Chase Drum (00:05)
Good morning, Grid connection listeners. We're again joined today by Matt Teske, the CEO of Chargeway, Loren McDonald, the chief analyst at Paren and John McElroy, the host of the Autoline Network. And in this conversation, we explore critical insights into the current state and future trajectory of not only electric vehicles, the automotive industry, but also where EV charging infrastructure is headed. In this episode, we debunk common misconceptions surrounding EV charging, such as fears that the industry's growth has stalled.

and highlight significant advancements, including record-breaking installations and new charging ports across the US. Loren shares fresh insights from parents' latest State of the Charging Industry report, emphasizing improved reliability, pricing trends, and an exciting wave of charging 2.0 companies reshaping the landscape. Matt underscores the vital need for clear communication around electric vehicle ownership, stressing the importance of consumer confidence in charging infrastructure.

John highlights the critical challenges facing legacy brands as they transition to electrification. We also discussed key market trends, including the impact of expiring tax credits, the shift towards affordable electric vehicles, and why effective messaging and transparency are essential to drive broader adoption. Don't miss this deep dive into the future of electric vehicle charging and adoption. If you enjoy this episode, please share it with at least one person who might find it insightful. And don't forget to leave a positive review on our podcast page.

For more exclusive insights and updates, sign up for our newsletter via the link in the show notes and stay ahead of industry development. This episode, as always, is brought to you by Grid Connections Consulting, your expert resource for navigating the electrified future. Visit us at gridconnections.co. With that, enjoy.

Chase Drum (01:41)
Joined again by our favorite panel here today, we got Loren McDonald, John McElroy and Matt Teske. ⁓ I think everyone who's probably listening is familiar with what the team here is responsible for in the automotive and EV sectors. We are having a shorter episode than usual when this panel is on. So I'm gonna skip the intros. We'll have that all in the show notes if anyone somehow hasn't heard of the three on today.

And Loren, I think we're going to kick it off with something that you're sharing with us around kind of your team at Perrin and we're recording this on Friday and your results are going live on Monday and this episode will be going live on Tuesday. So all of this went live yesterday for those who haven't seen it yet and are listening right now. But Loren, do you want to kind of kick it off and I'll share my screen with some of the stuff that you've covered, but I think maybe just at a high level, if you could hit maybe the bullet points.

of this industry report around EV fast charging that your teams ⁓ shared yesterday.

Loren McDonald — Paren (02:40)
Yeah, absolutely. And great as always to be on the show with my esteemed ⁓ co-conspirators. But yeah, so we're launching, so it will have been yesterday, ⁓ our Q2 state of the charging industry report and ⁓ really looking at infrastructure, sort of the growth in fast charging infrastructure, ⁓ as well as reliability, pricing and things like that. ⁓

To me, one of the sort of the headlines is that the narrative in the US really since the Trump administration took hold is to ⁓ sort of kill all things EV and EV charging, right? And so they paused what's called the NEVI program ⁓ and literally sort of created this narrative that EV charging deployment is dying, is dead.

Right, I've talked to people who said that, you know, their mother-in-law or whatever thought that there's no building of new charging stations in the US because Trump stopped it all. Right. And a lot of people actually sort of believe that, that there literally is no sort of charging building. In fact, our data shows we're going to have a record year this year. You know, my forecast is we're going to have 16,700 new ports opened in 2025.

you know, more than 2,500 more than last year, right? It just continues to go up. to me, kind of, you know, one of the headlines, Chase, of this is just that the industry is moving forward, building out charging infrastructure because they know it's the future and they're future proofing and they want to, you know, build out and enable the continued.

growth of fast charging. that's one, know, Matt can chime in for two hours on this, just sort of the, you know, how consumers think about the charging experience, et cetera. And it's the second piece is it's getting better. Reliability is improving. ⁓ And to me, you know, one of the most exciting things, Chase, is that there's all these, what I call charging 2.0 companies that are entering this space. Walmart, BP Pulse,

Chase Drum (04:57)
.

Loren McDonald — Paren (04:59)
Mercedes-Benz high power charging network, Iona, which is the collection of eight automakers that got into the business. These companies like this who are not like charging companies started by a couple of guys that, you know, got some funding and thought they could get into the charging business and sell like, these are companies that are in the business for one of two reasons, ⁓ either to

Chase Drum (05:23)
Thanks.

Loren McDonald — Paren (05:24)
sell more EVs, right? So they realized they had to create a better charging experience. Or on like the retail and convenience store chain side, they're doing it because they see an opportunity they might have declining revenue on the fuel side. And they want those people that sitting there for 20 to 40 minutes to get out of the car and go inside and spend $15 on you know, a latte that has like massive margins, right? So

One of the things that those companies are doing is they're not putting in two or four slow fast chargers. They're putting in 10, 12, eight or 20, 350, 400 KW chargers. So there's this massive, you know, sort of move to a really fundamental, better charging experience that's going on. Unfortunately, we still have a lot of legacy of those one or two slow fast chargers out in the back.

corner of a parking lot where there's no lights and things like that and people are scared at night to go charge their stuff. But fundamentally, there's a lot of really exciting ⁓ growth and change going on in the fast charging industry. the last thing I would say though, Chase, is that ⁓ we're actually seeing some warning signs on the utilization front. So we actually saw a half of a percent decline

in the utilization rate across the US. But it's really like all things, it's really quite a mix, right? There are a lot of charging stations in the US in key markets like San Francisco, LA, Austin, Miami, Las Vegas, Tampa, New York, et cetera, where there's congestion in the middle of the day, literally charging stations that have a queue backup of people during prime times.

Chase Drum (07:06)
.

Loren McDonald — Paren (07:13)
But in a lot of the markets, let's take like St. Louis or markets like that in the Midwest, they actually have built too many chargers ahead of it. So we actually saw in several markets, we saw a massive uptick in new charging stations deployed. But the demand

didn't, the session demand didn't keep pace with that.

So we're seeing ⁓ utilization decline in some markets, right? So anyway, yeah, go ahead. That was a lot.

Chase Drum (07:48)
I appreciate that as a pretty good ground layer for today's discussion. I guess one question I have is if you know off the top of your head, you mentioned it's down by half a percent. And I remember we were discussing it ⁓ last time, what last quarter had gone up by. Do you remember what the growth was?

I guess for anyone listening, mean, a half percent doesn't sound like a whole lot, but when you're looking at some that's been growing, what's kind of the Delta versus last quarter we were seeing with those utilization rates, if you know off the top of your head.

Loren McDonald — Paren (08:13)
Yeah, mean,

we're now seeing three million charging sessions a week at the fast charging stations in the US. So it's a pretty massive number. So actually, interestingly enough, one of the things that feeds into this is seasonality and warmer weather. So we actually saw a decline in

Q1 over Q4 as well, because Q4 is an anomaly because of the holiday season. So everybody goes and Thanksgiving and Christmas and goes on long trips to see mom and dad or grandma or whatever it is, right? And so there's this massive uptick in charging sessions in Q4 because of those road trips. And then there's like nothing, there's no...

Chase Drum (08:40)
.

Loren McDonald — Paren (09:04)
you know, other than I think some presidents holidays, but you know, we don't tend to go on road trips for those.

But you know, there weren't any major road trip holidays in Q1. so we actually saw some seasonality decline there, right? So it's really, this is one of those things like with auto sales, what John could talk about also for two hours is that you have to compare things kind of the...

Chase Drum (09:16)
Hmm.

Loren McDonald — Paren (09:30)
quarter over year over year quarters, right? Because of this, like the consumer behavior and how dealers and automakers, ⁓ you know, do things from a deal and pricing perspective, et cetera. But ⁓ yeah, so we also saw a bit of a bit of a decline in Q1, but it's anality. And so that's part of it, right? And the warmer weather is a really interesting one. know, Matt can probably chime in on this as well in that. ⁓

you know, during cold winter months, it takes longer to charge an EV, right? And so as weather gets warmer, right, what we see is actually the session minutes actually on average decline a little bit because you can charge your car more quickly. So maybe it took, you know, 34 minutes ⁓ to charge your car in December. Well, it might only take, you know, 30, I'm just making it up, right? It might only take 32 minutes to charge it in June or something like

Chase Drum (10:29)
Yeah, I think the seasonality is a really good point, until that makes a lot of sense. ⁓ I want to get to those numbers you shared. I'm to put on the.

screen there about the auto sales. before we get that, don't know, Matt, John, if there's anything else you want to mention, think Matt probably obviously being with the charging side, obviously on the software layer, I'm there's probably been some interesting trends you've been seeing in that space as well too.

Matt Teske (10:51)
Well, think what we're, I mean, Loren hit on a lot of the most important things that are happening right now, just to really set the stage of what's happening behind the curtain. ⁓ And discussions like this are important because we need to make sure that the conversation that's getting out there is showcasing, as Loren pointed out, that there is growth in deployment. There is improvement on charging experience and things of that nature. ⁓ I think moreover, what we're seeing, whether it's from user feedback on our side and some of those stuff that we research on a regular basis is...

We are getting to that, you know, true stage of we have exhausted all options as it relates to the innovators and early adopters, as it relates to what that's going to look like now moving forward. So that combined with the political headwinds that now exist here in the United States, it's going to be very, very interesting moving forward. And I think some of the sales numbers that Loren had provided ahead of time that we had been looking at showcases some of those factors that we're already kind of seeing, which is there's

We are seeing more models on market, but the sales per model are, they're not going up, they're going down a bit. So on one hand, we have great diversification related to options for people to buy, but we're, we're just kind of getting to the stage. I think we're, you know, we've, we, there's been a lot of just excitement around the EV industry and discussion around it for so long, but it's starting to just kind of get to that point where people that have been hearing it for so long are like, okay, but again, like

What does this mean for me as a driver or maybe even as a fleet owner, things like that. So I think with the political headwinds that we're now seeing, we're going to get to a stage of real practicality around how we are representing to the public what these products can do. But I also think we're seeing a little bit of the fact that some of the products that came to market from legacy brands, for example, as well, we're finally starting to see GM get some of those volume numbers up they've been talking about, which is great to see. They've got some strong diversity.

Cadillac is poaching sales from brands like BMW and Audi, which you would have thought of that five, 10 years ago, right? So those are interesting things to see. think that one of things that's starting to stick out to us is that, you know, the backlash to Tesla that happened in Q1 and Q2 in a lot of ways, and people that were opting to say, I'm, look, I'm moving over, I'm going to go buy something else. If I'm eating a car, I'm not getting a Tesla. They're starting to have that realization of an electric car isn't just a car with a big battery in it.

Chase Drum (12:56)
So

Matt Teske (13:10)
so much of the experience of how the car is built structurally around the charging experience, the software experience, especially inside people that went from Tesla to other brands are starting to, they're saying, Hey, it's just an electric car, but we're starting to even see those people that had electric cars for a long time realize,

Oh, there's more to it for how this experience can look and work. And I think we're going to see more of that because of the level of diversity we now have on the market for these vehicles. I guess my concern that I still see is just that we've just kind of as an industry sort of been maintaining

But of course it's going to grow. Of course it's going to keep going. And I think with Elon becoming such a lightning rod for all the things that he's done this year already on the political front and everything else, the coattails of Tesla were being heavily ridden by a of ⁓

Chase Drum (13:52)
.

Matt Teske (13:53)
different stakeholders. And I think that we're seeing the shaking out of the reality of like, if they're not leading the charge on everything, no pun intended, who is? And there's going to be some little elements of a vacuum that it's like, how do we fill that?

with product and with the right experiences. it's a real, I think it's a real shakeout moment for the next couple of years is what we're going to see. High level, mighty sense of what I've been saying. So.

John McElroy (14:19)
Hey, I've got a question for Loren. Really exciting to see so many charging ports coming online. You got a real good news story there. Boy, that flies in the face of conventional wisdom right now. But what do you think, Loren? Is this everybody rushing to spend the money that was allocated and it drops off next year? Or what do you see?

Loren McDonald — Paren (14:37)
No,

no, no, not at all. the, you know, this is one of the sort of the misconceptions, right? So the, the Nevi program, and I assume Jason, most of your listeners are probably feeling familiar with Nevi, but Nevi is the national electric vehicle infrastructure program was $5 billion ⁓ that was allocated and approved by Congress to be deployed via the States over five years. Companies would submit applications and get awards and then get the money and start building

building the charging stations. The role of the NEVI program, John, was never to build a lot of charging stations. Its fundamental role was to put fast charging stations in charging deserts, right? So to put them where the private industry had shown that they were not going to put them there because they didn't make great economic sense. The return on investment

instead of being, four or five years, might be 10 or 12 years or something like that. If you're putting a charging station out in the middle of Iowa, Wyoming, North Dakota, upstate New York, near Canada border, Alabama, et cetera, there's just not either the local EV ownership or the traffic going through in those markets to have a lot of sessions. So private industry wasn't doing that.

Matt Teske (15:45)
Thank

Loren McDonald — Paren (16:03)
But we know, and again, Matt could talk about this for hours, right? We know one of the key decision factors that especially newbie consumers make about EVs is, I'm going to go one day on that trip to Yellowstone. It's been on my bucket list for 12 years. But I've heard there's no charging stations in Wyoming. I believe Yellowstone is in Wyoming. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Chase Drum (16:23)
Thank

Loren McDonald — Paren (16:32)
You know, so I actually had this conversation with my brother-in-law, right? It's like, so I'm not going to buy an EV because I've heard there's no charging stations out there and I'm going to, I'm afraid of running out of, you know, uh, electricity and stuff like that, right? That fear is real, right? Like, you know, we, could talk about that. It's an, it's, it's not a, uh, a fear based on like reality, but it's an actual fear that a lot of people have. Right. So.

we have to fill in those sort of charging gaps and that's what Nevi was gonna do. But John, the fundamental answer to your question is meanwhile, there's all these companies, like I said, like Iona, like Mercedes, like Walmart, like BP Pulse, et cetera, who literally have announced plans to thousands, tens of thousands of charging stations in the US by 2030. And so they have,

Chase Drum (17:10)
Thanks.

Loren McDonald — Paren (17:31)
a big checkbook, they have goals, have vendors, they have everybody in place who literally is being held accountable to meet these goals. they are moving ⁓ full steam ahead. And anytime you talk to them about, well, are you sort of getting ahead of maybe demand, is they're saying, well, we're doing that sort of intentionally. We are future proofing, right? We want to make sure that when

that there isn't that ⁓ congestion at two o'clock in the afternoon in a station in San Francisco or whatever it is. And we also want to make sure on those thanksgivings and Christmases and Labor days that there aren't queues of 20 cars in line, right? Because everybody decides to go charge on those days, right? So ⁓ I know that's a long answer, but fundamentally, no, these companies are relying mostly on their own money

They're building it out because it's part of their core business strategy.

Matt Teske (18:35)
Well, I got you.

Chase Drum (18:35)
I guess one, ⁓

question I'd have with that is I think what you're sharing, what you're sharing in this recent report is things are turning in the right direction. And I think that's good. They're not like, ⁓ crazy wild numbers, but they're all positive numbers and it's like sustainable numbers. Going to the thing you're talking about, like with your brother-in-law and I

I know no shortage of people like that that are kind of in the same boat. To me with, I mean, obviously as someone who's been driving an EV over the last decade, the difference between a decade ago, five years ago, and even 12 months ago is kind of nine day. Like it's changed pretty drastically. And so I'm kind of curious, like while there are like some gaps, it's gotten pretty hard to find a place that doesn't have some sort of way around that. So my question is to

the fact to the reality versus the perception. I'm curious on the panels ideas as to what can help with that transparency as to these things are being in place. I think there is an element of you need big signs and like even with EV sales, you need butts and seats. Like that still is just going to move it way more than a lot of these other things. But what, what is that transparency layer that will really help people kind of understand that this has changed and it has been changing quickly. ⁓

Is it on the automakers? it on the fueling centers? There's just a lot of, I think still low hanging fruit that really hasn't been executed upon for that. So I'd be kind of curious on that from everyone's perspective.

Loren McDonald — Paren (20:17)
Yeah, I mean, I know Matt's chomping at the bit, but I'll just make one point that I think the industry, which includes a lot of people, automakers, dealers, et cetera, has not done a good job explaining how different the EV charging experience is from the fueling experience, right? ⁓ And we've all talked about this before, that the car gas fueling experience

is a distributed one, right? Where you get in your car and on the way to work or whatever it is, you stop at a gas station, right? Whereas EVs, except for the road trips and if you live in an apartment, don't have access to charging, but for most people, right? The EV refueling experience is more akin to, you know, charging your smartphone, right? It's something you typically do at home.

Chase Drum (20:56)
.

Loren McDonald — Paren (21:14)
And the industries use this sort of 80, 20, 80 % of your charging will be done at home if you have access to charging at home. For some of us, like me, who don't do a lot

of road trips, it's more like 98%, right? But I think we just, haven't, and the other part of that is that we know all these stories, the guy that drives a Ram pickup who says he's never gonna get an EV until it's like, I can charge in five minutes, right?

Well, in both of you, Chase, Matt, you can talk about this is that most of the time when you go on a road trip, you stop to eat, go to the bathroom, check your email, like you're like the charging experiences, what your car does, why you recharge your body and mind, right? And it's, and there are exceptions to that, but typically, you know, you're doing other things. So you're not just sitting there like for 40 minutes waiting for your car to charge. Yeah, go ahead.

Chase Drum (22:10)
Right. And I think, yeah, and

sorry not to catch off. I mean, we are seeing from like the Chinese players and others, even some of the European automakers, we're getting that charge time down to 15 minutes. And I think if you can get like that zero to 80,

in the 50. mean, there's ones in China right now that can do it in 10. We need to start seeing some of that tech here. That's probably a few years out, but there's clearly a roadmap to get to that. I'm curious, John and Matt, I'll stop. I'll let you guys hop in on this, but what are your guys' thoughts once again on that transparency layer? I think, Loren, what you're talking about is perfectly accurate, but I think that is like not the consumer or the

person that is a good fit for the product at the moment. But if they are open to purchasing one, which is a big caveat, there is clearly a technology and a product fitment lineup that will probably be something they can have within 36 to 48 months that meets these demands if they are open to it. But as far as like the transparency to know that the network when you need to get on a road trip is reliable, Matt and John, I'm curious what you guys think.

John McElroy (23:25)
Go ahead, Matt.

Matt Teske (23:25)
Good.

No, I mean, it's, we still have zero outbound communication to the public about how the experience works. That's just, that's the way to say it. The, and the policy makers that have, that were, you know, working hard to get the Neve dollars in place to the inflation reduction act and make sure those dollars got distributed. That was, as Loren very, you know, very accurately explained the how's and the why's of that.

We did need that. We needed those fast charters that were in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Montana that no one else wanted to put in. We do need that. it's the, again, there's been studies about this through UC Davis and others. Again, it's the, if we build it, they will come. And the answer is no, because people are not currently actively going out of their way to find a new fuel for the car that they're buying. They're not. People are conditioned to go, cars require gasoline, and that's how they think. And so without-

real strong messaging around that dynamic being as, you know, as Loren described, it's based on lifestyle and things like that. We just have zeros. Like you said, Chase, there's no signage still. I mean, it's, very nice to see, you know, IANA, like, you know, for example, as a new network, have awnings. You can see them from a distance, things like that. I was just at the BP Pulse GigaHub ⁓ LAX ribbon cutting this week. Getting to see a station like that in person that has high visibility is great.

It's a step in the right direction. And as Loren pointed out, these are those new players that are going to, have some deeper pockets and they can start doing things like that. But the rollout of that has to be not just through them. We have to apply that to all types of charging and without, and again, but that's still gets it onto the networks, you know, Hey, can you guys do this for us? ⁓ again, the best example that I still think that exists is I was on a road trip, two of them here in the Northwest in the last month or so. And anytime you're on the highway, if you see a sign that says fuel this exit, it'll have.

branded logos of Chevron and whatever the other gasoline brands they are. below them, it'll say things like diesel. It'll have like a marker saying what is at the station for you. That level of specificity has to be there for charging too. And right now all we have is a sign at the bottom on the wooden post that says EV and it's just stapled to the wooden post as if to somehow explain it. And it might then below that say fast and then

Again, the people that are making those policy makers are not communication experts. Well, I will say this, there's a certain segment of the policymaking world that are not communication experts. And unfortunately, that seems to be the ones that are pushing for clean energy and things of that nature. They're just making those decisions saying, yeah, we put a sign up. No, but again, people will figure out the answers. Absolutely no, they will not. And so until we as an industry truly ⁓ own up to that lacking

of real, you know, clear communication. And then it's not just communicating what it is. It's how do you communicate it? And that's something you can't just say, okay, we'll spend again. You know, there was an announcement about below is getting, you know, 40 million plus dollars from Electrify America for a marketing campaign. And they got Nick Offerman to do the voiceover. And I'm like, okay, well, a big portion of that money went to Nick Offerman, I'm sure. But it's like, okay, I watched the pieces, the segments and everything else. And I just thought to myself immediately.

This is just a repeating of the same tactics that have been tried for 20 years now almost. And it's just because you add Nick Offerman to it, it'll get, yeah, maybe a few more eyeballs. It doesn't mean that the communication strategy is effective. And so when I saw that announcement, I thought, yeah, that's very disappointing. That's $40 million in a marketing campaign that is not going to be effective. And people in the industry don't like hearing that, but it's like, look, you can't just say you spent money, therefore it will be an effective campaign.

It's just not how it works. And if you just add a celebrity to it, they tried it previously with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it's just like, did that move the needle? Did it help people understand? Did it get more people talking? No.

Chase Drum (27:14)
Well,

no, that's totally accurate. It kind of reminds me of like when GM did those Super Bowl, Will Ferrell ads and stuff. it was like, even before they even had, like, there's still a big lag between the actual product was on the dealers. But, ⁓ John, you've been quiet. So I want to hear from you. And I think the only thing I would add to that is you see this in Europe where it's not common, but there are places where you'd go to like a traditional, like a Cerqlique or something that says,

Matt Teske (27:19)
gosh, yeah.

Yeah.

Chase Drum (27:38)
petrol, diesel, and then it just says like electricity, it's a kilowatt hour thing. And I think when you talk about $45 million to the American or like the average consumer, if they start driving and just seeing a thing when they go to a gas station that literally set the price of electricity, I think that if you were to put $45 million, and I think you're totally right, Matt, where it goes to not only communication, but even further with like inability for effective execution that like $45 million is like to me, it's like what you should do is $45 million as like a project.

Matt Teske (27:56)
End of that.

Chase Drum (28:08)
to just put that sign up at as many gas stations as you can that offer, or those kinds of fueling places that offer it too. But I'm sorry, John, you've been quiet. I want to hear from you. I know we're short on time and I, my apologies if I, it's feel like I'm rushing everyone, but I know we're already almost at like half the time and we haven't even gotten the car sales data. So John, go for it.

John McElroy (28:16)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, look, look.

The only thing I can add is what you guys said. Yeah, look, signage. Also, we need like a common logo that is instantly recognizable, some sort of icon that says, yeah, EV plug and start putting them everywhere. And it's not for the people who own EVs. They know where to go to charge or their nav system will tell them where to go.

Matt Teske (28:28)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (28:28)
Yeah.

John McElroy (28:46)
And so it's for the public that you mentioned Chase that is like, I don't want to buy an EV because I don't know where I want to plug it in. If they start seeing some sort of icon everywhere, that's going to flip pretty quickly. And they're going to say, my God, there's charging stations everywhere.

Chase Drum (29:02)
I

Matt Teske (29:03)
And what we're talking, what you just mentioned, John, we're talking about branding and marketing electricity as a fuel.

Chase Drum (29:03)
see.

John McElroy (29:08)
Right, right. I mean, ideally, you know, cause every gas station has what the price is premium, regular cash only, whatever. If we could only have the electricity, ⁓ not the kilowatt per hour, but the cost of electricity compared

Chase Drum (29:27)
Yeah.

John McElroy (29:27)
to gasoline. You know, if it would say, you know, it's four bucks a gallon for this, but if you fill up with electricity here, it's two bucks a gallon.

Matt Teske (29:35)
Well, truthfully...

And that's true in some places, but a lot of these new fast charging stations that are going in, I mean, some of the flying J's and the pilots that are in partnership with EVgo, for example, EVgo's hardware is at the location. They have their branding on it with, you know, also with Ultium from GM, but some of the prices of those locations, the price for electricity that they're selling the electricity at is actually potentially more expensive than just even buying gas. So, right. Well, it's just, it's that.

Chase Drum (29:56)
Yeah. Once again,

John McElroy (29:57)
That's right. Yeah, yeah. Well, in those cases, we don't put the prices up.

Chase Drum (30:03)
if you just put 80 cents per kilowatt ⁓ hour, as an EV driver, you'll know that's ridiculous. But when you're a regular car driver and you see like, well, 450 versus 80 cents, I'm going to do this, it at least gets the mind thinking about it. And then hopefully this little thing called capitalism will drive the actual price per

Matt Teske (30:16)
Mind thinking about it, yeah.

Chase Drum (30:25)
kilowatt hour, which we are seeing there are places that are just like, people aren't going there because it is too price too high. And I know Loren, we've talked about this a little bit. And I think it does about like whether people shop on price. And I do think existing EV drivers do for the most part, if they know where to find that price. And because of this transparency in lack of transparency in between the infotainment in most cars a lot of the time, and also just when you're actually at the site, like what the hell am I going to pay until you even like,

Matt Teske (30:30)
Yeah.

You're done.

Chase Drum (30:54)
And like, not to harp on electrify America, but here's an example. You don't even know usually until you've like plugged in and got it working sometimes what it's going to be. And I had a recent experience again, where it wasn't until the third time. And I'm only a big enough EV nerd to like play around with it and get it to work that I would actually care about that. And it just kind of plays into these like exactly what you're talking about, Matt, communication. So, okay. I am as the...

Loren McDonald — Paren (31:05)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Chase Drum (31:23)
Moderator, Loren, is there something you want to say real quick? I'm going to give you 10 seconds and then we're going to get into these numbers because we're at the 30 minute mark.

Loren McDonald — Paren (31:28)
Oh,

I, yeah, I don't know, I do in 10 seconds. But but two quick things. One is that one of the things we're starting to see you talk about brands, lot of people maybe don't know any of the charging brands, but they are familiar with the red and white Tesla superchargers, right. And we're actually starting to see Tesla grab market share from the other charging networks, right, we're starting to see a lot more non Tesla vehicles charge at Tesla superchargers, right. So

Chase Drum (31:49)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (31:57)
The other thing I would just say real quickly, Chase, is that I recently was invited to be at it. I won't mention their name, but a major automaker as an analyst, and they shared a bunch of different things, especially around charging and stuff and their EV plans. And one of the things that they're doing that gets it part of what we're talking about is they're not gonna focus on the people that haven't raised their hands about wanting an EV.

They're only going to focus and go after the people that have three cars in a suburban house with a three car garage and have the income and stuff. In other words, they're now just basically saying, and I'm paraphrasing, this is not them. It's really hard to try to convince people to buy an EVs. So we're just going to focus on selling them to the people that actually want it.

Chase Drum (32:49)
Yeah.

Matt Teske (32:50)
Well,

why would you want to buy an electric car? You know? ⁓

Chase Drum (32:54)
I think that's even an uphill battle, especially if you're talking to someone for a lot of the time if they already have an EV. Because if you're not able to communicate at that level, just pretty quickly will turn that person off from looking at that purchase. One final thing I'll say about the fast charging, because like we saying, you have the IONAs and even some electrify America sites.

I did a test ⁓ just like with a couple of people real quick where I show them a quick image of an IANA site. And I said, what is that? It's a gas station. That's their immediate response. And I think once again, I think it's really cool what IANA is doing, but the best investment they can make is put up one of those normal gas station signs that say 0.12 cents or whatever per kilowatt hour rate is. Because one, people are going to look at anything that shows like

People like I remember, I forget what it was, but people were talking about how in diehard or some action movie, it shows the price of gas in California and it's like 54 cents per gallon. And I think anytime you have a site where it would show zero cent anything at what people immediately think the gas station, they're going to do a double take on, well, what the hell. And then they're actually going to process like, ⁓ this is electric. That's my final piece. Okay. With that, let's jump over to the sales data. Okay.

Matt Teske (33:51)
Haha

Chase Drum (34:13)
You guys see that? Great. Loren, do want to just give us a real quick ⁓ overview of what we're looking at here?

Matt Teske (34:14)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (34:18)
Yeah, yeah. And then,

and then hopefully, I'll just all I'll shut up and let john sort of take over. But yeah, I just I pulled this together right right before the call. But I think there's sort of two interesting trends. And Matt sort of touched on one earlier. One is that, you know, for years, we were seeing, you know, every year, you'd see V sales sort of grow up. I mean, it was flat, john, what was it?

2021, it was basically 300 plus thousand two years in a row. otherwise, generally, it's been uptake. But it's not growing per quarter. We've really plateaued in the 300,000 range and stuff per quarter. And the second part, something that I've harped on a lot that Matt touched on is

is that if you're an automaker, like years ago, there was, you know, there were there were 10 or 20 BEVs and then there were 40. Well, now there's like 80 and in the next couple of years, there's going to be 100 and 120. I have in my forecast for 2030, I forget the number 270 BEV models being available in 2030, right? And and so the problem is, right, what we're seeing right now is the sales per model.

is basically declining or flat for most existing models. All of the sales, when there's a growth in a quarter, it's almost like, typically what I've seen is 80 % of it, comes from the new models that are introduced, right? Either that quarter or the previous couple of quarters. Like last year, we saw the Equinox, Chevy Equinox and the Honda Prologue just crush it, right? On sales.

But everybody else was flat or declined, right? So anyway, I'll shut up there and sort of let you take over as the auto expert.

John McElroy (36:18)
Well, you know, I don't know if I have a whole lot more to add, but you know, clearly one of the things that has hurt sales are people are running away from Tesla. Now I actually am surprised that Tesla sales are not down even more than they have been. But ⁓ that's a big problem for the segment when you've got the industry leader in the EVs trying to do a face plant here because people are running away from the politics of the CEO. ⁓ That's an issue.

I wonder how sales are going to go now that the $7,500 rebate disappears at the end of September. ⁓ Undoubtedly, we're going to see a drop there. But I will say this, you we just reported this in Autoline Daily. In Germany, which is, you guys will remember, Germany dropped all its EV subsidies ⁓ last year. And EV sales took a nosedive. But so far this year in Germany,

EV sales are up 35%, even though the German market is down. And that's with zero incentives. So and who's making up ⁓ the sales games? Not Tesla. mean, Tesla sales in Germany and all of Europe are a disaster. It's the Volkswagen Group that's coming on strong with these EVs. And so that's what it's going to... Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (37:32)
They're declining in Germany.

Chase Drum (37:40)
What is it?

I'm

sorry to cut you off there. it so much the Volkswagen group or is it the Chinese groups? Because, okay.

John McElroy (37:47)
No, no, no, no.

It's mainly the Volkswagen group. The Chinese are coming, but remember, the tariffs in Europe are on Chinese baths. So most of the sales gains that you're seeing going on in China, in Europe right now with Chinese cars, are hybrids or plug-in hybrids, or pure ice. But what I'm getting at is, I think this shows some hope for the future in the US. It's up to the manufacturers to come out with compelling EVs that are priced to sell.

Chase Drum (37:51)
Yeah.

Matt Teske (38:17)
I think one of things that's becoming a little bit more obvious is there was such a strong effort by everybody to just kind of emulate what Tesla's in-car experience was, was, and they all figured, okay, that's what we need to build ourselves. But Tesla's prowess that they proved out over the last decade of making the software experience in the car both simple and fun and had features that really were effective. If you were stopping to charge for 40 minutes, you could log into Netflix. That's a really cool feature, frankly.

The legacy automakers, every time I get into a legacy automakers vehicle and I start really working with their software and the screens, you can just tell that this was a different mindset coming in and trying to say, how do we try to make it feel like a Tesla? And John, you can speak to this too. Every time I hear about the Chinese automakers and you look at their in-car experience, because they understood software better, some of them just being software companies, that that in-car experience with the Chinese EVs is just second to none. It's really solid.

And I think that that is in the U S market. We just don't have a lot of product in the market that is an electric car or a plugin car that has really great software experiences in car. And if anything, we've had a lot of problems. And I think that we cannot just because of our knowledge of it, we can all say, yeah, we understand that. But people that went from owning a Tesla for X amount of years and said, I'm getting rid of it for some reason. They're now having this like, oh geez moment when they get into these cars that are, you know, an electric car, but

They're having a hard time with the app. They're having a hard time with the in-car experience. And that's something that anecdotally is being discussed a lot in owners groups of people that had a very seamless experience with software and then are now having a troublesome one. And I think that's genuinely a problem moving forward for our market domestically. I mean, if you don't know any different, if you buy ⁓ an electric car from a non-tested electric car here in North America, you're not gonna know the difference, but you're still gonna hear complaints.

You know, about, you know, like, why is it this, the one I read today was, it was regarding the Volvo EX30 is they said, yeah, in order to change the temperature, have to, you know, basically do something on the screen. And if I take my eyes off, it starts beeping at me saying, keep your eyes on the road. And he's like, so it's this, these competing software things. And the people that responded that own the car saying, well, if you do use the, the, Hey, Google element for voice, it actually is pretty good if you get used to it. But the person's response was, what if I don't want to do that? What if I don't like having to talk to my car all the time? What if I want to just adjust something?

Chase Drum (40:10)
Yeah. Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (40:21)
No.

Matt Teske (40:38)
This is where I think the slate approach is kind of intriguing, where they're like, you know what? We're not even going to bother. We're just going to give you a car that has a speedometer and a battery reading and then software. Yeah. You can just do that through your Android or iOS device. I'm curious to see how that ends up playing out.

Chase Drum (40:46)
Yeah.

John McElroy (40:56)
But know, Matt, what are the problems with the legacy automakers right now is they're stuck with legacy systems that are not conducive to using software. You know, they've got domain computing versus the centralized zonal that Tesla and other startups, Rivian, Lucid are all using, or the Chinese like Huawei and Neo and whatnot. And, you know, they don't have software defined vehicles. They're all struggling with this. Ford pretty much gave up.

Matt Teske (41:05)
Yeah.

John McElroy (41:24)
trying to bring its legacy products and they're gonna let the skunk works in California work on that. so it's, you know, it's not just that they don't get software, their systems can't run it even if you gave them the best stuff.

Matt Teske (41:38)
Right.

Well, that's, yeah, they proved that out. They hired a bunch of talented people and said, make this work. mean, carry out Volkswagen and go down the list of all the things we've seen just, you know, start and fail is to your point. They, they had to reimagine who they were all the way down to these fundamental foundations of how they'd set themselves up to build product that they currently build. And it was clearly not something they were prepared to do. And that's where even to your point about Ford.

Loren McDonald — Paren (41:40)
Yeah.

Matt Teske (42:04)
You know, the starts and stops about, okay, we're going to separate this out. It's going to be, you know, model E and we're going to be doing things separately as best they could. And to your point, even for all the things that seemed like they were doing to set the stage for, we're re-imagining who we are. They've had a lot of struggles there. And then for the others, you just go down the list. They've either just completely outsourced it, whether that's Google or even Volkswagen now going to with Rivian. And I think that that is a telltale sign of what is going to happen down the line. it chase you and I've, you and I've talked about this in the past.

It's just going to turn into these, you know, these coach builder type brands where it's like, yeah, it's a Cadillac or it's a Ford or whatever, but it's like, what's under the skin? A lot of not us. We're just selling our brand now because we just have to basically outsource and, ⁓

Chase Drum (42:34)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (42:45)
Yeah, that's the

old Dell model, right? They called them a screwdriver shop where basically they just assembled other people's components and put the Dell logo on it, right?

Matt Teske (42:48)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Chase Drum (42:57)
Which

is an interesting model, but only really worked out really, really well for Dell. Everyone else has even razor thin margins then.

Matt Teske (43:02)
Ha

Chase Drum (43:05)
One thing I want to mention, John, that I think is really interesting. I was listening to your guys auto line after hours yesterday, which I guess for those listening was last Thursday. I think Gary was the one who mentioned at the end there, like Tesla sales in California was only down by 15%. And that to me was like actually really surprising because I expected the number to be much greater myself. And just anecdotally, there's been two really weird, I, I actually took a road trip,

the other day up to Seattle for a couple of meetings. And so I could not believe how many being in Oregon and Washington on this trip, these areas that we've heard about all this pushback. I saw so many more of the new Model 3s and Model Ys especially on the road. I was kind of surprised by that. And once again, I realized that's anecdotal. But then second, what's been really interesting is I've had people reach out to me again, like in the past month, this used to be, I think, a more regular thing.

And it was, they would reach out to me and say, uh, what do I need to know about a model through? What do I need to know about a model? Why? I was like, well, there's this. I even mentioned like an ionic just to kind of test the water to see what they're looking at. And they're like, oh, I don't want that. I was like, oh, but you're, you're asking about electric vehicle. And they're like, no, I'm kind of cross shopping it between that and a Subaru. And I I'm sorry. It's a model Y and like a Forester and just small crossovers. And that to me is just a really interesting fact.

Matt Teske (44:24)
Interesting.

Chase Drum (44:32)
Because ⁓ the people that are coming to me about this, they're coming to me because they know I am the car, let's see if I can get this in camera, car guy that knows something about cars and EVs. And it has just been really interesting to me. ⁓ And I am reminded of the quote, I can't remember who this was originally from, but about politics. And it's like, never underestimate the short-term memory of the American buying and voting public.

And I do feel like within the last hour or last month, I am starting to see this in real time. So I don't know what that is, like that 15%, is that a large number? Yes. ⁓ But is it, I was expecting like 30 to 40%, especially in the state of California where you're seeing all the publicity, you're seeing all the like ⁓ social media posts. And it is just interesting to see like the signal versus the noise of like people who are actually putting their money down.

So I am really curious to see, I don't think next quarter or the next two quarters are really gonna be that great for Tesla, but it will be interesting if it's at like 15 % or like they're only down 10%. And when you look at a company like that, that is kind of more of the long-term, ⁓ at least in a halfway decent position. mean, like you even mentioned on yesterday's show, they're losing some of, and I mean, all of the electric car manufacturers really are losing the ZEV credits and some of these other things that have been able to use to kind of ⁓ prep,

kind of pamper the balance sheet. But one of the things I am curious about when we're talking about like the profitability and the margins of electric vehicles is something I actually want to share. Let me see if I can pull this up. In our original email chain that we were discussing, ⁓ Cybertruck sales specifically, ⁓ but it kind of became EV and also like EV truck sales. And one of the things that I'm really curious about, John,

Loren McDonald — Paren (46:20)
Matt's favorite topic.

Chase Drum (46:27)
is like these numbers right here, because one of the big narratives I was hearing from a lot of people is GM sales for electric vehicles are really good this quarter. And that's, that's true. GM as a whole are growing. But when I look at like, especially those trucks and even maybe like the Escalade and maybe even the Equinox EV of like their total sales of that product that they make, that's also an ICE vehicle, like

How sustainable is that? Especially when you start taking not only ZEV credits, but like actual incentives away. I mean, 2 % when ⁓ GM and they just make so much money on their Sierra and other pickups, John, I'm just kind of curious, like, what do you think when you see like the total percent of a model line that's made electric has to be selling as electric to be like profitable and actually margin versus like you're using up so much internal

organizational resources to make these things electric. Like what do you see from these numbers and does that align with kind of the correct thinking as to what needs to change to like actually make this more of a worthwhile thing for like GM's bottom line to make it sustainable at least?

John McElroy (47:43)
Well, number of thoughts here. Number one, look, electric pickups don't make sense. Not the full-size ones that have to carry heavy loads or tow heavy loads and go long distances. know, an eREV is probably going to be the solution for that segment. the fact that electric pickups, full-size electric pickups are not selling, well, meh, who cares? mean, that buyer is not interested in electric. I'm sorry, the end of the story.

Matt Teske (48:10)
Right.

Chase Drum (48:10)
Yeah.

John McElroy (48:11)
So when you look at the Blazer EV or the Equinox EV sales figures that are more of a substantial part of total sales, including ICE, that's where we really got to start paying attention. ⁓ you know, it's still early days in all this. You know, I believe that will grow. I think we're going to see a dip when the incentives go away, but I'm incredibly encouraged by what we're seeing in Germany right now. You know, if EV sales going up even without incentives.

Loren McDonald — Paren (48:15)
Yeah.

John McElroy (48:40)
And so, but to get to your point to where do you have to be to be profitable, I'm using Tesla as the example, know, once model three and Y sales hit 50,000 a quarter, that's when, you know, that's when earnings just shut up at Tesla. That's when it became extremely profitable. And so, you know, that's, this is also what I like about GM's Altium platform strategy is

You got one basic platform and you drop different top hats on top of it. So I would say once GM's dedicated EV plants start hitting 200,000 units a year at that plant, that's when you should start to see these ⁓ EV platforms really start to make money.

Chase Drum (49:30)
Yeah, I appreciate that. That's great context for this.

Matt Teske (49:33)
It's, think this is, this is a great slide to Loren. It's just, it also showcases the, how they've taken what they've had forever. And then they're just saying, all right, and we will electrify it. And John, to your point, how, how very clearly it identifies that based on the size of the vehicle, the demographic that buys that vehicle and where the technology is, how successful is, is that transition and that, that strategy of this model is both ice and electric. How, like how successful will that be? ⁓

This is a great visualization for it. And I think that it'll be interesting to see, again, this, like you've mentioned, think Chase, you mentioned this all started with a cyber truck kind of like discussing with like what was happening with that. yeah, these are the technology, unless we're getting to, you know, I don't know, seven miles per kilowatt hour inside of a battery pack, you know, that way we can get it then down to something like in a heavy truck, like get it down to like four.

then you're really seeing some really strong mileage out of those vehicles, then okay, maybe. But until that battery breakthrough happens, John, I 100 % agree with you that just having a truck that has an onboard battery that can do something between 50, 60 miles of electric range for all the regular, just everyday driving might need, but then use that gas for the long haul. That makes so much more sense based on just how the physics works. But here we are though, we've got these products in market. And frankly, the people I've met, I've got friends with F-150 Lightnings, I've got friends that have the Silverado EV.

They do love those trucks. They really do. But are these the typical demographic of, I want to take this in the middle of nowhere? They're not. They're like the California truck driver who's like, I got it because I wanted it, not because I use it as a truck, right?

Loren McDonald — Paren (51:02)
they're not.

Chase Drum (51:11)
Yeah, I would definitely classify kind of like in the adventure lifestyle vehicle. And I can't remember who was it. Maybe it was you, Loren, that kind of brought up the smaller truck segment kind of why I weren't seeing like that. could kind of make sense something that would compete with like ⁓ Chevy Silverado, ⁓ Toyota Tacoma, like kind of the weekend overlanding or like extreme sport kind of fun. Like I said, ⁓

Loren McDonald — Paren (51:36)
Yeah, mean,

Chase Drum (51:37)
Whoever has the local

Loren McDonald — Paren (51:38)
it's...

Chase Drum (51:39)
dealership near Hood River for F-150 Lightnings, they have clearly tapped into the windsurfing market because I have seen so many windsurfers now that get F-150 Lightnings and just deck it out as their windsurfing vehicle. Obviously not a great large market domestically, but ⁓ there are pockets where that strategy can work.

Loren McDonald — Paren (51:51)
Yeah, I mean it.

Yeah, I mean, it's to John's point, It's like, you don't necessarily see people towing their Airstream trailer with a small pickup, right? And it's more of the weekend warrior and around town and stuff like that, right? And so that, I think, would have been the perfect way to sort of launch and get people who are pickup truck drivers and interested.

is a small truck that actually sort of meets 98 % of their needs, right? And then do as we've discussed, the hybrid, the plug-in hybrid and the eREV for the full-size trucks until they're ready to be full BEVs, right? But I'd say just one last point on my chart here, Chase, is that it's going to be really fascinating to see what happens with that percentage of the Blazer and Equinox going forward. Because out of the gate,

Chase Drum (52:34)
.

Loren McDonald — Paren (52:58)
they're

doing really well, is it like, we, have we run through the buyers, right? And, it's going to sort of stay flat or is going to grow. I mean, when I was back in Detroit, ⁓ about six weeks ago, I was blown away both by the number of Ford F-150s I saw and the number of Equinoxes. Both of them were just everywhere. I was like, ⁓ my God, this is like California, Tesla's right. And

Matt Teske (53:04)
Yeah.

Chase Drum (53:05)
I'm really curious about that too.

Right.

Loren McDonald — Paren (53:25)
Well, I wasn't seeing that many equinoxes in Northern California, but now I'm starting to see them, right? So it's going to be interesting because California is not a Chevrolet market, right? We're a Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Tesla market.

Chase Drum (53:38)
Well, it's, it's exactly. it's so funny you say that because that highlights two different things. John, I remember, I think it you and Gary were talking on a previous episode too, about like how many people are buying the Honda prologue.

And they have no idea that really just a Chevy, is it the Eponox or Blazer, whichever one underneath, they just go in and they say, Honda has an EV, I'm going to buy it. I have seen so many prologues that is probably now the most common like, non-Tesla EV I see, other than maybe a Rivian or something. yeah, exactly. Yeah.

John McElroy (53:58)
Yeah, right.

All right.

Listen, it was the best selling GM made EV.

Matt Teske (54:12)
Well.

Right.

Well, I think we've hit on this before is, know, brands like Honda and Toyota in the mind of the consumer, have established those are brands of those are efficient, well-built cars. That's how people perceive them. And when we talk about electrification, they just think, okay, that's advanced technology. Who's been doing advanced type things in cars for a long time? Oh, Toyota and Honda. And I remember, again, the thing we spoke of this before, it was the Portnato show. And I watched some guy walk up to the BZ4X in a booth.

Chase Drum (54:24)
Right.

Matt Teske (54:44)
And he was with his family and he said, this is the EV we want. Toyota makes great EVs. I mean, they're verbatim. That's what he said. And I remember thinking, all right, that is the brand reputation of those of those companies carrying forward into the transition into what we're talking about for the technology. And so to their credit, they're gaining those buyers who have just been like, I've been waiting for that Honda EV. Yay. I got one. Not realizing it's, it's a GM vehicle with a Honda badge on it. So

Chase Drum (54:56)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (55:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, Matt and John, I'd love your thoughts on this is ⁓ I'm really excited about the Toyota CHR BEV that's coming out next year, right? Because just what Matt said, right? Like I think a lot of people there in California, Honda is like what a certain demographic buys. People just love Hondas in California and Toyotas, right? And so I think that was a big reason why the prologue did well for like three or four quarters, right? It's just, it's that pent up Honda.

Chase Drum (55:14)
.

Loren McDonald — Paren (55:40)
finally, my brand has an EV, right? But do you have any thoughts on the upcoming CHR? Because it's a small crossover and it's the Toyota brand and I think it's going to be well priced. you know, I don't know if you've looked into that model, but I'm really excited about it.

Matt Teske (55:41)
Yeah.

Chase Drum (55:57)
One thing I want to hear the answer that John, I would also want to hear how leasing you think impacts that.

John McElroy (56:05)
Yeah, so I don't know a lot about that Toyota CHR EV, but this is going to be, if you count some of the EVs that Toyota's brought out in China as well, this is going to be what? Maybe kind of like its third generation run at it, even though I believe this is still on the ETG &A platform. But they keep getting better.

Loren McDonald — Paren (56:07)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chase Drum (56:26)
think so, yeah.

John McElroy (56:30)
And if it's priced right and with a good lease price, and I think leasing is critical because that's been my recommendation to others who are interested in getting an EV. said, lease it, don't buy it because in three years, there's going to be something so much better out there on the market. you know, EV residuals haven't been all that good. Let the leasing company worry about that. So, but what I'm really waiting for is this project that

Loren McDonald — Paren (56:35)
is yeah.

John McElroy (56:58)
Toyota calls the Bev Factory. And it's somewhat akin to Ford Skunk Works. It's a whole new approach that Toyota is taking to developing cars, learning what they learned from Tesla and from the Chinese. I think that's probably gonna be around 2028 before we see that. But I'm really excited about that. I'm really excited about what Ford's gonna have come out of its Skunk Works. And then let's not forget, you know, ⁓

Around this time next year Chevrolet will be bringing back the the Bolt EV with LFP battery pack. There's a potential for that to be priced pretty aggressively. so yeah, as we see more models come out that are well under $50,000, I think you'll see EV sales pick up.

Chase Drum (57:34)
.

Matt Teske (57:49)
I think that last point you just made is so important is the amount of people that just simply cannot buy a $40,000 $50,000 car. And that's, we just keep stacking that number up for the average price of a new car. And it'll be very interesting to see how the used EV market from all the leases we have seen the last three to five years, as they really begin to inundate the market, the amount of variance in how those vehicles all work, whether it's the battery technology, the charging capability, the range of the vehicle, the technology inside of it for software.

Loren McDonald — Paren (57:49)
Yeah.

Chase Drum (58:04)
Yeah.

Matt Teske (58:18)
There is a lot of variants for products that have been in market for the last three to five years that are going to trickle down into that used market that there's going to be a lot of, again, it'll be needed to help people understand what they're getting themselves into. I think the BZ4X is a good example of people like, oh, like that one guy's comment. And the amount of BZ4Xs I see here in the Portland metro area, there are a lot of them. They do actually sell fairly well. And sometimes you'll see a Soltera in there as well from Subaru. I think a lot of those folks that buy those, they, again, they just don't know what they don't know. They're just, as we discussed, like the Honda Prologue, it's like,

Chase Drum (58:39)
.

Matt Teske (58:47)
They're just buying what they perceive is the best option they can get. And so it doesn't mean they're not functional cars. They're, they are working great for all a lot of reasons, but they have these potential, you know, John, the way they just mentioned it's like, yeah, lease it. Cause in three years, gosh, you don't know

what's going to be on market. It speaks to just when Loren was describing earlier, what, charging is going out right now for BB pulse and Iona and Walmart. These are 400 KW stations. There are no vehicles in market that can actually leverage those chargers yet.

Chase Drum (59:15)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (59:15)
Yeah.

Matt Teske (59:16)
And it

Loren McDonald — Paren (59:17)
Yeah.

Chase Drum (59:17)
Well, actually, here's, here's, ⁓ and John, I realize we're kind of coming up on time, so you have to drop. I totally understand. Maybe we can go a few minutes longer with ⁓ Loren and Matt, but there's been, I, I'm kind of curious to see this push for the sub $30,000 EV. ⁓ speaking of the bolt, I know a lot of people who are big bolt fans were a little disappointed. That's going to be.

Matt Teske (59:17)
really...

yeah.

Chase Drum (59:39)
It's going to be more similar than different. Maybe there'll be some changes underneath. But to me, the sub $30,000 brand new EV has insane competition in the used market because I can now get an EQS with a few thousand miles for $30,000. That is insane. so like the best, I mean, seriously though.

Matt Teske (59:57)
Hahaha! ⁓

High Con for 45, you know?

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:00:04)
Yeah, no, I was gonna say the

PyCon. Yeah, I mean $120,000 car fee.

Chase Drum (1:00:07)
And you can now buy, not

all of them are great, a lot of them are leaps, but you can get i3s, you can get like some of these, you can now get a $5,000 EV. And so that's kind of crazy too. But I'm curious with the panel's thoughts, like what does a sub, there's been such a big push to the sub $25,000, sub $30,000 electric vehicle. We're already pretty much there close to it. We're not seeing like day or day night like.

Matt Teske (1:00:16)
yeah.

Chase Drum (1:00:36)
EV sales change. And to me, the value is actually right now in the used car market because of some of this depreciation we're talking about where you can go out and buy a few year old model S Plaid and have a thousand horsepower for like 50. Like that is insane, even though it's like still expensive. And then once again, you can get an EQS, which is essentially an electric S-Class for the most part for 30 grand and it's only a few years old. And so I I'm kind of curious, do you, does the panel think

Or can you make the argument for why the sub $30,000 brand new EV will push EV sales that much farther than what we're seeing already in the used car market? And they're pretty decent quality used cars.

John McElroy (1:01:20)
Yeah, let me jump in first on that because then I am going to have to run. But, you know, if I'm in the market for a new car and I see an EQS for 30 grand or I see a Chevrolet Bolt for 30 grand, I'm going to think, wow, that Mercedes is fantastic. But then I'm to go, you know what, if I have to take this to the dealer, you can't even pop the front for under 500 bucks. You know, if I got a brake job to do, even though regen braking is going to make it last long, holy crap ism, I'm going to pay a fortune for that.

Chase Drum (1:01:23)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks, John.

Matt Teske (1:01:41)
Ha

Chase Drum (1:01:50)
Yeah.

John McElroy (1:01:50)
And

any kind of maintenance repairs, I'm to pay through the nose on that thing. And guess what? When people go to get a new car, it is so much more exciting to buy a brand new one. You want everybody to see I got a brand new one. And sure, getting a used EQS, there's a panache to that and the like. But

Chase Drum (1:02:04)
Yeah, yeah,

Matt Teske (1:02:05)
Yeah.

John McElroy (1:02:14)
Boy, people love the new car smell and you guys all know, I mean, it's probably carcinogenic, but it's all the off gassing of the plastics and the adhesives and all that kind of stuff. peep, yeah. But you know, this is what Slate uncovered in its market research. There's a burning desire for people of let's just say middle or modest incomes to buy a new car.

Chase Drum (1:02:19)
Yeah. Right. Well, now use cars, they pump it full of it anyway when you go to look at them, but only last a week versus a month or whatever.

Matt Teske (1:02:22)
And the glues.

Yeah.

John McElroy (1:02:43)
with all the safety equipment and a full warranty. The warranty is a comfort blanket, so is knowing that you've got all the latest safety stuff. so yeah, there will be consumers who go, you know what, I'm going for that Mercedes, man, because that's just a killer deal. But there are gonna be a lot of people who say, no, I want the new one, even if it's a lower brand and not as...

Matt Teske (1:02:45)
Yeah. ⁓

Chase Drum (1:03:11)
Less well-specced,

yeah.

John McElroy (1:03:12)
Yeah,

yeah, exactly.

Matt Teske (1:03:15)
I agree 100%. I mean that emotional response of I'm getting a new car and I can afford it is important. And I think to your point, the research that Slate did, what Slate tapped into, what they represented, I think a lot of people showed some excitement around it. And I think it was a nice signal to the legacies of you can produce something that's a lot more bare bones and it will excite people. You can. So yeah.

Chase Drum (1:03:21)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:03:39)
Yeah, and Chase, I would just add tying two things that I know John's got to run, but I think that sort of this.

Chase Drum (1:03:45)
Yeah, John, if you got to hop off, thank you so much,

but we'll talk soon.

John McElroy (1:03:49)
Hey, I hate to do it. I love talking with you guys. ⁓ You know, so you make sure you invite me back with these guys, Okay, gotta run, guys. Great seeing you.

Chase Drum (1:03:52)
Yeah.

For sure, always.

Matt Teske (1:03:58)
See you

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:04:00)
Yeah.

Matt Teske (1:04:01)
Continue.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:04:02)
Chase, I would just add that I agree with John and Matt that the sub-30 is ⁓ important from a signaling perspective. It's sort of both from the media and the automakers and the consumers and the dealers and stuff. mean like EVs are not just for the wealthy California people now, right? They're actually affordable. But I think

Chase Drum (1:04:03)
I'm sorry, Loren, what were you saying there?

That's fair. That's a good point.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:04:29)
marrying that was with the leasing point is, that, you know, and I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I think now about 50 % of, of new EVs are leased. so fundamentally we've had this shift in the new car market the last few years that people are making purchase decisions on vehicles based on what their monthly payment is, not what the car costs. Right. And that was one of the reasons that we talked earlier in the podcast about like the Equinox,

Chase Drum (1:04:52)
Yeah.

Matt Teske (1:04:53)
yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:04:58)
and the prologue, the reason those vehicles did so well is because Honda and GM were doing $199 a month lease payments, $249 a dollar. right. And so I think that while that sub-30 is really important, it's really what the finance arms of those companies are willing to do.

Chase Drum (1:05:08)
for sure.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:05:22)
you know, charge, you know, and the deals they're doing for those monthly payments, both purchase and lease is is is going to be the key.

Matt Teske (1:05:32)
Yep. No, I agree with all that. And I think that the leasing aspect is like 50 % of new vehicles are leased now, something along those lines. And on the EV front, is, I agree, think was either Chase or you or John said it just like you recommend. like, think John was like, just lease it. Just if you want to try it, lease it. And I think that is going to be the path forward and a lot of what is going to be the, know, the dipping the toe in the water type of approach for new buyers.

Chase Drum (1:05:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt Teske (1:05:57)
that are willing to try out, and again, they want the new car, they'll get the cheap lease, okay, and then it's that trickle down effect of what we discussed about, if that's a $50,000 leased car that's leased for three years and then it goes onto the used market for 32,000 bucks or something like that, then all of a sudden we're gonna have more and more of those people that are, to your point, Chase, I could just get that car that really isn't that old and they battle with what they want, but then that's not a lease, they gotta buy it they gotta commit to it. Are they willing to commit to that used EV? That's the other question that comes up.

Chase Drum (1:06:17)
Yeah.

And

I realize I use the EQS as an example. There are other, less high end, maybe hopefully less finicky. mean, of course, like Mercedes is infamous for like when certain little things goes wrong, but, and how much they cost, but I don't want to go too much over. want to be respectful of your guys time. one of the things, mean, obviously just talking about leasing.

Matt Teske (1:06:29)
Much more reasonable.

Chase Drum (1:06:48)
And with the $7,500 going away, I forget what the exact numbers are, but I believe, um, EVs in general, we're seeing about 50%. You're right. Being leased with some of the brands, uh, it was like closer to 70 and 80 % at times that their EVs are leased deals. Uh, and so I'm sure there is still some maths that can be done to make a pretty good lease number. But with that $7,500 going away, which

leasing was kind of a big loophole for a lot of these brands to kind of take advantage of it, have like a zero down, still have a pretty low financing number and monthly payment. How, I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm being so negative, but I'm just like trying to be realistic. I mean, how are we or how are either of you seeing or like thinking forward as like, do we expect, I think there's been a lot of talk of this core being a pull forward so people can take advantage of that $7,500.

But that going away with the high amount of people who are leasing, I'm just kind of curious if that'll become like a two punch effect for kind of short to medium term EV sales.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:07:58)
I mean, if you look at the chase, the automaker side of it, ⁓ I didn't read the full article, but just saw something about GM. GM sales were up in Q2, but their margins were down, right? Because the tariffs and supply chain things were already in. And so that's only going to get worse, right? ⁓ Over the coming quarters, right? Everything's going to be more expensive, et cetera.

Chase Drum (1:08:09)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:08:24)
the tax credit going away. So I think part of the answer is, you know, is what is the appetite going to be of the big automakers to eat, their margins, right? And, and, you know, and so do they want to sell, you know, 20,000 lyrics, Cadillac lyrics, or do they want to sell, you know, 30,000 or 15,000? Right? Because, you know, with those lease prices and deals, they can actually drive that.

Chase Drum (1:08:36)
Yeah.

Thank

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:08:53)
right, like pretty significant. So yeah, I just I don't matter if you have any thought on that and on like what that appetite is going to be.

Matt Teske (1:09:02)
Well, think there's a real reason to be concerned about what the impact will be on what

will happen to sales immediately after. We'll have to suss it out through the end of the year and into the beginning of next year. I can see how the potential for this could turn into, and we finally mentioned tariffs, which we really hadn't talked about the entire time, but it's such a fundamental impact of all of this.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:09:11)
Yeah, you saw it.

Chase Drum (1:09:14)
Yeah. And like I

said, my apologies for trying to rush it. I just knew John was tight on time. And this easily could have become another two-part episode. But we can definitely tap on it.

Matt Teske (1:09:27)
No, no, it's, but-

Yeah. Well, frankly, think it's, mean,

having not having John here feels like it feels like we're doing something wrong. So, but, no, to that point, I think that we're going to genuinely see some moments from some of the brands that have had struggles to get people behind the wheel of their products without having those financial carrots they can dangle in front of people. And if they do not want to eat those margins and say, yeah, we'll, we'll take that on. We'll see a lot of cars collecting dust on dealer lots. And I think it will then turn into the argument from.

Chase Drum (1:09:37)
No.

Matt Teske (1:10:00)
some of those brands that, see, we shouldn't have these and people don't want them, et cetera. But then I always come back to the reality of there are products that other people will justify spending money they don't have to get. And that could be a new iPhone. It could be a pair of shoes. So that's now granted, those things are not as expensive as a car, but at the same time, that is where people's mentality often does go when they're like, I really do want that thing though. And that's going to get to the beginning of our conversation, which is

Chase Drum (1:10:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt Teske (1:10:28)
How are we communicating the value of these products to the public in a way of it's not whiz, bang, zoom, like it's changing your world technology. No, it's actually just a really efficient way to own a car and we can explain how you shouldn't be scared of it. To me, that latter point will become fundamental in the next six to 12 months for a lot of brands that have just been relying on these things like the financial incentives. So we'll see how it shakes out, but I think that's going to be full circle on our conversation. I think it's going to be important to communicate that.

Chase Drum (1:10:50)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:10:57)
Yeah, Matt, you said something really important that I think we could do a of a whole show about is, but let's be honest, and we've sort of not said it really out loud, but hinted at it. A lot of the BEV products have just not been that compelling. They've not been that great, which is one of the reasons Tesla could

Chase Drum (1:11:19)
And just to jump into

that, I think that's where I'm concerned about the leasing thing. I know plenty of people like, a $200, $100 EV lease, why not?

Like it's a second or third car. It's that cheap. And now if those lease prices go up to four to $500, I think that's especially with where interest rates are. And it was a pretty dangerous thing, especially with the crossover space being so competitive for you. So I'm sorry, continue to learn that. I just want to add that context to it.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:11:34)
Right.

Yeah, Yeah, but I think

the importance of what Matt talked about and where we're going here is that there are a number of like, much better compelling EVs coming to the market over the next couple of years, right? The BZ4X, they're coming out with their next version next year. It's going to be like way better than the first version. I forget the numbers, it's going to have something like 50, 75 more miles of range.

Unfortunately, it's still going to charge at the same cap max of 150 kW. But I think everything else about it is better, especially the name. They're dropping the X or something like that. It's just the BZ. But I think to Matt's point, the industry has relied on everything but the product to try to sell it.

Matt Teske (1:12:20)
Right. Right.

Chase Drum (1:12:21)
Yeah ⁓

Matt Teske (1:12:37)
Yeah.

Chase Drum (1:12:38)
Sure, yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:12:39)
And the good news is that the non-Tesla BEVs are getting better. There's some great ones coming out. And ⁓ I think the loss of the tax credit is going to force the automakers to actually figure out how to sell these as a better product than the ICE one on the other side of the showroom. It can do things that the other one can. It's actually a better product.

Matt Teske (1:13:02)
which is a huge challenge for them.

Chase Drum (1:13:04)
Yeah.

Well, okay. So

I guess to play devil's advocate a little bit, how is, how do you communicate that it's a better product? I know I feel like Matt, you and I talked, I feel you're on the first episode, but are we all like episode 85 and we're still talking about communication. So maybe I don't know if this podcast has moved the needle at all. Clearly not. But like, think Loren, it is a better product. Um, but how did you communicate that and how does that even resonate with, and like, is that the better product?

Matt Teske (1:13:27)
Still worth having the discussion.

Chase Drum (1:13:37)
most consumers who are shopping for a Toyota really want. They just want reliable. We already know EVs are reliable, but it doesn't seem to be, I don't know.

Matt Teske (1:13:45)
Well, the way I would answer that is kind of what I've been saying for now almost a decade, which is what is the fundamental difference of owning an EV? It's at end of the day, if a gas car and an electric car are filled up side by side, they both have 100 % fuel in them, what is the fundamental difference if you say, you and a friend hop in each of these cars and you drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles? The only fundamental difference is how you fill it up. Honest to God.

I mean, all the whiz bang, zoom, fun stuff that happens with software, if you do it right, it can be fun and great, but is it totally necessary or is it sometime burdensome to some consumers? And I think that's part of the conversation we're having about how the legacy is going to prove that. But fundamentally it is, you know, it's a, it's a fueling experience. It is different.

We have, I think to your point, Loren, how you said it like, yeah, we relied on selling these things using every avenue except the product itself. I mean, I think it was a great way to say it and it's true. And so we now have to have practical conversations with consumers about why do these things actually, are they better for you? And in the longterm, if you can translate the fact they can trust the fill up with electricity and they can rely on it, whether they have a home or not, that is going be fundamental. And then after that, I think that the savings they could see on

Chase Drum (1:14:34)
Yeah.

Matt Teske (1:14:57)
just the ownership experience, whether that's the fuel itself or the fact that they don't have to get all this maintenance all the time. We always talk a harp about that, but we were, we've always just said that as if it was like a logical thing people always concern themselves with, but people have accepted that they have to do maintenance on cars for decades. So it's, it's a built in cost that they just kind of go, yeah, but I already, I deal with it. I don't care. And the convenience of I can fill up in five minutes. I don't have to think overrides the fact that they go, yeah, I got to spend money every now and then out of nowhere, but

I'll just deal with that when I do it. People think in 30 day sales cycles in the same way that even dealers do, they're just kind of like, yeah, I got my paycheck. I got my lease deal. It's fine. I don't have to think about it. They deal with emergencies as an afterthought and EVs reduce a lot of that emergency issue of maybe maintenance or something on the line. But that's not a front and center reason why people think about it. So I think, yeah, it is. mean, yeah, we're episode 85, whatever you said it was. And the communication factor is so fundamental. And then as we talked about on the discussion today,

Chase Drum (1:15:31)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt Teske (1:15:57)
tens of millions of dollars being poured into campaigns that are being presented by stakeholders that we all know in the industry. And I look at it and go, is that going to move the needle? And the answer is no. And we are

ill-prepared as an industry to have a better conversation with the public that will compel them to buy these products right now. We do not have the leadership to do it.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:16:17)
And Jason, Matt, like what has been sort of the stereotype way that the industry has solely these? Oh, they're they're drag cars. You can go zero to 60 in three point two seconds or whatever with a family car. Right. It's like.

It really is. You know, no, but can I take my family of five to Los Angeles on a road trip safely and refuel it conveniently? Right? Like how often do I take it to the drag strip?

Chase Drum (1:16:36)
I mean, that has traditionally worked for a lot of the American automotive industry. Yeah.

Matt Teske (1:16:52)
Well, right. These

high level talking points around, you know, excitement and fun factor. those have always been, you know, been, yeah, it's cool, but I, there's been a lot of talk about how the zero to 60 thing needs to just kind of go, like kind of go away in the sense of like, it's just not a real, yeah. It's the selling point.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:16:58)
Which is nice! Yeah!

Chase Drum (1:17:04)
I'm going to push

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:17:06)
Yes, I wish it would.

Chase Drum (1:17:10)
back a little bit on that. think maybe the focus needs to change direction, but I think honestly a big, when you talk about like the experience difference of getting someone an EV, it is that torque when they're driving. And the immediate thing that gets them to have that conversation, that mindset is usually that because so many people just see specs when they're looking at all vehicles, electric or not.

Matt Teske (1:17:20)
Sure.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:17:30)
But I think that, yeah, but I think there's a.

Matt Teske (1:17:30)
Well, most people don't look at specs is probably the biggest.

Chase Drum (1:17:34)
But those will be

like the few they see in the marketing material. But I get what you're saying.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:17:38)
Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. you know, the first three times you rode in or drove a Tesla, you're like, holy crap, you know, you're pushed back and think, but the fourth time you're like, okay, you know, I did my Disneyland e ticket that was fun and stuff, right. And then, you know, like, then the next time you get on the freeway on ramp, you're sort of like, ⁓ I might get a ticket, right. I'm just going to accelerate like fairly normally, right.

Matt Teske (1:17:50)
Okay.

Chase Drum (1:18:02)
Yes,

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:18:06)
Yeah, you still do when you're going the two lanes and it goes into one and there's that Honda Accord next to you, you're like, right with your EV and go around them, get hit. But I think that's important. like, it should be more about safety, right? That the value of that acceleration and torque is to pass cars more safely, et cetera, right? Then your

Honda is faster than a Porsche 911.

Chase Drum (1:18:34)
For sure, for sure. But that gets clicks and then people start pulling it back. But I get what you're saying, especially to mainstream consumers.

Matt Teske (1:18:37)
No, it gets clicks. Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:18:37)
Wait, I

Matt Teske (1:18:43)
And I think Loren, think the phrasing used was, was the nice just summary of, of a lot of what we talked about today of just like we, we use all these different avenues to sell these things except for the product itself. And I think that we are now, we are now turning the page into the fact of we actually just have to sell these things based on what the product actually does. Not hype, not excitement, not bluster, not 24 hour news cycle, not clicks.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:18:52)
Yeah, yeah.

Chase Drum (1:18:53)
For

sure.

Matt Teske (1:19:06)
Like what is it this truly does for you in a way that people can say, I trust you as, you being the industry or the brand they're buying it from. And the automakers, as we've discussed today, they need, they still need a ton of help with that. And the other stakeholders that are at the, at the table that can't even speak about it, utilities and others, they still just don't even have a game plan around that. we're that's what's most, I think that's the most interesting thing of what this is. Which D word.

Chase Drum (1:19:29)
And we haven't said the D word yet.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:19:32)
Dealers? Yeah.

Chase Drum (1:19:34)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:19:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chase Drum (1:19:37)
Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:19:39)
And Matt and Chase, I think the last point I would make is, and I've been saying this for 10 years, the real game changer with EVs is the bidirectional charging, the battery, using the battery, especially now with the unreliability of the grid.

Chase Drum (1:19:40)
Thank

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:19:58)
I hadn't realized this until a while back when I was reading some stuff. Like in Michigan, they literally, I guess, you the average home is something like a dozen power outages a year, right? And, you know, and Matt can talk a lot about the impact of climate change on.

on lots of things, right, but the grid has become significant. There's like websites now that track how unreliable the grid is, right? And there's like one, poweroutage.com, something like that, right? But I think that, you the opportunity to back up your house, right, with a car in your garage is still the game changer to me, right? And I've just been surprised.

Matt Teske (1:20:40)
Well, for 50

% of America, yeah.

Chase Drum (1:20:43)
Yeah, I pushed back on that. don't know if that's, I mean, it's funny you say that because to bring it full circle, that is still a big reason why I want to get a Cybertruck.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:20:43)
Yeah.

Chase Drum (1:20:51)
is the power share functionality because living in Oregon, we get a lot of wildfires and they're actually talking about pulling down the grid a lot more now to fight those, unfortunately. ⁓

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:20:59)
Right, right.

Matt Teske (1:21:00)
Yeah. We had an outage here at our,

at our neighborhood the other day. And, but we have, we have solar and battery backup, but, but it was, I mean, our house didn't, wouldn't have had power for about four and a half hours. And it automatically kicked on. We had our batteries were working. We were getting solar at the time. I was actually traveling when it happened and I texted my wife and I just said, just FYI, there's a power outage in the neighborhood. And she said, I didn't notice. I'm like, I know that's, but I wanted to let you know. And so, but it's, but I think that is something that.

Chase Drum (1:21:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:21:25)
Yeah.

Chase Drum (1:21:25)
Pretty

cool. Yeah.

Matt Teske (1:21:29)
You know, yeah, half of America, they can take advantage of that, whether it's a cyber truck, like you said, Chase, or whether it's, you know, some other system like what I have here at our house. I think owning, controlling energy that way is, going to be a big part of the discussion moving forward. It's that's it. But that is also a communication challenge because people have not had to think actively about that for decades. Yeah. That's a generational shift in a big way.

Chase Drum (1:21:47)
Exactly.

So on that positive note, I think that is probably where we'll leave it for today. Loren and Matt, thank you so much for coming on as always. I hope I wasn't being too negative and just try to push back a little bit. love both of what you guys always ⁓ talk about and the different things you guys are bringing to the conversation here. And I'll make sure to have links to parents' State of the Industry report and kind of where we're seeing you as fast charging.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:21:54)
Yes.

Matt Teske (1:21:59)
Of course.

Chase Drum (1:22:20)
Thank you both. Thank you, of course, to John McRoy for coming on as well. And we'll have to do this again soon.

Matt Teske (1:22:24)
Always, always games. It's always fun.

Loren McDonald — Paren (1:22:25)
All right, great.

Chase Drum (1:22:32)
Thanks again to Matt, Loren and John for joining for today's episode. Really appreciate all of their insights and what's going on in the electric vehicle space. And while I think there's always a couple areas that feel like negatives, I really do appreciate their insights to make everyone kind of realize where the industry is headed. And while there may be some storms in the short term, the longer term future of the industry does look bright. Once again, if you've really enjoyed today's episode, please share it with others who may be interested as well.

Please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform if you could. It really does help us get more listeners and always make sure that we have the best guests for you to enjoy as well.

As always, this is brought to you by Great Connections Consulting. For those who are looking to explore an electrified future and help with decision making, we are always here to help. And with that, until next time, this is the Great Connections podcast signing off.