EV’s Moving, Retail Facial Recognition, Hitting 8 Billion People

‍SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:26

Good morning we are on the ground in Palm Beach one more time to build the show with the sunrise this morning talking about Evie updates, a major population growth and facial recognition in retail. The people really remember when facial recognition they stopped was just for like spy movies. Was that movie and headline every

Kyle Mountsier  00:50

time for some reason, like saddlery thing going over your face

Paul Daly  00:54

will scan going on i What was the one movie was Will Smith and Gene Hackman, enemy of the state? Ah, yeah, remember that one class, Gene Hackman, Gene Hackman could make a movie

Kyle Mountsier  01:08

could make a movie. Alright, we gotta get into it. We got a lot to talk about today we are in Palm Beach. We've had a ton of fun at modern retail conference, the conversations have been extremely dialed in. I you know, I can't remember a conference that has been so like wide in breadth of the type of conversation that's happening from agency model to digital technologies to creative and then there's an HR track and there's all these different conversations happening. And I think that it's created an energy where people are like, well, there's a lot there's nowhere to do. Yeah. I mean, traditionally, this has been a very heavy marketing and analytics conference, right when they rebranded renamed, and I think they delivered. Yeah, right. Bringing in HR and creative that the worst part about that is though, like we were looking at sessions were like, well, I

Paul Daly  01:57

can't go to that one. I can't go to that one. It's just I guess par for the course. It's a big industry. There's a lot to take care of. There

Kyle Mountsier  02:02

is a lot to take care of. It's it's an exciting industry. You got used car week happening out on the other coast. Going really

Paul Daly  02:09

jealous. Yeah. Steve Greenfield was here last night. But like he blew in like the wind. As Lewin hit a section, we took a picture and he's like, my plane boards in 30 minutes.

Kyle Mountsier  02:21

But he didn't. Nine different cities. And

Paul Daly  02:23

that's a problem. He's like, Oh, my my flight boards in 30 minutes, but I'll be fine. And we're like 15 minutes from the airport. That's a man who knows how to move he knows. Yeah, say like a boss. We're gonna give you a summary today of the evey headlines as they're hitting. GM CEO Mary Barra tells plans to tell investors today that their fledgling Evie business will sell a million vehicles and be profitable by 2025. Not 2030.

Kyle Mountsier  02:48

Wow, that's a new number. Haven't heard that doesn't roll off the tongue as well. It's pretty impressive to have like, I mean, because these are new sectors of business that typically you would see like kind of a startup company with that type of scale, looking at, you know, a five, seven year horizon new supply chain level of profitability. So for them to say, Hey, by 2025 That thing's gonna be rockin and rollin enough to make that part of our business profitable is a pretty big, that's a pretty big statement.

Paul Daly  03:17

Yeah. I mean, they do know that. They don't know how they know this stuff. They're like going to announce this stuff. But we're reading about it. So they're kind of announcing it right. But they're going to announce we're clairvoyant that their margins on EVs will be lower than the margins on ice vehicles, which is understandable, right? You just think of efficiency as scale. Morningstar Inc, analysts Dave Western said GM won't sell at the prices of Tesla's so maybe they will match the profits, but they should be able to show good margins. If Tesla can do it. There's no reason GM Ford and others can't. They're behind on product lineup and manufacturing. Right. Tesla's had this massive head start because they got into it early. But he's like, Look, if Tesla can figure out how to build a car and sell it profitably, why can't the people who have been building cars and selling them profitably for a century

Kyle Mountsier  04:02

figure it out? Well, this is, this is wild to me too, because every time you see a story about like, whether Tesla can do it or not, it's always followed up with GM and Ford. Yeah, and I, I still don't understand why there's a relationship there. It's an altogether different business model. And I think that the challenge would be is how do we leapfrog Tesla and not just match them? Right? Because how do we gain a character at their game? Yeah, right. It feels kind of like rope a dope, right? Like, it feels like Tesla's like, Here, come on back. Come on back. You know,

Paul Daly  04:36

we're actually doing this you can't do it. We're doing that. Well. Speaking of while I'm I can do a segue. But the next line that was about to get hit Vietnamese Evie maker vinfast is saying they may be planning and other may be planning. We know so much. We know so much about thinking about maybe doing something that we may or may not have they vinfast may or may not have no they definitely did confidentially. filed an application for an IPO back in April. And they're saying they may have a US IPO as early as January. So the Vietnamese automaker backed by Vietnam's wealthiest man, and they've been really coming to market quick, some nice looking product. I don't know what it feels like, but it looks really

Kyle Mountsier  05:16

right. And they are, they're leveraging all of these tax incentives and the opportunity to start building in the US, you know, they've got the North Carolina factory, they're, they're going to start production in 2024. So when when you look at a company like that, that has a ton of backing ton of money, the cars look good, they're gonna be taking advantage of stuff. This is one of those new OEMs that I think is just one to look out for.

Paul Daly  05:41

Well, it makes me It reminds me quite a bit of what Hyundai was able to accomplish. I mean, obviously, they had a little rough start, right, build a different reputation. But what they have done is come in at a discount level, offering a product that seems very premium. When you look at Hyundai's and Kias, another pricing is catching up, right. But still, you get a lot for your money, maybe vinfast will be another one of those, that factory they got $1.2 billion in tax credits, or credits. And they're in the middle of signing agreements to raise 4 billion for two s expansion. And they have 73,000 reservations.

Kyle Mountsier  06:17

That's pretty good. It's not bad. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Daly  06:21

Imagine if it's 73,000 reservation for a vehicle like that and used to be like

Kyle Mountsier  06:26

73,000 reservations for anything like that is not a widget, right? How do you? How do you get that across the line? It just kind of blows my mind that that's even something that we're talking about in our industry that people have 100,000 reservation dollars, you know,

Paul Daly  06:43

it's okay. It's wild. It's okay. It's okay. Last evening news today, this was a lot of fun Amazon making a widget. Okay, we'll do that. Where's my where's my button? They got a new road caster for the road kit. So I'll mess them up here widgets. It's great segue in the middle of a segment. Amazon is taking heat for selling modification chips to electric bikes and scooters. And like, look, if I don't want think about humanity, it's going to be we're always going to try to figure out a way to make it go faster. Yes,

Kyle Mountsier  07:15

exactly. We're gonna unlock these little things. You can hold me to 15 miles an hour, a lot of

Paul Daly  07:22

these motors. Excuse me. A lot of these motors have built in regulators to just slow it down. Because naturally think it's 15 miles. If you're on a scooter, you're like, it feels pretty quick. Unless you're used to ride it for a while. And you're like, but this got more in there.

Kyle Mountsier  07:37

Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah, you know, it has twice as much apparent because the way it gets up and goes to like this thing can ride right? It kind of gets

Paul Daly  07:46

pulled back, ya know. So this process known as chipping now can take an electric scooter, or ebike for 15 to 30 miles an hour. So I don't know if you know what, 30 miles an hour feels like on a scooter with wheels that are like just six inches. You know,

Kyle Mountsier  07:59

can you really do that? That would have to be squirrely? Yeah. And then have you been that fast on a scooter?

Paul Daly  08:05

Yes. I mean, I don't have 30 Feels like on a motorcycle not as fast because I think bigger thing.

Kyle Mountsier  08:11

Yeah, because it's a bigger thing. You're sitting right. There's a little bit more like stability there. But if you're pedaling,

Paul Daly  08:16

pedaling pretty heavily on a bike, you know that point where like, I think I'm feeling a little jittery? You're probably in that 20 to 30 mile an hour range. Oh, yeah, I've been upwards of that on a bike. Yeah, when you're on a scooter being down, man. And those wheels just one little bump. One little bump. So either way police in Europe because they're a lot more common in Europe having a hard time keeping up. Which I hate laughing there's no radar guns, but they're saying they don't have the level of training or like just even experience to know. Like, is that 23? Or is it doing 50? Yeah, right. And then you got to pull the pull the person over? Do tackle them. Like, I don't know, shoot, shoot like a little EMP.

Kyle Mountsier  08:54

I love you gotta leave it to humans, right? And then like, we're gonna unlock this thing right over here. funny.

Paul Daly  08:59

Not funny. We're not really laughing. But we're totally laughing at it. Yes,

Kyle Mountsier  09:03

exactly. Well, speaking of noticing nuance differences. That's good. What if you thought first party data, cookies and all that type of stuff was dicey when you're surfing the web? reefy. Right, you thought that was now shopping in retail experiences and brick and mortar locations is starting to get that same way. There are some retailers that are testing out utilizing facial recognition down to like your lip movements on how that you're how you're interacting with shopping in a retail experience, to look at things like how are we merchandising, where are we placing products? How is the store organized? Where are people spending more time? How is their face interacting with products and think about that from just from like a marketer's experience. You know, I know my father in law that he does a lot with like consumer packaged goods, and they're always trying to figure out like, do Do we take the end cap? Do we take the middle? You know, is this like a low on the shelf product or a high on the shelf product? How is my product? You know, is it getting the looks from people? So being able to recognize like the eye movements, the smiles, the little, the little triggers is an interesting proposition. Well,

Paul Daly  10:17

I mean, historically speaking, the only thing you have to go off of is sales data. Yes, right. It's on the MCAT, we sold X amount. Now it's like, well, this the person pick up the package, look at the front, and then look at the back and then put it down. Do they even flip the box, or whatever the package? And so all of these things, like when they do that there's a browse go down? It's a lot of data. Lots of data. It's a lot of AI. I mean, some of this technology, actually, probably not facial recognition. But across automotive, we're starting to see people deploying ai, ai to security cameras, to be able to to alert, hey, are there people in the area or their customers waiting? And certainly not moving around? That's already happened? Like did somebody trip and fall? Right? Can we be alert that we need to you know, like, kind of like a loss prevention mentality. And but this is like your face. It's why and it is kind of creepy. But to think that this technology isn't already being used? Oh, it absolutely right. Cuz every we get like retail gets technology after like, a decade after the government's had it? Yes. So I mean, I don't know. Is it creepy? Yes. When people kind of like, forget about it?

Kyle Mountsier  11:22

Yes, yeah, what's gonna happen is you're gonna have I mean, here's your progression, slowing it down, that's gonna be hard. There might be some legal stuff came out, you know, how they touch the data and things like that, but you're not going to stop it. But what I think we're gonna see is similar to how you start to see better ad experiences. And you know, this whole thing on like, cross app tracking, you're just gonna get a better shopping experience at some point is the potential there. So

Paul Daly  11:48

I want to go in I would, I would go in once I know this is happening,

Kyle Mountsier  11:50

right? It just mess with

Paul Daly  11:52

just like back and forth, back and forth, back and forth angry when he looked out look,

Kyle Mountsier  11:57

angry, angry, then by it.

Paul Daly  12:00

I guess if we elicit the feeling of anger, they'll purchase it.

Kyle Mountsier  12:03

It's that weird subset.

Paul Daly  12:06

So speaking of subsets, I can't get the hang of the buttons, right? This is an opposite segue. So the opposite thing of a subset is the entire group. And sometime today, Kyle, the world's population is going to reach 8 billion people. Wow, is according to projections from the United Nations, the 8 billion person on the planet will be born on November 15. I don't know how they track that. It'd be awesome if the 8 billion person person like get some kind of like super award some award given once your money, it will ruin their life forever. Right. Tiktok start,

Kyle Mountsier  12:44

I felt like we were just talking. We didn't look at this. But I feel like we were just talking about 7 billion. Like I feel like that yes, like breezed past. And well, one of the reasons could be that in the article, it was noted that the life expectancy of humanity is up in from like nine years greater from 1990 to 2019. So life, life expectancy, massive jump 72.8 years,

Paul Daly  13:11

that's a massive jump a whole decade in just 20 years. Unbelievable. Now, it's

Kyle Mountsier  13:15

dropped off in the last couple of years. We Yeah, we know what my attribute some of that some to that. Right. But that's still I mean, it's still up what almost seven years, yeah, 1990 to now. So you know, healthcare is getting better, you know, people are eating better, all of the type of things that are contributing to that longer life lifecycle. So now you've got, you know, more people in the older ages.

Paul Daly  13:39

You know, they're just not the cycle isn't repeating, right. Um, one thing to watch, however, is the fertility rate is at 2.3 births per woman in the 1950s. It was five, really. So all of a sudden, like, it's so like, yeah, we've been talking to our buddy there and done that, who knows just saying, Hey, we're running out of people or not. And it's even actually lower in wealthy countries, the birth rate, right. So like, globally speaking, it's down from five to 2.3. But in wealthy countries, it's like below two, which means like, if you think about how many people take, you know, you got an each woman needs have to write at least 2.1 Actually, is the sustainable rate. So 2.1 is a stable rate to maintain the population. So basically saying, like, we're going to we have a lot more older folks. But there's this starting to be this crunch in the middle thing Gen Z, right. There's not enough to replace what's going on meaning. And then in wealthy countries, there's even less so they're saying population growth in general, if you're looking at like, just per country, and wealthy nation say the only way there's going to be population growth is immigration.

Kyle Mountsier  14:48

Wow. Which means things like retaining employees taking care of people, even healthcare are going to be so important over these next 15 to 20 years. Oh, yeah, to maintain the law. lifestyle that we currently have today.

Paul Daly  15:01

So that means if you're in if you're between 20 and 40 years old, you're probably gonna have some significant job security. And you better start paying attention to company culture, building something that matters, because

Kyle Mountsier  15:16

people want to be a part of That's right. It's going to be the only way to retain and keep employees. Yeah, hey, we we went from 8 billion people to retaining and keeping.

Paul Daly  15:27

Well, speaking of things that matter, we hope you do things that matter. today. We're about to lean back in with the modern retail conference and talk to a whole bunch of other people who really, really care about retail automotive. We think you should do we'll help you there.

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