Americans Weigh In On EV Preferences, Lithium Continues Sliding, Physical Button Future

March 22, 2023
Welcome to Wednesday friends. Today we’re talking about a new Reuters/IPSOS poll about consumers' EV preferences. We also cover the continued slide of Lithium prices, as well as the return to push buttons in vehicles.
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According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, over one-third of Americans would consider buying an electric vehicle for their next car,

  • 34% of all respondents would consider purchasing an EV, with Democrats being more likely to consider it at 50%, compared to Republicans at 26%, and independents at 27%
  • 56% of respondents would be willing to pay no more than $49,999 for an EV, and 35% would want an EV that offers 500 or more miles of electric driving range per full charge
  • In the next several weeks, the EPA plans to propose new, more stringent vehicle emissions rules through at least the 2030 model year

Good news for EV makers as battery-grade lithium carbonate prices experienced the biggest drop of the year in China yesterday, down 3.85% from Friday. Falling prices could help ease cost pressures, while lithium miners' shares have been hit.

  • As opposed to the tripling of prices from Nov ‘21 to Nov ‘22, the market is set to drop a further 25% by year-end, according to a recent Reuters report.
  • Factors include rare discounts from Chinese battery giant CATL and new capacity coming online from companies such as Albemarle and Livent.
  • Electric vehicles currently make up 80% of lithium-ion battery demand

If you found yourself longing for that analog world after you realized that those new touchscreen controls in your fancy new car were kind of terrible, you aren’t alone. It also turns out, they are quite the safety hazard. That’s why Hyundai is committed to bringing them back.

  • According to Hyundai's head of design, Sang Yup Lee, physical buttons are a necessity for common functions like climate control, radio controls, windows, and more
  • Tactile feedback is essential for no-look control
  • Sang Yup Lee, Head of Design at Hyundai suggested that the company may consider using touch controls more heavily when autonomous driving becomes more common. Until then, physical controls remain a priority for the automaker
  • Reddit users weighed in with many citing dangerous situations like digital steering wheel features auto activating when becoming wet from rain on entry

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SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly


Paul Daly  00:31

Welcome to Wednesday. It's a great day. It is today we're gonna talk about Americans weighing in on Evie preferences, lithium sliding backwards and a physical button feature on its way back. I can't wait. I always want to talk about the last story first. And maybe No,


Kyle Mountsier  00:52

I don't know why it is I always get excited about the last one, I think there's


Paul Daly  00:55

gonna be why. The last story of the show is typically kind of like the closest to the ground level of like what consumers are doing and how it will feel so naturally, we want to talk about it first.


Kyle Mountsier  01:09

We'd like percentages, bat


Paul Daly  01:13

reports. But let's talk about people. Oh, man, well, there's a lot of stuff going on in a soda world. Shout out to all of our new subscribers. You know, you showed me some shared some data with me I don't know if it's last night or this morning of the new subscribers to our email list are opening that sucker like crazy every single day in the first 30 days. So we just want to give you some love and if you haven't made your way over to the email list, make your way over to the email list because it's so much fun. It's like this show but like a lot easier to digest.


Kyle Mountsier  01:44

It's a lot easier to digest way before the show starts we drop it at like six Eastern and so you know it's just share it make up to the morning share it with people you understand where you go into the day with what happened yesterday a little bit, get a little bit of laugh there was there was a couple there was a couple hits this morning that were just so one point so


Paul Daly  02:07

don't get me sideways. It's so much fun. So go to a so two.com and check that out. Also, we have a webinar coming up with call review. What is the date on that? Do you know


Kyle Mountsier  02:17

it is March 29 at 2pm Eastern March 29 at 2pm Eastern so you'll you'll want to check that out that's that's also just as a note I believe that's that may or may not be our


Paul Daly  02:32

400th Episode anniversary 400 Well I haven't done 400 anything


Kyle Mountsier  02:38

nothing except for be alive that many days.


Paul Daly  02:43

Oh, one last thing before we get to the news. So to access our first live in person event Arlington Texas April 5 Go to a so two x.com We're bringing the band and we were bidding on the phone with dealers who are sending a bunch of their people from all across the thing we're filming a TV show please check it out. asoto x.com We hope you can join us in person and have a fun and one evening and then some stuff is gonna last a really really long time. Yesterday's vehicle when in the motor Madness bracket that's going on? Surprise me I picked this one wrong


Kyle Mountsier  03:15

by an edge. I know I thought I thought I was I was all in on the woody but the Chevy Camaro Iraq took the win. It's a classic car it's just one that everybody's


Paul Daly  03:25

there was the car that I wanted when I was a teenager like it was just get it. You had an Iraq you just own in the world back in the 80s sevens.


Kyle Mountsier  03:35

Today's because we're doing the modern side of the bracket, the 2022 Ford Bronco Raptor. And the 2020 Chevy Corvette this one I have no clue. No clue where it's going. I know which


Paul Daly  03:47

one I would pick. I'm just not really like a sports car guy.


Kyle Mountsier  03:50

I'm not a I don't want to I don't want to own even though I live real close to Bowling Green. I'm just not a big fat guy. So but I drive fun,


Paul Daly  03:57

but I drive wise. All right. All right, let's get into some news. According to a recent Reuters Ipsos posts, over 1/3 of Americans would now consider buying an electric vehicle for their next car. That's a massive increase. 34% of all respondents said they would consider purchasing an Eevee and get this it isn't. Of course, they're gonna bring partisan politics into this. Democrats. Democrats are more likely to consider it. They came in at 50%. So half of Democrats would consider an Eevee half wooden Republicans only 26% of Republicans and 27% of independents would. So obviously, there's some worldview issues going on there at least some like, I should vote this way, because I'm affiliated with them. I know. 56. Here's


Kyle Mountsier  04:41

my question. Yeah, we'll go through a couple more. But it's still this is my question. And this is the same question that we're going to have as we do a bunch of man on the streets this year throughout a bunch of cities is like, would do people want nav? Would they consider purchasing nav or as an Eevee? Somewhere in there? Future in the next 10 years like what's the question that we need to be asking to understand the market demand for EVs?


Paul Daly  05:07

Yeah, like that's a really the right is


Kyle Mountsier  05:11

100% wouldn't just be like, I consider it. You know, that's a consideration on the playing field.


Paul Daly  05:19

I think I think there are, I think there are a lot of people who are like, know enough about it to know that like, I don't want to deal with that. So I wouldn't consider it. You know, I think and again, how much how much of that is rhetoric? How much is true? I don't know what 56% of respondents said did say, they wouldn't be willing to pay any more than 49 999. So right fit the grant, the magic mark for more than half of the people. And over a third of the people said, they would only consider it if it had more than 500 miles of range. So obviously, range is affecting that. So if you think of it, like even, even like 50% of Democrats said they would consider it but of those right, only like 30% of them would do it if the range was, you know, has to be over 500 for them to continue to consideration.


Kyle Mountsier  06:05

I mean, think about that, like, we just bought a van and that thing gets like 550 miles, it's a hybrid, you


Paul Daly  06:11

feel great. I get to Atlanta, so we literally,


Kyle Mountsier  06:15

Atlanta, ran back and forth between our hotel in the aquarium like five times, one time all the way back to Nashville full tank ready to like, it was like, my wife still had a day of driving left on that thing.


Paul Daly  06:30

That makes you feel good. Yeah, you're not trying to charge six times in there. In the next several weeks, the EPA plans to propose new, more stringent vehicle emissions rules that will go at least through it.


06:43

It'll, it'll go through the year


Paul Daly  06:46

2030 model.


Kyle Mountsier  06:49

Everybody. Everybody that's in the delegation just loved the rounding days when they were in elementary school. They were like just around, you know, just random 2030.


Paul Daly  07:00

Why? Because you can. It's far enough away. It's far enough away. All right, well, speaking of EVs and surrounding issues. Segway. This one surprised a lot of people over the last weeks and specifically yesterday, good news, actually. Yeah, for evey makers, as battery grade lithium carbonate prices experienced the biggest drop ever, in China yesterday down almost 4%, just from Friday. And these falling prices obviously could help ease pressures. And lithium miners, obviously those shares have been hit. And it's always a given a take. But you know, so here's the deal back between November 21 and 2022, there was actually a tripling of lithium prices, right? And we cover that. And we talked about that we say how is this going to happen? But now actually, the market is set to drop another 25% by year end is what all that Reuters and analysts are predicting. So we're seeing a back backside and lithium prices when we all thought or most people thought I thought a lot of the community thought like how are we ever going to do this if prices keep increasing like this? Some factors include some discounts from Chinese battery companies, new capacity for mines coming online. And little fun fact. 80% of all lithium demand


Kyle Mountsier  08:17

is from EVs. Is that not unreal at Think about that EVs are only a small sliver of the market right now, yet they still demand 80% of the lithium world's


Paul Daly  08:29

supply. That's a lot of phones. That's a lot of laptops. That's a lot of like, little watches,


Kyle Mountsier  08:35

like how many phones fit in that fit in that big old car thing? Right? Probably a few 100. Right. So I mean, just the scale study on this is is incredible. You know, this is this is good news from a cost of ownership side of things. And when you look at the previous story saying hey, we've got to be under $50,000 to you know, get a whole chunk of the market that's in that's potentially interested in EVs. This is this is a necessary move. And I think seeing these prices decline might re accelerate the next layer of the market in NAV so this is one to watch for sure.


Paul Daly  09:15

Yeah, a lot of people I'm trying not to get sideways over some of the comments. And Brian Ortega puts it says say lithium in my taste.


Kyle Mountsier  09:26

I feel like we need I feel like we need a trigger pad for that. We're gonna need a trigger pad for that.


09:31

Okay. Oh, well, yeah, we'll just pop that up on our screen. Speaking of hitting trigger pads, you go segue.


Kyle Mountsier  09:43

Well, we use trigger pads every day. And actually we were in the car with the dealer just about a little over a month ago that was talking specifically about this issue. So if you found yourself logging for a little bit of analog world after you realize touchscreen controls and your fancy new car, were a little bit off You weren't alone, it turns out, they're quite actually the safety hazard. That's why Hyundai is committed to bringing them back according to their head of design to sign up li physic physical buttons are now a necessity for things like climate control, radio controls windows and more. So it's it's that tactical feedback of like moving between buttons is apparently extremely important. And we've noticed and when we were with Patrick van at Viva he said, Look at the number of button presses, it takes me on a touchscreen, and then the the the latency of that touchscreen because of all this and trying to do, I can't remember he was trying to change the climate control. And it was like four touches. And then there was latency between each button press. So his attention was


Paul Daly  10:45

like a 10 second exercise, like I love


Kyle Mountsier  10:50

temperature because there was no physical feedback as to like a button or you know, a feeling of just vacation he there, he had to be on it. So that's it. This is super, super smart, I think from Hyundai to recognize that, you know, keeping some level of physical button control is really important. And balancing touchscreen controls. You know, my I'll give you this anecdote on the on the Mazda is still to this day, the touchscreens are actually disabled, that they actually aren't even touchscreens, it's all of the all of the controls are way forward and the dash, and it all is, is managed by their kind of command center. And like I actually prefer that because in the Toyota that we that we also own the majority of its touchscreen and it actually does I recognize myself having to, to look over as opposed to just get natural and native to the buttons.


Paul Daly  11:45

Yeah, I love I love the analog buttons for the certain features. I mean, when you need deep men like me, the first experience I had with this was a Durango. It was like a 2019 Durango maybe. And it was like why do I need to tap three times to get to my heated seats or why do I need to tap three times to change the climate control. It was really frustrating. I'm like, Well, maybe I'm just getting old. Well, apparently I'm not just getting old. I'm a rational human being. If you are have been around long enough to where you had a Blackberry phone, you realize why it took you long to switch to an iPhone. Because you could take that sucker. I was that early


Kyle Mountsier  12:21

just about you. Back,


Paul Daly  12:25

I could write a novel on BlackBerry without without looking at it because of the buttons. You had the two little little you know the indicator buttons, the dots on the hot key. So you're like, Okay, there's my thumbs. Now, I will say that I can kind of do it on my iPhone now. But I can't start like I have to know where my fingers are when I start. So then the black BlackBerry days, I was


Kyle Mountsier  12:47

in the car. And these cats were t nine and triple taps in their pocket.


Paul Daly  12:53

Full length now. You gotta Google that if you don't know you're really showing your age if you know what teen night is, but it is amazing how fast you could type a sentence with just 10 keys. Yep. While the keys I don't know we got the crowd fired up. Well, there you go. That's not enough to get going on Wednesday. We don't know what is. Hey, you got people so you got work to do. We got work to do. Let's do it together. Let's stay connected. Get on that email list and I'll see you in Texas.

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