1
00:00:05,125 --> 00:00:06,756
Good morning grid connections listeners.

2
00:00:06,756 --> 00:00:16,384
Welcome back to season six of grid connections, the podcast where we explore all things
transportation, clean energy and our power grid connecting all of these systems together.

3
00:00:16,384 --> 00:00:28,174
In this episode, we sit down with Mike Murphy, CEO of the EV politics project to explore
one of the biggest challenges facing EV adoption in the U S political polarization with a

4
00:00:28,174 --> 00:00:31,597
background in Republican politics and a passion for the auto industry.

5
00:00:31,597 --> 00:00:34,331
Mike shares insights from EV politics research.

6
00:00:34,331 --> 00:00:44,539
including why traditional EV marketing is failing to reach even mainstream and
conservative buyers alike, along with how the industry can shift its message to focus on

7
00:00:44,539 --> 00:00:50,364
attributes that truly resonate like performance, energy independence, and American jobs.

8
00:00:50,705 --> 00:00:59,902
We also break down how China's dominance in the global auto market threatens US
automakers, the surprising ways dealership incentives are slowing EV adoption, and the

9
00:00:59,902 --> 00:01:03,875
real impact of EV tax credits on consumer purchasing decisions.

10
00:01:03,899 --> 00:01:11,747
Plus we discuss why multifamily home charging is the biggest roadblock to wider EV
adoption and the policies that could change that.

11
00:01:11,747 --> 00:01:19,415
If you're interested in the future of EVs and how policy marketing and public perception
shaped the industry, this is an episode you won't want to miss.

12
00:01:19,415 --> 00:01:25,600
Share it with someone who cares about the future of transportation and don't forget to
leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

13
00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:28,143
Also be sure to sign up for our new newsletter.

14
00:01:28,143 --> 00:01:32,829
Just hit the link in the show notes to stay up to date on the latest in EVs, energy and
policy.

15
00:01:32,829 --> 00:01:33,850
Thanks for tuning in.

16
00:01:33,850 --> 00:01:35,913
And with that, enjoy.

17
00:01:41,038 --> 00:01:43,110
Well, first of all, Chase, I'm a listener.

18
00:01:43,110 --> 00:01:45,491
And so it is great to be on your pod.

19
00:01:45,491 --> 00:01:46,962
I'm a big fan.

20
00:01:48,584 --> 00:01:51,785
First time blowhard here.

21
00:01:52,166 --> 00:01:54,418
So the story is I'm a Republican.

22
00:01:54,418 --> 00:01:58,150
Well, in the Trump era, I'm one of these never Trumpers.

23
00:01:58,150 --> 00:02:03,274
So I don't know what my party ID is, but a party ID.

24
00:02:03,274 --> 00:02:08,147
But I've been a Republican professionally for several decades running campaigns all over
the country.

25
00:02:08,147 --> 00:02:09,318
Schwarzenegger.

26
00:02:09,479 --> 00:02:13,782
A lot of governor is the Romney, Angler, Thompson, Jeb Bush in Florida, Christie, wet,
blah, blah, blah.

27
00:02:13,782 --> 00:02:18,516
A couple of presidential's work for McCain in 2000, but I'm from Detroit.

28
00:02:18,516 --> 00:02:21,538
I grew up around the car business and I'm a car nut.

29
00:02:21,538 --> 00:02:28,644
And I have to confess now and don't turn off the pod, dear listeners, but my lifetime
average is about six miles per gallon.

30
00:02:28,644 --> 00:02:33,927
But when I ran Schwarzenegger's campaign for governor, I moved to LA and I liked it and I
stayed.

31
00:02:34,128 --> 00:02:36,970
And as gas here went up to many bar.

32
00:02:36,970 --> 00:02:40,010
of, you know, seven bucks a gallon.

33
00:02:40,130 --> 00:02:42,490
And I followed EV tech.

34
00:02:42,490 --> 00:02:46,990
And as a Republican, I kind of sneered at, you know, geodesic dome mobiles.

35
00:02:46,990 --> 00:02:48,690
But the tech is too good to ignore.

36
00:02:48,690 --> 00:02:51,350
The physics are too clean and beautiful, really.

37
00:02:51,350 --> 00:02:53,710
So I got an EV and I loved it.

38
00:02:53,710 --> 00:02:55,530
And a BMW IX.

39
00:02:55,530 --> 00:03:04,500
And so that led to a huge amount of personal frustration at the knee-jerk reaction that
Republican...

40
00:03:04,500 --> 00:03:08,051
party leaders and a lot of the rank and file have against EVs.

41
00:03:08,051 --> 00:03:09,632
They seem to a partisan lens.

42
00:03:09,632 --> 00:03:15,214
And as somebody who does follow the auto industry, I'm very worried about the great secret
issue.

43
00:03:15,214 --> 00:03:20,877
We don't talk about American politics enough, which is China makes three times as many
cars as we do.

44
00:03:20,877 --> 00:03:25,629
And we're on the path to British Leylandville with our domestic auto manufacturing.

45
00:03:25,629 --> 00:03:29,870
If Chinese continue their kind of plan of conquest, they don't care about profits.

46
00:03:29,870 --> 00:03:31,901
They care about market share worldwide.

47
00:03:31,921 --> 00:03:33,706
So at the end of

48
00:03:33,706 --> 00:03:36,348
23, I did what political consultants do.

49
00:03:36,348 --> 00:03:39,381
I called up a buddy of a campaign pollster, Dr.

50
00:03:39,381 --> 00:03:43,685
David B Hill, who was the first DeLorean owner I ever knew.

51
00:03:43,685 --> 00:03:48,039
And then the first Tesla owner, that car nut too, brilliant guy.

52
00:03:48,100 --> 00:03:59,588
And we did a poll at the end of 2023 that looked at the partisanship, the different views
of EVs through the partisan lens.

53
00:03:59,658 --> 00:04:04,217
We sampled in our survey 600 people nationally.

54
00:04:04,258 --> 00:04:08,778
They were voters, but with a family income of $50,000 a year up.

55
00:04:08,778 --> 00:04:15,877
And the reason we did that was we wanted to capture the entire or, you know, 90 plus
percent of the new and used car market.

56
00:04:15,877 --> 00:04:19,938
So we got about two thirds of the voters in a presidential year in this sample.

57
00:04:19,938 --> 00:04:26,778
So we wouldn't try to predict an election with it, but gave us a very good idea for
people's political identity against the car market.

58
00:04:26,990 --> 00:04:32,552
And I got up to the automotive news and the economist wrote a big story about our
findings.

59
00:04:32,652 --> 00:04:34,862
And then my phone started ringing from the OEM.

60
00:04:34,862 --> 00:04:38,693
So the CEO of one Detroit OEM connected.

61
00:04:38,994 --> 00:04:41,064
And one thing led to another.

62
00:04:41,064 --> 00:04:44,625
So our initial mission was to share our data.

63
00:04:44,625 --> 00:04:50,717
We have some very strong findings with the car people to try to improve their marketing.

64
00:04:50,717 --> 00:04:53,522
And the little hint is, and

65
00:04:53,522 --> 00:04:59,667
you know, don't get mad at me if you're an environmental activist, but the environmental
argument does not sell EVs.

66
00:04:59,868 --> 00:05:03,811
People who care a lot about climate change already like EVs.

67
00:05:03,811 --> 00:05:06,914
They're worried about charging range and price.

68
00:05:06,974 --> 00:05:17,523
People who think, and this is a lot of people in our fragmented, crazy American politics
who think that the whole climate change thing is kind of a scam, it's a trigger for them.

69
00:05:17,744 --> 00:05:20,180
And so the number on

70
00:05:20,180 --> 00:05:21,621
Climate change is a big problem.

71
00:05:21,621 --> 00:05:32,841
got to act now versus it's overhyped by the media and it's no big deal is about 58 40 and
58 % big deal act now 40 % block by humbug.

72
00:05:32,841 --> 00:05:36,074
So in a lot of that correlates to partisanship.

73
00:05:36,074 --> 00:05:44,471
So the bottom line is when you put the green leaf on the car, I mean that damn polar bear
ad that they launched the Nissan leaf with, it was clever advertising creative.

74
00:05:44,471 --> 00:05:47,934
It was terrible strategy because these things have been

75
00:05:48,799 --> 00:05:50,011
Whoever they hired out for it.

76
00:05:50,011 --> 00:05:50,551
That's for sure.

77
00:05:50,551 --> 00:05:52,572
Yeah, exactly.

78
00:05:52,572 --> 00:06:03,248
environmental virtue signaling mobiles and That is still there and it's a problem right
now Democrats buy EVs at five times the rate of Republicans people might say great who

79
00:06:03,248 --> 00:06:13,954
needs Republicans Well, the largest segment of the new car market is Republican or 40 % of
the buyers Democrats are 36 So if you have a partisan fighter of the vehicles, you're not

80
00:06:13,954 --> 00:06:15,125
gonna sell anymore.

81
00:06:15,125 --> 00:06:17,000
Anyway, the the companies that

82
00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:26,327
we're into this, we're very into it because as one CEO told me, we spend a lot of millions
and millions and millions and millions of dollars on market research, but we basically ask

83
00:06:26,327 --> 00:06:31,160
people how many cup holders they want and how big their garage is.

84
00:06:31,160 --> 00:06:35,883
We never look at this partisan stuff, but that's the world we're in.

85
00:06:35,883 --> 00:06:38,905
And it is mushroomed with Trump.

86
00:06:38,986 --> 00:06:45,662
And now most Republican voters, not all, thank God, but most are initially quite hostile
to EVs.

87
00:06:45,662 --> 00:06:49,583
So we've done a lot of polling since then on how to crack that problem.

88
00:06:49,583 --> 00:06:56,805
The other thing we're trying to do is get the national EV debate moved over to American
jobs, particularly vis-a-vis China's rise.

89
00:06:56,805 --> 00:07:01,207
A third of Republicans still think the USA is the world's number one auto producer.

90
00:07:01,247 --> 00:07:10,840
So, you know, and we're trying to help a lot right now defending the subsidies and some of
the IRA programs that are under threat from the Biden administration.

91
00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:12,274
So we're busy.

92
00:07:12,274 --> 00:07:16,970
and we're at evpolitics.org or americanevjobs.org.

93
00:07:16,970 --> 00:07:18,914
You want to learn more about what we're doing.

94
00:07:19,572 --> 00:07:19,792
Yeah.

95
00:07:19,792 --> 00:07:21,032
And I, I really appreciate it.

96
00:07:21,032 --> 00:07:23,631
That's a great overview for what your team is doing.

97
00:07:23,631 --> 00:07:29,312
And I think, uh, what, what you just talked about really does highlight, I guess, two
things.

98
00:07:29,312 --> 00:07:38,672
One, I've obviously been very involved with the electric vehicle kind of sphere for the
last couple of decades, but I also worked a lot in commercial solar installations and the

99
00:07:38,672 --> 00:07:40,152
two big things.

100
00:07:40,152 --> 00:07:41,612
Uh, I mean, exactly.

101
00:07:41,612 --> 00:07:43,892
Like pretty quickly, I am pretty early on.

102
00:07:43,892 --> 00:07:46,572
I completely agree with you in both those spaces.

103
00:07:46,612 --> 00:07:49,600
There is a small niche that is interested.

104
00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:52,642
in the actual like green movement of it.

105
00:07:52,642 --> 00:08:05,620
The much larger interest is in kind of the TCO, total cost operation and the, essentially
the ability for it to be so low maintenance and create independence from like having to go

106
00:08:05,620 --> 00:08:15,686
and whether that's, commercially for like fleets who electrify and go with solar for
charging to, residential and personal use.

107
00:08:15,700 --> 00:08:27,886
I think that is such a big thing that you are talking about that just does not align with
the messaging we've seen for so long and with kind of the rise in tribalism among the

108
00:08:27,886 --> 00:08:32,368
different fractions of not only political parties, but even brands of the vehicles.

109
00:08:32,368 --> 00:08:41,872
And I think when you had like the big three domestically that have leaned so heavily into
like the big trucks and SUVs and now trying to position electrification, it really goes.

110
00:08:41,872 --> 00:08:45,588
against the decades of marketing they've been even pushing for themselves.

111
00:08:45,588 --> 00:08:54,201
Well, yeah, and unfortunately, the ugly little secret is, you know, the environmental
movement, God bless them, and I believe in climate change, et cetera.

112
00:08:54,842 --> 00:09:01,125
But the market has never gone crazy for small cars in the U.S.

113
00:09:01,245 --> 00:09:06,228
And so now part of that is when gas is expensive, they have a boom lit.

114
00:09:06,228 --> 00:09:11,780
But generally, people gravitate the big suburban friendly SUVs or pickup trucks here.

115
00:09:11,974 --> 00:09:14,134
And, the chicken tax is part of that.

116
00:09:14,134 --> 00:09:16,035
It's a less competitive market.

117
00:09:16,035 --> 00:09:24,098
But so a great way to go out of business in the, in the car world is to orient your
company towards small vehicles.

118
00:09:24,478 --> 00:09:33,351
And, you know, there's niche room there, but the dream that we're going to talk everybody
into driving European microcars in the U S you never want to market against culture.

119
00:09:33,351 --> 00:09:38,192
And I think one thing that went sideways with their early EB marketing.

120
00:09:38,278 --> 00:09:46,805
is if you're in Japan, South Korea, Germany, Europe, there's more of a consensus on
climate change.

121
00:09:46,946 --> 00:09:54,942
So if you're a European CEO and they come to you with, hey, here's the green leaf, we're
going to stamp on all the cars and we're going to talk about sustainability, this is

122
00:09:54,942 --> 00:09:55,853
great.

123
00:09:55,893 --> 00:09:57,294
Well, here we're divided.

124
00:09:57,294 --> 00:09:59,075
It's 58-40.

125
00:09:59,218 --> 00:10:03,019
And it's not that way in other countries, but they tend to every...

126
00:10:03,019 --> 00:10:05,801
I learned this doing campaigns abroad.

127
00:10:07,304 --> 00:10:11,455
Whatever your culture is, you assume the local culture is similar.

128
00:10:11,495 --> 00:10:18,438
It's why in American foreign policy, we always fall in love with the first general we meet
who can speak English and drink whiskey.

129
00:10:18,438 --> 00:10:20,018
You know, we think, that's our guy.

130
00:10:20,018 --> 00:10:22,699
He'll be the most popular president of filling the blank.

131
00:10:22,699 --> 00:10:24,520
Almost always ends badly.

132
00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:28,881
You know, so it's it has been that here.

133
00:10:28,881 --> 00:10:32,382
Now, I do think and we tell companies this.

134
00:10:32,402 --> 00:10:39,167
In your EV marketing, don't be afraid to remind people that the average family spends
$2,000 a year on gas.

135
00:10:39,187 --> 00:10:42,780
You know, we asked Republicans and Democrats what they like about EVs.

136
00:10:42,780 --> 00:10:47,513
And the funny thing is for all this partisan divide, they're pretty much the same.

137
00:10:47,513 --> 00:10:50,045
When we say less maintenance, they both love it.

138
00:10:50,045 --> 00:10:53,238
When we say gas and expense, they love it.

139
00:10:53,238 --> 00:10:55,579
Fast and fun to drive, they love it.

140
00:10:55,839 --> 00:10:59,842
Then when we say great for the environment, a 40 point difference breaks out.

141
00:11:01,154 --> 00:11:03,896
Then they're ready to fight and the cars get caught in the middle.

142
00:11:03,896 --> 00:11:05,987
So sell the vehicle attributes.

143
00:11:05,987 --> 00:11:10,500
By the way, the best EV marketers in North America, they're not an auto company.

144
00:11:10,500 --> 00:11:13,581
They're the Polaris, the recreational vehicle folks.

145
00:11:13,581 --> 00:11:21,286
They make these, there's a categorical name for them, which I'm forgetting, but basically
you ride around the woods.

146
00:11:21,286 --> 00:11:23,967
There are a lot of fun ATVs.

147
00:11:24,207 --> 00:11:26,208
They make an electric one called the Kinetic.

148
00:11:26,208 --> 00:11:27,809
You got to wait a year to get one.

149
00:11:27,809 --> 00:11:29,598
It is a huge seller.

150
00:11:29,598 --> 00:11:36,586
But they don't say, hey, Bubba, when you're out in the trees, you protect mother nature.

151
00:11:36,586 --> 00:11:42,834
They say when you want stealth and deadly hunting ability, you can sneak up with our ultra
quiet kinetic.

152
00:11:42,834 --> 00:11:43,845
And they sell a lot of them.

153
00:11:43,845 --> 00:11:47,088
You got to go where the market is or the market will kill you.

154
00:11:47,976 --> 00:11:58,799
Yeah, I think, I mean, it seems like we're going to be in complete agreement for this
whole podcast, but, I mean, mean, around exactly what you're talking about, like with

155
00:11:59,399 --> 00:12:04,721
where the kind of idea of EVs for the longest time were just electric golf carts.

156
00:12:04,721 --> 00:12:12,203
And I know, we'll probably get into this anyway, cause it's some of recent pulling you
did, but it was really Tesla and they were the ones to kind of re change that

157
00:12:12,203 --> 00:12:12,853
conversation.

158
00:12:12,853 --> 00:12:14,888
It's like, if you want to save the planet, we can do that.

159
00:12:14,888 --> 00:12:16,929
But we make a really good looking car.

160
00:12:16,929 --> 00:12:17,950
That's really fast.

161
00:12:17,950 --> 00:12:21,172
That meets your needs that you can charge at home and gives you independence.

162
00:12:21,172 --> 00:12:24,164
And Hey, here's a battery and solar to go completely off.

163
00:12:24,164 --> 00:12:25,994
Gives you the full platform.

164
00:12:26,275 --> 00:12:30,598
And I think right now all the politics aside, I'm asking that stuff.

165
00:12:30,598 --> 00:12:33,409
It is just like getting caught up in the wrong things.

166
00:12:33,409 --> 00:12:35,441
And I, I still am convinced.

167
00:12:35,441 --> 00:12:41,714
I like pretty much daily that this is a smaller portion of actual Americans.

168
00:12:41,872 --> 00:12:49,661
And just kind of the narrative that gets caught up versus like the reality of the car
buying and like shopping market of what they're actually looking for and what they want in

169
00:12:49,661 --> 00:12:51,646
a vehicle into really.

170
00:12:51,646 --> 00:12:52,897
it's all attributes.

171
00:12:52,897 --> 00:13:00,630
mean, theoretically, if you only wanted transportation, there'd be one model car and it
would be one color.

172
00:13:00,630 --> 00:13:03,012
But people like to express themselves to their cars.

173
00:13:03,012 --> 00:13:09,294
Half of automotive marketing is built on that premise, why we have so many different kinds
of car.

174
00:13:09,635 --> 00:13:14,217
so attributes is the focal point, plus price and quality and word of mouth.

175
00:13:14,217 --> 00:13:17,238
And we've learned a lot about

176
00:13:17,514 --> 00:13:19,774
how to get the word out on EVs.

177
00:13:19,774 --> 00:13:21,914
The best is peer to peer.

178
00:13:21,914 --> 00:13:27,474
In all our polls, we ask people, do you have friends or family own an EV, yes or no?

179
00:13:27,474 --> 00:13:32,114
Among the people who say yes, they rate EVs higher in every category.

180
00:13:32,254 --> 00:13:36,314
I don't care if they're Republican, Democrat, Communist, whatever they are.

181
00:13:36,354 --> 00:13:42,234
If they know somebody in their life who has an EV, they're gonna be warmer on.

182
00:13:42,274 --> 00:13:44,794
If they don't, they're gonna be more hostile.

183
00:13:44,854 --> 00:13:46,714
And so I tell the companies,

184
00:13:46,762 --> 00:13:56,542
pump some inventory into dealer loaner fleets, by the way, you know, and give them to
people for a weekend, burn up a bunch of miles, you have an unsellable car at the end, but

185
00:13:56,542 --> 00:14:03,282
I would cut regular marketing spend, television, digital, everything else at a rate four
to one.

186
00:14:03,282 --> 00:14:10,922
In words, I cut $4 of that to fund this program and you get a higher ROI.

187
00:14:11,502 --> 00:14:14,082
And then charging, I give Ford big props.

188
00:14:14,082 --> 00:14:16,720
They finally figured it out that

189
00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:19,710
you handle the level two charging in the garage problem.

190
00:14:19,710 --> 00:14:30,255
You you'd be the one source and that's given them a big sales bump because this is one of
my favorite, I'm going to rant for one minute and then you can get me back on track.

191
00:14:30,576 --> 00:14:36,818
One of the biggest problems in the current system and we're studying this and this is
something we want to do some work on.

192
00:14:36,998 --> 00:14:44,091
If you're a retail car salesman and anybody who's bought or leased a car in a dealership
will remember this.

193
00:14:44,091 --> 00:14:46,672
What's the last thing you hear when you buy or lease a car?

194
00:14:46,834 --> 00:14:48,945
I'm you know, call me if you need anything.

195
00:14:48,945 --> 00:14:52,916
Now you're going to get a letter or an email or a call.

196
00:14:53,836 --> 00:14:55,087
Well, yeah, that's FNI.

197
00:14:55,087 --> 00:14:56,007
They're going to upgrade you.

198
00:14:56,007 --> 00:15:00,598
How about a low Jack, you know, or the special magic aluminum foil?

199
00:15:00,598 --> 00:15:01,118
No, no, no.

200
00:15:01,118 --> 00:15:09,861
But what the the salesperson is before they turn you over to FNI or when they deliver the
car after, you know, you do all the FNI stuff, they're going to say you're going to be

201
00:15:09,861 --> 00:15:10,932
hearing from the dealer.

202
00:15:10,932 --> 00:15:12,782
Please give me a high rating.

203
00:15:13,342 --> 00:15:15,723
You know, it's really important to hire look out for that thing.

204
00:15:15,723 --> 00:15:18,564
It really helps me and call me if you need any of blah, blah, blah.

205
00:15:18,564 --> 00:15:22,545
Cause their cop is to varying degrees tied to that rating.

206
00:15:22,545 --> 00:15:25,446
So let's say you're, you're in a Chevy store somewhere.

207
00:15:25,446 --> 00:15:29,246
Guy comes in once the Silverado complains about the gas mileage.

208
00:15:29,246 --> 00:15:33,808
Now, if you're just trying to move a unit, you know, we got these electrics here and save
you two grand a year.

209
00:15:33,808 --> 00:15:37,959
If you're a one car family, why we take them for a test drive?

210
00:15:37,959 --> 00:15:41,700
You won't believe the acceleration and you're never going to see a transmission shop
again.

211
00:15:41,790 --> 00:15:47,274
But what the retail salesperson is thinking is, I'm going to put them into this electric.

212
00:15:47,495 --> 00:15:55,862
And they're going to take a few weeks to figure out the garage charging because they don't
know an electrician or they don't want to spend the grand because the down payment took

213
00:15:55,862 --> 00:15:57,483
all their cash, whatever it is.

214
00:15:57,483 --> 00:16:01,146
And they're going to wind up at a Walmart, particularly if you're in a big Metroplex.

215
00:16:01,147 --> 00:16:05,170
And they're going to be waiting for Uber drivers to charge and they're going to get
pissed.

216
00:16:05,170 --> 00:16:08,032
And then my comp letter is going to show up and they're going to ding me.

217
00:16:08,032 --> 00:16:10,534
And it's going to cost me a third of my commission.

218
00:16:10,534 --> 00:16:12,476
I'm not going to take that risk.

219
00:16:12,476 --> 00:16:25,767
So outside of the Ford world, we are incentivizing salespeople, even with the spiffs they
give them for moving in electric, which some do, to take a risk on the charging problem.

220
00:16:25,767 --> 00:16:27,879
or push them in.

221
00:16:27,879 --> 00:16:34,695
Well, I hear gas prices are going down, you know, things are getting better and just don't
be heavy on the pedal and put them into the ice car.

222
00:16:34,695 --> 00:16:38,418
So on the showroom floor, we have negative incentives.

223
00:16:39,078 --> 00:16:45,443
And again, kudos to Ford and we've worked with Ford, great for fixing that problem.

224
00:16:45,564 --> 00:16:48,356
And hopefully the others will copy it because they will sell more EVs.

225
00:16:48,356 --> 00:16:51,389
And it's not that hard to have that system in place.

226
00:16:51,389 --> 00:16:55,055
You just have to have a good vendor who can drop in, you know, a charging unit.

227
00:16:55,055 --> 00:16:57,374
Most utilities will pay for the box.

228
00:16:58,076 --> 00:16:58,276
Yeah.

229
00:16:58,276 --> 00:17:00,837
So this, this is such a weird dynamic.

230
00:17:00,918 --> 00:17:03,359
and once again, incomplete agreement.

231
00:17:03,689 --> 00:17:06,671
but here's, I hopefully, yeah.

232
00:17:06,671 --> 00:17:16,926
otherwise this might be a boring podcast, but no, no, seriously though, the amount, like
the one thing, this, just being around EVs for the last decade, a lot of like the

233
00:17:16,926 --> 00:17:21,728
nonprofits and other people always say, well, you just need to get butts in seats and you
get butts in seats.

234
00:17:21,769 --> 00:17:27,956
And I think about five years ago, that conversation changed and purely, that's no longer
effective, but you're.

235
00:17:27,956 --> 00:17:28,656
totally right.

236
00:17:28,656 --> 00:17:32,736
That like peer to peer conversation is still the biggest thing.

237
00:17:32,736 --> 00:17:44,536
And I think obviously this kind of goes to the tribalism was down about, but even now with
EVs, I mean, what's so fascinating was I was looking at other options, uh, for EVs on the

238
00:17:44,536 --> 00:17:55,316
market for, uh, kind of doing some essentially intelligence gathering for like some
dealerships and look at this and the area where the startups have been so successful is

239
00:17:55,316 --> 00:17:57,832
they've leaned even more into like not just

240
00:17:57,832 --> 00:17:59,664
Here's the keys drive for whatever, but you're right.

241
00:17:59,664 --> 00:18:01,534
They're like here, you can have it for a weekend.

242
00:18:01,534 --> 00:18:06,257
Yeah, you got to a longer drive and you've got to have the other thing.

243
00:18:06,257 --> 00:18:10,077
And there's a VW store that Linda Ciccatelli had on her podcast.

244
00:18:10,077 --> 00:18:11,741
And I want to make a little film about that.

245
00:18:11,741 --> 00:18:19,646
One of our programs guy put all the Salesforce into EVs where they wanted to or not had a
revolt, you know, the sales manager for a week.

246
00:18:19,646 --> 00:18:22,388
And then, then half of them became fanatics.

247
00:18:22,528 --> 00:18:23,359
And guess what?

248
00:18:23,359 --> 00:18:27,652
Look at the lift, even selling ID fours, at the lift they had.

249
00:18:27,652 --> 00:18:30,553
So it's a fixable problem.

250
00:18:30,794 --> 00:18:45,334
The other part of it people don't talk about, if you own an auto store in say Kansas City,
where you're not in a big, well any urban market is decent for EVs generally, but it's not

251
00:18:45,334 --> 00:18:48,894
San Francisco or Dallas or LA.

252
00:18:49,194 --> 00:18:57,032
And you're on the dealership, they roll in and say, well, you're not gonna make as much
service money, which is of course fixed ops are a huge profit thing for most dealers.

253
00:18:57,032 --> 00:19:05,437
You got to put in heavier hoists to lift these big heavy EVs, particularly the pickup
trucks and that kind of thing, God forbid that Hummer, even though I kind of like that

254
00:19:05,437 --> 00:19:06,848
vehicle.

255
00:19:06,848 --> 00:19:11,250
I fantasize about getting one in LA just to bump people out, I run.

256
00:19:11,250 --> 00:19:12,501
No, no, I'm in love with it.

257
00:19:12,501 --> 00:19:14,132
I think it's great and kudos for GM.

258
00:19:14,132 --> 00:19:17,253
Look, if we're to make an EV Hummer, make an EV Hummer.

259
00:19:18,414 --> 00:19:20,536
Yeah, yeah, I give GM a salute there.

260
00:19:20,536 --> 00:19:22,216
But anyway, you got to put in the heavy lift.

261
00:19:22,216 --> 00:19:25,308
And by the way, you need a forklift to replace batteries.

262
00:19:25,370 --> 00:19:28,622
And because you can't, you lose your fire insurance for the whole dealership.

263
00:19:28,622 --> 00:19:33,376
So you've to build a blockhouse out back in most places, the store, the extra batteries.

264
00:19:33,376 --> 00:19:37,778
So a lot of costs for very little return on the fixed upside.

265
00:19:37,839 --> 00:19:40,470
And the average dealer is like, God, why do I need that headache?

266
00:19:40,470 --> 00:19:45,037
And by the way, I'm in a red state where people think these are Biden mobiles and they
resent them.

267
00:19:45,037 --> 00:19:46,184
So no.

268
00:19:46,385 --> 00:19:49,257
So the whole, the retail part of it is clogged up.

269
00:19:49,257 --> 00:19:53,329
It's retail multifamily charging level two chart are the two biggest problems.

270
00:19:53,329 --> 00:19:54,590
I'm not as.

271
00:19:54,738 --> 00:19:55,599
Worried about an EV.

272
00:19:55,599 --> 00:20:01,724
I've driven an IV for across the country three times in the last 18 months from LA to
Boston.

273
00:20:01,724 --> 00:20:03,665
No problems at all on the highway.

274
00:20:04,086 --> 00:20:09,031
You know, it's much the first time it was bumpy with electrify America much better now.

275
00:20:09,031 --> 00:20:09,801
Yeah, it's wild.

276
00:20:09,801 --> 00:20:18,143
Not only just electrify America, but just so many other, mean, more of the traditional
fueling and travel centers like the pilots and loves and flying J's of the world's kind of

277
00:20:18,143 --> 00:20:18,873
coming out.

278
00:20:18,873 --> 00:20:19,813
It is.

279
00:20:19,813 --> 00:20:20,763
Yeah, exactly.

280
00:20:20,763 --> 00:20:21,693
Bucky's is a great one too.

281
00:20:21,693 --> 00:20:23,613
It is really interesting to me.

282
00:20:23,971 --> 00:20:28,354
I, as someone who's also done a lot of road trip, EV road trips, it's wild to see.

283
00:20:28,454 --> 00:20:35,315
Obviously you've got like I-5 and some of these like corridor things on the West coast,
but heading East ID for there.

284
00:20:35,315 --> 00:20:38,976
And if you look at a map of like EV charging station, there is a big.

285
00:20:39,301 --> 00:20:51,971
Gap it's it's getting a lot better But like just west of the Missouri River until you hit
like some of the like I five Western like there's some pretty decent gaps Exactly Yeah

286
00:20:51,971 --> 00:20:54,083
your car for parts and walking home.

287
00:20:54,083 --> 00:20:59,325
But all that, you know, I mean, we can talk about Neve and the political problems and
everything else.

288
00:20:59,325 --> 00:21:03,207
But fundamentally, and we ask people to send our polling.

289
00:21:03,428 --> 00:21:14,854
You have a lot, particularly in a big multiplex, you have a lot of people who can afford a
60 grand EV in a million five, million six, million eight condo.

290
00:21:15,282 --> 00:21:19,276
who can't have level two charging and they want EVs and they won't buy them for that
reason.

291
00:21:19,276 --> 00:21:20,247
It is a huge problem.

292
00:21:20,247 --> 00:21:27,915
Then on the other end, you've got a lot of rideshare drivers who would much rather charge
overnight at home at 19 cents a kilowatt.

293
00:21:27,915 --> 00:21:29,707
It would be a meaningful pay raise to them.

294
00:21:29,707 --> 00:21:39,018
We're doing a lot of work on this because it, mean, one of the largest developers in the
country for communities.

295
00:21:39,018 --> 00:21:43,778
Uh, we're close to them and they're looking at this and cause they notice an attribute
people want.

296
00:21:43,778 --> 00:21:45,398
It's just a camp X scares them away.

297
00:21:45,398 --> 00:21:50,338
Cause in the real estate business, you, your capex should be in maintenance to keep this
stuff out.

298
00:21:50,338 --> 00:21:52,578
And every other dollar comes right out of your.

299
00:21:52,578 --> 00:22:00,658
Your profit in the area of Brown with multifamily is there's so many owners, so many
families who have three or four buildings they pass down.

300
00:22:00,658 --> 00:22:04,938
You can't make three phone calls and well, the multifamily people are on board.

301
00:22:05,018 --> 00:22:08,636
You know, you, got to go find 30,000 different owners and talk.

302
00:22:08,636 --> 00:22:11,038
into it, which means it has to be free by the way.

303
00:22:11,038 --> 00:22:13,070
You know, it's very hard to do the pitch.

304
00:22:13,070 --> 00:22:17,316
This will only cost you a quarter million and in 11 years you'll make the money back.

305
00:22:17,316 --> 00:22:24,316
I want to share one more anecdote that kind of will lead us to this multifamily thing that
I've recently, uh, just had yesterday.

306
00:22:24,316 --> 00:22:33,776
Uh, I've started working with, uh, I need to look up their name again, but essentially
it's called the R I think the Y East rural, um, driving program.

307
00:22:33,776 --> 00:22:43,956
And essentially what it is, it's based, it's focused mostly on like Eastern, which is a
very rural part of the country, Eastern Oregon and parts of the Northwest.

308
00:22:43,976 --> 00:22:46,246
But they were talking about kind of exactly what you're talking about.

309
00:22:46,246 --> 00:22:49,829
This guy, he's always been a big Chevy Silverado guy.

310
00:22:50,260 --> 00:22:54,282
but his wife works at home and they live in Antelope, Oregon.

311
00:22:54,342 --> 00:22:56,563
Some people listening to this will know where that is.

312
00:22:56,563 --> 00:22:59,485
If you were an Oregonian, a lot don't know where that is.

313
00:22:59,485 --> 00:23:10,511
The best and unfortunately best way to know where it is, is if you've seen the documentary
Wild Wild Country, that is the famous Rajneeshi kind of, cult.

314
00:23:10,901 --> 00:23:12,422
and it's, and it's

315
00:23:12,909 --> 00:23:14,294
That's the bag one, right?

316
00:23:14,294 --> 00:23:14,595
Right?

317
00:23:14,595 --> 00:23:16,894
The purple rose Royce's not electric, right?

318
00:23:16,894 --> 00:23:17,412
Okay.

319
00:23:17,412 --> 00:23:23,072
And every now and if you watch on any of like the carbidding things, you'll still see them
pop up.

320
00:23:23,072 --> 00:23:24,952
But that's a whole nother podcast.

321
00:23:24,952 --> 00:23:27,812
Either way, it's a very rural part of Oregon.

322
00:23:27,872 --> 00:23:31,592
They had a Chevy Silverado that they kind of use for everything.

323
00:23:31,592 --> 00:23:42,540
The wife works at home as an accountant, but she has to drive every morning about 25 miles
the kids to not to school but to the bus stop.

324
00:23:42,567 --> 00:23:42,918
Wow.

325
00:23:42,918 --> 00:23:43,929
is wild.

326
00:23:43,929 --> 00:23:50,094
And so she's driving about roughly about almost when they figured it out close to 70 miles
a day.

327
00:23:50,474 --> 00:23:59,762
And in that Silverado with the gas and everything, they're like, I don't know if we want
to get a EV, but there's a pretty big financial incentive to do it.

328
00:23:59,762 --> 00:24:00,633
And it's exactly this.

329
00:24:00,633 --> 00:24:02,464
And they're like, I don't know if it makes sense.

330
00:24:02,464 --> 00:24:07,288
They, the Tesla dealership in central Oregon and bend offered them to have it for the
weekend.

331
00:24:07,288 --> 00:24:08,539
They had it for the weekend.

332
00:24:08,539 --> 00:24:12,582
And before they even returned to the dealership, they said they'd

333
00:24:12,582 --> 00:24:14,533
Lisa, they're like, we're sold.

334
00:24:14,533 --> 00:24:16,614
And this, this goes back to exact.

335
00:24:16,614 --> 00:24:17,634
Well, that's the thing.

336
00:24:17,634 --> 00:24:19,295
They didn't even have that.

337
00:24:19,295 --> 00:24:23,957
Just having, just having level one was like, okay, we can make this work.

338
00:24:23,957 --> 00:24:26,848
This, I mean, it's a stretch, but like, we can see how this works.

339
00:24:26,848 --> 00:24:28,199
And you're totally right.

340
00:24:28,199 --> 00:24:36,933
And I like to put the idea in their heads, like, obviously it's not the fastest, but even
to me as an EV driver, it's still insane that the same outlet I plugged my electric

341
00:24:36,933 --> 00:24:39,207
toothbrush in, I can plug my car in.

342
00:24:39,207 --> 00:24:39,970
Right, right.

343
00:24:39,970 --> 00:24:43,623
of my daily driving and I drive 25 to 30,000 miles a year.

344
00:24:44,104 --> 00:24:49,709
and so like seeing how this evolution is happening, but this gets to what your time at is
like going into multifamily homes.

345
00:24:49,709 --> 00:24:59,717
Not only do you have to have this different mindset approach to the residential or to the
tenants, to the actual consumer of why to get EVs and how it fits in their life.

346
00:24:59,717 --> 00:25:07,573
And I think this actually goes really well to that recent, podcast you had with Tom
Malogny on your directly current podcast kind of talking about how important level one

347
00:25:07,573 --> 00:25:08,604
level two is.

348
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:13,975
But then getting into that multifamily side of it is like, okay, the consumers are now
bought in.

349
00:25:13,975 --> 00:25:16,808
They can make it work with level one, level two charging.

350
00:25:16,808 --> 00:25:20,461
How do you actually get this to them if they don't own the property on the home?

351
00:25:20,461 --> 00:25:24,655
And that's kind of the next big hurdle, but it's clearly, it's not a lack of technology.

352
00:25:24,655 --> 00:25:27,528
The technology was the batteries and the EVs and we've kind of figured that out.

353
00:25:27,528 --> 00:25:29,736
It's the actual exactly.

354
00:25:29,736 --> 00:25:31,578
own Moore's law going on a battery.

355
00:25:31,578 --> 00:25:34,921
So in five years, this is hope they're not all Chinese.

356
00:25:34,921 --> 00:25:43,979
I mean, we're in an interesting moment here in LA and it's true in the other big cities,
we're we're LA County is probably the biggest EV market in America.

357
00:25:43,979 --> 00:25:50,254
I would think it's 10 million people with about a 25 percent EV, you know, sales rate.

358
00:25:50,295 --> 00:25:51,315
So.

359
00:25:52,057 --> 00:25:53,842
It's nightmare to fast charge here.

360
00:25:53,842 --> 00:25:54,638
Yeah.

361
00:25:54,722 --> 00:26:03,175
For two reasons one is all the stations are overcrowded because there are enough stations
and two it's near impossible to commission a fast charging station I'm obsessed.

362
00:26:03,175 --> 00:26:14,919
There's an EV go station on If you're an LA person listening, it's on Robertson Boulevard
right by the 10 freeway 10 freeway is a great interstate because you can literally swim

363
00:26:14,919 --> 00:26:18,878
out of the water in your swimsuit in Santa Monica

364
00:26:18,878 --> 00:26:19,368
Right.

365
00:26:19,368 --> 00:26:23,220
get on the and drive all way to Jacksonville and then jump in the other ocean.

366
00:26:23,220 --> 00:26:26,761
I'm sure the planet will stop turning at that point, but it's ocean to ocean.

367
00:26:26,761 --> 00:26:30,022
So it's a very important highway across Los Angeles.

368
00:26:30,263 --> 00:26:35,075
And two years ago, EVGO next to a Shell station got a big lot and God bless them.

369
00:26:35,075 --> 00:26:37,716
They built the most beautiful EVGO station I've ever seen.

370
00:26:37,716 --> 00:26:39,047
Everything but a canopy.

371
00:26:39,047 --> 00:26:45,159
It's got like 10 dispensers and a construction fence, portable fencing around it.

372
00:26:45,159 --> 00:26:46,920
And I've watched it for two years.

373
00:26:47,004 --> 00:26:50,307
It got to the point where it looked like a set for the walking dead.

374
00:26:50,307 --> 00:26:53,659
The weeds were taller than the chargers.

375
00:26:53,659 --> 00:27:00,455
were growing up next to the I took some pictures of it and sent them to EV go and I said,
you guys, God forbid Fox News finds this thing.

376
00:27:00,455 --> 00:27:02,236
Cause it's the perfect Navy screw up.

377
00:27:02,236 --> 00:27:03,327
Even if it's not Navy.

378
00:27:03,327 --> 00:27:07,020
By the way, California, we have not built an EV station here yet.

379
00:27:07,020 --> 00:27:08,131
Don't even get me started.

380
00:27:08,131 --> 00:27:11,537
We have to look to Republican run Ohio on how to do it right or New York.

381
00:27:11,537 --> 00:27:12,378
Right, right.

382
00:27:12,378 --> 00:27:15,240
Anyway, so they finally cut the weeds.

383
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,642
I went nuts about this and just kept pestering them.

384
00:27:17,642 --> 00:27:21,805
It took me a year and suddenly the weeds vanished, but it still hasn't been commissioned.

385
00:27:21,805 --> 00:27:31,482
And I can't really get them to explain it to me, but I'm sure knowing LA and having
complained to the governor's world about this, there are 22 different authorities, which

386
00:27:31,482 --> 00:27:36,156
is why in the urban fast charging, I am a huge fan of the battery backup.

387
00:27:36,156 --> 00:27:39,258
I love the electric era guys and I love ADS tech.

388
00:27:39,454 --> 00:27:42,586
They're kind of the two leaders of Chinese company to X charge.

389
00:27:42,586 --> 00:27:45,017
think it's called something like that.

390
00:27:45,017 --> 00:27:48,979
they're, mean, electric area has a lot of advantages because they're purely software
based.

391
00:27:48,979 --> 00:27:52,140
their, their functionality is higher than anybody else.

392
00:27:53,361 --> 00:27:54,002
Yeah.

393
00:27:54,002 --> 00:27:57,083
Those guys are going, I'm looking at building a station with them in Malibu.

394
00:27:57,083 --> 00:28:00,205
I'm trying hard to get it done and ADS tech.

395
00:28:00,205 --> 00:28:01,942
I'm going to see who can solve it.

396
00:28:01,942 --> 00:28:03,009
do get it open, let me know.

397
00:28:03,009 --> 00:28:03,794
I'll drive down.

398
00:28:03,794 --> 00:28:05,108
That'd be awesome.

399
00:28:05,108 --> 00:28:09,030
Well, we've got a good location, though I got to convince the owner to do it.

400
00:28:09,030 --> 00:28:15,061
you know, but even them with their lower demands and faster commissioning, you know, the
Malibu regulations.

401
00:28:15,061 --> 00:28:16,942
Anyway, I can bore you to death.

402
00:28:16,942 --> 00:28:17,702
I've tried twice.

403
00:28:17,702 --> 00:28:26,845
I tried to build a Neve station in Concord, New Hampshire, near the state capital, because
I wanted to get a tourism subsidy to localize some battery based chargers.

404
00:28:26,845 --> 00:28:28,526
Couldn't get off first base.

405
00:28:28,526 --> 00:28:30,202
The Neve corridor.

406
00:28:30,202 --> 00:28:32,364
apparently didn't believe in the lakes region.

407
00:28:32,364 --> 00:28:35,617
And I have a friend who has to tow his Lucid all the time coming up from Boston.

408
00:28:35,617 --> 00:28:38,489
There's no fast charging up there except Tesla.

409
00:28:38,489 --> 00:28:50,769
So anyway, I'm happy with what Trump is doing with Neve, but I'm a critic of a lot of the
program because they gave a lot of wet spaghetti to the states to push uphill and the

410
00:28:50,769 --> 00:28:52,251
states have not been particularly good at it.

411
00:28:52,251 --> 00:28:53,222
Some have.

412
00:28:53,222 --> 00:28:54,142
Some have been great.

413
00:28:54,142 --> 00:28:55,313
Ohio, Mike DeWine.

414
00:28:55,313 --> 00:28:58,982
It's kind of funny and old school meat and potatoes Republican governor has been the

415
00:28:58,982 --> 00:29:00,463
arguably the best job.

416
00:29:00,463 --> 00:29:07,166
But for the most part, here in EV Paradise, California, it's been a mess.

417
00:29:07,166 --> 00:29:15,761
you know, other red states now are taking a cue from the Trump administration, which is
going to create I can just see some publicity hound Republican governor saying I'm taking

418
00:29:15,761 --> 00:29:23,655
all my liberal Biden electric car money, and I'm going to send it back to the president to
hire more immigration agents to deport them illegals.

419
00:29:23,655 --> 00:29:27,617
I mean, you know, and they're, yeah, yeah.

420
00:29:27,617 --> 00:29:29,138
you know, what people

421
00:29:29,186 --> 00:29:32,649
I've been saying this for two years, they're like, well, it's appropriated by Congress
again.

422
00:29:32,649 --> 00:29:33,929
That's all true.

423
00:29:34,230 --> 00:29:39,934
But bureaucracies are pretty lousy at doing stuff, even when they're trying to help.

424
00:29:41,015 --> 00:29:46,398
In the Trump world, they're going to leave jobs open, and nobody's going to answer the
phone.

425
00:29:46,459 --> 00:29:51,302
And so getting your paperwork through, you know, it's like passive resistance.

426
00:29:51,380 --> 00:29:53,171
No, this is exactly what we were talking with.

427
00:29:53,171 --> 00:30:02,928
Lauren McDonald, a couple episodes back about kind of the Navi funds and how now that
trumps in it's really become the blue red state, blue state red state kind of divide as to

428
00:30:02,928 --> 00:30:08,612
how these funds move forward, which I mean, there was already a bit of that with some of
the States that just said, we're not even going to deal with this.

429
00:30:09,013 --> 00:30:14,136
but I think that's a really interesting kind of dynamic about like.

430
00:30:15,380 --> 00:30:26,169
I mean, in some ways I'm more, continuously confirmed by the idea that the path to hell is
paved with good intentions where it's just like, that's a great intention, but the

431
00:30:26,169 --> 00:30:28,670
execution, the time and all these other things.

432
00:30:28,751 --> 00:30:33,985
And I think there's definitely a place for it to show kind of like what this technology
can be, what it can do.

433
00:30:33,985 --> 00:30:43,343
And it had a really good point of trying to cover some of these places that are more rural
that, some of the other larger providers hadn't either had the financial incentive or just

434
00:30:43,343 --> 00:30:45,266
weren't ready to cover.

435
00:30:45,266 --> 00:30:50,678
And so this kind of helps fill those gaps to make EV charging and driving a lot more
feasible.

436
00:30:50,999 --> 00:31:04,484
But I think going back to your point on like the focus on multifamily and kind of some of
the things that once again, there are obviously some kind of like city state county

437
00:31:05,044 --> 00:31:06,285
incentives for that.

438
00:31:06,285 --> 00:31:13,596
But I think in a lot of ways, the beauty of that over DC fast charging, especially in the
LA area where like you're talking about not only

439
00:31:13,596 --> 00:31:18,440
Sometimes you have the rundown issues, but you also have, another thing Lauren brought up
was.

440
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:23,124
EV go even said 25 % of their drivers charging our ride share.

441
00:31:23,284 --> 00:31:29,380
And I think there does need to be kind of how there is already commercial fueling for
taxis and all these other things.

442
00:31:29,380 --> 00:31:39,358
There needs to be like a commercial charging element, but you can bypass a lot of that by
putting in place the ability for like multifamily and that level one and charging at home

443
00:31:39,358 --> 00:31:41,419
for these drivers that depend on the job.

444
00:31:41,419 --> 00:31:42,851
a lot of work on this.

445
00:31:42,851 --> 00:31:44,713
And so we haven't really gone public with it.

446
00:31:44,713 --> 00:31:47,685
So I'm going to be a little guarded here, but it is a fact.

447
00:31:48,086 --> 00:31:49,607
Yeah, yeah.

448
00:31:49,728 --> 00:32:01,540
That if you're a full-time rideshare driver and you're in an EV because you got to
subsidize the lease, you live in an apartment.

449
00:32:01,780 --> 00:32:03,832
Not all, but majority.

450
00:32:04,232 --> 00:32:08,165
So you have a targetable group there that ought to have overnight level two charging.

451
00:32:08,165 --> 00:32:13,089
And that will put another 500 bucks a month or more into their paycheck, just in savings.

452
00:32:13,089 --> 00:32:18,754
Now, some of them for the first year of the vehicle are surfing on the free charging
thing, but that will go away.

453
00:32:18,754 --> 00:32:24,138
And then they're 55 cents a kilowatt versus 19 or less at home if they night charge.

454
00:32:24,158 --> 00:32:30,543
So there is a wonderful solution here that is gaining some traction in the public policy
world.

455
00:32:30,543 --> 00:32:33,986
And we're pushing this because

456
00:32:34,022 --> 00:32:44,971
we can make a meaningful difference to them, to emissions, to adoption, and we can cut
that line at the CCS charger at the Walmart.

457
00:32:45,032 --> 00:32:53,318
So I think in the Metroplexes, nothing is more important than level two and multifamily
and on the other end of the scale in the condominium world.

458
00:32:53,359 --> 00:33:02,590
I mean, one reason we're looking at this charger in Malibu is there are lot of very
expensive condos around and big adoption of EVs, but...

459
00:33:02,590 --> 00:33:07,282
Those condo associations are still pretty tricky to install level two.

460
00:33:07,832 --> 00:33:08,793
I mean, I've done it.

461
00:33:08,793 --> 00:33:11,664
This office I'm doing this in as a former apartment building.

462
00:33:11,664 --> 00:33:13,715
There are still some apartment tenants here.

463
00:33:13,715 --> 00:33:17,477
I I'm in this thing and luckily I knew the owner.

464
00:33:17,477 --> 00:33:19,558
So I said, Hey, what about putting EV charging in?

465
00:33:19,558 --> 00:33:20,158
Hell no.

466
00:33:20,158 --> 00:33:21,050
Complicated.

467
00:33:21,050 --> 00:33:23,230
I say, no, no, just let me call your electrician.

468
00:33:23,230 --> 00:33:24,220
I'll pay for it.

469
00:33:24,220 --> 00:33:25,321
He said, all right.

470
00:33:25,321 --> 00:33:26,691
You know, show me when it's done.

471
00:33:26,691 --> 00:33:27,592
So I put it in here.

472
00:33:27,592 --> 00:33:28,742
Wasn't cheap.

473
00:33:28,872 --> 00:33:30,523
but I've got a charger downstairs.

474
00:33:30,523 --> 00:33:34,205
Now the other tenants come by and say, hey, how do you get one of those?

475
00:33:34,205 --> 00:33:44,250
So the demand is definitely there, but you've got to make it very easy for the multifamily
ownership, who I can tell you are not going to spend a dime.

476
00:33:44,351 --> 00:33:48,393
Even if you say, you get a tax incentive, you get a paper crown, you get this.

477
00:33:48,393 --> 00:33:49,133
No, no, no.

478
00:33:49,133 --> 00:33:52,175
What they want to do is charge people a little bit more for having it.

479
00:33:52,175 --> 00:33:58,410
And they want people to pay their own bill, which is doable because these things have
their own power meters.

480
00:33:58,410 --> 00:34:01,070
but somebody else has to come in and spend the cap.

481
00:34:01,070 --> 00:34:02,830
So goodness, it's not that expensive.

482
00:34:02,830 --> 00:34:11,170
can do it for depending on whether you use union electricians or not, which any political
deal in the blue state means, but seven, eight grand of parking space.

483
00:34:11,710 --> 00:34:13,770
People argue you can do it for even less.

484
00:34:13,770 --> 00:34:17,990
You kind of can, but there are issues with power in the buildings and everything.

485
00:34:17,990 --> 00:34:19,390
So I'll shoot a little hot.

486
00:34:19,390 --> 00:34:24,770
But for infrastructure spending, save 6,000 in the parking space, not that bad.

487
00:34:25,179 --> 00:34:29,776
compared to what a $2 million fast charging station costs, and it'll take you three years.

488
00:34:29,861 --> 00:34:30,582
Exactly.

489
00:34:30,582 --> 00:34:32,063
And I'm kind of curious.

490
00:34:32,063 --> 00:34:34,395
You alluded to maybe it's too early to share all this.

491
00:34:34,395 --> 00:34:37,798
So maybe we'll have to have this conversation on the next podcast.

492
00:34:37,798 --> 00:34:49,158
But for those listening, is there anything you'd recommend that they do or reach out to
local politicians or what can they do to help make this easier for either themselves or

493
00:34:49,259 --> 00:34:50,910
their neighbors and others?

494
00:34:50,910 --> 00:35:05,238
Well, right now, the best way to do this is to move some of the Gen 2 Neve money this
direction and to get some state money for it.

495
00:35:05,238 --> 00:35:15,864
And there is in a blue state a pretty good political deal where you can say, hey,
Governor, sitting in a room next door, I have the electricians union, building trades.

496
00:35:15,864 --> 00:35:17,805
I've got the environmentalists.

497
00:35:17,805 --> 00:35:19,590
I've got the apartment owners.

498
00:35:19,590 --> 00:35:23,453
as long as they can charge 20 bucks a month, love this and keep all the money.

499
00:35:24,414 --> 00:35:29,338
And I have some of the wage advocates who would like rideshare drivers to make more money.

500
00:35:29,839 --> 00:35:33,722
Ideally, they'd want to unionize them, which is a killer for the companies.

501
00:35:33,722 --> 00:35:34,806
They're never going to go for that.

502
00:35:34,806 --> 00:35:36,344
kills their economic model.

503
00:35:36,344 --> 00:35:38,275
So we got a pretty good constituency here.

504
00:35:38,275 --> 00:35:41,247
Let's find 100 million in the state budget or do a bond.

505
00:35:41,608 --> 00:35:42,589
And guess what?

506
00:35:42,589 --> 00:35:48,030
We can go do 50,000 apartment building spaces or maybe 100,000.

507
00:35:48,030 --> 00:35:49,112
So

508
00:35:49,234 --> 00:35:50,815
Red states, it'll be a heavy lift.

509
00:35:50,815 --> 00:35:54,457
Maybe you can do it in a municipality in a red state.

510
00:35:54,534 --> 00:35:59,761
I mean, if we get it done in California, everything that happens in America happens first
here.

511
00:36:00,682 --> 00:36:01,633
It'll catch fire.

512
00:36:01,633 --> 00:36:03,685
So a lot of work is being done on this.

513
00:36:03,685 --> 00:36:04,615
So stand by.

514
00:36:04,615 --> 00:36:11,280
And in the meantime, let when you send your rent every month, put a slip and please, need
level two EV charging, Mr.

515
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:16,906
Landlord, and I pay a little more to get it, which is a language they understand, the love
language of.

516
00:36:16,906 --> 00:36:22,846
of landlords is how do I get more money beyond what I can increase based on rent control
or whatever.

517
00:36:23,226 --> 00:36:32,985
Because think about it, you're a landlord, you got an apartment building, and you're
allowed to charge 25 bucks a month if you have an EV friendly parking space.

518
00:36:32,985 --> 00:36:37,546
Most EV, if it's 200 a month, they won't pay, 25 bucks are probably paid.

519
00:36:37,646 --> 00:36:45,524
So you get, let's say 10 spaces, that's $250 across 10, you know,

520
00:36:45,524 --> 00:36:52,396
times a year, you're looking at $3,000 $4,000 times 10 years, 30 or 40,000 bucks at no
cost to you.

521
00:36:52,896 --> 00:36:58,738
So that gives them interested enough to let the electricians in the building to drop in
the stuff.

522
00:36:59,398 --> 00:37:03,999
So anyway, we're working on and we're trying to raise some grant money.

523
00:37:04,219 --> 00:37:14,212
We do take donations and our C3 is tax deductible to put a coalition together to try to
get this done in a big blue state.

524
00:37:14,612 --> 00:37:15,273
Well, that's great.

525
00:37:15,273 --> 00:37:23,260
And I guess for anyone listening, we will have the like usually we will have the links to
your program and everything else in today's show notes.

526
00:37:23,260 --> 00:37:26,633
So for anyone listening, that's curious, please check that out to do more of it.

527
00:37:26,633 --> 00:37:27,630
I think.

528
00:37:27,630 --> 00:37:30,951
I will say the rideshare companies are happy to this.

529
00:37:31,511 --> 00:37:35,352
I don't want to mention names and stuff, but we started shopping the idea around and there
is some interest.

530
00:37:35,352 --> 00:37:36,873
So it'll take a while.

531
00:37:37,433 --> 00:37:43,795
And here in California, some of the, I mean, I'll say to its credit, Newsom is pro EV.

532
00:37:44,835 --> 00:37:48,956
But the hardest thing when you're governor of California is dealing with the
municipalities.

533
00:37:48,956 --> 00:37:51,807
Again, why is there the most beautiful EV?

534
00:37:51,807 --> 00:37:54,536
And if you go to evpolitics.org on the blog,

535
00:37:54,536 --> 00:37:57,807
I have some pictures of it during the walking dead phase.

536
00:37:58,888 --> 00:38:00,609
But it's still not commissioned.

537
00:38:02,591 --> 00:38:05,222
we have multiple jurisdictions here.

538
00:38:05,222 --> 00:38:06,222
mean, it's just crazy.

539
00:38:06,222 --> 00:38:13,106
California is the reason, by the way, that in Neve, the machines have to have credit card
readers, which are hugely failure prone.

540
00:38:13,106 --> 00:38:16,340
Although I think the electric gear guys have cracked that problem in some ways.

541
00:38:16,340 --> 00:38:20,113
they've actually been really impressive of doing quick installations in California.

542
00:38:20,113 --> 00:38:28,632
I they shared some of their secrets, but I pushed them to share more and clearly there's a
little bit of their own secret sauce in it.

543
00:38:28,632 --> 00:38:30,524
But exactly.

544
00:38:30,524 --> 00:38:31,856
That's a great point.

545
00:38:31,856 --> 00:38:32,174
Yeah.

546
00:38:32,174 --> 00:38:35,834
they use existing power and they buttress it with a battery they charge you.

547
00:38:35,834 --> 00:38:38,894
ADS tech, I should speak up for them a little too.

548
00:38:39,154 --> 00:38:42,414
I was over selling our wares here in Germany.

549
00:38:42,414 --> 00:38:48,934
I met with the CEO of Mercedes Benz, the global CEO, great guy, Ulla Kalinas and totally
pro EV.

550
00:38:48,934 --> 00:38:52,514
And I was asking him about charging and goes, you got to look at these ADS tech guys.

551
00:38:52,514 --> 00:38:54,114
They do a battery based thing.

552
00:38:54,114 --> 00:38:57,454
We're putting one on the front lawn of our Mercedes world headquarters.

553
00:38:57,470 --> 00:39:05,385
So I talked to their CEO and they've opened the US operation and their first job was they
put 90 of these battery back things and Porsche dealers all over.

554
00:39:05,385 --> 00:39:06,606
They got the Porsche contract.

555
00:39:06,606 --> 00:39:07,277
You will see them.

556
00:39:07,277 --> 00:39:11,559
It's kind of a weird gooseneck, very thin dispenser and then a big box.

557
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:13,515
I think it's called the magic box or something.

558
00:39:13,515 --> 00:39:15,442
It's very similar to electric era.

559
00:39:15,442 --> 00:39:21,216
Electric era would say our software is better because we don't do modules and we're, you
know, let them fight that out.

560
00:39:21,216 --> 00:39:22,887
They're both friends of mine.

561
00:39:22,887 --> 00:39:26,649
And in the real world, I'm looking at both for Malibu, but

562
00:39:27,752 --> 00:39:38,893
That is a great way, like let's say you're in a suburban little shopping area and you
can't put in a big EV go or electrify America or even a Tesla station.

563
00:39:38,893 --> 00:39:52,806
You can drop in a battery back to ADS tech or electrify, excuse me, electric era and take
up three parking spaces, not, you 12 and you can tie into existing power.

564
00:39:52,850 --> 00:39:55,912
or get a slight service upgrade, it all works so much quicker.

565
00:39:55,912 --> 00:40:01,746
So having a lot of those, in my view, is better than building the massive stations in the
urbanized stuff.

566
00:40:01,746 --> 00:40:05,158
Massive stuff works great on the highway, in a big deal.

567
00:40:05,158 --> 00:40:09,721
Now in secondary highways, that's where electric gear has done well in Northern
California.

568
00:40:09,721 --> 00:40:16,666
Because those battery-backed things can't do as many charges a day, but they can do
plenty.

569
00:40:16,666 --> 00:40:19,798
And there's a better margin for the owner, by the way.

570
00:40:19,798 --> 00:40:21,409
Look at EVgo's books.

571
00:40:21,409 --> 00:40:22,866
They're a public company.

572
00:40:22,866 --> 00:40:23,827
It's heartbreaking.

573
00:40:23,827 --> 00:40:28,409
It's very hard for them to make any money because of demand charges.

574
00:40:28,590 --> 00:40:35,725
they'd sell you $21 worth of electricity and they make a buck and those stations are
expensive.

575
00:40:35,725 --> 00:40:38,886
So I worry about that business model.

576
00:40:38,886 --> 00:40:49,334
On the other hand, if your battery buffer, like to build an electric era station with
three dispensers and six nozzles will cost you six to 800,000 bucks.

577
00:40:49,334 --> 00:40:50,725
You can probably do it in six months.

578
00:40:50,725 --> 00:40:52,538
I mean, I'm using some of the numbers I'm looking

579
00:40:52,538 --> 00:40:53,318
at.

580
00:40:53,499 --> 00:40:55,531
It still is not a moneymaker.

581
00:40:55,531 --> 00:40:57,873
You're not going to get rich, but you're not going to get killed doing it.

582
00:40:57,873 --> 00:40:59,484
You might make a little money.

583
00:40:59,484 --> 00:41:12,035
And if you've got an amenity there, if you're the local mall owner and you've got a
Starbucks and a Subway or whatever or convenience store, it starts to add up.

584
00:41:12,035 --> 00:41:16,669
it becomes a people have 20 minutes to kill, go buy a Subway or Starbucks or whatever.

585
00:41:16,669 --> 00:41:19,988
So it's a good model.

586
00:41:19,988 --> 00:41:29,988
definitely talked about a lot is like the DC fast charging business model for a lot of the
chargers is it's it's hard business.

587
00:41:29,988 --> 00:41:30,848
We'll leave it at that.

588
00:41:30,848 --> 00:41:34,268
But I mean, look at what the traditional gas infrastructure is.

589
00:41:34,268 --> 00:41:36,968
Like they don't make money selling gas to gas cars.

590
00:41:36,968 --> 00:41:43,508
They make money when you come in and buy that hot dog that someone surprisingly exactly
the chips, the gum, whatever.

591
00:41:43,508 --> 00:41:44,668
It's like you go into the store.

592
00:41:44,668 --> 00:41:45,740
And so

593
00:41:45,874 --> 00:41:54,051
there is obviously kind of that capex expenditure to put this in, but that I think is why
you're going to see more of the traditional fueling stations.

594
00:41:54,051 --> 00:42:02,981
And like you said, malls and other places where there's kind of the Delta in charging is
coming down anyway, but there's, there's places where it makes sense that if you have to

595
00:42:02,981 --> 00:42:08,724
go the safe way or someone shop anyway, once a week for 30 minutes, like it's perfect for
doing that.

596
00:42:08,724 --> 00:42:13,350
If you, if you have to fast charge and you can't charge at home, it's like, it's these
kinds of things that make sense.

597
00:42:13,350 --> 00:42:16,727
in the short to medium term, but also make a lot of sense long term as well.

598
00:42:16,727 --> 00:42:27,196
Carl, who's at the Transportation Electrification Institute, I think it is, had me speak
to their big meeting in Minneapolis.

599
00:42:27,257 --> 00:42:32,522
And there's kind of a myth in the EV world of the oil companies are out to kill us and
everything.

600
00:42:32,522 --> 00:42:34,924
And some of them are, but some are.

601
00:42:34,924 --> 00:42:39,459
And I had a bunch of big oil guys talk to me after the presentation.

602
00:42:39,459 --> 00:42:41,288
And they were like, hey,

603
00:42:41,288 --> 00:42:47,799
We would love to hold people for 17 minutes at one of our stations and sell them three
times as many Pringles at a 40 % margin.

604
00:42:47,799 --> 00:42:48,780
Are you kidding?

605
00:42:48,780 --> 00:42:49,680
It's a gold mine.

606
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:50,981
That's why we're here.

607
00:42:50,981 --> 00:42:57,461
The problem is the utilities charges 2 million bucks to bring the power in and we're never
going to make it back.

608
00:42:57,461 --> 00:42:59,323
you know, that's the battery buffered thing.

609
00:42:59,323 --> 00:43:07,875
go into my pitch on that, but they, the, the, the power infrastructure thing is, is an
issue.

610
00:43:07,875 --> 00:43:11,376
You know, it's funny, Pete Buttigieg when he was transportation secretary.

611
00:43:11,822 --> 00:43:15,713
was a big backer of ours and I would meet with him and give him the data and he was all
in.

612
00:43:15,713 --> 00:43:25,976
And I kept saying, you know, I wish you guys could all take Republican pills because
instead of giving money to the states to add seven layers of their own, well, it's got to

613
00:43:25,976 --> 00:43:35,189
be installed by left-handed, you know, people who are also poets and, know, just all the
crazy neighborhood targeting.

614
00:43:35,489 --> 00:43:39,336
Offer ChargePoint operators five years of very cheap power.

615
00:43:39,336 --> 00:43:44,628
So you go to the power companies and say, hey, power companies, here's a lot of government
money.

616
00:43:44,628 --> 00:43:45,859
It's worth building infrastructure.

617
00:43:45,859 --> 00:43:49,550
You know, you're going to get paid for the next seven years on a sliding scale.

618
00:43:49,630 --> 00:44:03,006
And if I build a charging station and I get my reliability over 95 % or a reasonable
number, I get that cheap power for five, six, seven years, then I'm weaned off it and I

619
00:44:03,006 --> 00:44:04,416
can make a profit.

620
00:44:04,416 --> 00:44:09,098
They will figure out what charging equipment to buy, where to put the station.

621
00:44:09,130 --> 00:44:17,810
And it would be like if I wanted to get American needed 10,000 new bars, I would say, Hey,
if you're a bar owner and you don't have a criminal record and you don't serve minors, I

622
00:44:17,810 --> 00:44:21,110
will give you free beer for five years.

623
00:44:21,110 --> 00:44:22,450
You figure the rest out.

624
00:44:22,450 --> 00:44:23,850
And they would.

625
00:44:24,010 --> 00:44:27,350
And as you wean them off, some would fail, but they would know to be in the longterm.

626
00:44:27,350 --> 00:44:27,990
got to get it right.

627
00:44:27,990 --> 00:44:28,650
And it would all work.

628
00:44:28,650 --> 00:44:36,746
And that way the government's only writing one check, you know, to one fund rather than
all this micromanaging at multiple levels we have now, which is why.

629
00:44:36,746 --> 00:44:40,606
You know, I think I heard I heard some of the estimates on your pot.

630
00:44:40,606 --> 00:44:49,086
I think because of slow walking stuff, I'm I'm not even optimistic we're going to get to
this, you know, 800 that are that are due.

631
00:44:49,086 --> 00:44:56,429
I think it might be six or 700 because of red state bureaucrats trying to slow walk
everything, which is tragic.

632
00:44:56,429 --> 00:45:05,012
I think that's a good call and maybe this would be a good point to bring up my recent
experience on the state level.

633
00:45:05,413 --> 00:45:08,374
And I think we can we've talked a lot, obviously, on the federal.

634
00:45:08,374 --> 00:45:18,178
I'm kind of curious to hear more, especially for our listeners, ways they can help on the
state level, because I live now in Washington, a state of Washington, clarify.

635
00:45:18,339 --> 00:45:21,682
And it's the only state on the West Coast where you

636
00:45:21,682 --> 00:45:23,935
have to still have the dealership model.

637
00:45:23,935 --> 00:45:26,338
Tesla got kind of like a carve out.

638
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:28,241
Right, right, right.

639
00:45:28,242 --> 00:45:31,339
Tesla had this carve out back in 2014.

640
00:45:31,339 --> 00:45:31,836
Yeah.

641
00:45:31,836 --> 00:45:32,944
And back then I was like,

642
00:45:32,944 --> 00:45:35,026
all thought that Tesla was like a golf card.

643
00:45:35,026 --> 00:45:35,556
Who cares?

644
00:45:35,556 --> 00:45:37,877
Let the kid have his stupid direct sales.

645
00:45:37,877 --> 00:45:43,180
But now, and I've seen some polling on this, that it's massively unpopular.

646
00:45:43,180 --> 00:45:47,662
People really want to write to buy the dealership or to buy direct.

647
00:45:47,662 --> 00:45:54,762
So this is the kind of thing if it ever got on a ballot initiative, I think for once the
dealers might actually get beat in a locality.

648
00:45:54,762 --> 00:45:56,486
because normally they're very strong on the ground.

649
00:45:56,486 --> 00:46:00,695
very strong in state capitals, which is why the bill lost last year.

650
00:46:00,695 --> 00:46:04,522
But if you ever took it to the people, I think it would pass.

651
00:46:04,550 --> 00:46:05,430
I completely agree.

652
00:46:05,430 --> 00:46:13,493
And I was up in Olympia, it's been a wild couple, I guess two weeks ago now, trying
meeting with legislators and talking with people about this.

653
00:46:13,493 --> 00:46:20,105
And it's so fascinating to me because, when I talk to people about this, completely agree
with you.

654
00:46:20,105 --> 00:46:21,885
They're like, yeah, this makes sense.

655
00:46:21,885 --> 00:46:22,725
This should just be legal.

656
00:46:22,725 --> 00:46:24,446
Why is this another hurdle?

657
00:46:24,446 --> 00:46:28,247
And then the next question I asked him was like, who do you think's pushing against it?

658
00:46:28,267 --> 00:46:30,378
And they're like, I bet you it's the Republicans and all this.

659
00:46:30,378 --> 00:46:31,796
And to be honest with you,

660
00:46:31,796 --> 00:46:39,856
There was like a little bit of pushback I got from Republicans just because a lot of them,
especially the more rural ones did have car dealerships in their areas that employ people.

661
00:46:39,856 --> 00:46:45,596
And they also do support the little league and all these sorts of things.

662
00:46:45,596 --> 00:46:52,376
Having said that, they would mention that, but the conversations I would have with them
were much more open.

663
00:46:52,376 --> 00:46:55,570
And ironically, as we would say, it's, I guess we're pro-choice.

664
00:46:55,570 --> 00:46:58,443
We want to have more businesses and more things.

665
00:46:58,443 --> 00:47:06,174
It's a, it's a, and it started to go down a completely different political path, but
actually most of the Republican legislators were totally open to it.

666
00:47:06,174 --> 00:47:08,005
Yeah, no competition is good.

667
00:47:08,005 --> 00:47:10,537
And by the way, the quote unquote dealers still have service.

668
00:47:10,537 --> 00:47:12,506
They can sell used cars good for everybody.

669
00:47:12,506 --> 00:47:13,769
You know, Hannah Steinway.

670
00:47:13,769 --> 00:47:23,070
Yeah, she's she's very deep in this issue on Rivian's behalf there because it's a state
they very much like to be able to direct sales.

671
00:47:23,070 --> 00:47:23,800
For sure.

672
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:29,563
And I mean, they were even sharing that they believe their sales would triple if they in
the state of Washington, if they were able to do this.

673
00:47:29,563 --> 00:47:37,256
But it was interesting because then I was talking to some of the Democrat legislators and
to be honest with you, was, it wasn't bad conversations.

674
00:47:37,256 --> 00:47:40,878
They were open to it, but the big thing were like, kind of getting into these
stipulations.

675
00:47:40,878 --> 00:47:41,888
Like, well, what about the jobs?

676
00:47:41,888 --> 00:47:42,758
This, what about this?

677
00:47:42,758 --> 00:47:46,950
What about like getting into some of these like more nitty gritty, like are those good
things?

678
00:47:46,950 --> 00:47:47,331
Yes.

679
00:47:47,331 --> 00:47:51,292
But I think it'd be a net benefit to everyone just to have EV options.

680
00:47:51,412 --> 00:47:56,876
And so there's elements where I have to kind of be patient, educate, my tongue every now
and here and there, but

681
00:47:57,028 --> 00:48:00,897
politics work is they're like, well, we're open to it.

682
00:48:00,897 --> 00:48:01,618
Tell us more.

683
00:48:01,618 --> 00:48:04,594
And then at midnight, they kill it because they're afraid of the dealers.

684
00:48:04,616 --> 00:48:05,046
Totally.

685
00:48:05,046 --> 00:48:10,683
And it just, was also clear with just this, round of the legislature being open.

686
00:48:10,683 --> 00:48:17,070
We had like a six minute gap between the 30 other people that were meeting with them that
day and trying to get to it.

687
00:48:17,070 --> 00:48:19,184
And yeah.

688
00:48:19,184 --> 00:48:24,119
it, but the real politics are in most state legislatures, you don't want to fight the
dealers.

689
00:48:24,119 --> 00:48:25,479
They're too tough.

690
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:28,058
So that's why you have to go to the ballot, probably.

691
00:48:28,058 --> 00:48:38,094
well and this is totally totally agree with you there This is kind of the thing I wanted
to get to also that I think is just going back to that tribalism unfortunately because the

692
00:48:38,094 --> 00:48:46,910
biggest thing when I had conversations usually with the Democratic or more liberal leaning
people that start kind of connect like You mean this would give tests some more

693
00:48:46,910 --> 00:48:50,337
competition and I was like, yeah, there'd be more

694
00:48:50,337 --> 00:48:51,245
issue.

695
00:48:51,245 --> 00:48:59,792
so instead of like the incentive of either being more jobs or more clean energy or more
EVs, I was just like, we can kind of stick a deal on.

696
00:48:59,792 --> 00:49:03,966
And that to me is kind of the tribalism that I find so frustrating personally.

697
00:49:03,966 --> 00:49:14,145
And I'm trying to really find like, and I think this is why it's so important to usually
take it to actual voters, like open this up to make it more competitive and give options

698
00:49:14,145 --> 00:49:16,026
to everyone, give it to the consumer.

699
00:49:16,087 --> 00:49:18,048
But I know

700
00:49:18,048 --> 00:49:29,425
You recently had kind of done a poll that got a lot of media headlines around kind of the
political affiliation and this kind of unfortunate, I think has a pro and negative EV

701
00:49:29,425 --> 00:49:33,957
connotations around pulling a Vilon Musk and how this all breaks into it.

702
00:49:33,957 --> 00:49:38,130
And I think it'd be kind of just fascinating if you wanted to maybe share a little bit
about that.

703
00:49:38,130 --> 00:49:38,810
sure.

704
00:49:38,810 --> 00:49:46,610
Well, you when we started our pod here, I talked about that national poll we did in
November of 2023.

705
00:49:46,610 --> 00:49:49,250
Well, we did it again after the election.

706
00:49:49,330 --> 00:49:53,230
You know, a few new questions, but we wanted to see, we want to track movement.

707
00:49:53,230 --> 00:49:55,010
our goal is to do it every year.

708
00:49:55,010 --> 00:49:58,210
It's kind of a state of EV polarization poll.

709
00:49:58,510 --> 00:50:05,512
So we asked an Elon question and the Elon stuff was so fun and telling both Elon and
Tesla's brand.

710
00:50:05,512 --> 00:50:07,677
that we spun it out as a separate report.

711
00:50:07,677 --> 00:50:09,691
And I see you're putting it up, which is great.

712
00:50:09,691 --> 00:50:12,776
You can also get it at evpolitics.org.

713
00:50:12,818 --> 00:50:15,261
just, okay.

714
00:50:15,263 --> 00:50:16,848
Yeah, you can download the whole thing.

715
00:50:16,848 --> 00:50:18,608
be a whole thing about Elon Musk and all that stuff.

716
00:50:18,608 --> 00:50:23,069
But it was just really fascinating and this exactly

717
00:50:23,069 --> 00:50:24,210
but nothing like now.

718
00:50:24,210 --> 00:50:27,730
here's on the, you know, the chart here.

719
00:50:27,730 --> 00:50:37,390
If you're a Trump voter, and this is after the election, you're 74 % favorable, Elon, 10 %
unfavorable, 7 to 1 ratio, which is really good.

720
00:50:37,390 --> 00:50:39,570
Those are close to Trump's own numbers.

721
00:50:39,570 --> 00:50:41,770
He's only a step behind Trump.

722
00:50:41,850 --> 00:50:47,452
On the other hand, if you're a Harris voter, you give Elon a 76 % negative rating.

723
00:50:47,452 --> 00:50:53,144
and a 5 % positive rating, which makes me laugh because the margin of error on the poll is
4%.

724
00:50:53,144 --> 00:51:02,297
So we can't statistically prove that any Harris voters who like Elon exist in the
continental and connected United States.

725
00:51:02,297 --> 00:51:04,687
So anyway, massively polarizing.

726
00:51:04,687 --> 00:51:07,308
And then we broke it up by different groups.

727
00:51:07,428 --> 00:51:13,032
And if we take a look at that, Elon is more popular with people who

728
00:51:13,032 --> 00:51:15,844
drive ICE cars than he is with EV drivers.

729
00:51:15,844 --> 00:51:21,767
As you can see, it's 35-42, so he's seven points underwater with EV drivers.

730
00:51:21,767 --> 00:51:28,051
Well, he's plus five points with ICE car drivers, which is kind of amazing.

731
00:51:28,051 --> 00:51:30,102
If you're a male, he's doing pretty well.

732
00:51:30,102 --> 00:51:35,355
Generally, in politics, you want to see a three to one ratio, so none of these numbers are
particularly great.

733
00:51:35,355 --> 00:51:40,718
But he's 49 over 32 of men, but he's underwater by nine points with women, big gender gap.

734
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:50,800
And then finally, if you drive a pickup truck and part of this is the Republican Democrat
rural urban thing, you know, express two cars, you like Elon, you're 46 over 28.

735
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:52,856
They're his best numbers.

736
00:51:52,856 --> 00:52:02,904
Which I thought was probably the funniest metric of all this and Yeah, and this and this
whole fort I mean it's 40 pages and obviously it's not just about this it covers a lot of

737
00:52:02,904 --> 00:52:07,507
the different things looking at like this slide does Tesla Yeah

738
00:52:07,507 --> 00:52:08,979
to the considering.

739
00:52:08,979 --> 00:52:12,742
So we ask people to put themselves in one of three categories.

740
00:52:13,183 --> 00:52:17,786
Category one was, excuse me.

741
00:52:17,967 --> 00:52:23,652
The first category was, and we've read them statements and said, which one sounds like
you?

742
00:52:23,773 --> 00:52:30,158
First statement was, I'm pretty seriously interested in buying an EV in the next year or
so.

743
00:52:30,602 --> 00:52:38,662
The second statement was, I'm interested in buying an EV, but I'm waiting till prices come
down and they get all the bugs worked out, which is charging basically.

744
00:52:38,662 --> 00:52:41,922
And the third statement is, I'm probably never going to buy an EV.

745
00:52:42,042 --> 00:52:45,182
So 20 % were in the first category.

746
00:52:45,182 --> 00:52:47,942
I'm pretty seriously interested in the year or two.

747
00:52:48,182 --> 00:52:51,862
And among those people, we asked some car brands.

748
00:52:52,042 --> 00:52:56,766
And if you keep going, you come down, you see Toyota.

749
00:52:56,766 --> 00:52:57,957
Volkswagen and Ford.

750
00:52:57,957 --> 00:53:10,045
We always tend on these ask one American one German one Asian brand and among Toyota
Toyota was most popular by the way among Toyota Ford and I think it's down a little

751
00:53:10,045 --> 00:53:20,883
farther and VW they were all more popular than Tesla as a brand among people seriously
considering buying an EV in the next year or so Tesla wasn't buried.

752
00:53:20,883 --> 00:53:25,780
They were like 60 % favorable over 30 something unfavorable, but

753
00:53:25,780 --> 00:53:27,221
Toyota was 90-10.

754
00:53:27,221 --> 00:53:34,334
In fact, I presented this data or a version of this at SAE at their big Washington
conference, about 500 auto people.

755
00:53:34,334 --> 00:53:36,535
And a couple of Toyota guys came up.

756
00:53:36,535 --> 00:53:39,917
Yeah, yeah, the slide you've got up now is instructive.

757
00:53:39,917 --> 00:53:43,198
There's no partisan difference about most auto brands.

758
00:53:43,299 --> 00:53:44,719
With Tesla, there is now.

759
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:46,710
And when you say electric only brand, is.

760
00:53:46,710 --> 00:53:50,022
The Republicans instantly turn on it and get all negative.

761
00:53:50,022 --> 00:53:50,822
But

762
00:53:50,898 --> 00:53:57,543
You know, with Toyota among people looking at buying an EV at 9010, these Toyota guys
pulled in, can I get a copy of the presentation?

763
00:53:57,744 --> 00:54:05,689
We could wake up the guys at headquarters, we could make a decent EV for a change, because
they all know the one they have is kind of a dog.

764
00:54:06,410 --> 00:54:08,192
We could sell them.

765
00:54:08,192 --> 00:54:10,033
And same with Ford and VW.

766
00:54:10,033 --> 00:54:10,862
They were both good.

767
00:54:10,862 --> 00:54:11,192
link.

768
00:54:11,192 --> 00:54:12,531
So you can pull these up.

769
00:54:12,531 --> 00:54:14,863
And I mean, it's a super fascinating report.

770
00:54:14,863 --> 00:54:21,066
It's not just, obviously a big part of it's like Elon Musk and Tesla, but it's really just
interesting to see these different auto brands too.

771
00:54:21,066 --> 00:54:23,047
And you're totally right with Toyota.

772
00:54:23,047 --> 00:54:26,828
Their EV is at best like a compliance vehicle.

773
00:54:26,828 --> 00:54:35,812
But what's really interesting, I think when we look back at like the past sales recently
for a couple of quarters, Chevy's been growing or GM has been growing.

774
00:54:35,812 --> 00:54:36,532
over 100,000.

775
00:54:36,532 --> 00:54:39,513
Cadillac in particular, but the Equinox, yeah.

776
00:54:39,513 --> 00:54:47,637
But I think one of my favorite interesting things when you start looking at this, and it
totally aligns to this, where you just have so many consumers, they're just tied to a

777
00:54:47,637 --> 00:54:48,607
certain automotive brand.

778
00:54:48,607 --> 00:54:50,238
This is why competition is great.

779
00:54:50,238 --> 00:54:51,839
But look at the Honda prologue.

780
00:54:51,839 --> 00:54:54,560
It's actually not that amazing on EV.

781
00:54:55,300 --> 00:54:58,402
In spec wise, it doesn't look out bad.

782
00:54:58,402 --> 00:55:03,666
But what's interesting is most Honda buyers do not realize that that is just really a

783
00:55:03,666 --> 00:55:05,137
rebadged GM vehicle.

784
00:55:05,137 --> 00:55:10,820
It's made in GM factories and all these things, but just because it's at the Honda
dealership, it has the Honda badge.

785
00:55:10,820 --> 00:55:12,339
It's selling well.

786
00:55:13,081 --> 00:55:20,965
and so I think there is just so much of this is like, have to, the brands do have to bring
a product to market no matter what.

787
00:55:20,965 --> 00:55:26,388
I think in the case of Toyota, it needs to tune up the specs a little bit, but this goes
exactly to your point.

788
00:55:26,388 --> 00:55:30,010
Is that just like, if you build it, they will come to an extent.

789
00:55:30,420 --> 00:55:33,618
it's just unfortunate with what Toyota has, but looking at Honda,

790
00:55:33,618 --> 00:55:36,882
Like there's nothing really different or innovative.

791
00:55:36,882 --> 00:55:43,323
It's just there is now an option for Honda buyers who are very also reliable buyers.

792
00:55:43,323 --> 00:55:51,905
if you've got a strong dealer force like Toyota or GM or Ford or Honda, you can move a lot
of units if you give them product.

793
00:55:51,905 --> 00:55:57,707
And the Honda story, that is a strong dealer force and they know how to sell cars and that
is a strong brand.

794
00:55:57,707 --> 00:56:01,598
We didn't test them on this survey, but we've seen them in other places.

795
00:56:01,598 --> 00:56:08,702
you know, it does show that, like here's Volkswagen on the charts, I'm assuming.

796
00:56:08,702 --> 00:56:12,847
People can watch this podcast on YouTube, whatever, and see all this, right?

797
00:56:13,589 --> 00:56:14,045
Right.

798
00:56:14,045 --> 00:56:20,132
I said, for those listening, this is page 10 of this deck that, is linked in the show
notes for today.

799
00:56:20,132 --> 00:56:30,831
VW that doesn't test as well as Ford or Toyota, still two to one favor unfavorable, but
most importantly, no meaningful difference between Trump and Harris voters.

800
00:56:31,191 --> 00:56:37,337
It's only the electric brands that are polarizing and that's the Republicans going
sideways.

801
00:56:37,337 --> 00:56:39,768
Now there's one other finding here though about Elon.

802
00:56:39,768 --> 00:56:47,895
If you go near the end of this, down around 35 or so, you'll see a trend chart and that's
worth two, go up a little, you just have it there.

803
00:56:47,895 --> 00:56:49,304
Look at 33.

804
00:56:50,251 --> 00:56:51,692
Right right here.

805
00:56:51,873 --> 00:56:57,705
So up let's go down to sorry audio listeners, but we're

806
00:56:57,705 --> 00:56:58,558
yes.

807
00:57:02,586 --> 00:57:06,086
So, I'm sorry, I keep calling the wrong charts because I don't have it in front of me.

808
00:57:06,086 --> 00:57:08,886
If you go down one more, now we got it.

809
00:57:08,886 --> 00:57:09,926
Now we got it.

810
00:57:09,926 --> 00:57:13,306
We asked a kind of a telling question on the surveys.

811
00:57:13,386 --> 00:57:15,866
Do you agree or disagree with a series of statements?

812
00:57:15,866 --> 00:57:21,746
And one of them is, EVs are for people that see the world differently than I do.

813
00:57:21,746 --> 00:57:25,446
And that gets right at the cultural differences, the tribalism.

814
00:57:25,446 --> 00:57:30,686
Among Republicans, a bit over a year ago in November of 2023,

815
00:57:30,698 --> 00:57:35,838
59 % agreed with that statement and only 41 disagreed.

816
00:57:35,838 --> 00:57:38,558
So, you know, it was an 18 point deal.

817
00:57:38,758 --> 00:57:42,158
In the poll after the election, same question.

818
00:57:42,338 --> 00:57:49,998
It went from 59 agree among Republicans only to 52 agree and disagree went from 41 to 48.

819
00:57:49,998 --> 00:57:55,578
So now instead of being, you know, 18 point difference, it's only a four point difference.

820
00:57:55,578 --> 00:57:57,738
So that is closed a lot.

821
00:57:57,758 --> 00:57:59,452
That's, I think is Eli.

822
00:57:59,452 --> 00:58:01,143
even without meaning to.

823
00:58:01,143 --> 00:58:09,657
In other words, he is such an EV identified guy and he's such a super Trump-er now, he
could be softening that tribal thing.

824
00:58:09,657 --> 00:58:18,290
If Elon ever wanted to be Nixon to China and say real mega people drive EVs or fund to run
over liberals with, he would help.

825
00:58:18,331 --> 00:58:20,902
But right now he's killing the Tesla brand.

826
00:58:20,902 --> 00:58:24,533
It is not a surprise they're having all these trouble and their sales numbers are going
down.

827
00:58:24,533 --> 00:58:26,594
He is a real problem for them.

828
00:58:26,792 --> 00:58:30,263
And they're not getting the longer term upside of moving Republican numbers.

829
00:58:30,263 --> 00:58:34,144
So some of it is just happening organically as this chart shows you.

830
00:58:34,144 --> 00:58:35,265
And it's still a problem.

831
00:58:35,265 --> 00:58:39,046
majority of Republicans think EVs are for freaks who aren't like me.

832
00:58:39,046 --> 00:58:42,297
But it's not 60-40 anymore.

833
00:58:42,297 --> 00:58:43,787
It's now tied.

834
00:58:43,888 --> 00:58:46,228
And that is progress.

835
00:58:46,368 --> 00:58:51,754
So, and we have some other questions where we think, yeah, yeah, well, he's become.

836
00:58:51,754 --> 00:58:54,954
you know, co-president and mega superstar.

837
00:58:54,954 --> 00:58:56,154
He's gone from E.V.

838
00:58:56,154 --> 00:58:58,374
Jesus to Hannity.

839
00:58:58,494 --> 00:59:09,774
the Tesla's not getting in the short term the upside of that new image, but they're
getting all the downside that people, I mean, there was a thing all over some, I think it

840
00:59:09,774 --> 00:59:11,054
was Sheryl Crow.

841
00:59:11,614 --> 00:59:21,914
had a, yeah, it blew up on Instagram or wherever she posted it, TikTok, showing her waving
goodbye to her Tesla as it's towed away.

842
00:59:22,182 --> 00:59:22,622
and

843
00:59:22,622 --> 00:59:24,375
ironically, she bought a Land Rover.

844
00:59:24,375 --> 00:59:29,102
So I mean, the optics to me was just like, okay, clearly wasn't about the environment.

845
00:59:29,102 --> 00:59:30,611
The optics were the optics.

846
00:59:30,611 --> 00:59:33,182
it's not about, so EVs are not about the environment.

847
00:59:33,182 --> 00:59:34,395
Let's put it this way.

848
00:59:34,395 --> 00:59:37,278
To the extent EVs are about the environment.

849
00:59:38,922 --> 00:59:43,622
is being massively overpowered by the downside of the environment.

850
00:59:44,082 --> 00:59:44,922
And this is hard.

851
00:59:44,922 --> 00:59:48,482
I mean, I was in at the EDF and they're great and explaining and they kind of get it.

852
00:59:48,482 --> 00:59:55,822
You my argument is, look, on the emission side, if you can get Bubba out of his pickup
truck, you don't have to get him to put a save the whale sticker on.

853
00:59:55,902 --> 01:00:00,102
You know, it doesn't have to come to your meetings and bring a dream catcher and sing the
Joan Baez song.

854
01:00:00,102 --> 01:00:02,242
I understand Republican culture.

855
01:00:02,242 --> 01:00:03,222
I've worked in it 40 years.

856
01:00:03,222 --> 01:00:04,542
I'm one of them.

857
01:00:04,542 --> 01:00:08,362
But if you can tell him he can go floor it,

858
01:00:08,362 --> 01:00:17,629
in a drag race and in a Ford Lightning and accelerate beyond his irritating hippie
neighbor in the Volvo.

859
01:00:17,690 --> 01:00:24,814
And he can carry stuff around and you can plug a saw into it and 110 power.

860
01:00:24,956 --> 01:00:29,239
As long as you're not doing a lot of towing, you've got a lot of attribute arguments on
that car.

861
01:00:29,880 --> 01:00:32,983
Anyway, so looking at this, this is the one I talked about.

862
01:00:32,983 --> 01:00:37,066
If you're looking to buy an EV in the next year or so, you're seriously interested.

863
01:00:37,066 --> 01:00:51,646
that 20 % Ford three to one good numbers any product with good numbers 76 24 Volkswagen 73
23 Toyota 94 to 6 and I have a feeling that's been sent up to Toyota City by those folks

864
01:00:51,646 --> 01:01:04,546
at the SAE conference and then Tesla 63 37 not terrible but nothing like the competition
and again you got 37 % so a third of people

865
01:01:04,820 --> 01:01:08,154
thinking about an EV in the next year ruling out Tesla.

866
01:01:09,017 --> 01:01:11,701
Now, the attributes may still slide them into one.

867
01:01:11,701 --> 01:01:15,366
The market is gonna be flooded with cheap Teslas coming off lease.

868
01:01:16,028 --> 01:01:19,856
So that may be helpful, but yeah.

869
01:01:19,856 --> 01:01:26,576
I have heard so many people say I'm never gonna buy another EV I'm never I'm never gonna
buy another Tesla because Elon Musk yada yada yada.

870
01:01:26,576 --> 01:01:37,976
They've been saying this for a couple years I know over ten people I can just list right
now that ended up getting into the test and now a big part of that is the price Yeah, and

871
01:01:37,976 --> 01:01:40,620
so I am curious with

872
01:01:40,666 --> 01:01:48,271
One, I'm also curious if you're planning to pull these people in another year and see what
they actually bought.

873
01:01:49,255 --> 01:01:52,090
But two, like, what do you think that that

874
01:01:53,726 --> 01:02:02,823
conversation looks like at Tesla like trying to change that narrative or I'm just kind of
curious on what your thoughts of this is more looking forward and what you actually expect

875
01:02:02,823 --> 01:02:05,042
what people say versus what people do.

876
01:02:05,042 --> 01:02:14,850
Yeah, no, look, if you give them a great offer on price and generally, I'm happy about all
these used Teslas coming into the lease market because it'll hit violent.

877
01:02:14,850 --> 01:02:17,993
The biggest concern about EVs is price and charging.

878
01:02:17,993 --> 01:02:19,384
So price starts getting fixed.

879
01:02:19,384 --> 01:02:24,118
You sell more EVs, sell more EVs, more people have friends or relatives driving an EV.

880
01:02:24,118 --> 01:02:25,639
All the numbers go up.

881
01:02:25,639 --> 01:02:30,243
So flooding the market with used Teslas, even with the Elantra problem, is a big net win.

882
01:02:30,243 --> 01:02:32,164
And that'll be helpful for Tesla, too.

883
01:02:32,164 --> 01:02:35,058
Again, people will say, you know, I hate the guy, I love the car.

884
01:02:35,058 --> 01:02:44,511
Now, if you're Tesla's CMO, Chief Marketing Officer right now, I think you're probably in
a dark room with a bottle of whiskey and a revolver just staring into space because they

885
01:02:44,511 --> 01:02:51,063
can't get rid of them, but they're paying a huge market tax by being part of Elon.

886
01:02:51,063 --> 01:02:53,614
And Elon, I'll tell you, is a political consultant.

887
01:02:53,614 --> 01:03:00,956
And there's a good story in The Washington Post today about the polling showing his
skyrocketing unfavorable.

888
01:03:01,010 --> 01:03:09,807
and Trump's unfavorables raising because they've been off to a very, they've been off to a
deliriously fun MAGA start, not a very good entire electorate start.

889
01:03:09,807 --> 01:03:11,769
And the polling numbers are starting to show it.

890
01:03:11,769 --> 01:03:14,561
So play that forward a few months.

891
01:03:14,702 --> 01:03:20,857
Go through the Trump-Elon fight that I bet is coming, two Tomcats inside one pillow sack.

892
01:03:20,857 --> 01:03:22,608
I don't think it'll last.

893
01:03:23,789 --> 01:03:30,044
I just saw a poll in California of voters connected to potential governor candidates.

894
01:03:30,172 --> 01:03:33,225
And Elon's unfavorable and California is pushing 60%.

895
01:03:33,225 --> 01:03:36,086
You gotta look at them in Northern California.

896
01:03:36,207 --> 01:03:47,576
So eventually Tesla is going to be under pressure to promote Elon, the rocket genius and
backup power and robot guy and get them out of the car brand.

897
01:03:47,897 --> 01:03:57,224
Now how they do that, because Elon has so much of the stock and everything is tricky,
though this trend continues and Tesla has another bad quarter or two.

898
01:03:57,224 --> 01:03:59,576
They're still number one in market share, but it's slipping.

899
01:04:01,901 --> 01:04:04,623
You can start seeing shareholder trouble.

900
01:04:05,285 --> 01:04:12,357
know, the shareholder kind of lawsuit world saying he's destroying the value of the brand
and that would be a big noose.

901
01:04:12,357 --> 01:04:20,410
isn't a an investment channel by any means but it is really interesting just because they
have they are kind of one of the original meme stocks and all that stuff if you will

902
01:04:20,410 --> 01:04:32,465
because they have such a outsized large retail investor base and You're totally right like
that could as if that starts a slide, but I guess one thing I wanted to take a step back

903
01:04:33,406 --> 01:04:38,918
to share another antidote is Leading up to this recent election

904
01:04:39,188 --> 01:04:47,628
I kind of just, wasn't really paying that close attention, but just kind of like, as they
say, the vibes I kind of had, I thought Trump pretty much had in the bag the whole time.

905
01:04:47,628 --> 01:04:50,148
And I wouldn't even say I live on the West coast.

906
01:04:50,148 --> 01:04:52,748
I don't live in a liberal or a conservative area.

907
01:04:52,748 --> 01:04:55,708
I live in rural areas, but they're still pretty liberal.

908
01:04:55,708 --> 01:05:02,068
And I still kind of thought he had, because I would just see Trump signs in parts of these
towns are like that never happened.

909
01:05:02,228 --> 01:05:06,568
And then it was like 48 hours before the election.

910
01:05:06,732 --> 01:05:08,132
I was going hang out with my laws more.

911
01:05:08,132 --> 01:05:12,492
I've seen like seen in some of these other things and I was like, maybe Kamala is going to
win.

912
01:05:12,492 --> 01:05:15,974
And it was because of all these polls, all this stuff and.

913
01:05:16,452 --> 01:05:24,117
It was, but like the narrative and the polls were pretty far off from the level of the
execution.

914
01:05:24,117 --> 01:05:28,558
And I think a lot of the data you're sharing, the point you don't actually pretty accurate
and really relevant.

915
01:05:28,558 --> 01:05:33,029
I'm kind of curious what you do and like, how do you find the signal versus the noise?

916
01:05:33,029 --> 01:05:35,740
As they say, especially in something with.

917
01:05:36,163 --> 01:05:40,484
I had very little certitude, but I thought she had a bit of an edge going in.

918
01:05:40,484 --> 01:05:44,505
Though I will tell you, EVs were a big part of how Trump won.

919
01:05:44,505 --> 01:05:45,886
And we did a study on this.

920
01:05:45,886 --> 01:05:48,386
can get it on the website on Michigan.

921
01:05:48,386 --> 01:05:56,659
Because we went to the Harris campaign and the super PACs and screamed, you got to make it
a jobs issue in Michigan.

922
01:05:56,659 --> 01:05:58,749
I've done a lot of campaigns in my home state.

923
01:05:58,749 --> 01:06:01,200
I did three governor races that won there.

924
01:06:01,354 --> 01:06:05,214
hold the record for that among Republicans winning Senate races.

925
01:06:05,214 --> 01:06:07,054
I know that state very well.

926
01:06:07,054 --> 01:06:08,554
You don't want to be on the wrong side.

927
01:06:08,554 --> 01:06:09,334
It's pretty obvious.

928
01:06:09,334 --> 01:06:16,674
So the auto industry, there are 50,000 new EV manufacturing and tech jobs in Michigan and
nobody knows about them.

929
01:06:16,674 --> 01:06:20,774
So I said, make them famous because Trump's coming for EVs.

930
01:06:20,954 --> 01:06:27,154
Well, Trump spent and the Republican Party because there was a Senate race where EVs were
a huge issue.

931
01:06:27,154 --> 01:06:29,174
This is really only true of Michigan.

932
01:06:29,610 --> 01:06:32,911
$30 million beating the hell out of EVs.

933
01:06:33,111 --> 01:06:38,772
Your job's gonna go, Biden mandates, all that stuff.

934
01:06:38,853 --> 01:06:42,893
The Harris campaign spent exactly $1 fighting back on it.

935
01:06:42,994 --> 01:06:46,095
The Slotkin, the Democratic Senate candidate, did fight back.

936
01:06:46,095 --> 01:06:51,896
She put up an ad that mimicked an ad we ran saying that you want the jobs in China or
here.

937
01:06:51,896 --> 01:06:53,116
And she narrowly won.

938
01:06:53,116 --> 01:06:55,507
we actually, and you can download the report.

939
01:06:55,507 --> 01:06:59,082
You can see the ads, you can see our polling we did two weeks out.

940
01:06:59,082 --> 01:07:01,102
to see how bad the damage was.

941
01:07:01,382 --> 01:07:09,562
And it shows in the automotive manufacturing county, she ran significantly ahead of
Harris, enough to win while Harris lost.

942
01:07:10,062 --> 01:07:15,082
Two weeks before the election, we did a poll because I wanted to see how bad the damage
was.

943
01:07:15,082 --> 01:07:16,342
And it was bad.

944
01:07:16,342 --> 01:07:18,062
And that's all in the report.

945
01:07:18,302 --> 01:07:23,722
Michigan people were 60, 40 saying that EVs are bad for Michigan.

946
01:07:23,922 --> 01:07:26,642
They've been totally convinced by the Trump advertising.

947
01:07:27,210 --> 01:07:37,430
Among people who get their living from either automotive or manufacturing in Michigan,
which are connected, which is one out of four voters, Trump was winning them by double

948
01:07:37,430 --> 01:07:38,250
digits.

949
01:07:40,170 --> 01:07:47,070
you know, the Harris campaign blew the EV issue in the state where it counted the most.

950
01:07:47,330 --> 01:07:48,470
yeah.

951
01:07:48,470 --> 01:07:56,066
I i talk and I believe john mackroy a little bit about this but I I think kind of like
retrospective that's something that should have gotten more attention especially for that

952
01:07:56,066 --> 01:07:58,130
state and you're right that kind of dynamic between

953
01:07:58,130 --> 01:08:08,590
thing, tested, we made an ad and we didn't have the funding and we're not in the campaign
business, but we made a nonpartisan ad that said, EVs are good for Michigan, 50,000.

954
01:08:08,590 --> 01:08:13,330
You can see it on the americanevjobs.org website.

955
01:08:13,690 --> 01:08:19,390
And we ran it digitally and we got about a million impressions into auto swing voters.

956
01:08:19,730 --> 01:08:24,790
And we did it early to protect the category to try to make EVs not bashable in the
election.

957
01:08:24,790 --> 01:08:25,830
But frankly,

958
01:08:25,854 --> 01:08:29,346
We couldn't raise the funding to raise it, run it at the level that it really needed.

959
01:08:29,346 --> 01:08:31,578
And then 30 million on the other side.

960
01:08:31,638 --> 01:08:33,059
That was the end of that.

961
01:08:33,059 --> 01:08:34,450
But we tested that ad.

962
01:08:34,450 --> 01:08:41,665
We did an online test with a whole bunch of voters and even Trump voters that raised their
EV thing 12 points.

963
01:08:41,665 --> 01:08:43,927
So we have a story to tell on jobs.

964
01:08:43,927 --> 01:08:49,670
We've done Republican only polling that proves that we're going to be releasing that soon,
but we got to engage.

965
01:08:49,670 --> 01:08:55,178
So one thing we're very focused on now is we're to have the website up pretty soon where

966
01:08:55,178 --> 01:09:06,518
There are 35 districts, congressional districts that have gotten $167 billion of EV
investment and 200,000 new jobs.

967
01:09:06,518 --> 01:09:10,218
Thank you to Atlas Policy for doing the hard work to figure all that out.

968
01:09:11,638 --> 01:09:16,558
So those 35 districts, seven are Democrat, 28 are Republican.

969
01:09:16,558 --> 01:09:18,818
So we're targeting voters in those districts.

970
01:09:18,818 --> 01:09:19,758
We're texting them.

971
01:09:19,758 --> 01:09:24,238
We say, hey, you got 180 jobs right here in Murphyville.

972
01:09:24,436 --> 01:09:26,247
click here to protect them.

973
01:09:26,247 --> 01:09:30,649
Then you go to a website and you push a button, your congressman gives an email or a
postcard.

974
01:09:30,649 --> 01:09:34,150
So we're about to launch that effort in about 10 days.

975
01:09:35,371 --> 01:09:38,572
Because if we make it a jobs fight, we do a lot better.

976
01:09:38,652 --> 01:09:41,493
If we make it a Biden-Green car fight, we're going to lose.

977
01:09:41,493 --> 01:09:43,684
And right now it's a Biden-Green car fight.

978
01:09:44,276 --> 01:09:46,936
Yeah, no, that's a great point.

979
01:09:47,716 --> 01:09:56,396
And I guess just as an aside, as I was going to say earlier, looking back at the
presidential election, I think that call out of what happened in Michigan and that divide

980
01:09:56,396 --> 01:09:58,476
is really fascinating.

981
01:09:58,856 --> 01:10:10,936
like inherently, Kamala Harris, think I don't think any politician in modern times had a
more difficult thing than you have 100 days, you have to become president campaign that

982
01:10:10,936 --> 01:10:11,756
you would have to run.

983
01:10:11,756 --> 01:10:12,996
So I try.

984
01:10:13,392 --> 01:10:17,055
I kind of applaud them for like taking on Mission Impossible.

985
01:10:17,225 --> 01:10:17,756
totally.

986
01:10:17,756 --> 01:10:21,439
There's so many things on both sides that I'm just like, how the hell did this happen?

987
01:10:21,439 --> 01:10:26,723
I'm a pretty down the middle centrist kind of guy, but just such a fascinating election.

988
01:10:27,004 --> 01:10:27,437
Yeah.

989
01:10:27,437 --> 01:10:31,929
should have had a two week primary thing and a stronger candidate might've emerged.

990
01:10:32,269 --> 01:10:32,650
Yeah.

991
01:10:32,650 --> 01:10:36,431
But instead they, they coordinated her and then that was that.

992
01:10:37,111 --> 01:10:44,104
so I'll finish up by saying this fight is not only important for, you know, American jobs
in the future of VVs.

993
01:10:44,232 --> 01:10:47,464
You can't underestimate how important the subsidies are.

994
01:10:47,464 --> 01:10:52,408
When the Germans cut their consumer subsidies, they had a 27 % drop in sales.

995
01:10:52,408 --> 01:11:00,973
If that $7,500 lease credit goes away, it's going to have a devastating short-term effect
on EV sales.

996
01:11:01,274 --> 01:11:04,516
The used market will still be pretty powerful because the pricing is lower.

997
01:11:04,516 --> 01:11:10,530
But new cars, particularly where the bulk of the sales are, 50K and up, are going to get
hit really hard.

998
01:11:10,530 --> 01:11:14,342
And automakers are going to back off because there's a limit to how much

999
01:11:14,477 --> 01:11:19,010
good point too about leasing specifically that gets access to that.

1000
01:11:19,010 --> 01:11:22,703
And that's why there are so many cheap EV leases right now is leveraging that.

1001
01:11:22,703 --> 01:11:30,028
And so I think there are a few automakers specifically who aren't, they're selling some,
but vast majority of their vehicles are leases.

1002
01:11:30,028 --> 01:11:30,568
And you're right.

1003
01:11:30,568 --> 01:11:34,531
It's not going to be so much that the product change or like sales will change.

1004
01:11:34,531 --> 01:11:38,573
It's because leases are so much of EV sales and EVs on the road.

1005
01:11:38,894 --> 01:11:42,576
And for some brands, it's closer to 75 % right now.

1006
01:11:42,984 --> 01:11:45,207
But Mike, I realize we've gone out over time.

1007
01:11:45,207 --> 01:11:48,323
This has been a super fascinating, great conversation.

1008
01:11:48,323 --> 01:11:53,711
And my apologies again for this, but I really want to have you guys back on soon with some
of these things you've been teasing.

1009
01:11:53,711 --> 01:11:58,356
But yes, thank you so much for coming on and we'll have to talk again soon.

1010
01:11:58,356 --> 01:12:00,867
Well, Chase, I'll finish with a thank you.

1011
01:12:00,948 --> 01:12:03,239
And we have a merch store.

1012
01:12:03,239 --> 01:12:04,040
We don't make any money.

1013
01:12:04,040 --> 01:12:05,081
We lose money on it.

1014
01:12:05,081 --> 01:12:08,633
But I like people wearing the hats, American EB Jobs Alliance.

1015
01:12:08,633 --> 01:12:10,144
We have all kinds of crazy stuff.

1016
01:12:10,144 --> 01:12:11,896
Just go to EBPolitics.org.

1017
01:12:11,896 --> 01:12:19,261
And when you check out, if you enter the secret phrase, one word, no space, grid
connections, 20 % off.

1018
01:12:19,261 --> 01:12:21,382
So there you go, just for your listeners.

1019
01:12:21,556 --> 01:12:23,077
Well, thank you so much, Mike.

1020
01:12:23,077 --> 01:12:24,999
I hope our listeners do take advantage of that.

1021
01:12:24,999 --> 01:12:27,761
But yes, you'll find links to all this in today's show notes.

1022
01:12:27,801 --> 01:12:30,433
And thanks again for coming on today.

1023
01:12:30,433 --> 01:12:31,860
And we'll have to have you again soon.

1024
01:12:31,860 --> 01:12:32,534
Thank you, pal.

1025
01:12:37,659 --> 01:12:47,186
We hope Mike Murphy and the EV Politics Project's insights on EV politics, consumer
attitudes, and the policies driving electric vehicle adoption have sparked new ideas and

1026
01:12:47,186 --> 01:12:48,587
conversations.

1027
01:12:48,627 --> 01:12:54,872
If you found this discussion valuable, please share this episode with at least one friend
or colleague who might enjoy it as well.

1028
01:12:54,872 --> 01:12:59,255
And please consider leaving us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.

1029
01:12:59,255 --> 01:13:01,897
It really helps more curious listeners find us.

1030
01:13:01,897 --> 01:13:06,659
Also stay connected with us by subscribing to our new newsletter using the link in the
show notes.

1031
01:13:06,659 --> 01:13:11,411
You'll receive the latest EV news, industry analysis and policy updates straight to your
inbox.

1032
01:13:11,411 --> 01:13:13,342
So you're always in the loop.

1033
01:13:13,342 --> 01:13:15,723
Thanks again for being part of the Grid Connections community.

1034
01:13:15,723 --> 01:13:20,105
Until next time, this is the Grid Connections podcast signing off.