Good morning grid connections listeners.
I know I'm always telling you that I'm very excited to share today's episode with
you and in fact I am, but I do think that this is actually my favorite yet.
In fact, the recording with our panel turned out to be so entertaining and we
were having so much fun nerding out about everything that's happened in the past
year in the automotive space, especially around EVs and charging that we went way
over time.
In fact, so over time that I had to break today's episode into two parts.
We actually were talking for about a little over two hours.
And the first half airing today and the second half will be airing next Tuesday,
just in case you're wondering, but I'll also be sharing some clips in advance on
our YouTube and social pages.
So I definitely recommend checking those out as well in the interim to kind of give
you a tease for what's coming next week, but let's start with today.
So in this two-part panel interview, we brought together some familiar faces.
I had John McElroy of Autoline TV, Matt Teske, the founder of Chargeway who was on last
week's episode.
Along with Loren McDonald of EV adoption.
I wanted to have people all from this past season of the podcast and together we
share our insights and kind of expertise, if you will, I have the most significant
events that kind of shaped the auto industry in our opinions in 2023.
And while preparing for this episode, I saw that there were really three big
themes of EVs and really from the space in 2023, those were charging the new EVs that
came out and really.
the software connecting all of this together.
In this first episode, we focus on charging and some of the new EVs along
with the general automotive industry this past year.
The first part will be focusing on the North American charging standard
revolution, along with the further rollout of the National Electric Vehicle
Infrastructure Program, or NEVI for short, and then the growth rate of the current
electric vehicle sales, along with really the impact this is all having on legacy
automakers on the market.
In the second part, we start with the role of Chinese EVs in the North American
market.
And then we talk about how software of the user defined vehicle, as I can elect to
think of it, is really leading this revolution globally, especially for EVs
and then we wrap up with our predictions for 2024, but that's for next week.
So buckle up and join us, especially if you're driving, listening to us, but we're
going to be exploring the past year's standouts of the auto industry in this
engaging and informative panel discussion.
Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast for more insightful conversations on the
latest trends and innovations in the automotive world.
And with all of that, enjoy.
John go first.
Sure thing, Chase.
My name's John McElroy with Autoline.
You know, I'm a journalist who's been covering the industry from way, way back
in the last century.
And we cover anything and everything to do with the industry on a global basis.
I'm Matt Teske, founder and CEO of Chargeway.
We have a mobile app and software platform that simplifies EV charging for every
vehicle, for everyone everywhere in North America.
And we recently released version 2.0 of the app and response has been great.
And regularly we work with auto dealers and utilities and obviously drivers around
the U S on how we can make the EV charging experience easier to understand for
everyone.
Yeah.
And I guess just to add to that, if anyone is listening, uh, Matt was on just the
previous episode.
So, uh, if you've got questions about the new charge way app and some of the
technology that's changed, highly recommend listening to that, uh, episode.
And then, yeah, Lauren, I think yours was great also around what we were seeing in
2023 around Neve and then John, your, uh, insights to the UAW and all of that.
Uh, when that we were kind of in the thick of that back in the past year was super
entertaining as well.
But I think with that, I would love to kind of just go around.
with all three of you and what to you were maybe like the one big standout moment for
each of you in the EV and kind of EV charging industry.
Well, I'll take a first stab at that.
I mean, I think one of the big surprises was the slowdown in the growth rate of EV
sales, which seems to have caught just about everybody unawares.
And it's important to point out it's a slowdown in the growth rate.
It's not as if EV sales are falling.
They're not growing nearly as fast as they had been at the beginning of 2023.
And I'm sure we can get into more looking forward as to what's going to happen for
2024.
Matt, what about you?
Well, I mean, I think, I mean, the growth rate to, you know, to John's point, I
think for industry advocates, it probably came as a little bit of a surprise.
I'll be honest, it didn't surprise me just because of what I've been focused on for
years is that we can only keep going back to the well of the early adopter mindset
and hoping people will pre-educate enough that they just know what they want and
they're ready to own and they're excited to do it.
We're kind of, we're getting into that place now where people are buying an EV
because that's the brand they like.
you know, Oh, Lexus finally has an EV or Volvo has the one I've always wanted or
whatever it might be.
And what, what's happening is they're discovering it's not about buying a car.
It's about buying a new experience with fueling and energy and everything else.
And I think that we're, we're seeing the realities of when the general public isn't
clamoring into a showroom to switch to electricity as a fuel, those cars are
going to sit there because there's a lot of unknowns that they're not wanting to
research on their own that are different from early adopters.
So, um, yeah, I think that that's going to become a very important topic here this
year.
Lauren.
Yeah.
And for me, I actually, I have a bit of a different take than, than John.
Um, cause the biggest moment for me was being surprised and shocked that the
legacy automakers were surprised at, um, they didn't understand the market.
They clearly are failing at understanding the EV market and have an inability to
forecast it just like boggles my mind.
Right?
Like the amount of data, these
these companies have, right?
They have multiple, like people in their research department, they're getting data
from the dealers and stuff, and they're surprised at what the sales is.
So I was surprised that they were surprised.
Anybody that understands math knows that as a market grows and gets bigger, even if
the numbers units continue to grow, which they are, we're gonna increase
roughly 50% year over year, the growth rate, it's math, right?
The growth rate actually declines because the denominator gets bigger, right?
So I think the moment for me was just complete and utter, just like not
understanding why the legacy automakers don't understand math and have an
inability to forecast because...
You know, sales are growing.
The other thing which we'll, we'll get into, I'll get into a little bit later is
my, uh, my Evie pizza pie theory that sort of helps understand this, but, um, yeah,
I'll, I'll just sort of stop there, but yeah, I just, it's just like boggles my
mind.
No, I appreciate all of that.
And I think it is kind of funny because, uh, kind of listening to all three of you,
those are all themes that each of you have been kind of been talking about for
definitely my, uh, Matt and Lauren for years now.
And I know John, you've definitely had your pulse on what's been going on the EV
industry.
So that's, I think that's why I'm kind of excited to get into this.
Some of this I hope will be, um, uh, not just entertaining.
I think there's going to be maybe a little, uh, as we've had on a couple
episodes, venting.
of some of these issues that have continued to be, uh, I think I always
think of the scene from like Zoolander.
Yeah, exactly.
It's Friday.
I mean, uh, but I, I get what you're saying.
It's, I always think of the scene from Zoolander and it's like, I feel like I'm
taking crazy pills or something.
There's no one see that all of this is the same, but, um, with today's episode, I
broke it down to kind of three topics to recap 2023, and that was really around
Charging which is unto itself its own podcast kind of what we saw in the car and
automotive industry And then the third big component is like software and how this is
playing and disrupting this industry so heavily so with that, I think we'll just
kick it off with Charging and what we saw in this year and I think in my opinion the
biggest takeaway was What I've kind of jokingly called the next revolution or the
North American charging standard revolution.
I mean about
a year ago this time it was announced.
Everyone was laughing it off.
It was like, no one's going to adopt that.
And then in March, Ford kind of mixed things up and said, you know what, we're
going to give it a try.
And then from there, everything has changed in good or bad.
It's thrown definitely the industry into some chaos as to what these specifics are
actually going to look like now going into 2024.
But I think real quickly, I would just love to get everyone's thoughts on how
they saw this happening and what they think were the
the big issues for it.
I think John especially since you're kind of in the heart of Detroit there, I'd love
to have you kick this one off.
Sure, well, I mean, it's pretty obvious.
Tesla's got the best charging system of anybody.
And Jim Farley was the first to wake up to the fact that, hey, Elon's offered it, why
not take him up on his offer of being able to use NACs?
And it instantly opens Ford's EVs once they get the NAC plug.
to many more thousands of charging stations and more importantly reliable
charging stations.
And you know as soon as Ford signed up you knew General Motors couldn't be too far
behind and then everybody jumped into the pool.
You know even Volkswagen Group which you know essentially is funding Electrify
America has decided yeah me too I want to be in on that next thing.
Now, now SAE is scurrying around trying to incorporate that into its charging
standard.
What's that?
J1772, I think it is.
Oh, oh, sorry.
Yeah.
Thanks for the correction.
Yes.
So, yeah, I mean.
Yeah, Matt and I will talk about this.
Just what we need more J's to, to.
thank god, an engineering acronym that's show the public?
I'm so excited.
It always made me wonder when it was named J 1772 is like, were there 1771 other ones
that just didn't make it or what, how, why was that the number that was chosen?
But I think that's a spot on because, uh, one of the, the funny coincidence and
maybe you caught this, John was the day, I think it was just last month that the SA
announced the J 3,400, uh, standard was now kind of finally cemented.
That was the same day that the Volkswagen group said, yeah, we're going to Nax.
And that to me was just kind of too funny of a coincidence not to have been, uh,
timed.
I mean, given that how late they were to the party.
a coincidence because, you know, several of the automaker holdouts, like
Stellantis, et cetera, basically said that it wasn't a standard yet, right.
And so until it was, and it still isn't a standard, right.
It's still actually not final, but it's getting close.
But, um, it, so I actually, I, I posted something on, on LinkedIn that morning and
predicted.
that a couple more automakers would follow suit and literally, yeah, within like two
hours, uh, you know, the Volkswagen did and stuff.
So that was, that was sort of pretty much expect.
Well, yeah, I think what we're what we're discussing and again, for those, you know,
Chase, as you mentioned, like a lot of your listeners, they're in the know, they
know a lot of this stuff for those who might find this conversation and ask me
what are they even talking about?
I mean, at the end of the day, it what Tesla designed was it was designed with
intent.
And everything that was coming out of SAE with both J 1772 and CCS was designed by
committee.
And you could tell it was like, well, it's this big at home or on the road.
or it's this big at home and this big on the road.
And when you wield the thing, it's, oh, this cable's too thick.
And also, you know, I mean, just go down the list of problems.
And I was always just, it's just, I laughed every time I heard anybody say, we
just got to get Tesla in line.
They got to switch over to CCS here in North America.
And I would say, anytime I heard anybody say that, I would say, you're dreaming.
They have the best product out there for charging.
And I mean, it ain't gonna happen.
And even if the government came in and said, okay, you guys got to change over.
I'm sure they would have gone to the mattresses to figure out how to say no.
And so what they finally proved was we have the best mousetrap and to, and to
Lauren's point about being just, you know, shocked about like, how did they, how did
the OEMs not see this coming?
I had a meeting with a very, very big OEM.
Now seven, six and a half years ago, when I presented Charged Way and said, this is
what you should be thinking about for the, you know, the charging experience, why
it's so fundamental to ownership, et cetera.
And I have a vivid memory of someone from that EV team from that OEM on the call,
literally saying as the call ended, well, this was interesting.
Good luck with your little project.
And I remember thinking they are so in trouble.
Like they are, they have no idea.
And what's scary is we have how many hundreds of millions and billions of
dollars that have been spent around this lack of comprehensive understanding of how
to build this product within their, their ecosystems.
And, and to Lauren's point earlier, and, and just what we've been seeing.
I just look at it and go, how on earth did you not know?
And what we're seeing with Jim Farley and Mary Barra and everybody else saying,
okay, we're gonna switch over to Nax.
Okay, we're making this choice.
That's a waving of the white flag.
Let's just be candid.
I mean, they just, they went, oopsie.
Every third party network that has now heard that is like, okay, so now what do
we have to retrofit everything?
Is it adapt or hell?
I mean, that's what we're facing.
And so there's so many things to unpack around the lack of comprehensive
understanding about bringing these products to market.
And the whole time Tesla has just been saying, we have had a...
public roadmap for you for 15 years that you all could have been looking at and no
one picked up on it.
I think it's, to Lauren's point, I think it's like, wow, how did that happen?
It's like, hubris is a cruel mistress?
I don't know.
Matt, great backstory to what you're talking about there.
So years ago, I talked to somebody on the committee, the SAE committee that was
writing that charging standard.
And they complained bitterly about Tesla.
They said, you know, Tesla was part of that committee and we put this whole
beautiful thing together.
And then they went off and did their own thing and they were all pissed off about
it because they said, this is going to hold back EV adoption.
You know, we should have come out with one standard.
Then only just last year,
I talked to somebody else who was on that committee and they said, oh yeah, Tesla
was part of the committee and nobody listened to them.
Nobody paid attention to them.
It was little old Tesla.
They hadn't even done much of anything at that point.
So it speaks exactly to what you're talking about.
It's hubris, it's corporate culture, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Yeah.
You know, the other thing to sort of follow on, and Matt and I talk about this
a lot, Chase, is, you know, Farley came out not because Tesla had a better
mousetrap, it was because the current one they're using was failing them.
The number one complaint at Ford on the Mustang Mach-E, the customer complaint
from owners, was Electrify America.
Number one complaint from customers, right?
You may recall that Ford launched like their charging angels thing, right?
Like they were doing everything they could to try to fix the problem.
I know an engineer inside the company, they had teams, they had like everybody
trying to work on this and fix this.
And so when...
think it's, it's so important because the conversations we're always having that
these are the early adopters.
And if the early adopters can't figure it out, how the hell is someone's grandma
going to be able to even go to the next town?
to Matt's point, this was, you know, Jim started the waving of the white flags
because when he got on that Twitter spaces or whatever they call that thing, he
didn't say it.
But what he basically was saying was that Volkswagen funded charging network failed
us.
We put everything on them.
Right.
And it didn't work.
And so we're going to get into bed.
With our arch enemy competitor, right?
Like think about that.
They literally said, we're going to turn to our biggest competitor in the EV space
to solve our charging problem.
Right.
And then everybody else just caved.
Right.
And now I'm not saying it wasn't the right answer, but it wasn't like this strategic,
smart, forward thinking proactive decision.
It was, Oh shit.
Yeah.
existing solution failed.
And so, yeah.
Yeah.
that's why I find it so in like, as someone who's in this industry and someone
who cares about its success, it is insulting when we hear things like, I
mean, I'll just be blunt, like hearing the Biden administration say, you led, Mary,
you led on EVs.
When that happened, and frankly, Elon's a lightning rod for all the things that he
says and does sometimes, but at the end of the damn day, that was insulting.
It was ridiculous and anybody in the know was like, you've got to be kidding me.
It was such, yeah, it's, yeah, it's just, it's, yeah, it was just such, it was such
a ridiculous moment.
may not have even believed it.
You know, that was said for political purposes.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
yeah, no, John, I want to hear your thoughts on that.
What, what, what do you think?
Well, look, you know, the Biden administration is beholden to the UAW, and
the UAW hates Elon with a passion.
They hate anything to do with Tesla.
They despise the company and Elon especially.
And Joe knows he needs them for next year's election.
And you saw today, 33 Democratic senators came out and warned the non-union,
automakers including Tesla, don't you dare hold back the UAW.
It's all political posturing.
They're telling the automakers, stay out of the nose of these guys trying to
organize your plants.
Well, hello, 33 senators, maybe you should keep your nose out of it too.
That's true.
No, and that's, I think for people that are on the outside of our conversations
that we all have daily looking into this, I'll be honest.
I think the general public, they see through the BS.
I think oftentimes they just kind of go, really?
Like, you know, I mean, is that true?
Because look at the stories in the last two weeks about this flagship Ultium GM
product that's finally coming to market and oopsie poopsie, the software in this
is not working out.
And what was the big thing that was touted from GM saying we were gonna
pivot from everything, we're gonna do our own software.
They are working with Google on some stuff, but it's, hey, no CarPlay, no
Android Auto, it's you're gonna live in our world.
So on one hand, they understand what Tesla has done, but on the other hand, they
don't know how to execute it effectively.
And I think that is coming to light very quickly and painfully.
And I think in the end, what's that gonna do for EV adoption?
It's the same conversation we're just having about CCS.
It's like, well, which was the better solution?
It's like, well, Tesla had a better approach to infrastructure and connector
design.
They have a better approach to software.
And I think we're kind of seeing this repetition of Volkswagen had that problem.
GM had that problem.
Ford had that problem.
So I don't know.
I think that, I mean, this is again, a very big conversation to always unpack.
But I think what we're seeing overall is that the, and as Lauren pointed out
earlier, the lack of appreciation from the legacy OEMs around what do you
fundamentally need to understand to bring these products to market?
And, and as John pointed out, it's just like, yeah, it's, it's a lot of it.
It's just posturing.
It's just like, how can we make it?
represent in a way that's going to work for us from the way, you know, kind of the
ways we've always done it.
And it's not the same game.
They actually have to bring more to the table.
And we're seeing that.
And the worst of it is, it's going to hurt the industry because there's a lack of
really doing the work well and more just kind of like kicking the can down the
road, it feels like.
And, and, and Matt, how do you think the executives at Honda and Acura feeling
right now about hitching their pony to the Altium platform, right?
Well, they still have, they still have the two EVs coming out on the Altium platform,
but then after that they're switching, but yeah.
well, and that just at the end of the day, I say to people anymore, very simply,
there are four fundamental factors that make an EV ownership experience positive.
The car itself inside and outside legacy OEMs, boy, do they do that well.
They do that amazingly well.
The other three fundamental components are battery, software and infrastructure.
Those four pieces make you got to have those things aligned beautifully.
Tesla.
they've got the battery software infrastructure done really well.
We can all argue about how they can improve on the manufacturing side of it.
Um, but at the end of the day, for an EV to actually be a functional car, you can
kind of overlook things of aesthetics and be like, yeah, the fit and finish that
material on the inside could have been better, but boy, their software is second
to none.
Their batteries.
Yeah, they're well integrated with their software and boy are they well integrated
with an infrastructure that they manage.
I mean, that's, that's confidence in EV ownership and the legacy OEMs.
have not still figured that out, and maybe they are figuring it out, but then what's
gonna happen?
Is it more waving of white flags?
Yeah, we'll just license that software from Tesla.
I mean, honestly.
Yeah, I, I'm curious.
I mean, they, Tesla's alluded to like, oh, they're going to license FSD and some of
these other things, which could happen.
I don't know.
But, um, I think just kind of going off that before don't, I don't want to go too
far off topic, but I think what you're also hitting on is just kind of insulation
of thought, uh, between not only the executives, but like you go on Twitter,
you go on anything and there's pro EV anti EV people talking all the time about these
kind of, uh,
Essentially the same scenarios we keep hearing like, oh, EVs aren't going to save
the planet.
EVs aren't going to save the planet.
And what's so interesting to me is the best thing I think, and I, Jim Farley did
this.
He goes on a road trip in a lightning.
You just got to get out there.
And in my experience, I mean, I just did a road trip back from, uh, steamboat Springs
to back to Ben, which was about 11 and 1200 miles each way.
And everywhere I went, not a, all I had was positive curiosity.
Some people said.
Maybe it's not right for them.
Maybe they're not ready for an EV, but they were curious about it.
And I think too many people get stuck, kind of sucked in into either.
They're, uh, kind of own bubbles of the logic behind it, or even what they've
heard the detractor say about it.
And there obviously are those people, but when you start getting in the practice,
like the real world, the majority of people, aren't these people we're talking
about or the early adopters.
And there is, it kind of goes back to even the conversation we were having last week.
or Matt around just kind of like the optimism of where the industry is going.
There's a lot of short term craziness.
Uh, and I think 2024 is going to have a lot of that, but I, yeah.
just sort of interesting follow on that, that sort of gets back to sort of the
shock and awe from the legacy automakers and Ford and GM that said, oh, we're going
to go back and focus on hybrids, regular hybrids and plug-in hybrids.
And I know three or four years ago, I was at the Hamtramck factory in...
outside of Detroit where they were launching the Hummer and the new plant and
stuff like that.
And I got to go back in a private room, me and about four other writers, and talk to
Mark Royce and I asked him about like, you know, why they killed the volt and all
that kind of stuff.
And basically said, we're going to two platforms.
Ice and BEV and nothing in between.
And it just, it, it boggled my mind because you understand it from a cost
perspective, right?
And you understand it from a simplicity perspective, only having two power trains
platforms instead of, you know, four or five, but from a market consumer adoption
perspective, it just doesn't make sense because we know to your point chase, you
know, right now, about 1% of the vehicles on the road in the U S are B E V's, right?
There are 282 million non-BEVs, whatever it is on the road, right?
It's going to take 40 years to transition the US population and vehicles out, which
means a lot of people are going to go from an ICE vehicle to a regular hybrid, to a
plugin hybrid, to a full BEV.
Some are going to go ICE to BEV.
Some are going to go ICE to hybrid and stay, whatever.
Some are going to go ICE to plugin hybrid.
The reality is, is.
You know, overnight, the population is just not going to give up their ice
vehicle and go in and be V, especially in the middle of the country.
Right.
And so, and GM and Ford, which are strong in the middle of the country.
Like completely either didn't understand that or didn't want to.
Right.
And, you know, they should have focused on like a plugin, hybrid lightning, et
cetera.
Like, you know, that's why the Ram, the Ram, uh, extended range.
Plug-in hybrid is going to be fascinating to see how it's going to do.
Right.
I think it's going to do really well.
We'll see.
But you know, they just, it just like, again, I know I'm sort of being
melodramatic here, but how they don't understand the market.
for sure.
And I think this is a little bit of one of the areas we disagree a little bit.
And it's not that we necessarily disagree.
I'm just waiting to see that P has proved to actually be what people want.
John, I'd like to get your thoughts on this because you talk a lot about how you
think one hybrids in general are just marketed horribly.
And that they should be it shouldn't be like this is a hybrid.
This is a PM is like this car gets you 50 miles per gallon.
Right, yeah, no, that's what I've been saying all along.
Look, like everything else in this country, even hybrids have been
politicized.
You know, first the anti-green movement attacked hybrids.
You know, now they've sort of forgotten hybrids.
They're attacking peps.
But I told Honda years ago, you want to sell more hybrids?
Stop calling them hybrids.
Because if you go to a cocktail party, a dinner party, meet with friends and you
start telling people, okay, guess what, I drive a hybrid.
they immediately categorize you.
You're a left leaning, greenie, tree hugging, eco whatever.
And so, I said to Honda, now I'm telling everybody, just say, hey, you wanna get
that one?
That one gets 50 miles to the gallon.
That's our high mileage model.
Don't call it a hybrid because it's become stigmatized.
Now, having said that, hybrids are starting to gain more general acceptance.
And again, I think it's because everybody who's anti-green is attacking that.
Well, it's funny what you're bringing up is number one, it's all about branding and
communication.
And number two is this all has to do with fuel.
100%.
Everything about what we're talking about.
If you're talking about going from a gas car to a hybrid to plug-in hybrid to pure
electric, that is the lily pad process of switching from pure gas to a mixture of
gas and battery that you don't plug in to a gas and a battery that you do plug in to
a battery that you plug in.
And all of that has to do with the user experience of the car of the person who
buys it says
How do I fill this thing up?
That's it.
And we've overthought this and overcomplicated the hell out of it for the
last 20 years, basically.
But John, I think you're spot on.
It's like, if you know that it's stigmatized, don't say hybrid.
But then the problem is we see the cute stuff that comes out of OEMs where they're
saying things like, our electrified fleet, where they say things like, this is
electric.
And my response is, if it doesn't get filled up with electricity, that's not
electric.
And somewhere, somehow, we have to have even
government regulation like FTC or something say, hey, look, you guys can't
do that because that's also adding further confusion.
And that's to the point of chase on our last call, people see you in your car and
they go, yeah, but where's the gas go in it?
It's like, no, it's a pure electric.
Yeah, but where's the gas go in it?
That's because they equate gas to cars.
We have a fundamental lack of understanding around fuel options.
and like I said, last, uh, last month, someone came up to me and like, I don't, I
mean, Tesla's cool.
I get it.
They got the software, but I really don't get why I would buy that over at Toyota.
And I was like, why is that?
And they said, well, you got to put gas on it.
So what's really, why is this company worth so much?
And I mean, and it's not like this was an unintelligent person.
They just are like most people.
I'm pretty passive in following the, the automotive industry and to show that
that's still a thing.
And I think.
There's, there's two things I want to say real quickly that, uh, I know Lauren,
you're probably going to want to refute cause this is, uh, kind of bashes the
whole P have thing.
One, uh, I just want to reiterate, John, I completely agree with it, they should just
drop the hybrid.
It just makes it more complicated.
Just say you get good gas mileage.
And this is the exact reason why my, uh, mother-in-law, uh, they recently, I guess
past summer, they bought a Tesla model Y replacing an old Mercedes and they liked
it, but
They had another car they were going to finally replace.
And so they replaced that car with the Volvo XC 90 P have thing.
And every issue she's had with it has been on the hybrid side and she's been
constantly disappointed by how slow it charges and all of these other issues.
And what does she do with it?
She rarely, she, if she's at home, she'll plug it in to do like around down, which
is great.
Most people don't do that.
And it's only cause they already had a Tesla charger.
Most of the time she just fills it with gas.
And I think that kind of defeats a, I mean, yeah, you're probably getting
better, uh, MPGs, but like for all the other infrastructure, you have to put in a
card and make it a P have versus just focus on making it like a traditional
hybrid.
I don't know.
I'm I, in theory, in theory, it sounds great.
And theory sounds great in practicality.
Still not sold yet, but prove me wrong, Lauren, prove me wrong.
mean, we could argue about plugin hybrids for like two hours, right?
And the reality is some people do not plug in their plugin hybrids, right?
The reality is a lot of people actually do, right?
And it's old data at this point, but sort of in the early days, there was some
really good analysis around the Chevrolet Volt.
Right.
And basically it was about 80% of the miles driven were on electric and that in
the majority of the volt drivers plugged in and you know, if we had John Volcker
on, he would be like, you know, screaming at this point, right.
Um, cause that's his whole big thing is about the, do people actually plug in.
The reality is if you make a quality plugin hybrid that has 40 plus miles of
range and the right buyer.
they will plug it in 99% of the time.
Now, if you have somebody that goes and gets a Jeep Wrangler 4XE and gets a lease
of $289 a month because of the federal tax ev credit and Stellantis wanting to sell a
bunch of them, those people don't even know it has a plug, right?
And they will never plug it in, right?
So...
You know, and it only has what, it's 21 miles of electric range, right?
But so I think there's sort of it's, it's the problem is not the technology, right?
The problem is, is it a compelling plugin hybrid and reeducating sort of the buyers
around it, right?
Um, and yeah.
we do have to, we've been focused on charging for quite a while.
We're now kind of slipping into the car side of stuff for sure.
But, uh, the one thing I wanted to cover also, and just get, especially your
perspective on Lauren is the Navy side of this.
We've kind of talked about charging around, uh, the feds and how they've kind
of been looking at this.
And I just want to, since you are kind of the king of figuring out how this is being
rolled out, what has been your takeaways from 2023 and anything, uh,
real quickly that you're optimistic about going into the next year about it.
Yeah, so as of this very moment, I'm looking over here at my printout.
Twenty-seven, twenty-six states have opened their Nevi RFP or actually awarded.
So in essence, half of the states have started the process or actually, what is
it, awarded, twelve states have actually announced awards, right?
We're actually moving pretty quickly.
There's been a lot of articles and headlines, um, around how slow it's
moving, but, but we have to rec realize that the, the final rules actually weren't
approved until March, this is an entirely new procurement process.
Some of the States like Minnesota actually had to pass a law to be able to actually.
Do use the, the.
the Nevi funding procurement process, right?
It's very complex.
Every state is developing their own RFPs.
They don't know anything about EVs and EV charging, right?
So the fact that half of them have already like released RFPs and stuff is actually
fairly impressive.
Now we have...
Some states that may not even release their first RFP until 2025, the laggards
like Wyoming and Missouri and South Carolina.
So we have this real dichotomy of like Ohio, Maine, Pennsylvania, and Colorado
are already on round two, right?
And, you know, and so they're moving very quickly.
So the sort of the short answer is, is we're doing actually better than the
headlines would say.
But a lot of states are just clueless and moving sort of really slowly.
Um, but the sort of the larger picture is, is people are putting too much importance
on Nevi from a numbers perspective.
Nevi is going to fund a very tiny percentage of the DC fast chargers that,
that are going to be deployed.
We had over 10,000 deployed new fast charging ports deployed in the US last
year, eight of those were funded by Nevi.
Right.
In 2024, we're going to probably have, my estimate is 13,500, 15,000 new fast
charging ports deployed, maybe a thousand of those.
So six to 7% will be in the Nevi funded.
So it's like Nevi is not building out our infrastructure in sort of volume and mass,
what it is doing that's important.
It's a putting them in places that the charging networks like EVgo and Electrify
America
haven't been putting them because they don't make economic sense.
So what it's making them is more viable from an economics perspective to put out
in the middle of Wyoming where nobody's going to put them.
But that allows you, Chase, to go on those road trips.
it's funny you mentioned Wyoming.
That was the closest I have come to running out of juice in a long time.
Those headwinds on IAD, uh, especially when you're doing 80 miles an hour.
Uh, and even the trucks are, that was probably the closest I've been to in a
while and I had to do, once again, this was like even driving that Tesla it's as
easy as it gets when it comes that I still had to do some math to kind of realize I
need to slow down or I need to do something a little different to make sure
I get there.
Uh,
And that's just still not practical for most people.
And to your point exactly, there's a lot of Wyoming.
It's, it's, it's funny.
The States that are the laggards are some of the States you probably need it the
most.
Yeah.
sort of wrap it up, I think the other thing that's important about Nevi is two
quick things is one is we actually have some minimum standards and accountability.
I mean, 97 percent uptime is sort of a low bar, right?
That means that a charger is down 11 days a year and we think that's OK.
But at least we have a minimum standard and we have accountability because if you.
win a Nevi contract and you don't meet the 97% uptime, the state can either take
money away from you, penalize it, not give you further money.
We haven't had that accountability before.
And the other thing that just to sort of close out, I'll say is the Nevi, the $5
billion of Nevi is attracting a lot of companies and business that are actually.
may not have sort of deployed and built before.
Like it's, I call it sort of like the honeypot, right?
And so it's actually having a spillover effect that a lot of, lot more chargers
and better companies are getting into the space with the potential to win money, but
most of the time they're not gonna win it, but then they're moving forward anyway,
so.
Yeah, actually that kind of brings up two things real quickly.
One pop quiz, John, what does Nevi stand for?
Since some people listening probably know, but don't actually know the acronym.
Yeah, I'm sure the E stands for electric.
And that's about as much as I can tell you.
because I'm even trying to remember it's national electric vehicle infrastructure.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Nice.
Uh,
here's my question to you guys, because you know way more about charging than I
do.
I question the whole business model of public charging.
And the reason I say that is, try to find a gas station anymore that only sells
gasoline.
They don't exist.
Why?
Because they don't make their profit selling gasoline or diesel.
Number one profit for a gas station, profit product.
You know those sort of rotisseries with hot dogs on them?
Number one profit for gas stations that carry that.
So they make their profit selling hot dogs, lottery tickets and cigarettes.
And that's where they really make it.
And so all these public charging stations, how do they make their profit?
Selling electricity.
So they buy it at wholesale, mark it up for retail, right?
I'm not at all convinced that is a viable business model.
Well, that's not a viable business model, number one.
But number two is most of the networks don't make their money off of selling
electricity.
Most of the third party networks, their entire revenue model is based on, we will
sell you hardware and software to this municipality, to that B&B, to that mall,
to that whomever.
And then the revenue model they have is based on saying, we'll put your charger
that you just installed on our network in this app, and then we'll charge you X
dollars a month for a software subscription to have visibility into
managing that thing.
And that's what we're selling you.
Then when we talked, Chase and I talked to someone on the last episode, is then if
there's a ribbon cutting moment, and then a day later, somebody backs into that
charger and it doesn't work for six months, no one's mining the store, but
they keep paying that software subscription and that network keeps making
money.
So the business model in that way, in my opinion, is what has really led to OEMs
like Ford and others having this aha moment of, whoa, wait a minute.
You guys aren't owning the charging experience.
You guys are just deploying these things with government grants and God knows
whoever's going to pay you and you don't even care if it's actually working.
And they're like, well, not really because we're making money and oops, sorry.
And the VCs are all going, Whoa, wait a minute.
We just funded this and that's what you.
What?
And so all of a sudden we see all these networks that have been, you know, seen as
okay, that's what it's going to be.
The moment, the moment Jim Farley said we're switching to Tesla's connector and
we're going to leverage the supercharger network, every third party network just
had to go.
Oh.
God, you know, because they actually have to own the experience.
And so the model, as you describe, there is your first take on, there's no money
in, in reselling electricity.
There isn't.
And every time an EV owner pulls up to a charging station where they look at the
price and it says, you know, 89 cents a kilowatt hour, those who do the quick math
go, holy crap, that's an expensive fill up.
And so I agree with you in the sense that that's not a good model.
And the model that does exist where people have been just basically making money off
software subscriptions and not making good charging experiences.
That's also damaging and it's not long-term.
So yeah, there's a.
to the EV market?
So, I mean, yeah, I mean.
are talking about consolidation, which we've already seen, along with some just
going out of business.
But what were you going to say there, Lauren?
I was just going to say, John, I mean, the reality is the industry is shifting.
Right?
So we had a lot of the charging networks, just as Matt said, their business model
was basically to get grants and incentives.
I won't mention some of the company's names, but there's some of these charging
networks that fundamentally are grant and incentives companies.
Their business model is to get the grants that makes the business somewhat viable.
remains to see if it will be viable or not.
And then they go and they find a McDonald's franchisee or a hotel owner or
a shopping mall or whatever, they do a lease, they drop the chargers in.
And just as Matt said, then it's about software and revenue share and different
things like that.
But the industry is shifting.
And so when I track sort of Neve, and roughly 80% of all the winning bids are
from
either the convenience store chain slash travel, travel centers, travel stops, or
it's a charging network or other company that's hosting it at convenience stores,
like chains and travel stops.
So fundamentally, the industry is pivoting towards these large companies, the pilot
flying J's, the circle K's, the seven 11's, the loves all these, they're the
ones that are now getting into the business they're going to dominate in the
future.
And so the model, John is, is going to be just like gas, which is what they want is,
and what they're, they finally figured out is somebody sitting there with their car
parked for 30 to 45 minutes while it's charging, they're inside getting the
rotisserie chicken, getting the coffee, getting the lottery tickets, checking
wifi, you know, getting the, um, you know, the
the slurpy, like whatever it is, right?
And they're spending their time there.
That's $20, right?
That they just spent.
And then all of a sudden that experience combined with the charging actually is
profitable.
But, but just the selling the pennies, you know, I mean, gas makes what, about 4
cents a gallon profit for most gas stations and ultimately electricity and
charging is about, about the same.
Right.
But.
couldn't you make the argument the person who makes the most off gas is the feds
just with gas tax and everything else?
But I realize this also another topic I think we could easily talk about for an
hour because you're totally right.
The profit margin and then you start getting into, you look at some of the
deals like VW or Electrify America made for their cars for unlimited charging and
that causes all sorts of conundrums at the actual charging locations if it works.
But
One final thing on this topic, so we can kind of move on to the car side of stuff.
What, uh, one thing that stood out to me, Lauren, in our conversation was.
We kind of came to the agreement that Nevi funding was actually kind of slowing down
the rollout of a lot of, uh, DC fast charging chargers.
Do you still feel that way?
Or are you starting to see things kind of pick up and change?
Yeah, I think there was this moment like six months ago where a lot of companies
were sort of drooling over the NEVI funding.
And so they sort of put things on hold.
I talked to like engineering firms and stuff who worked with all the major
charging networks and they said their business just dropped, stopped, just
completely stopped.
And then I think what happened over the last six months, they started to figure
out and realize, oh crap, they started to do that.
Even if we win, we're not going to win very much.
Like the numbers didn't sort of add up.
And so then everybody goes, oh, we have to get back to what we were doing and just
get back to our strategy and our plan of building these things out.
And so I think it's actually picked up.
And I have like dozens of clients, Neve clients in the space and a lot of them
sort of pivoted to a strategy of.
Nevi is nice, but it's a nice to have, not a must have.
In other words, their strategy is we're going to build, you know, a hundred
charging stations in 2024, whatever it is.
And we're going to apply in several states for funding.
If we get the funding, great.
If we don't, it doesn't change our strategy.
Right.
And so I think that's sort of the pivot that has happened.
Well, that's good to hear.
And I think what's really interesting with a lot of the stuff that you primarily I
see on LinkedIn that you post for EV adoption and kind of the research you show
is kind of going to John's point where there are a lot of the traditional DC fast
charging companies that are applying for this, but a good portion too, are like the
loves the flying J's, the pilots of the world that are also now trying to make
that transition and get a part of the money that's being offered.
So, uh, once again, short-term chaos, but hopefully long-term ease for more EV
drivers.
So finally, John, pop quiz again.
What does Nevi stand for?
National electric vehicle infrastructure.
I was paying attention.
I didn't doubt that you were, but I'm glad that, uh, this podcast, which we strive
for education.
So I'm glad that you've at least learned that.
Uh, cause I know I've already learned a lot.
So with that, let's actually get, I think, into the auto industry and kind of the car
side of stuff that we saw in 2023.
And, um, I think there was a lot just around, obviously probably the big car.
At least in the last month or two, when it comes to, uh, headlines or anything viral
has been kind of the cyber truck finally delivering.
And I'm just kind of curious, John, as someone who's in the heart of Detroit with
all the news that's been made about this, even though there's like, I don't know,
maybe 20 on the road and maybe that's rounding up what, what are takeaways,
especially with the manufacturers that are the ones that are the traditional truck
makers of North America.
Well, number one, I mean, there's a whole lot to the story, right?
So what we've seen so far is traditional truck buyers are not going to buy the
Cybertruck, a small percentage of them might, but the vast majority are like, you
know, that thing just looks too goofy.
I don't want anything to do with it.
They're the most conservative buyers in the marketplace.
You know, you can have my full-size body on frame V8 powered or twin turbo V6
pickup when you cook.
peel my cold dead fingers off of it.
And look at who's buying the Ford F-150 Lightning.
They are not pickup buyers.
Ford has been stunned.
These are people for the first time ever getting into the pickup segment.
In fact, most of them have never even bought a Ford before.
And so, I'm thinking, look, the Cybertruck is the greatest, look at me, look at me
kind of vehicle you can be driving down the street in.
So I think it's going to appeal to people who would normally maybe look at
you know, a Land Rover Defender, a Porsche 911.
I take that personally as someone who has a classic Land Rover Defender.
But I will say, whenever I drive that thing, I've been in quite a few different
really nice cars.
That thing gets the most attention.
I will say it's the most like thumbs up and high fives.
But it's funny you should mention that.
I think the Cybertruck, my gut feel, and I'll leave it to Tesla to prove me wrong,
it's not going to be in 150,000 a year kind of numbers.
I think it's gonna be a whole lot lower than that.
We'll have to see.
So there's that part of what the legacies are talking about.
That's not a threat to our franchise full-size pickup segment, but the smart
ones.
The people in the industry who really see Tesla as a threat look at the technology
in that truck and they are blown away.
You know, from the way that the body panels are formed with the giga castings
to an ethernet system to 48 volts to, I mean, the list just goes on and on.
It is the most technologically advanced vehicle that's ever been made.
Yep.
I think landing I think John landing on that is the most important part.
And to your point, the smartest people that understand what that vehicle actually
is, is all about what you just described it.
It you know, it's a, you know, sheet metal doorstop or something to people that look
at it aesthetically, right.
But when you get under the skin of it and you go, Holy cow, they did some pretty
crazy stuff to bring this thing to market.
And what it then lends to for the future of vehicle development, whether that's a
truck or a car or what have you.
That's the most important part.
I think that, I think you're right on that.
It's the look at me car without a doubt.
All my buddies that I knew back in California long ago that had two wheel
drive lifted trucks, like boy, the Cybertruck's for them, you know, because
they weren't taking those things off road.
But beyond that, I think, you know, Cybertruck and other vehicles that, you
know, that came to market, I mean, Cybertruck got the most play, obviously.
It got the most attention because it took forever to bring it to market.
It is just an eye popping thing.
I think that, do I think they're going to get more sales out of it than others
expect?
I do.
I really do.
I think that the level to which people are justifying buying expensive cars for
people that have the income to do it is kind of getting bonkers.
Not kind of getting, it is bonkers.
It's crazy how, oh yeah, give me a seven year loan on that hundred thousand dollar
vehicle.
I'll totally justify it.
You know, it's, it's happening still.
But then you're also seeing on the vehicle side how we're seeing brands like
Volkswagen and Mazda.
I think it was yesterday they announced 0% financing on 60 months.
to get into some of their vehicles.
So we're seeing a turn back to, we gotta get more creative by getting how to move
metal again.
And so I think that on the EV side of it, aside from Cybertruck, what are the
standouts?
Well, we're kind of getting to a place where we have a market saturation of it's
all starting to feel the same from a vehicle perspective.
So the differentiation then turns into what we talked about earlier, which is
what else makes the vehicle stand out?
And I think that's gonna be important moving forward for sure.
You know, and just, yeah, just a quick follow up on John's point is absolutely
right.
Like, uh, people buying, uh, electric pickups are not pickup buyers, right?
Like that, that market is just pickup buyers are not attracted to electric
vehicles for the towing, just for the image, for, for a lot of reasons.
And I think there's some interesting things.
If you, if you look at the Rivian numbers, so the Rivian R1S that's the three row
is outselling the Rivian R1T, the sort of the midsize, however you want to
characterize it, pickup, two to one.
Right.
And so this, again, I know this is my theme for today, the third time I'm going
to beat up the legacy automakers is how did they not understand the pickup market,
right?
And that, that it was like, you know, that all these F-150 owners, you know, that
have are on their fourth one are going to run out to buy the electric version.
No.
Right.
Um, but also why didn't GM come out with an electric Chevy Tahoe or whatever?
Instead they did two Hummers, the Silverado, et cetera.
Like the Kia EV9 is going, you know, it's biggest issue this year.
Um, we only have one month of sales.
I think it's like 1100, something like that, right.
It's going to be gearing up production, but you know, the market loves big.
SUVs, right?
So why didn't Ford and GM come out with, you know, explorers and Tahos and
expeditions that were electrified instead, they went with the Silverado and the F-150
Lightning.
And we all know that pickup buyers weren't going to buy them.
Like I just, again, it just like boggles my mind of what they were, they were
thinking.
I honestly, Lauren, I don't think it's anything further than that's what they
know.
They look at what they do best and they were like, well, we do trucks.
That's what we do.
And we have cultivated a buying public that sees our brand in that way.
And yeah, they make money on Silver Rod, on Tahoe and Expedition and everything
else, but it's not what makes their volume.
It's not what makes them who they are as a brand.
So on one hand, it's almost like you give them credit for taking the risk and being
gutsy about it.
I think Ford's positioning to say we're going to call the Mach-E, the Mustang
Mach-E and actually make the F-150, the F-150 Lightning.
To a certain extent, I'd give them some credit for the fact that they made that
leap.
But then there's a line in the sand where you say, but you also didn't fundamentally
understand like what you're describing, what you should have come to market with.
It would have been the best selling option for you at the time.
I agree that there should be a plug-in hybrid truck and that's where those should
have started.
I don't because of, I mean, pure physics is not on the side of trucks right now for
being electrified.
It just isn't.
So.
Yeah, I think there's a lot we just actually discussed right there.
Um, no, I mean, what you're saying about the Rivian R1S is so true.
It is the new Land Rover Range Rover.
It is the new minivan.
I see them everywhere here.
I mean, I will say this is in my personal observations.
This is limited data.
Uh, there I have seen a lot of people, generally women, which is great to see
that is connecting with that.
demographic buying large SUVs, usually with a bunch of kids in the back.
They are usually going to a soccer game where they're taking all the kids up to go
skiing here, but I mean, they are everywhere here.
They are the new.
Yeah, I just, I live out in, yeah, I live out in, you know.
I think it's a much less controversial design.
It's a simple design, but I, the only thing kind of controversial about it is
the headlights.
Otherwise it looks good.
Uh, but what I think what's really funny going back to, uh, also just real briefly
around kind of pickup truck buyers and the Cybertruck, I know two contractors, one
has like a diesel 3,500 Ram dually
And he's a contractor.
He uses the hell of it.
And another has a F three 50 King ranch.
They won't shut up talking about the cyber truck, which to me is the most bizarre
thing I did not expect.
Uh, the second part to that is going exactly to what you were saying, Matt,
about like the timing of these vehicles released interest rates were really low,
the F one 50 lightning taking these gambles and there was a lot of cars being
sold, it didn't seem as wild.
Now that's obviously changed.
They're moving really slowly.
And I.
Once again, we don't really know the volumes of the Cybertruck, but the fact
that they're essentially Tesla's chart, an upcharge of like $30,000 for these first
models.
Then are still moving them.
Um, that kind of goes to your point, John, I've just like being jealous of like, Hey,
it's, it's obviously not a traditional buyers, but that's money coming in the
door for kind of some absurd cars or absurd truck.
And there's, I don't know how big of a demand.
I don't know.
Originally it said there's going to be like quarter million units a year.
I don't know.
But even if they hit a hundred thousand.
with how much they've inflated the price.
That's not a bad place to be.
But yeah, Lauren, let's.
just one interesting update.
So the Lightning had a blowout quarter, right?
So despite everything we've just said, Ford sold 11,900 Lightnings in Q4, over
24,000 for the year, which puts it in the top 10 EVs for the year.
And so...
You know, I don't know if they were just giving it away at the dealers because of
all the bloated inventory.
Um, but, um, but you know,
on your thoughts on that one, John, because I even just saw someone, I think
it was on Twitter posted that they were finally able to get a pro with a $15,000
dealer mark down to under like closer to the original $40,000 price they had
mentioned.
Yeah.
as you guys know, EV adoption is happening on a regional basis.
There's hot spots across the country.
And if you're in one of the dead spots and a dealer's had this thing sitting on his
lot for five or six months, he's got to get rid of it.
He has.
He's floor planning it, right?
It's costing him money just sitting there.
So yeah, depending on where in the country you're talking about.
You're probably gonna find screaming deals and you're gonna probably find instances
where you just can't get your hands on one, they're so hot.
But you know, I wanna go back to one thing that Lauren raised that I thought was
pretty interesting.
You know, I was going through Tesla's financials and it was like, when did they
start making a profit?
Well, it was mid 2019.
I mean, a full year gap profit, right?
And it wasn't until they started selling 80,000 EVs a quarter, 50,000 of which were
the Model 3.
So to me, that's the bogey that the rest of the industry has to hit.
If you're not selling 50,000 a quarter that works out to about 17,000 a month,
kiss it goodbye from a profit standpoint until you crack that code.
You're not gonna make money on your EV because here's Tesla, they're the best,
the best at it.
And they've got EV credits and they got their own charging network and they're
selling insurance and all the every, and it took them 17,000 a month of the Model 3
before they turned to net profit.
So as good as we might've seen Ford come up in the last quarter with the F-150, the
numbers I just cited shows how far the Legacies have got to go.
Yeah.
Well, it's, it's funny you mentioned that because obviously like a lot of the
headlines with the startups like Lucid and Rivian right now, they're all talking
about the Rivian R2 or Lucid's model three fighter.
It's like, clearly that's what they're trying to shoot for to get to that
profitability, right?
Well, I think that's true, but I think it also kind of speaks to the thing we've
seen in the second half of the year is just money is a lot harder to come by.
And the only interest that these like startups are going to get is if they have
something that clearly can get them.
profitability that someone will win the money for even if it's at a terrible
interest rate.
And I guess I'm curious if there's anything that just to kind of wrap up that
one of the other cars I want to discuss about is the new Chevy Blazer, but I think
we're going to save that for the software section real quick.
Any other thoughts?
John, Matt, Lauren, just kind of looking back on the second half of this year when
it comes to kind of EV sales.
I mean, I'll just share my EV pizza pie concept that I teased earlier on, which is
the EV sales pie is gone from, let's say, about a 12-inch pizza pie in 2019 to a
20-inch in 2023.
But at the same time, we doubled the number of slices of pizza pie.
of how that pizza pie is being sliced up in a number of models.
Right.
And so when, when people talk about, you know, year over year, a quarter or quarter
over or sales and stuff like that, what they don't realize is like the model S
four or five years ago had like no competitors in sort of the luxury premium
mid to large size electric sedan.
There are like nine competitors to the model S now.
Right.
Just use that as an example.
And so the reality, the net of this is, is that some models are like continuing to
grow and some are facing fierce competition for similar EV models.
And the, and the, and even though the pie is growing, it's not growing enough for
the model sort of sales to grow.
Right.
And so, you know, what has been missing is just sort of the competitive factor.
When it can, you know, a few years ago.
when consumer wanted an EV, you know, it's like Tesla, Nissan Leaf, like whatever it
is, right?
Now there are like 90, you know, EVs between plug-in hybrids and BEVs, right?
And so, you know, what we have to look at is sort of on a comparison basis, like in
particular segments, how are sort of models doing and growing and that type of
thing.
And so I think...
All right.
this auto pizza party and the linebacker Joe Tesla just comes in, takes his huge
thing and leaves what's left.
Who isn't starving that's going to go for a slice?
The Hyundai motor groups.
Yeah.
So Hyundai, Kia, Genesis, um, are, um, going to be, uh, and I think I haven't
added it up yet, but I think they'll be, they might be number two this year as
well.
If not, they will be, um, in 2024.
So you go Tesla.
Yeah.
In the U S yeah.
So, you know, Tesla is like out there on its own Island, right?
of, of EV sales and then the Hyundai motor group.
And then the reality is, uh, Rivian probably won't make it, but they have a
shot at the number, number three spot.
If, if the R1S sales, but, you know, Ford, um, well, you know, could have blowout
with the Mustang Mach-E and that type of thing.
So it'll be interesting, but, uh, and GM might not even make the top five.
Uh, right.
Um,
It's like, which is, yeah, sorry, Mara, but you married, but you're not going to
be number one, uh, in 2025.
No.
Yeah, she's getting boxed out of this pizza party.
This is my new favorite metaphor.
She was in it.
She got the wrong directions.
Um, with, I guess, uh, saying all of that, uh, I think one final thing to mention
that's really interesting.
That's kind of officially happened in the last month.
We've been talking about North America and talking about EVs, talking about the other
Joe Tesla linebacker out there globally is BYD.
And that wraps up the first part with our panel.
Today we've taken a deep dive into the electric vehicle landscape as it stood in
2023.
We started by exploring the impact of the North American charging standard on
electric vehicles, a significant milestone that has truly reshaped the charging
experience for electric vehicle owners.
Then we discussed the rollout of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure
Program, AKA NEVI.
a key initiative that's paving the way for a more connected and accessible EV network
across the nation.
We also examine US auto sales and the impressive growth rate of electric vehicle
sales last year, a clear indicator of the shifting preferences of consumers and the
growing reliability of EV technology.
And finally, we analyze the influence of legacy automakers in the market, modern
electric innovation disrupting traditional manufacturing.
But hold on to your seats because in the second part of our panel conversation,
we're taking our discussion globally.
We'll explore the role of Chinese EVs, not just on the world stage, but how they're
impacting the North American auto market.
This segment of the industry has been buzzing with activity and we can't wait to
delve into it.
Then we're going to look at how software is revolutionizing the way electric
vehicles operate and more intriguingly, how consumers interact with and perceive
their cars.
The digital transformation of the auto industry is upon us and it promises to be
a game changer.
And of course, no discussion would be complete without our panel sharing their
predictions for 2024.
What does the future hold for EVs?
Are we on the cusp of another major shift in the automotive industry?
Our experts will weigh in with their insights and forecasts.
So make sure to tune into the second part of this panel.
You won't want to miss it.
Thank you for listening and until next time.