Quick Shot EV Updates, Nuclear Fusion Working, Tiktok As A News Source

December 15, 2022
Thursday is full of surprises as we update you on several EV ongoings. We also talk about the long awaited success of nuclear fusion (yep), as well as Tiktok being a growing source of news…but not from traditional sources.
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Weekly EV update:

  • Toyota is set to announce detailed changes to its electric vehicle (EV) strategy to key suppliers early next year, as it seeks to narrow the gap with Tesla and BYD on price and performance
  • Involves possible plans for the succession of its three year old e-TNGA platform which was a compromise to manufacturer EVs on the same assembly lines as gasoline powered vehicles
  • e-TNGA was developed on the assumption of making 3.5M EVs per year which has now more than tripled
  • Mazda has announced that its upcoming 2024 Mazda CX-90 will be its first plug-in hybrid electric vehicle in the US
  • The CX-90 is thought to be based on the European-produced CX-60, which is propelled by an inline-four engine combined with an electric motor
  • The CX-60 can drive 35 miles on electric only and would get a combined mpg of 157 miles
  • Rivian and Mercedes-Benz have put their plans to co-develop multiple new electric delivery vans on pause
  • Rivian is concerned about spending large amounts of money on an expensive new vehicle development project amid a slowing economy
  • Mercedes-Benz will continue with its plans to scale up electric vehicle production at its manufacturing site in Poland.
  • Rivian stock bumped 10% on the original agreement and subsequently lost it with this new announcement


With all this talk about clean energy, nuclear fusion was feeling left out so it announced a huge breakthrough this week: net energy gain

  • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced a breakthrough in controlled-fusion energy.
  • Fusion-energy companies have raised over $5 billion in private funding, roughly double the amount from a year ago.
  • Commercialization of the technology is still years, if not decades, away.


Move over mainstream media, a new report by Reuters shows that young users are increasing choosing Tiktok as their go to news source

  • We already knew that over 40% of those same users prefer Tiktok for search, but now its trending to include news also
  • When asked which outlets they trust on those platforms, 36% look to internet personalities, followed by 18% ordinary people, mainstream media comes in at 14%, which is still a lot more than individual politicians which come it at 8%

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SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly


Paul Daly  00:21

Welcome to Thursday, everyone calls in Atlanta. I'm home base for me in Syracuse. And the reason we're coming to you like 17 to 20 minutes late is because they couldn't fix the dang baggage conveyor in time. Again, this is why idle fly with baggage people. This is why we can't have nice things, Paul. You know, there's a flight. It's like 40 minutes for Kyle from, you know, Nashville to Atlanta. We're looking last night. Oh, no problem. I'll be on the ground. We'll do the show. It's a sunny day, like first flight of the day. We're like, they will never go wrong. Clear.


Kyle Mountsier  01:00

I've been to Atlanta. I don't know how many times out of Nashville in the morning literally never had to delay and then this morning, they get on we're sitting there for probably 1520 minutes and everyone's kind of looking around like okay, you know, it's Nashville to Atlanta. This shouldn't be that hard. Like, come on in there like so the news is literally the baggage conveyor belt that gets the baggage from the front of the airport to the back of the airport has shut down. The airport thing? Yeah, we looked at like, literally every airline is down and we look out and these guys, they're literally like hand carrying because I've just seen a


Paul Daly  01:32

hole in it. So rough morning props to the folks at the Nashville. BNA this morning, hand carrying baggage. Speaking of being Oh, speaking in Nashville, he's gonna hit stop, right. They're nice, nice with a little graphic on the screen. Yeah, we're less than a week away Tuesday, December 20. We're doing the year end live stream on wheels up with my family to Nashville to come hang out with you and your family tomorrow. And we're gonna see some time a little bit, get set up so that we can be fully prepared for the year end extravaganza we got people flying in to be guests. We got a live studio audience we got a live band, we have producers, we have cameras and lights and set deck. We have all this stuff. So December 20 Mark your calendar between two and 4pm. Eastern or go to our LinkedIn page or just go to a soy two.com Get all the details for however you want to watch it but please, please be there with us on the live stream on Tuesday.


Kyle Mountsier  02:31

It's gonna check out the live stream online if you're in Nashville, Birmingham, Louisville, Atlanta, Jackson, Memphis anywhere like those surrounding areas come on in. We've got a whole bunch of people just kind of it's gonna be a little atmosphere. I got a I got like probably five or six texts. Hey, I know I've been I haven't bought my tickets. I haven't got I'm coming. We're I'm gonna be there. So it'll be yes. And


Paul Daly  02:51

join us live. Yeah, join us live because we even have a game show. We have a game show full ridiculous. We talked about what


Kyle Mountsier  03:00

Paul goes. I'm explaining the game show because when Paul was sick the other day, we kind of figured out the game show and he's like So you're telling me that the same people are going to be doing the same things and everybody's


Paul Daly  03:10

still not know if that's gonna work. I still don't know if that's gonna work. But if you want to see the people that you respect in automotive make total fools of themselves trying to draw things and guess what they are with Michael Cirillo as the host that you need to be on the live she also got a lot of great a lot of great collaborators helping us out a lot of great well with she's gonna you're gonna get to see from across the industry. And we're going to talk about 2023 and what we think is going to happen there, so please don't miss it. And the fact that December 20 is one of my favorite days. Because a year in extravaganza, my usual favorite day of the winter season is actually December 21, otherwise known as winter solstice is a different date every year, but it's the day that the day start getting longer again. That means the day starts to reverse and the sunlight starts to catch back up to the darkness and in upstate New York and the Northeast in general. That is a very, very welcome day, it's worth celebrating so things are getting long again. So let's get to some news. So we'd like to give you an Eevee updates every once in a while we batch a few together to make it easy for you to follow along. So we're gonna hit up we're gonna hit talking about Toyota, Mazda and rivian. Today, Toyota is set to announce according to inside sources, detailed changes to its Evie strategy with key suppliers next year, as it tries to narrow the gap between you know them and like Tesla and BYD.


Kyle Mountsier  04:26

I wish we had I wish we had a little trigger pad there's like under pressure, right?


Paul Daly  04:32

Right. So they're feeling it. And so here's the here's the real deal. I had to look into this a little bit because I was like, okay, great strategy, that they're gonna change something what kind of news is that? But basically, possibly, possibly, but likely plans to succeed their three year old e as this is an E tinga TNGA platform, who knows, which is basically they develop the Tango platform is going to call it that to be able to produce EVs on the same manufacturing lines as their gasoline powered engines. So it was like a compromise, right? It's not going to be super efficient for either, but they thought, hey, we're gonna need to make three and a half million EVs a year. But that number now is more than like triple, almost quadruple. So plans of like abandoning that almost after three or four years and going dedicated evey lines is something that they're talking about.


Kyle Mountsier  05:17

Yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, this is like the classic split, everybody kind of saw it like going a little bit slower, you know, being on the same kind of lines. And then we've seen manufacturers complete their whole business split their whole business model. Now it's like, Yep, no, we got to split the assembly plants, or at least figure out a new assembly line process for this. I'm going to leave it to Tesla to probably lock that down pretty pretty solidly. Already, Toyota, Toyota, Toyota did a lock that down solidly just because they were factoring processes. But I can definitely you can see the pressure coming from all sides both politically and from consumers asking for more of these EVs and yeah, I'm, I'm not shying away from it. Speaking of things I'm not shying away from


Paul Daly  05:59

Sweet figures for you baby ever I see mas I think you


Kyle Mountsier  06:05

man I'm still a Mazda through and through even though I'm not working for him anymore. I wish Mazda had every type of vehicle line that I could ever want because I just enjoyed the drive but they are finally releasing a national and a nationwide vehicle the Mazda CX 90 will be its first plug in hybrid electric vehicle available nationwide. It's going to be a based on a current vehicle the XC 60 which is already available in Europe and it will be looking at a Kia


Paul Daly  06:33

Telluride right now everybody if you're watching the live stream Telluride snuck in I was like that looks a lot like my tight oh it is a Telluride. A little disclaimer we know the


Kyle Mountsier  06:46

debates they do look very similar though. But combined bio MPG D 157 miles so you know it's for Mazda I think they're gonna get it right they've got the Toyota partnership the vehicles always look amazing and you know, they've they've been slow to market just because they have like we've talked about this before their their miles per gallon averages are so high that they're not battling against like EPA guidelines. And so they've been a little slower to market with with hybrid and EV technology. But I think similar to Toyota, they're going to come to the market winning because the powertrain technologies are always strong.


Paul Daly  07:24

No doubt if that car that car comes with that gas mileage and that Evie for commuter like me, My commute is short enough that I could get through a whole week on a gallon of gas, we'll take it go, we will take it last than the Eevee lineup riviana Mercedes Benz have put their plans to develop multiple new electric delivery vans on hold. You know, reviens concerned about spending too much money on, you know, on this, this whole venture, and we know that Vivian's already cutting back, they're kind of on their heels a little bit being very careful about where they're spending their money. Mercedes is like, Okay, that's cool. We're still gonna, you know, we can develop this on our own no problem. So this is like one of those, like, it was big news when it got announced because rivian stock grabbed that, you know, a 10% Bump. And, you know, when they announced this, it lost 10%. So I guess, you know, no harm, no foul unless you bought at the wrong time or sold at the wrong time.


Kyle Mountsier  08:13

Yeah, it's it's, I mean, everyone's jockeying for position and relationships at this point. And I thought that the rivian Mercedes Benz especially just because of the platforms, the look, the fields made up, made a whole bunch of shirts, but I can understand where, you know, the changes in markets, and the change in an economy is definitely gonna is is going to change that, you know, Mercedes, is definitely pressing the boundaries on design right now. So we'll see what it comes. You know,


Paul Daly  08:37

the EV, like, the partnership is like a lot like college rules right now. Right? It's like Friday night college rules, things that made a lot of sense at one point, no longer make any sense once you grow up, again, a little bit more mature. So I mean, I'm just kind of taking all the relationships in the world, just like Friday night college rules. Back in the day. I got a couple more news stories. Well, speaking of all this clean energy segue. This is a day that I've been thinking of, since Back to the Future two came out. And the professor had Mr. Fusion on the back of the DeLorean. So with nuclear fusion, is like happening for real for real. And this is like combining two atoms, basically the combined two atoms together to create energy, right? So like a nuclear bomb, all that comes when you split an atom apart, and it creates energy obviously, you can't really harness that or you still takes a lot of energy to break apart. This is putting atoms together and for the first time ever in history, do we have the picture that did you already put it up? Did I miss it? Look at this machine. That's an actual machine. It looks like something out of you know, like Marvel infinity war that is going to create interdimensional travel I can't believe that's a functioning machine but basically, they put two atoms together, it does something to the nucleus that created the finally they were able to create a net positive energy gain, meaning by do this, they created more energy than it took to do it. Funding for these types of things is skyrocketing. This announcement they were already saying calls are flooding in from investor saying, can we invest here? Can we invest here? Although they're saying commercialization of this, it's going to take years, probably decades before it's producing something, but I guess that's I mean, it's the future of clean energy. Right. Yeah. I mean, I've made about


Kyle Mountsier  10:23

I think it's a lot of the future of clean energy. And when you think about, like, looking at that, if you were to pin that up against a computer in 1960 1970, right, it's, it looks kind of the same size. It's the same look. Now this has a lot more to do with like, whistling together very well. I'll let you know things, right. Yeah. Yeah, it's an extremely volatile. But the benefit here of having a net positive gain as compared to like losing energy, trying to make one of like one nuclear fusion happened is a massive step, because now everything from here is positive up. And I think that the money invested is probably going to go a pretty long way at this point.


Paul Daly  11:04

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. All right. Finally, today, move over mainstream media, you know, kind of something we say around here a lot. Anyway, a new report by Reuters shows that young users are increasingly using get this wait for the big surprise here. They're using Tiktok as their go to news source. Now, we already knew that over 40% of those same users use Tik Tok for search. We've talked about that on this show. Like you know, like when you want to find a restaurant, you don't search Google you search Tik Tok, right, because you trust the people. You don't trust the man. But now it's trending into finding their news also, when asked which outlets they trust, so like they're already going to Tik Tok for their Tik Tok for their news. And they said, Well, where do you go for your news? Right? Why 36% of them, go to internet personality so that our personalities talking about the new 18% is the next highest, which is ordinary people. So those two together equal 54%. Right? So I'm going to listen to all the personalities that have no vested interest in being sensational for me to come back to them. And not just any old, ordinary person, right? Well trust them with the news and then a distant third is mainstream media at 14%. And not surprisingly, coming in last, only 8% of them would trust the politician for the news. I mean, honestly, the future


Kyle Mountsier  12:23

did this is why it's wild. Like we have to think about this as as a culture as as people that are being informed and even just like from an specifically auto perspective, like what, how are people you know, moving from like, okay, Consumer Reports in the 90s, early 2000s was the authority on what vehicle should I buy? To now like, what's the authority on what vehicle should I buy? Influencer and internet personalities and ordinary people sharing their stories about vehicles that are in the market right now? Like, that's where people are going to find out what they should do next from purchase behaviors, political understanding, to to news, mainstream media, all of that type of stuff is living on platforms like this. So like, if you're not thinking about that, as a business, even even relating to that night, it might not even be be you doing social, but understanding that that's where people are garnishing their opinions. That's a big deal in business.


Paul Daly  13:10

You do realize where this place is us. Can you call us mainstream media yet? No, let's, let's say, Oh. Maybe I'm being a tourist. But I'm placing us as internet personalities right now. Let's do we are certainly not ordinary. Definitely not ordinary. Yeah. But I think this is this is the game like you watch how and if you were to look at the data a little bit more, you realize, like on Facebook, it looks a lot different. But still, ordinary people actually rank pretty high. Although mainstream media ranks a lot higher. If you think about the demographic grew up trusting mainstream media, we're just, there's just a growing distrust around mainstream media, when you look at the next generation coming through, like that's not going to get any better. So I think people that are curating we like to call them the DJs that play all the good songs, right, you can't listen. And so like the need for the personalities to really stay true to the facts from multiple sources, and you know, you're gonna get their flavor of commentary. But really, I mean, that that is going to be the the game in the next in the next 20 years, for sure. So it's fun to be on this side of it.


Kyle Mountsier  14:19

It's fun to be on this side of it's fun. It's fun. Let's go. So


Paul Daly  14:21

speaking of fun, we got a lot of running around new cars in the dirt with some dealerships. today. We'll hold down the four home we're all putting together in the urine extravaganza on the 28th. Mark your calendar, go on LinkedIn. Join the event right now and go crush something this Thursday already.

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