Bringing back the stick shift, Tesla’s “Investor” Day, Toyota’s EV March

‍SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:29

welcome to March that the spring days are just around the corner is closed out a good month underway to another one. Talking about bringing back the stick shift. Yes, Tesla's investor day and Toyota's Evie March. Use the word March.

Kyle Mountsier  00:48

As a note, it's quite officially spring in Nashville. I don't know how we got here. Like yesterday, today 77 It's sunny outside. I have to mow the grass this weekend. like legit if I don't mow the grass this weekend. It will be past mobile like

Paul Daly  01:08

Oh, then you really bumming right because you're raking in and you're doing all those? Is it? Raking?

Kyle Mountsier  01:14

Raking? What am I breaking?

Paul Daly  01:17

Well, if you're past mobile, like Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, not talking least. Well, it's certainly not spring in upstate New York. Certainly, but I am starting to get since that time of year when everyone in the Northeast that puts snow tires on you know, you know, if you know, right, you start thinking about like, why am I taking these things off the timeline? Because once it's over 50 degrees, I get another gallon back, right? It's not that bad. Actually, snow tires are pretty good. If you have to maintain them, right, though. If you don't, if you leave them on too long, or put them on too early, they get all chopped up and loud and nasty, but I pay attention to my stuff. Because that's the kind of guy I am.

Kyle Mountsier  01:54

We got to pay an attention. Oh, wow. On the

Paul Daly  01:57

day. That's an early segue. I was already with the button. Go ahead. And what do we got going on?

Kyle Mountsier  02:01

today? We are launching a new episode of auto collabs we're gonna start rolling these out pretty often here. Pretty mind that people want auto collabs are we have a lot of new listeners says yes. Yeah. So we have this we have another podcast called Auto auto collabs. There there's there's a space where we hold our longest form conversations we bring in Michael Cirillo. It's myself, Paul, all in a conversation with an industry leader or someone in the dealership or someone in industry partner, we have longer form conversations and the way those go is like we really dig into the person. And we and we try and humanize kind of the whole industry. So we have a little fun at the beginning. A little fun at the end. Typically, you'll hear at Joe urbanising ridiculous, humanize ourselves and then and then get into the long form conversation. So they're, you know, 2530 minute conversations. So they're a lot of fun. And we, we put them live on Facebook and LinkedIn, you'll be able to find it on YouTube this afternoon, if you want to watch the video version, but it also be on all the podcast platforms that you could possibly think just search auto collabs. And one more thing. If you are an apple podcast listener, oh, you can now search us so do as ot you find our Channel and see all four of our podcasts that we put out there. So if you're kind of looking for, like, What's the flavor of the day, what kind of podcasts am I wanting to listen to today? Go to the Apple podcast searches. So to find our channel, and you can subscribe to all four of the wonderful conversational podcasts we have going on all

Paul Daly  03:37

the time. So much fun, so much fun. Everybody set the frame right. Well, let's get into the news. Here we go. That's a fun show. You can have something for everybody. Whoa. That's a good way to segues before we get into the first story going in coming to the CEO koji Sato is preparing to take the baton from longtime CEO and industry legend Akito Toyota on April 1, so one month from today, and he's making his intentions clear that Toyota will be taking a battery powered Evie first approach moving forward while maintaining its holistic and measured approach. So this is a great quote from him to deliver attractive BEVs to more customers, we must streamline the structure of the car and with a big first mindset much drastically changed the way we do business from manufacturing to sales to service and now that the time is right will accelerate a bit of development with a new approach. So he's this is quite a notice about him. He's a very experienced engineer, and he leads the Lexus international premium division. Toyota has Gazoo Racing motorsports arm and the company recently executed a full detailed teardown of a moto y so they bought them out of why they got out the screwdrivers in the little like things and

Kyle Mountsier  04:50

strewn out all the way down guys looking at the computers and can how

Paul Daly  04:55

fun is it to be in that room? Like I just I picture them like in a circle around the video. And then just like gentlemen, shall we commence then get to work. Everyone's got surgical masks on, in my mind is that and here's a quote from one executive said, taking the skin off the model why it was truly a work of art. Unbelievable, he said. So it's super cool. They could plan a continuation of the of their hybrids or plug in hybrids and hydrogen powered cars alongside, but they're moving foot faster. Lexus known by Toyota is already has a goal of going fully worldwide electric by 2035. And selling 1 million EVs by 20.

Kyle Mountsier  05:38

There it is, there it is. Here's a couple of things. If you heard Bev and you're like, are we serving drinks out here? We're not doing that. Sorry about that is B E V battery electric vehicle. So you hear that probably more and more often because EVs have kind of gone to battery electric vehicles, just because there's going to be different versions of Eevee. So if you heard that, and we're like, Why is Paul talking about?

Paul Daly  06:02

Nazi battery electric vehicle? First of all, we need that we need the differentiation because we need it. And people need to know what's going on. Kyle, what do you think about the passing of the baton? Well, it's so legendary, and he was such a, such a proponent of a hybrid approach. And Toyota

Kyle Mountsier  06:19

was, you know, a, Mr. Toyota was was very strong in his approach to hey, we're going to have a wide ranging approach to powertrains, and it is very, very clear that koji Sato is really looking at the BV market as one that is going to be pursued a lot quicker by the Toyota brand. You would have thought that this was probably earlier in the Toyota landscape, just because Toyota is always pushing the boundaries on how they're powertrains where the vehicles are at and how they're approaching the consumer. So, you know, I think that it's kind of timely, however, I really do hope they continue this holistic and measured approach because I think that's what makes Toyota so great. And it is why probably they have the lowest days market and market day supply. It's not because they're not making the cars is because they're selling the cars. They will probably continue

Paul Daly  07:17

Yeah. Well, we'll see what they do in the future. And speaking of the future segue All right today at 4pm Eastern Standard Time, the much anticipated Tesla investor day will begin at the company's giga factory headquarters in Austin, Texas wants to see if Anne Marie, our Director of Partnerships, we just got to get her over there. And we're just mosey on over I just flashed up your nada press pass to see if they let you. Elon Musk tweeted back on February 13. Looking forward to Tesla investor Day March 1, and by investor in quotes, right? We mean the broadest definition of investor as in people and life of Earth. It's pretty broad. It will be a message of Good Hope and positivity for the future but said he will present Tesla's Master Plan three sounds like a sequence, Swartz Nagar and Sylvester Stallone Jason Statham, which is for a fully sustainable energy future expected announcements include, you know, Tesla's been talking about a low cost Evie we'll see if there's an announcement kind of they've been talking about as the model to not Tesla but everyone else. Also talking about like battery materials solar, the popular model, why refresh the code naming juniper and potentially a revamped model three codenamed Highland,

Kyle Mountsier  08:39

anyone can view the live stream by going to live stream.tesla.com. Um, and I kind of hope that I have a meeting at four o'clock. So no, I definitely want to get clear and kind of watch because it'll definitely be filled with some level of pomp and circumstance. It's not you know, anything Tesla does is not is not Apple esque. It's it's altogether its own thing. So when you think about live launches, like they, there's a lot more flash and pomp and circumstance. And so I'm just interested in in that part of it, but also interested in you know, your, like the production value, the production value of it, right. But also, I am very interested in what their plans are. Because, you know, over the last two years, there's been a lot of market entrants into the Evie space that have started to acquire some market share from Tesla, especially overseas. And I feel like they're tuned for this. You know, you didn't see this coming, what's next kind of vibe. So we'll see if they, if they come out with something that that nobody was kind of expecting.

Paul Daly  09:39

I mean, I'm kind of I'm half and half on it, because we definitely have had a number of Elon Musk things that he says or comes out with, right, and then the expectations are high, and then it's like, oh, we're only halfway there. But it's gonna be really great because then we're gonna send a dog in the space. You know what I mean? Like something crazy like, but we'll see and you and I, you and I love a good show, and I always appreciate a good production. And this is one of the reasons that Tesla doesn't spend any money on marketing. Yeah, right. They just don't call it marketing. Speaking of an Eevee future. But this is fun. This is the least Evie thing that we can imagine. With all the talking about an Eevee future. Kids are doing what they do best Kyle,

Kyle Mountsier  10:24

they're pushing back the system they're pushing back.

Paul Daly  10:28

Just as you know, digital music transformation made everybody go back to vinyl records and made it a cool thing. All this Evie talk is bringing back the stick shift. While to demand data. Kyle, what's up what's going on?

Kyle Mountsier  10:43

It's unbelievable. So after a 30 year decline, JD Power has reported that manuals made up 1.7% of sales, which is up over 2022, which it was at 1.2. And in 2029, it was 2021. In 2021, it was point nine autos double in two years, double the amount of of manual transmission sold. autotrader is showing a 13% rise in pageviews of manuals over last year, which is interesting like you see that that level of shopping behavior saying we want a manual transmission.

Paul Daly  11:18

I love manual transmission.

Kyle Mountsier  11:20

I think it's so much fun. And there's a subset of drivers that are really going to say like, we're gonna miss that in an Eevee future. Right? You know, we've got I got a quote here from a 26 year old engineering sales salesman in Warwick, Warwick Rhode Island that says it's not a statement against electric cars to buy these manual vehicles that he's bought as much as I'm going to try to enjoy the type of driving that's the most fun to me until I can't any more can you imagine like potentially not having access to driving a major while

Paul Daly  11:54

it's been a while but like this article makes me want to go get one I've had many many I learned dude, I learned to drive on a four speed Dodge Caravan. Did you even know that existed? A caravan Dodge Caravan blows my mind no five speed four cylinders do this was taught this is like as like New Jersey ghetto as it gets it had this it didn't have a third row backseat someone whoever we bought it from built a wooden seat in the back facing out the back window.

Kyle Mountsier  12:26

Absolutely. Yeah. facing out the back with no seatbelts.

Paul Daly  12:29

Absolutely. Oh no, there were seatbelts there were but I do remember like you couldn't you couldn't have the air conditioning on unless you were like in fifth gear on the highway. This is a true story.

Kyle Mountsier  12:43

I learned like a 93 sob I don't know how that worked out. But it was it was awful terrible to learn

Paul Daly  12:49

on that thing. Oh well many the company many has added three stick shift models with four more on the way manual is now you know this about Mazda already manuals now the only option for it's five versions of the MX five Miata that's it can only get it in the standard le of the ultimate of minivans as a great comment le on the Dodge Caravan. But after a 15 year cancellation accurate canceled standards standard transmission stick shifts 15 years ago they're bringing it back to the Integra and they said over 25% of people who ordered an Integra ordered a stick shift.

Kyle Mountsier  13:23

Yeah, because it's the it's a driver's car. And you know the Miata is a driver's car the mini as a driver I mean look at all the the movies that are minis been in? What

Paul Daly  13:33

they were all stick shift. It's alright to watch Mark Wahlberg drive an automatic mini in the Italian Job orig

Kyle Mountsier  13:44

they're saying that the key demographic for this is from 18 to 45 So if it's a younger John is still in it Kyle is still there. It's Millennials Gen Z it's it's people that are that are bringing that back. It's like it's it's like bell bottom pants man it's the same thing like everything is cyclical everything comes back around we're gonna see bell bottoms in about eight years again, it's gonna be tragic. Bringing back six shifts let's go

Paul Daly  14:09

oh, well there you go. If that's not enough to get you going in the month of March. We don't know what as we know we're still trying to close out the month but you have a fresh start fresh sheet of paper. The spring is going to hit stick shifts are coming back out. So go out there and have some fun

Kyle Mountsier  14:34

right

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