Partner Break Ups, EV Glow Ups, Rousing Talk From Lowe’s CEO

‍SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:28

Welcome to Wednesday, friends, campers even. We got we were on the ground in Baltimore yesterday we have so much we're excited to tell you about. But today we're talking about partner breakups, Evie glow ups and a rousing talk from the Lowe's CEO. Every once in a while. Every once in a while I get the timing right on the intro. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier  00:47

that was tight. I'm impressed. Because you had you worked in like more than just the show notes. You worked in some like you we've done the both. I was impressed.

Paul Daly  00:55

Yeah, we were on. This is one of those times where I'm exhausted from like, lack of sleep over the last few days. But I'm so excited because we spent the day yesterday in Baltimore with our event. I don't know what to call manager, our coutry our production slash Content Manager Nathan on our team, and like the eight people that the hotel and casino had ready for us when we showed up,

Kyle Mountsier  01:19

which surprised me. They were ready to go. Yeah, I mean, oh, yeah, I

Paul Daly  01:23

guess we are kind of putting on a big event, you should have a professional

Kyle Mountsier  01:25

environment. And yeah, if you haven't checked it, you can head to either of our Instagram profiles, either the asoto or Soto events profile, check out the stories and just kind of see a little bit of the vibe. We'll be dropping some more information over the next like 30 days about what Baltimore is going to look like timing opportunities get there everything.

Paul Daly  01:45

Circle your calendar circle the last week of September. What I What are the dates comm 26. Monday

Kyle Mountsier  01:51

night, the 25th. Full day, Tuesday, four day Wednesday, rollout on Thursday, be home in time for the end of the month.

Paul Daly  01:59

Let's go and that's a Saturday close what a great month to have a soda.

Kyle Mountsier  02:03

It is just a vibe. And

Paul Daly  02:05

Saturday close. Yeah. So we're excited a lot more to come out. But in eight days from now, eight day countdown is the NADA show. Everybody in the auto is kind of talking about it, whether you're going or you're not no reason to feel bad, we're going to bring you all the stuff we can, we are bringing a huge production team, we are going to be podcasting live streaming, posting on our social social accounts. Act followed, by the way, follow us so to events, on Instagram, that's where you're gonna get the stories and the kind of like the real in the dirt on the ground stuff in real time. So if you can't go, we're trying to bring the show to you. So make sure you set reminders, follow us on LinkedIn, so that you can kind of see all this stuff and be a part of the event. If you're going to be there. Please say hi, if you see our little pirate ship of sort of

Kyle Mountsier  02:50

real quick, I'm starting to see a lot of comparisons, like people, a lot of people in auto went to CES this year note, you know, without a doubt a auto centric event. And I think there's a there's a lot of questions like, Is nada going to mirror the pop culture narrative of CES? Or is it just kind of going to be in the same vibe? Or are we going to hear and see a lot more, you know, Evie conversations or mobility or technology Conversations. I'm sure there'll be a round, but it'll be interesting to like, see the parody between the two events and kind of understand, you know, where Otto sits in understanding the pop culture narrative as like an internal dealer network? Ah,

Paul Daly  03:30

that's a very good question I have my suspicion is that it's going to be like, opposite. Like it's not going to be it's not going to be anything like CES. But there is this like Special Forces embedded mentality in retail automotive, couple of guys I know of beards and hats are working to make this a bigger force that are going to be pushing that conversation to the top and tying into the pop culture narrative. If you're with us, and we know you are if you're watching the show already. Let's make that message a little bit louder. That like I'm not talking about like going all in on EVs. I'm talking about pop culture, listening to consumer behaviors and data and sentiment and reacting to that.

Kyle Mountsier  04:10

Yep. Understanding the news. Let's do it

Paul Daly  04:13

getting into the other person. Segue. Yeah, all right. I covered this in this morning's email as well. The Evie partnership between Ford and VW. That has been a big part of Ford's kind of Evie development is likely to be short lived. The partnership was announced in the year 2000. And was for to use VW is MBB. Evie architecture to speed its development process at the time, they said by as much as two years. And they'll be releasing their first vehicle that was kind of the result of that, which is a small sport crossover, similar to the ID four. They'll be releasing that very soon. I think it's like in March. And but they sense that they're going to be moving away from that and looking to leverage their own technology that you've seen in the Ford F 150. Lightning, or or in the mach II To, you know, leverage that stuff in future vehicles. And I guess that really makes sense. And I'm sure they learned a whole lot in there to your partnership.

Kyle Mountsier  05:10

Well, it's interesting, you know, because Ford has done many of these partnerships over the last 15 to 20 years. And they really like in the mid teens divorced of all partnerships. And so, you know, back in 2020, when this partnership came back in it was kind of an interesting move, because Ford wasn't used to that hadn't hadn't been doing that for a little while. But to get ahead in the Evie market, understand the battery technology. Obviously, VW is architecture and battery technology is is ahead of a lot right now. So it'll be interesting to see whether or not Ford can continue to keep up because I'm sure that they've used some of the that r&d in understanding like what's going on in their own tech. So it's interesting, but I think, like maybe just kind of like anecdotal in the in the overall scheme of things. Yeah,

Paul Daly  06:00

I think it highlights, it highlights how little companies were actually putting into evey development in just just a couple of years ago. And 2020 Ford is like, hey, we need a partnership to do this. Well, like the shift that happened between that partnership announcement in 2020. And then 2022, I think is staggering. I'm gonna read the telling it like it is from our email. If you don't get our regular email, you should really subscribe to because it's worth it. It'd be the best email you read every morning. And telling it like it is is a little section we put at the end of each story to give you a little fun take on it you can get the email at a soda.com for free. So here's the telling it like it is a following this article says breakups are never easy to get your mind off it try taking up a new hobby watching your favorite movies, reinventing your electric vehicle platform from scratch, increasing your aggression in the biggest auto market in the world or call your mom. A little bit of a why not like it

Kyle Mountsier  06:56

that got me that got me this morning. No doubt. Oh man. Well, speaking of EVs Yes.

Paul Daly  07:04

We've at one point in the show, and maybe this was like over a year ago when we were still when we started the show. We were like we're gonna try not to talk about EVs every day.

Kyle Mountsier  07:13

Right? Really tough. Okay, so because and some people have asked me like, Why do you talk about EVs all the time? Well, there's a couple things. One is there isn't awareness factor that we as an industry need to continue to have even just making our customers aware of what's going on in the ecosystem. But also, just what we're trying to do is bring context to the relative news in in the news ecosystem and in the media ecosystem right now. And so that's what the prevailing narrative is. And I think like, if you listen long enough, you understand that we we want to take a balanced approach to this, we're not all like, all in on AV. It's just hey, this is what this is, what pop culture narrative is, you're listening to, how do we pull that back into current state status of retail Auto, and making that customer communication seamless? That's That's

Paul Daly  07:59

well said. Well said, happy to just lay that on the table

Kyle Mountsier  08:02

forever.

Paul Daly  08:03

Every once in a while, we'll try to give you a little broad view of just things that have popped over the last week in evey news. So we're gonna give you a few things today. First Corvette, they announced yesterday, they get they're getting electrified with its $104,000 gas electric hybrid e Ray. It was kind of fun looking into this vehicle. So first ever all wheel drive system, which is cool, right, better traction better taken off 160 horsepower, electric motor on the front axle, and the 495 horsepower 6.2 smallblock in the rear, so it's actually a two kind of drive train zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds, which sounds awesome, until you realize that the 06 gas only could do zero to 60 in 2.6 seconds, so absolutely unnoticeable. I was I bet I bet the 06 sounds a little different getting the 60 than the Eevee but I bet it sounds pretty cool. So you got the engine?

Kyle Mountsier  08:53

No, it's the same. It's the same V eight pound the rear wheels.

Paul Daly  08:57

It's not working as hard. You don't say? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I probably would notice but my favorite like

Kyle Mountsier  09:04

I'm like this is like a fake all wheel drive and Corvette just trying to live in the thing that like we are quote unquote all wheel drive because we put a little measly 160 horsepower on the front wheels. Hey, go I wasn't making

Paul Daly  09:18

baby steps. It's not a plug in hybrid. So you can't like run on battery only or you can't charge the battery the battery is discharged from you know, coasting and braking and all that. But this is the coolest feature in my mind and neighbors of anyone with a Corvette rejoice because we drove out there is a stealth mode that allows drivers to silently exit their neighborhood with only battery power up to 45 miles an hour. So I think that's cool little thing just fun. When you call it stealth mode every new it's like I need to activate stealth mode.

Kyle Mountsier  09:46

Right you make a sound when you press the button you

Paul Daly  09:50

have a red light should come on right like You're like military special. So the next story we're gonna talk about is federal tax credit of up to $4,000 for used EVs. goes into effect now that we're in 2023. The parameters are pretty tight. And I think it's pretty funny when you go into the clicking the article, look at the list of cars to be less than two years old and under $25,000 sales price, which is basically none of them. And

Kyle Mountsier  10:13

when you look find an Eevee for under 25k, that

Paul Daly  10:16

has years old, right? And it's got to happen under like 25,000 miles to so like, that's pretty much none of them. And if you go on the list, it's like, here are all the eligible cars. The first one on the list because of alphabetical order is the Audi e Tron. Right? Hey, if you can find one for under 25 kid like, great, you're getting $4,000 off. And finally, last little point, Tesla has increased the price of their 48 amp two stage tutor or a level two charger home charger. It's that little one that you've seen before. So it was $400 in November, and then they reduced the price to 350. Maybe it was a Christmas sale? I don't know. But now they've increased the price in January to 425. Still one of the least level two chargers expensive level two chargers on the market. But I mean, that's just a movie news. I feel like we need a segment thing for that now. Yeah. I don't know. Like a lightning bolt. Like something from life? I don't know.

Kyle Mountsier  11:16

That's, that's how you get today. We don't even have a segue.

Paul Daly  11:21

Let's see. Speaking of speaking of lightning bolts I always love it when I when I when I just hear something said from a leader that I had no idea was even out there. And I'm like,

Kyle Mountsier  11:37

Oh, they get it. Oh, that's why. That's why they

Paul Daly  11:40

get it. Let's take this you want me to take it?

Kyle Mountsier  11:43

Well, so this year at the National Retail Federation show which just as a note like why why do we in auto not get invited to the National Retail Federation show. Like the fact that they use the word Federation Federation, low successful CEO Marvin Ellison gave a rousing talk on his journey and gave some good advice to aspiring executives listen to this. His advice is to just take tough assignments. He said over his 25 career, 25 year career, the only jobs he's ever taken were roles where someone who needs are either fired or pushed out ahead of him. So he was always advancing into these tough roles. If he missed it says Mr. Allison, who is also black also noted that not too many people that look like me have been able to lead to Fortune 500 companies also including JC Penney, he also lacked an elite education from a prestigious education institution and early access to executive sponsors. So this guy has like fought basically what he's saying, like I fought my way I've worked the hard work I took on after this tough stuff. And I'm looking at my other aspiring executives going, those are the things that you want to get into. Because that's the those are the challenges that make you stronger as a leader as an executive in pursuit of not just like the fluff job next, but going after the hard one. And that's incurred, like one that's encouraging to me, because I always feel like I get myself in situations and I'm a bit in over my head. Right? And it's like, okay, what do I do next? Yeah, and I think that that's what, you know, provides the opportunity to go, Okay, I've got to figure this out. Or, or there's no way it's gonna happen. You know, this isn't just gonna come easy,

Paul Daly  13:21

legit. I mean, I think that's a relevant message for automotive. Specifically, in a time like this. When things are shifting, things are changing, changing. We're seeing a lot of the next generation stepping up or saying they want to step up. Lot of people say they do this advice, take the tough jobs. He also said to his parents, we don't want to say well, I didn't have the prestigious education. I didn't have access to executives to mentor me and show me how it is early. He did say his parents were incredibly influential, and teaching him perseverance and built his ethic on the pillars of putting God first focusing on education, and working hard. One of his goals is trying to create a company I wish I could have worked for when I was coming up the ranks. There you go, that's our encouragement to you. Take some tough jobs and create the environment that you wish you had getting you to that spot so that the next person can and you can go even higher. Let's go automotive. It's only Wednesday.

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