Bolt Goes Bye, Global EVs To Reach 20%, How’s That Inflation Doing?

Paul Daly: 0:27Yo, is it Wednesday already? I don't even recognize this today you have a white hat on I have a V neck on I think it's a totally different show we have over lower thirds are talking about the bolt and globally v's and inflation. That feels normal.

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:40

Yeah, I don't even know how you said all that. Hard to do that. At topics in the intro, that

Paul Daly: 0:50

was I get it all that's I feel this Wednesday. Like, we just got all kinds of stuff going on. What there's one thing that I'm so excited about today for one reason? Well, for a lot of reasons, but I'm particularly excited about today is because today's t shirt printing day, and I often joke with people that the only way reason I'm in business is so that I can make swag, and stickers. So we've got these custom. They're like their T shirts to commemorate the premiere launch of our new show more than cars. It's going to be in Tampa next week on Tuesday. By the way, if you're going to be in Tampa or a digital dealer, you need to come to this premiere. We rented out that amphitheater. May 2, not may 2, what am I saying? What's the date?

Unknown: 1:30

It is basic. Oh, crap.

Paul Daly: 1:32

I was like it's not May. Yeah, no, that's my second second base second Tuesday night Tampa theaters, you could go to a so two x.com and get your tickets. If you're going to be a digital dealer. Why wouldn't you be there that night, it's going to be amazing red carpet, and free concessions and drinks and all the things. But we are having our crew is going to be wearing special T shirts that are white. So you're wearing the white hat to commemorate our very first so do white t shirt. It's kind of like the so maybe I should bring the white cap. You should use it you're gonna wear a little t so

Kyle Mountsier: 2:02

do right here on the side right there.

Paul Daly: 2:04

So dope straight up and, and the T shirts say love people more than you love cars. But the more than cars is highlighted because that's the name of the show. And it's got like this like really nice summary mint green. It's cool. So I'm excited about T shirts today. I love swag. But we'll put some behind the scenes on our on our Instagram account or you can follow us SOTU on Instagram and we'll try to do some behind the scenes when we're printing and likely messing up the first few. We got a heat press like we're going full vertical.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:34

Oh, vertical. Oh, man. There's a also there is a new in the dirt episode. We're releasing a few of these because Paul was at the cane event. And he got to hang out with Jamie butters, the editor for automotive news. So, you know, that's like on the cutting room floor with what's happening at the OEM level right now. So you know, just the insights from that. It's gonna be good. I can't wait. This is one of the like, I love the ones where I'm not part of the Congress. You haven't heard it right? You get things right. You know,

Paul Daly: 3:03

so good to see Jimmy butters. Like the first time we had like an actual conversation. We've seen each other at events, so we actually got to spend a little time to hang out and talk. And he is such a cool dude. And he's got like, I don't know what pictures we're using, but like, whatever he was like wearing the suit that they're like this sport coat. I was like, he just had total Bill Pullman vibes. You know, Bill Coleman is no Oh, man. Look, Bill, I just go Pullman, pu ll Ma. And he's like, played the president in several movies. And like, yeah, he I think he played the President in the movie Independence Day.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:36

Oh, I know who that is. Yeah, I mean, I just didn't know the name.

Paul Daly: 3:40

breezeart he had Bill Pullman vibe. So yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:43

The one that's like that one. Yeah, we're that age where that's where we know him from.

Paul Daly: 3:49

So yeah, you can definitely look him up or look up in the dirt on Spotify or Apple podcasts and all that stuff. Alright, let's get into some news. Speaking of OEMs oh boy segue into the Wednesday you know it's funny because we've talked about this vehicle several times over the last month and several different opinions on it. But after the better part of a decade. GM is saying goodbye to the bolt as the last units will roll off the Orion Michigan assembly line later this year. The move marks the No no no, it is not that kind of ending for the bolt. I'm gonna change your mind. The move marks the end of the bolt is the most affordable Evie currently in the US market making way for the upcoming Equinox Evie. According to CEO Mary Barra, so like right now the bolt starts at 26 grand subtract 7500 from that and that my friend is a sub $20,000 Evie. The bolt experience record sales in its final year with GM expecting to produce over 70,000 volts EVs and EVs. This this year alone GM plans to replace it with a slightly larger vehicle. The Chevy Equinox and the blazer s s based on Jim's new Ultra platform, and they're taking this factory, and they're going to invest $4 billion to flip this factory, triple the staff.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:10

Oh, so I'm gonna trigger pads today, let's go.

Paul Daly: 5:13

It's on the ones and twos, it must be the white hat. And then, and then they're gonna make the Sierra, the new Evie, Sierra, and Silverado out of this factory. The articles that we linked up in here said so many good things about the volt, one writer for The Eevee news outlet. Electric says his family has a bolt and two Tesla's and he and his wife actually fight over who gets to drive the bolt, see

Kyle Mountsier: 5:38

the most output the most sales, and you're like, Nixon or something? I mean, okay, so here's the recharging speed is a big deal. It's charging speed, and the new platform won't have to replatform the whole car. So if they're gonna reimagine like, a smaller car, non SUV, reimagining it on the new platform is definitely the way to go. So I get it, like it got them a long way. It was early, it was like leaf bolt or the early 2010s. And so, you know, it got them this far, high level of production, they learned a lot from the vehicle. And you know, I think that they're going to do good to like, move it into new platform, you know, new technology, all those things. And

Paul Daly: 6:24

somewhat ironically, the writer of that article who said he was why fight over the bolt, he said, It's just our favorite one. It's comfortable. It's zippy. He said, and most of all, we love the it's like such a great Apple CarPlay integration is why they why they fight over it. And as we talked. So as we've talked about a few times, GM has said they're phasing out the CarPlay integration in all of their family units. That's

Kyle Mountsier: 6:51

not that's not happening. Again, we'll save it basically, nothing exists. But GM doesn't have

Paul Daly: 7:01

the only thing well, it gets some kind of press out of it. Speaking of getting presses and stuff, hey. All right, a new release from the International Energy Agency, the IEA reports that electric cars are expected to account for 1/5 of all vehicle sales in the global market in 2023. With sales growing 35% to 14 million units. So that is up from just 4% of the market in 2020. Now, it's going to be 20% of the market in 2024. Currently, China leads the world in electric car adoption, as we know, you know, with about 60% of electric car sales in China 2022. At that is really unbelievable. I know. And then the report also says you know, like this current, the transition where we are now is going to save about 5 billion, 5 billion bear. Sorry, I'm using that billion word all the time now 5 million barrels per day. Oil, incredible. And so then another little last little nugget from this. It says in emergent emerging and developing economies, two and three wheel EVs are more common than cars. So think of countries like India, over half of India's three wheeler registrations in 2022. So you see those little vehicles, like the little rickshaws and all that stuff. Over half of them are already electric. And

Kyle Mountsier: 8:26

about that, it makes a ton of sense, you know, and like

Paul Daly: 8:30

your electric, as long as there's somewhere to plug it in.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:33

It's been coming. You know, a lot of new sources have been kind of tracking the potential for India to overtake China's population here, it'd be like months. Yeah, like here, basically. Yeah. And so with the acceleration of the, like electric cars in that country, we're just going to see a global acceleration of it. But you think about this in European or Asian countries, you just see a lot smaller of a vehicle all the way down to two and three wheeler vehicles, not four wheeler. So when you think about range, or the ability to charge quickly, or the ability to get, you know, get in and out of places, with an electric vehicle, just the concept of having that type of car makes a lot of sense. So it makes a lot of sense why we're just seeing the acceleration of vehicle sales in those rain in those places. And there was an early adoption of technology earlier adoption of new OEMs and technology companies in those countries especially which sped up the Evie adoption because of just more availability than what we have in the US, you know, some of those OEMs are just starting to get to the US at this point. So but just like to recognize, oh, the rest of the world is actually way, way more sped up in evey adoption than even the US is

Paul Daly: 9:51

is what Yeah, Rs Rs are definitely more more linear. Like vehicles, four wheel vehicles big

Kyle Mountsier: 10:00

Give me a Hellcat. Yeah, Mirka.

Paul Daly: 10:04

Speaking of Mirka Hey segways

Kyle Mountsier: 10:10

epic. I consumers have been paying some higher prices. I don't know if you've recognized that in your own personal wallet. But I've been putting companies like McDonald's, PepsiCo and Kimberly Clark, while the Health Executives warn that shoppers may become more resistant to price increases. just yet, despite a bunch of price hikes, McDonald's saw a 12% increase in same store sales, while PepsiCo reported strong demand and raise its revenue growth forecast. execs are cautious about consumers tolerance as price increases the labor market suffering and recession stuff looming. So you've got kind of this like, market that is trying to find its own balance. The interesting one here is that like conquer brands, who you would know touches things like how to catch up Slim Jims said that they're done boosting prices, because prices and efficient are now kind of matched in the market. That's good news for consumers. You know,

Paul Daly: 11:09

like, are we maybe at the top of this? Yep. You know, and then, you know, it's funny, because McDonald's is doing all these things right now to just make their operations more efficient. You know, they just launched their fully human LIS, restaurant, it's all I think it's Fort Worth to we could have visited that we bought, we did call you and eat a lot of McDonald's, you and I

Kyle Mountsier: 11:29

never, ah, ever.

Paul Daly: 11:33

But I think this this definitely this index is one of the indicators. Number one, if we are getting to the to like the equilibrium of inflation and price increases, that's good, because that'll bring stability to a lot of prices across the board. We talked yesterday about, you know, had this article about, you know, dealers contributing to inflation and somebody who's like kind of accusing them of that, but really, all the way down to the Slim Jims, right, the prices have been going up significantly. And if that's going to slow down, then like, it could lead to just the stabilization factor that we've all kind of been waiting for to see what happens. And, you know, I tie this back to the dealer world, right? People are still very price sensitive, like we're seeing it every day, vehicle prices are still really, really high. And and the bottom line is like being empathetic toward that in even the way you talk, and even your word tracks and even the way you greet customers or talk about their day, or ask them questions about what's going on. Even just like, you know what it's like when somebody just relates to you immediately.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:29

Well, and just like recognizing the relationship of all retail purchases. So yes, this is maybe a 3040 $50,000 vehicle, but as a percentage of the price increase that they're seeing at the grocery store at the retail chains or anything like that. A lot of times people just don't recognize that that's the case. But like, my wife and I were we were talking about just Chipotle, right? It used to be 625 for for a burrito. Now it's like 825 for a burrito. Yeah,

Paul Daly: 12:55

I don't know, my math. Isn't that great. But that's close to 30%.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:59

That's it. Yeah, that's a massive price difference. And so when you think about just like the difference of percentages, this is a, this is a way for your salespeople or your team to recognize like, Oh, these people are experiencing this and the rest of retail, it's just a smaller scale. But but having that conversation so that there's a recognition, like, oh, all of retail is up, inflation has grown, there is a leveling out of pricing. We're seeing that in the auto world. But that recognition and that that ability to communicate at that level with customers is just going to be helpful in being relatable, and being relational in the way that you're communicating. So that it's not just like a siloed transaction that it actually relates to all the transactions that they're working with in life. Yeah,

Paul Daly: 13:40

very true. You know, we, one of our YouTube shorts yesterday, hit pretty hard, hitting a good way. And it was this article talking about, you know, the Wall Street Journal, focusing on dealers are saying that some people were blaming dealers, this report that came out, sorry, that said, dealers contributed to markups to inflation in a real heavy way. And a lot of the comments started lighting up of people, you know, like, you got the typical people like, hey, let's pile on the dealers. But I will say at least half of the comments in that in that thread. And we try to respond to most of them. Were people saying actually, no, if you look at this, and this and this, and this, it's kind of inflation has been pretty consistent across the board. And then there's a little thing called supply and demand. So apparently, there's still a lot of demand for Big Macs, and Pepsi. The two things we can really count on they're just

Kyle Mountsier: 14:29

some crazy reason.

Paul Daly: 14:33

Well, I'll tell you why there is always always a demand for empathetic people who are willing to take care of another person. And that my friends, are you today and we're in it with you. So let's go do that instead.

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