean, this gets to whole thing about I'll drive 30 miles to
that one gas station in Pasadena, because it's got five cents cheaper regular gas or

934
01:08:53,144 --> 01:08:53,914
whatever, right.

935
01:08:53,914 --> 01:08:54,905
And some people will do that.

936
01:08:54,905 --> 01:09:05,138
But then if you ask the question, like, this is a renter who is, you know, a woman, it's
like, is she going to get up at midnight to go charge her car?

937
01:09:05,138 --> 01:09:09,080
to say no, because there's other factors at play beyond the price.

938
01:09:09,080 --> 01:09:16,946
So there's all these little things that are, again, but we're seeing better deployment
around that for better station design, site location, things of that nature.

939
01:09:16,946 --> 01:09:24,671
it's not universal for how people respond to those benefits, because some people will
place other value on top of money, which includes things like safety and other things like

940
01:09:24,671 --> 01:09:25,171
that.

941
01:09:25,171 --> 01:09:29,634
So yeah, no straight and black and white answer on that.

942
01:09:29,675 --> 01:09:30,445
Yeah.

943
01:09:30,445 --> 01:09:34,737
And I realize we are kind of coming up on the time or you might have to bounce here, Matt.

944
01:09:34,737 --> 01:09:36,088
So understand if you have to hop off.

945
01:09:36,088 --> 01:09:48,403
But I did want to ask real quickly, John, just what has been your experience if you've
been seeing from automakers any change in the conversation around the EV charging aspect

946
01:09:48,403 --> 01:09:56,866
of buying an EV and if that has changed at all, or if there may be still come to the
assumption that the market will figure it out and trying to step away from that.

947
01:09:56,866 --> 01:09:59,561
Or I'm curious if you've heard any differences.

948
01:09:59,561 --> 01:10:08,261
don't follow this as closely as you guys do, obviously, but, you know, we've seen, we
talked about that, I think Loren mentioned it earlier, you know, Ford is like, hey, boom,

949
01:10:08,261 --> 01:10:10,442
or Matt, maybe you were the one, who was the charger?

950
01:10:10,442 --> 01:10:11,902
We'll arrange the whole thing for it.

951
01:10:11,902 --> 01:10:14,262
You don't have to think about it.

952
01:10:14,262 --> 01:10:17,783
Now look, the automakers have not done a good job of selling EVs.

953
01:10:17,783 --> 01:10:19,124
They really haven't.

954
01:10:19,124 --> 01:10:22,112
And Loren, I think you mentioned this earlier, you know, about

955
01:10:22,112 --> 01:10:30,977
People are unaware of the $7,500 or the 3750 times two, as somebody described it more
accurately.

956
01:10:30,977 --> 01:10:39,980
Judy Power said, and I can't remember, was 40 or 60, either 40 % of the car buying public
is unaware that this money is available or 60%.

957
01:10:39,980 --> 01:10:45,623
And it's like crazy and they don't sell EVs on the attributes of EVs.

958
01:10:45,623 --> 01:10:46,273
Why though?

959
01:10:46,273 --> 01:10:47,509
They're better.

960
01:10:47,509 --> 01:10:51,662
They just are like, this one's EV, you want to buy this because it's an EV.

961
01:10:51,662 --> 01:10:55,376
And they don't show the performance aspects.

962
01:10:55,376 --> 01:11:00,511
And I don't mean like, you know, going plaid mode or ludicrous mode or things like that.

963
01:11:00,511 --> 01:11:08,058
I'm talking about a normal everyday person driving down the freeway and they got to get
over and they see an opening with electric boom, you're there.

964
01:11:08,058 --> 01:11:13,324
There's no mash the pedal and the butterfly throat opens and the injector shoot in more.

965
01:11:13,324 --> 01:11:23,417
fuel and the engine revs up and the transmission downshifts and the engine roars so and
then you get over it know it's like boom i'm there and guess what you only barely have to

966
01:11:23,417 --> 01:11:33,639
touch the throttle pedal to get it to do that so a lot of people feel much more
comfortable with it you know it's what i call eager response i've always had eager

967
01:11:33,639 --> 01:11:43,380
response with you know good responsive ice engines but all evs are like this and it's
quieter and the fact that you can charge at home

968
01:11:43,380 --> 01:11:49,134
and never go to a gas station again, appeals to a lot of people, especially to women.

969
01:11:49,134 --> 01:11:52,496
And you don't see any of that in the advertising.

970
01:11:52,496 --> 01:12:00,225
It's, you know, come from the early days of save the polar bears to this is an EV, so
you're cool if you have it.

971
01:12:00,225 --> 01:12:09,278
And, you know, all I'm getting around to is a long-winded answer for you here, Chase, but
you haven't talked about the good aspects of charging.

972
01:12:09,278 --> 01:12:16,723
how your screen will tell you exactly where to go and if there's a charger available for
you to use or if it's not working or whatever.

973
01:12:16,723 --> 01:12:21,486
You know, there's been none of this education on the part of the car companies for the
public.

974
01:12:23,189 --> 01:12:23,699
true.

975
01:12:23,699 --> 01:12:31,085
mean, Jim, when Jim had their, you know, EV live thing that you could call into, and they
would have someone who would walk you through and talk to you about it.

976
01:12:31,085 --> 01:12:34,047
I did it three different times and played dumb the whole time.

977
01:12:34,047 --> 01:12:39,971
And in each experience, I walked away thinking none of that was accurate enough to help me
actually make this decision.

978
01:12:39,971 --> 01:12:42,172
It all sounded super fluffy.

979
01:12:42,172 --> 01:12:44,534
And it made it seem like it's so approachable.

980
01:12:44,534 --> 01:12:52,231
But because I knew actually what the truth was, all it all it said to me was, this is a
very glossy

981
01:12:52,231 --> 01:12:56,553
strategy around not understanding how to address the actual education problem.

982
01:12:56,594 --> 01:13:06,309
And, you know, we haven't heard much else about it, you know, because, you know, I, to
John exactly your point, I think they just, they've so just kind of kept phoning in, how

983
01:13:06,309 --> 01:13:07,620
do they talk about this?

984
01:13:07,620 --> 01:13:16,105
And it's the way they know how, which is here are the features of why our brand and our
design and the fact that it's EV is so damn cool.

985
01:13:16,105 --> 01:13:18,516
And then it turns into, yeah, but what does my ownership experience look like?

986
01:13:18,516 --> 01:13:20,775
Because as a consumer that knows nothing,

987
01:13:20,775 --> 01:13:25,919
It's still intimidating not because it's a car but because the experience with it is
different.

988
01:13:25,919 --> 01:13:27,810
And then what does Matt always say?

989
01:13:27,810 --> 01:13:31,083
And it's the damn fuel that's different, not the car itself.

990
01:13:31,083 --> 01:13:34,787
And they fundamentally do not know how to address that in way that is approachable.

991
01:13:34,787 --> 01:13:35,467
And.

992
01:13:35,467 --> 01:13:45,487
I think just to kind of add to that, it reminds me of a couple of things, but I remember
Mary Barra or whoever maybe is Royce when GM was doing one of their big EV things and

993
01:13:45,487 --> 01:13:54,467
they're like, well, Tesla is the Apple and we're going to be the Android of the EV space,
which if anyone that's been in the tech space, like, I don't know if I want that.

994
01:13:54,467 --> 01:13:58,707
If you're an investor, that might be a red flag because they're not making much money, but
that's all another thing.

995
01:13:58,707 --> 01:14:04,335
But what it reminded me of was like the nineties and two thousands of the Mac versus PC
where it's like the Mac sells on value.

996
01:14:04,335 --> 01:14:08,595
The PC sells on specs versus Lenovo versus gateway versus IBM.

997
01:14:08,595 --> 01:14:15,435
And then the last decade with the Android versus iPhone, where it's like, okay, this makes
every, this thing just works and it makes your life a lot easier.

998
01:14:15,435 --> 01:14:20,655
And this Android has a 20,000 megapixel phone, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.

999
01:14:20,655 --> 01:14:26,215
And it's selling on specs and headlines versus like value to the customer.

1000
01:14:26,215 --> 01:14:33,231
And I think that's still, especially when comes to the feeling, but exactly to John's
point of what is like the value to the customer, like

1001
01:14:33,231 --> 01:14:34,511
You don't have to go to the gas station.

1002
01:14:34,511 --> 01:14:35,711
You don't have to do oil changes.

1003
01:14:35,711 --> 01:14:39,071
mean, those two alone were huge reasons for me to go electric.

1004
01:14:39,071 --> 01:14:46,991
And the fact that it's depending where you are more environmental than other options as a
huge one too, but it really was just like the actual experience.

1005
01:14:47,311 --> 01:14:48,871
and John, think you also nailed it.

1006
01:14:48,871 --> 01:14:52,352
Like with that, the Fiat 500 E I was driving for a week there.

1007
01:14:52,352 --> 01:15:01,188
The biggest thing that stood out to me is I had been an agent since I've driven one of the
gas ones, but it takes like three gears to get up to maybe 40 miles an hour.

1008
01:15:01,188 --> 01:15:02,259
And it's so slow.

1009
01:15:02,259 --> 01:15:05,290
Whereas with that little thing, it just rips up to 40.

1010
01:15:05,290 --> 01:15:14,250
And then after that, it kind of dies out, but at least like getting up to like speeds and
around town, just was so much easier to drive and experience than having to deal with

1011
01:15:14,250 --> 01:15:18,705
like, okay, am I going to get across this intersection or am I about to die?

1012
01:15:18,705 --> 01:15:21,408
And it just really changes what it feels.

1013
01:15:21,408 --> 01:15:25,321
like even makes driving a lot of ways more fun, especially around town.

1014
01:15:25,321 --> 01:15:26,132
But,

1015
01:15:26,656 --> 01:15:33,302
Yeah, I realized we've kind of gone over our time and we haven't even talked about
autonomy, but since I guess Elon Musk is president, it'll just become federalized.

1016
01:15:33,302 --> 01:15:35,349
So problem solved there too.

1017
01:15:35,349 --> 01:15:46,289
Yeah, well my wife and I have had that free trial for full self driving in for 30 days and
my conclusion is is the technology very Fascinating in the sense of like well, they

1018
01:15:46,289 --> 01:15:53,129
actually accomplished a lot of really cool stuff with this Yeah, totally But at end of the
day if you actually turn it on and try to go to where you're going the last thing I want

1019
01:15:53,129 --> 01:16:00,389
to have is what feels like an 85 year old person chauffeuring me around That is really
scared at an intersection.

1020
01:16:00,389 --> 01:16:02,309
It's like yeah, I don't want that.

1021
01:16:02,309 --> 01:16:02,726
I don't want

1022
01:16:02,726 --> 01:16:10,961
say has gone remarkably better, but yes, it's gone from like maybe a 15 year old learning
to drive to now it's an 85 year old.

1023
01:16:10,961 --> 01:16:16,645
That's like, kind of know what I'm, I know, I know what I'm doing, but I'm a little
scared.

1024
01:16:16,645 --> 01:16:17,585
I'm a little scared.

1025
01:16:17,585 --> 01:16:18,266
Yeah.

1026
01:16:18,266 --> 01:16:22,848
But it's still better, but yeah, totally.

1027
01:16:24,149 --> 01:16:25,049
Yeah.

1028
01:16:25,810 --> 01:16:26,200
Yeah.

1029
01:16:26,200 --> 01:16:26,916
Yeah.

1030
01:16:26,916 --> 01:16:27,551
Yeah.

1031
01:16:27,551 --> 01:16:29,152
We still got a little ways to go.

1032
01:16:29,163 --> 01:16:29,664
will solve that.

1033
01:16:29,664 --> 01:16:31,976
I'm like, you know I want is high speed rail.

1034
01:16:31,976 --> 01:16:34,038
Or better mass transit locally.

1035
01:16:34,038 --> 01:16:36,810
I don't need a bunch of robotic cars going around.

1036
01:16:36,810 --> 01:16:39,542
It's like, you go, no, you go, no, you go, no, you go, no, you.

1037
01:16:39,542 --> 01:16:41,469
It's like, come on, what are we doing?

1038
01:16:41,469 --> 01:16:42,479
see what happens there.

1039
01:16:42,479 --> 01:16:46,324
That might be another couple of administrations out or decades.

1040
01:16:46,324 --> 01:16:52,079
On that positive note, I just want to thank you all for hopping on again, discussing all
this and talking about these topics.

1041
01:16:52,079 --> 01:16:52,415
That's great.

1042
01:16:52,415 --> 01:16:53,205
Thanks, Chase.

1043
01:16:53,205 --> 01:16:54,831
yeah, thanks for the invite.

1044
01:17:00,081 --> 01:17:03,693
Thanks for tuning into this powerhouse episode of grid connections.

1045
01:17:03,693 --> 01:17:11,677
A big thank you again to our panel, Loren McDonald of Paren Matt Teske of Chargeway and
John McElroy from Auto Line Network.

1046
01:17:12,078 --> 01:17:20,522
We really appreciate them joining us today and sharing their perspectives from the rapidly
evolving EV charging landscape to the complex interplay of politics, tariffs and global

1047
01:17:20,522 --> 01:17:21,503
competition.

1048
01:17:21,503 --> 01:17:27,466
Today's discussion showcased just how pivotal this moment is for the future of electric
mobility.

1049
01:17:27,526 --> 01:17:29,381
We'd love to hear your thoughts as well.

1050
01:17:29,381 --> 01:17:32,713
What stood out to you and where do you see the EV industry heading?

1051
01:17:32,713 --> 01:17:36,384
Drop us a comment, share this episode with someone who'd enjoy it too.

1052
01:17:36,384 --> 01:17:40,096
And don't forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

1053
01:17:40,096 --> 01:17:42,857
Your support helps keep these vital conversations rolling.

1054
01:17:42,857 --> 01:17:46,284
Until next week, this is the Grid Connections podcast signing off.