Keeping It Movin’, No Excuses, Started From The Bottom

March 31, 2022
Today’s show title may or may not include the summaries of our three main topics as song titles from the Troublemaker Swagger Playlist on Spotify. We’re talking about Toyota outpacing February production projections, Tesla’s plan to secure nickel supplies, and business students skipping Wall St for crypto. 
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Toyota Motor Group produced 11% (including Daihatsu and Hino Motors Ltd) more vehicles in February 2022 than in the same month one year earlier. The month exceeded even Toyota's expectations by nearly 41,000 vehicles. 

  1. Toyota alone still below last Feb but exceeded projections by 41,000 vehicles
  2. Honda, reported an 8.1% increase in the same month year over year

Tesla is several steps ahead in mining Nickel

  1. Has been securing long term nickel contrasts far before the Russian invasion of Ukraine
  2. Two years ago Musk said, "Please mine more nickel," on an earnings call with producers. "Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way."
  3. "People don't realize how far ahead Tesla is when it comes to securing the supply chain for raw materials and an integrated approach to battery materials," said Todd Malan, a spokesman for Talon Metals whom Tesla has a contract to buy 75,000 tons of Nickel from 

Wall Street getting skipped by as business students lean into Web 3 as a career 

  1. “The crypto sector has 12,000 open jobs right now, according to the aggregation platform TrueUp, including 3,000+ new listings opened last week.” many from non-banking sector companies like Spotify
  2. Talent often walking past big banking bonuses in favor of the excitement of blazing a new trail
  3. “Brandon Hoffman, a 2022 Columbia MBA candidate who’s interning at an NFT company, told us he’s excited because crypto “is like a new frontier. …I think that the infrastructure that is being uncovered every day that this platform provides, I think the applications are going to be very widespread.”
  4. “The students interviewed found their passion for crypto outside of classrooms all together. They mentioned blockchain clubs and Discord channels as common experiences at their universities. But overwhelmingly, they said they learned about crypto online, on their own.”

SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:18

Yo, what's going on? It's Thursday, March 31. Last day of March, last day of March, we're doing cars rocking the soda shirt. We got an article to talk about in automotive news print edition. But But first, we got to get a bounce going. People really want to know who is and who Id they stopped. All right, although, although it is not. It was printed on March 21. I just got it. And you know, it got it got shuffled over to my desk, and I never thought I'd be on the cover of automotive news.

Kyle Mountsier  00:50

Congratulations, man. What a big deal. What am I doing? Because? Because I know, I know you've been in the gym. You've been telling me you've been in the gym. What's gym is that working on those lower thighs? No such time.

Paul Daly  01:06

I upper calves? And you know, the automotive news I have it right here. You can't hear it. And if you look at this picture, 

Kyle Mountsier  01:18

this is legal. I don't think we're allowed to go like this. Right? 

Paul Daly  01:21

This right here. This area. I'm showing it in the second camera. So this area right here, that is my knee? That is my knee in auto motive news. So I mean, look, I'm not taking credit for the entire panel. Cars calm asked me to moderate a panel on diversity, equity and inclusion. And I had some amazing guests that helped me carry the torch. But Automotive News included the guests. And they were nice enough to include my knee in the photo as well. I mean, I may or may not have been in there and you go to the inside. So you go to page actually went to Walmart to buy a frame for it this morning. I did. But you got the inside. And you can see a little bit more of my knee in the picture right here. I can't go. It's right here. There's my knee. And they list all the people in the photo

Kyle Mountsier  02:08

at the top. And yeah, which is some incredible people.

Paul Daly  02:11

Oh, actually, I wasn't included in the name list. Actually, when I read the article, I've been totally erased from this event. Nobody moderated the conversation. No one came up with the questions. No one No one stay on track. They just naturally did it. But either way, I'm on the cover of automotive news. And I went imagine, as I flipped through Automotive News, their whole lot of troublemakers in here all of a sudden, they're absolutely

Kyle Mountsier  02:36

you know, I love this. But that's okay. That's cool. Because it's like, lifting up these people giving them you know, giving others the capacity to see exactly what they're doing out there in the industry, especially people like Eric Tiffany, right that that, you know, there's Erica looking

Paul Daly  02:56

girl. We got granted like there's not our people, but there just happened to be people that we always talk about and associate with. But they've been in automotive news before some of them St. Greenfield, John Luciano, Liza Borches. Yeah, the list goes on. So a very engaging, print edition of automotive news. If you haven't go flip through it you might recognize a Knee or two, we have a nice to talk about today. I want to give a shout out. Do you have your email open? Who is it that got the referral credit today? That hit the rewards? 

Kyle Mountsier  03:26

Stephanie Here we go. I got it. I got it. Hold hold tight. Hold tight. So young lady named Katherine. Katherine, Katherine, congrats, thanks. Yeah, got she's got some stickers that she can go grab. It's free. But who's

Paul Daly  03:43

somebody who's on the leader board. So so if you basically if you subscribe to the email that we put every single day, it's a ton of fun, a soda calm, and you refer that to your friends actually attracts it, you don't have to set up a login. And then as you hit different marks, we send you free stuff, like stickers and pens like this pen and mugs and hats and T shirts and crewnecks. And there are a couple dealers that are at the top of the leaderboard, actually. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier  04:06

absolutely. We're not going to go we're not going to go with the last names of everybody because you know, they're not they're not in the public sector as but we've got Liza and Patrick to investors. Whoo. And then we got Scott, and John, and Madison, all bringing up the top the top five. So if you if that's you, you know who you are on the board now. Thanks for sharing the pushback email, because, yeah, we look one, I love reading the email. So I love getting to see more people get engaged with it and be a part of it. But also, you know, I think that the more you get your friends and your family members and you know, meaning automotive family members wrapped around that you just have more things to talk about. So and we're about to do. You don't even know some of the fun stuff that our writer our primary writer, Chris, who some of you all have seen a met around LinkedIn. He and I were talking about yesterday. Doing just to kind of spice up, bring some flavor to the to the bottom half of the email. So just keep an eye out. If you're a part of the email list, keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks as as just we try and bring more value to your day. Yeah, and

Paul Daly  05:13

if you're not on the email list, today's a really good day to get on. Because tomorrow we're going to do something a little bit special.

Kyle Mountsier  05:17

Guys. Like, share today, if you got the email today, go like blast it out, put it on the socials, send it in emails, because tomorrow, you will want the email trust us. Yes,

Paul Daly  05:32

I don't know if we're gonna make the cover of automotive news with the email tomorrow. But you never know. You never know. We've all been working out around here. Let's talk about some actual news today. So, first first article is a good one. So today we're talking about some manufacturing. We're talking about some supplies. And we're talking about finding talent in places you didn't expect, which has been a little bit of a theme this year. So first article, Toyota Motor Group, not Toyota, you know, that just the Toyota that we know in the industry, but Toyota Motor USA, yeah, influence Daihatsu, he knew, basically, they produce more vehicles in February of 2022, than they did in February of 2021. It even exceeded their expectations by 41,000 vehicles

Kyle Mountsier  06:17

supply up interesting.

Paul Daly  06:20

And so Toyota, like the Toyota auto manufacturer that we think about when we hear Toyota, they're still below last February, but they did exceed their projection by 41,000 vehicles. I mean, think of how what 41,000 vehicles looks like, I can't even imagine that actually. That'd be a really good parking lot. It's easier to sell big numbers like that all the time. Have you ever think of what it takes to actually store 41,000 vehicles?

Kyle Mountsier  06:43

Yeah, to store deliver, you know, fuel across the country, you know, or the world? Yeah, that's a that's a that's a lot of movement. So

Paul Daly  06:51

also another Japanese automaker Honda, who we all know is up 8.1%. same month, year over year. So with all the doom and gloom and all the trials, you know, I love celebrating these indicators that like you know,

Kyle Mountsier  07:03

what's crazy about that is chip shortages weren't even a thing. At that point. It wasn't till late spring. I think that we that we hit chip shortages, it's all blurry to me. But I believe that we weren't even in that chip shortage range. We are still kind of in like heavy pandemic range. So kind of interesting to see how the tides turn and move over the last year.

Paul Daly  07:24

I'm trying even think like, when was the first time we heard chip shortage?

Kyle Mountsier  07:30

Yeah, it was the fire. Right. And that would have been like may or can. It's such a blur the last 24 months. It was 2019. Right? Everything everything normal happened in 2019. It was happening in

Paul Daly  07:43

2019. So oh, this might be a good segue. Speaking of 2019 segue. We have a segue graphic all of a sudden, that includes on a literal segue, like little scooter. So a story in Reuters. This story came from come from automotive news. It's automotive news story was one lead story today was the last story of yesterday. And basically it was in talks about the way Tesla has been securing nickel supply. Not just now. But like two years ago, maybe back as far as 2019. They've been securing long term nickel contracts. Two years ago, Musk said, please mind more nickel price, he's saying this on an earnings call more than everyone. And he's like Tesla will give you a giant contract. This is a quote, Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mined nickel efficiently, and environment in an environmentally sensitive

Kyle Mountsier  08:41

way. Yeah, there it is. Yeah. So it's, I mean, one he knows where the money is. It's get me more batteries and batteries were rely on nickel. And yeah, I think we're gonna start to see companies that I'm interested to see if energy companies attempt to switch energy resourcing, to mining materials, right, like gas energy companies and things like that. It isn't

Paul Daly  09:08

what, it's such a different like, thing.

Kyle Mountsier  09:11

You don't know it absolutely is. But it I mean, the principles the same, it's like we provide energy for transportation. Right? So it's, it's, it's, it's almost like, oh, Blockbuster didn't want to do streaming because it's a totally different thing. Right? It is a totally different thing. It's for sure.

Paul Daly  09:32

At being entertained,

Kyle Mountsier  09:33

right, exactly. But the medium, the end medium is the same. So I think, you know, I'm interested to see if more people kind of leaned into that more big companies start to take notice of that and shift employee capacity shift, you know, all of their you know, I mean, we're seeing auto manufacturers saying hey, we're gonna segment internal combustion and Evie so how many more companies are going to do similar things like that in the in the pipeline? I think it's Interesting question mark there. So

Paul Daly  10:02

another another quote from the article, Tom, I think it's Mellon, a spokesman for Italian metals, I think is Minnesota based big, big metals men metals company, he says people don't realize how far ahead Tesla is when it comes to securing the supply chain for raw materials in an integrated approach to battery materials. So Tesla apparently has a contract to buy 75,000 Tons 75,000 tons of nickel from them, okay. So, you know, that's kind of an insider saying, like, Hey, we're talking about it a lot now. But people don't really understand how far ahead Tesla is in the supply chain logistics. But look, we have a lot of new players to the space. I think just two and a half, three years ago, there just wasn't that much attention on the industry. I think of the attention curve now like with all the announcements from Ford, and GM, everybody, right? But even like Mary Barra coming out, saying, like, Hey, we're on supply chain, logistics and raw materials. So it'll be interesting to see what happens now that people are in the game, right, Tesla might be ahead, but people are on it. So yeah, we'll see. Just interesting. So we got Toyota crushing production, and really looking ahead when it comes to nickel production. And

Kyle Mountsier  11:11

well, I think that manufacturers are really getting smart, and I think we're gonna see them, I hope that that they do get smart about the supply chain and logistics and, and really enhance, you know, enhance the capacity for their, for their manufacturing engines to, to not have to worry about supply chain issues in the future. And it's at look, every disruption or every problem, when, when met with great solutions, helps long term. And so that's, that's what any business should be going through is if there's a problem, create the solution to prevent the problem in the future. And if manufacturers can get that right, then we won't have to worry about in the future.

Paul Daly  11:52

You know, that's we're seeing that in tech too, right? Like there's an element of control. When there is like a world that has, you know, unfriendly API's, right data that's hard to get data that doesn't work well with others. What happens? People are like, I can't I can't innovate like this. It's like, yeah, so you what you see is new people saying, I'll do it myself. Right? Yep, I'll do it myself. Let me minimize reliance on all these other people that aren't playing nice together. And let me make it work. And then when

Kyle Mountsier  12:22

they interesting, I've had a couple of conversations with dealers and dealer groups over the past week, marketing managers, even even operators that have said, we are feeling this necessity to have innovative tools. But our OEMs are actually not allowing us to. And there's they're simply saying, we're going to break the mold, because we see so much upside on the other side of innovation, that the that the little bit of downside for losing the like little bit of funds, or, you know, a little bit of potential inventory, upside on the other side is so high, that they're willing to take the risk to leave the program behind. And I think that that's, that's a reality for so many, it's like, no, it's literally not an option for us to not have innovative tools, innovative tech. And so we have to break the mold. At some point, I think we're gonna see more and more especially like mid to large sized groups, just say, let's go, let's do it. Let's figure out where the innovation

Paul Daly  13:19

is. Yeah, calf, cast off those those, you know, anchors in the water, that the things are happening. And I think that's a great call for OEMs. To, right, because the OEMs, by far have extensive research, I mean, resources and broad perspective, right from seeing all these things and think there's just great opportunity for OEMs to, you know, like, try to loosen restriction to let innovation go faster. But I mean, it's always a balance, right? Everybody comes into the game with a different perspective. And I understand both sides, right. And so the point of like, you know, even our header in the email, it's like, Hey, we're done with combative vendor dealer relationships. And that also means we're done with combative relationships, period, that includes OEM dealer relationships, because the less competitive combative we are, the more innovative we can be, and the more combative we are, and the more like we try to play defense, right? That

Kyle Mountsier  14:07

everyone, what if there's a world in automotive, where everyone actually believes the person across the table is for them?

Paul Daly  14:14

Yeah. situations like that, this year, where everybody actually was okay with one another, but all of the pent up pent up, you know, apart and former offenses and all that that just was like playing front, well here either way. That's our that's our, that's our little perspective on that. And we hope you join us in that, right. Let's innovate, let's work together. Let's get rid of the combative nature. Let's talk about for a second we this week, there's been a little bit of a theme like finding talent in places we never look for talent, because people that have a raw skill set and a raw desire actually can enter a completely different industry. Absolutely. Because because they're interested in it. There's a Wall Street Journal article, talking about business students, you know, going to really serious business College's skipping Wall Street right the usual attract would be go to a great business school, get an internship, get a job with a big signing bonus right now signing bonuses for like, you know, a headphones things that that are like quarter million dollar signing bonuses. And all these business students are skipping that to build careers in web three crypto blockchain, etc, etc, etc. They're playing

Kyle Mountsier  15:18

the long game and sometimes the short game because the gains are really quick, but they know that the long game is over there. And

Paul Daly  15:25

not just investing though. No, I mean, this is talking about not just being like personal investors, but just literally taking jobs. Developing crypto, so I'm quoting from the Wall Street Journal articles that it says the crypto sector has 12,000 open jobs right now, according to the aggregation platform true up a quarter, including 3000 plus new listings opened last week. Many from non banking sectors, like companies like Spotify,

Kyle Mountsier  15:50

you know, so it's okay, so, so quick storytime. Right. Love storytime. So actually one of the people that works in the building. What's that?

Paul Daly  15:59

Do we need an intro song for storytime?

Kyle Mountsier  16:01

I think we do. Cuz I always like bring storytime do. So we've actually I've actually in the building that I work in. It's like a co working space. There's a massage therapist that works here. And she was at get this. She was hired to she travels all over the place. Really high quality massage therapist, she but she was hired to go out to I think Denver, it was a crypto conference, she said that nobody in there was over the age of 28. And she was talking to one of the security guards. And she said that average net worth of everybody in here is over $10 million. The average net worth and get this you want to you want to you want to get the real kicker here. Zero alcohol. Everything that was in the space was sparkling, sparkling water. Like crackers and cheese. It was like high nines. She was like it was the most bizarre situation you've ever seen 23 to 28 year olds in in your life. But there there's

Paul Daly  17:08

only one. There's so many problems. So many people under 21. They couldn't do the alcohol. Exactly,

Kyle Mountsier  17:13

exactly. But that's what that's what they're paying attention to. Right. That's what that's what all of these people in that sector are paying attention to. So when we talk about the job market and trying to attract and acquire these people, we've got to at least be aware we don't have to be working in those spaces, but aware that those people are interested in looking at those spaces, whether they're on social media, or talking to their friends. And And hey, why not use that skill set, like we keep saying, to bring them into the automotive sector, and execute something new that you never could imagine a dream of.

Paul Daly  17:44

Here's what I love when this quote from the article it says the students interviewed found their passion for crypto outside classrooms altogether. They mentioned blockchain clubs and discord channels as common experiences. But overwhelmingly, they said they learned about crypto online on their own. And so as we talk about, like when someone's passionate about something, you ignite something in somebody, we've seen it so much in the automotive industry, because we said it has no ceiling, but it also has no floor. So when you ignite something in somebody that never, you know, saw auto heard about auto considered auto and you were like, Hey, this is a great place to work. This is a lot of cars are actually a lot of fun. And when you have an amazing culture and amazing team, amazing opportunity, guess what, you can get that spark going in somebody. And so all the people that would typically maybe go into other industries or going to real estate or going to restaurants. Or look, maybe it's just the customer service rep at Chipotle, right? But maybe it's our opportunity, we have to turn over these individuals into being believers in the automotive industry and get rid of the stigmas, which is one of the big reasons we do the work we do.

Kyle Mountsier  18:54

Exactly, exactly. It's a major reason why we do the work we do because we really, really believe in the franchise retail automotive industry, and that we can not just attract great talent, build culture, but also shift the perception, a lot of motive for the entire culture. And that's what we're after. And we're asking, if you're listening, if you're watching, we're asking you to be a part of it.

Paul Daly  19:16

I can't finish any better than that. One of the ways to be part of it is to sign up for the email list again, tomorrow is going to be hot. asotu.com Share with your friends because I'm telling you Tomorrow's the day. Tomorrow's the day everybody. See you tomorrow.

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