AAH #751 - Boosting PHEV Range to 70 Miles... With Software

TOPIC: Hybrid Technology PANEL: William Lawrie, Magna; Brett Smith, Auto Industry Expert; Gary Vasilash, shinymetalboxes.net; John McElroy, Autoline.tv

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Out Online after Hours is brought to you by bridge
Stone Tires Solutions for your journey.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Everybody, thanks for joining us on Outline after Hours. Got
an interesting show today, we're gonna be talking about it.
He has a lot for the first half. We'll get
into the news of the week and the second half.
But let me introduce our guests. We've got Will Lowry
from Magna, director of Powertrain. Do I have that right?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Program manager?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Program manager tried to give you a promotion. The show
will help you get it in.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
And we got Brett Smith, formerly of the Center of
Automotive Research, but still a guy that knows ton about this.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
Industry, still playing in the industry quite a bit. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:42):
Good, you know two or three things about powertrain too.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
I've been around powertrain. It's good stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah. And then to make it official, Hello, Gary John,
how are you? I'm rocking man? Good, good, good, I'm
busting to get this going.

Speaker 5 (00:58):
So you guys have developed something called the Intelligent that's
with an e intelligent all one word command power train system.
What is it and why do we care?

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, that's a great question.

Speaker 6 (01:13):
The Intelligent Command is is our version of what a
potential p vehicle could look like we've been able to
retrofit an existing vehicle, strip out the powertrain from it,
and add in some of our own products today. Right,
so everything related to the drive line system we pretty
much removed with while leaving the traditional three cylinder engine

(01:34):
in place. We're able to implement a hybrid transmission, a
four hundred volt application, put in a higher power E
drive in the rear axle, and demonstrate a number of
different technologies to the public, to OEMs, to internal customers
as well. It allows us to show hardware, software, scalability, capability.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
All of it. So it's quite a useful tool that
we have now.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well, the thing that caught my eye and why I
really wanted you on the show is you're talking seventy
mile range with this PHF. Most phfs you know better
than I do typically in the twenty to forty mile range.
So are you telling me you can take sort of
an existing p have plug in hybrid electric vehicle, add

(02:21):
your magic to it and significantly increase its rangery just
throwing a bigger battery into the thing.

Speaker 6 (02:27):
No, that's a good question. We do a number of
different things to be able to kind of hit those.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Types of targets.

Speaker 6 (02:33):
The cool part about this system is that we've taken
a traditional multiple speed transmission pair it with an electric motor,
so you can get a highly efficient emotor and you
don't have to worry about hitting both high speed and
your lower torque or lower speed work requirements because you
have the flexibility of the shiftable gears to be able
to help you with that aspect. And then a blended

(02:55):
approach between both the rear emotor and the front emotor
allows you to kind of target the sweet spot of
where to operate those E machines to allow you to
get a further efficiency benefit out of the system over
what we you know, may see in a traditional bed vehicle.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
So a new kind of transmission plus some software you
can get a whole lot more range.

Speaker 6 (03:15):
Well, we take a lot of our existing products today,
Magnet supplies d C T transmissions globally. Already we supply
E drive technology as well globally. You know a number
of different clutch applications as well, and so if we
kind of take some of those building block components and
put them together into an application, we're providing something unique

(03:36):
that you don't really see in the industry right now
in an example technology that you know could be available.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
So what I'm getting at is you're not adding a
bigger battery to get the extra range. No, we're not,
see because that's so critically important.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
I know.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'm preaching to the choir here. You don't have to
add a whole lot more battery costs to get significant more.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
And John could be waiting to get get to the
point there.

Speaker 6 (03:58):
You're right, it's about smarter solutions, right, So we're leveraging
what we have, what's known in the industry today and
try to apply it in a smarter way. So we're
really trying to optimize a transmission system, an e drive application,
and a normal size battery.

Speaker 5 (04:12):
So okay, so you're talking about a dual clutch transmission,
which for a while seemed to have a growing popularity,
and it seems to me that it is that popularity
has waned somewhat. Now if we were looking at a
conventional step gear automatic transmission, this wouldn't work with that.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
In the way that we've configured it.

Speaker 6 (04:34):
No, the big benefit of this transmission is that you
get those quick, seamless, you know, very fast transmission shifts
that we come to know and love out of the DCTs,
and then the blending of transferring torque between both the
engine and the electric motor through those clutches is really
what allows it or enables it to do it in
the fashion that we are with this specific application. I

(04:58):
haven't looked into, you know, what it would look like
if you tried to add your traditional step transmission, torque
converter and other accessories in there, but we see this
to be the most efficient way to do it in
this type of application.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
One of the complaints, certainly it's been one of my
complaints with DCT transmissions, especially with small displacement engines, is
the launch off the line launch you don't have the
torque converter. You got to mash your foot more into it,
so you're using the emotors to make up for the
torque converter.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Is that right?

Speaker 6 (05:29):
Yeah, exactly that, So specifically for that maneuver as well,
the huge benefit is having that e machine with instantaneous
torque right available as soon as the driver pushes their
foot to the pedal, and then we can either choose
to blend in the engine almost instantaneously after that, knowing
that the engine spin up a little bit slower than
E machines, right, or we can choose to blend it
in a little bit later if we want to target

(05:49):
full ev driving range first before we want to really
rely on the ice engine in that scenario.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Well, you have the engine front real drive motor engine.
You also have an independent rear.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Motor, right, Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
Have you run it the models without the rear motor
and can you do that set up and still get
an efficient effective vehicle?

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (06:13):
So the way that this vehicle set up is we
use it to do exactly that.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
Right.

Speaker 6 (06:16):
We run studies of you know, a rewel drive based vehicle,
a front wheel drives you know drive based vehicle, all
wheel drive, and then our vehicle supervisory controls, which controls
the entire torque management to the system allows us to
target what's the most efficient operating range if we were
just in front wheel drive, or if you want to
blend the two different eMachines. And that's a large portion
of why we build these, you know, technology demonstrator vehicles

(06:39):
is to be able to do those kinds of studies,
work with the OEMs to show them, you know, what's
possible in different configurations. Learn more adapt the technology and
then eventually upgrade it and keep going.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
So so there was a time two three four years
ago where everything was going to be battery electric and
your customers came to you and said, battery electric. Has
that changed in the less three or four years where
you're seeing more push now for some of these old
fashion hybrids.

Speaker 5 (07:07):
I think this is a new fashion hybrid, right, new
final buying.

Speaker 6 (07:14):
Yeah, I think it's clear what we see in the
industry is the flexibility for customers to select the technology
that best suits them and their lifestyle.

Speaker 4 (07:22):
Right.

Speaker 6 (07:23):
I think OEM c it we as you know supplier
see it as well. I think it's important to make
sure that we have the diversified approach to different technologies
and how they can kind of play out for what
the OEM is looking for, right, and the end customers.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
So you have to be flexible.

Speaker 6 (07:37):
You have to be ready to go on a moment's
notice for a certain you know, style of technology, if
it's BEV, if it's traditional or a blended approach.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
Right.

Speaker 6 (07:45):
I myself am fond of the blended approach. I think
there's a lot of opportunity there to use technologies that
already exist today. Not having to reinvent the wheel and
kind of you know, scale from there as we learn
more and more about you know, some of the developing market.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Other thing is, it seems to me what you're describing
here is almost just bolt on without major tooling changes.

Speaker 6 (08:07):
I make it sound easy, but there's a lot of
a lot of complex engineering that goes into sure.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
But I mean for an automaker, if they were to
buy a system for you, they could easily retrofit it
to an existing vehicle or No.

Speaker 6 (08:20):
We do offer bespoke solutions, but we also offer, you know,
from our product portfolio, traditional applications or more let's call
unified applications that we can do that type of uh
of project. I think it's important for us to make
sure that we have the core building blocks, the core
foundation of those types of systems to make sure that

(08:42):
we can provide a relatively easily integrated solution to the OEM.
That's that's really what we want to focus on.

Speaker 5 (08:51):
So the systems a p have system, Why do you
guys decide to do that rather than just a conventional hybrid.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 6 (09:03):
I think mostly one the vehicle came as a PEV
off the lot as is right. We know that they
offered a hybrid electric version of this vehicle, so it
was easier to integrate that way. But we did see
a strategic opportunity where, knowing that the industry was going
towards ABOV application very heavily early on, this was kind
of a unique approach to be able to leverage some

(09:25):
of the infrastructure there, to be able to leverage some
of the maybe the modularity of you know, being able
to offer a platform that could be above or could
be a PEV with minimal changeover, right, so you could,
you know, if you went from a traditional have to
a full battery electric vehicle. Right, There's there's some steps
in between to get there at the vehicle architecture, right,
So you're adding your charger, you're adding the plug, you're

(09:47):
adding onboard diagnostics and stuff like that. And being able
to offer a solution that could easily go from an
ice architecture to above architecture is also something that you
could target with this type of application that went into
the consideration signing the vehicle.

Speaker 5 (10:00):
I thought it was interesting when you were describing how
you guys built this thing up.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
You said, we.

Speaker 5 (10:05):
Kept with the traditional three cylinder engine. So I mean,
so from a powertrain point of view, I mean, are
you seeing that as being becoming more common in terms
of hybrid vehicles using smaller combustion engines.

Speaker 6 (10:22):
I think it's probably a case by case at this point.
I think we see a lot of different directions from
a lot of different OEMs.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
The important part is being flexible to that.

Speaker 6 (10:30):
So if an OEM does want to go to a smaller, downsized,
you know, more optimized engine, being able to interface with that,
knowing what it would look like or take to be
able to design a system that bolts up or adapts
to that.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
But I think at the.

Speaker 6 (10:43):
Same time, if you know, if you wanted to go
to a higher output system. We see a lot of
performance BAC vehicles out there right that we know we
would have to interface as well. I can't say that
there's a clear emerging trend, but I think we do
see a lot of paths that that are willing to
explore at this point.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
We may talk about this a lot today, but there's
been this remarkable shift in technology in the last three
or four or five years out of China, where ten fifteen,
twenty years ago people talked about e revs, and they
immediately said, no, we don't do that. And in the
last two or three years we start to see a
whole lot of e revs extended range electric vehicles on

(11:28):
the market in China. Is that going to happen here?
Is that? What's what when you go to make a vehicle?
What now is different that says euevs are viable versus
the traditional parallel that not traditional, the new fangled parallel.
I'm sorry to yeah, but that thought process because again,

(11:48):
having watched the powertrain industry for twenty five thirty years,
there was a long period of time where people just
ignored the EVA. In the last five years it's become
something really viable, really intrigued.

Speaker 6 (12:00):
Yeah, I guess when I look at the erevs, what
I see is the the ability to get the benefits
of maybe ABOV application, but and also pretty specific, I
would say to the North America region, is that extended
range that we've you know, come to know and love
from gas engine vehicles. I think there's been a lot
of you know, publicity around you know, what's the right

(12:23):
range for above vehicle? And it seems to me that
that EREV technology is kind of bridging the gap between
you know, enabling the extended range and then the simplicity,
yet also the maybe that instantaneous torque depending on driver
feel less maintenance of the electrified vehicle space as well.
So I can't say if it'll end up that way

(12:44):
in maybe the North America US market region, but I
think it's I think it's important to you know, watch
the Asia Pacific region and and learn from, you know,
what they're doing as well.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
Well.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Just today on online daily our newscast, we had reports
of a buick in China e REV five hundred and
two horse power. I think it was Ford with the
Broncos Sports coming out with an EREV one point five
displacement engine. I don't know if it's three cylinder or not,

(13:18):
could be, but I think the interest in erevs is
that it might be a cheaper solution. I'd love to
get your input on this from the sense that you
don't need a transmission really, and you don't need a
drive shaft if it's a rear drive vehicle. And because
the extended range engine operates in a very small rev range,

(13:41):
it doesn't have the same duty cycle. You can get
fantastic thermodynamic efficiency out of it, as several Chinese companies
have done. At the same time, they're taking cost out
of that engine. So it just seems to me like
ee revs time has come.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, it definitely could.

Speaker 6 (13:58):
I think it's also maybe vehicle specific, right what you're
targeting to use that vehicle for, what's the end goal
of that application or that platform that they're looking for.
But for sure I could see in a scenario where
that would be the most effective and maybe cost effective
solution as well.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Well.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
DoD or excuse me, RAM was supposed to come out
with EREV pickup this year. I think it's been pushed
back into next year, but that seems the perfect application
to me. You know, if you're hauling heavy loads, towing
heavy loads a battery electric it just dies way too soon,
or you got to put a gigantic battery in the thing,
and even that doesn't provide enough range an e rev does.

(14:37):
So erevs just seem like to be in the sweet
spot for the US market.

Speaker 6 (14:42):
Yeah, it's an exciting technology to watch because it'll be
really cool to see how different OEMs kind of integrate
that style of approach to their platforms that they have,
or maybe even new platforms.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
So how do you and I'd love to PEV versus
e REV. What are your thoughts.

Speaker 6 (14:59):
Yeah, I think when we look at PEVs, they tend
to seem a little bit more closer to what the
average American is used to today. So for the users that
are probably a little bit more comfortable with a traditional vehicle,
it's probably something easier to get into when they talk
about bridging over to the hybridization or the electrified area.

(15:19):
And then if you have maybe early adopters or people
who are very quick to jump onto new technologies, I
think that EREV application specifically, as you mentioned, is going
to be a very popular one for those types of consumers.
So I myself, i'd like to see the walk from
the traditional products through the hybrid eyed the p have
applications up into the BEV technology. We're kind of doing

(15:43):
it all at once right now, right just from the
market today, So I think time will show what's the
clear direction for regional specific interest. But right now, at
least in the US, we're seeing a lot of all
types of technology. It's exciting. It's an exciting time.

Speaker 5 (15:59):
In your system. The Etelligent Command power train system, it
has Magna's Dedicated Hybrid drive.

Speaker 6 (16:09):
Plus what is then, So that's the dedicated Hybrid drive
is what we refer to as DHD for the acronym, right,
And it's a portfolio of transmissions that we have kind
of taken from the DCT transmissions that we've learned in
the past, some of our ele traditional transmission business and
kind of electrified it to you know, the four hundred

(16:31):
fold application space. And it's really a family of scalable
solutions for electrified transmissions and they're targeted on that electrified
driving first using the engine second. Right, So whether the
range is you know, almost seventy miles there, or if
you want to use it as a blended hybrid electric

(16:52):
vehicle approach without your typical PF architecture, it's flexible and
it's scalable to do that. But that Dedicated Hybrid Drive
is really a folio that encompasses a number of different
applications for it.

Speaker 5 (17:03):
So if you guys are getting seventy miles pure electric
on this, what are you getting in terms of overall
miles range from the hybrid system?

Speaker 6 (17:18):
I guess as it sits today. It's as it sits today.

Speaker 5 (17:26):
That's the answer the question.

Speaker 6 (17:28):
So I guess I don't have a good answer for
you in terms of a number. It's a prototype vehicle,
right that's been retrofitted with this application. What we're really
focused on that with that vehicle is to show that
it's capable to increase that electrified driving range first, and
then it comes up to the customer to determine what size,
what size gas tank do they want to pair with that,
how often do they want to use the engine with

(17:48):
a blended strategy of the emachine or do they want
to primarily focus on ev range first. So for us,
our core component of what ends up in the in
the vehicle is that first let's call it seventy mile
range of that technology as it sits today. So that's
what we focus on within our division of powertrain and
how we can provide and enable the customer to do more.

(18:09):
What the end result ends up being is really up
to the OEM themselves.

Speaker 4 (18:13):
Well, over the years, Magna has had this history of
doing these demonstrators. There's a lot of companies have and
they learned stuff from it. I remember I think the
Ford Focus twenty twelve was a Magna based vehicle a
long time ago. Then they had we're talking.

Speaker 5 (18:29):
About it was a fusion. It was a fusion.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
Okay, we'll go back and check that one. But you've
had this experience over time, and each time you learned something,
what was your AHA from this project? The thing that
you will said that that's something good we did or
something interesting we didn't know.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
That's a good question.

Speaker 6 (18:52):
I wouldn't say interested didn't know was the AHA moment,
But maybe the wow this is achievable is is really
the ability to drive. So with this transmission that we
have in the front specific portion or front axle of
the vehicle, is the ability to drive the engine and
the emachine through two different parallel transmission shafts at the

(19:14):
same time. So that's kind of the AHA moment for
everybody who drives it once they realize what's actually happening
from the technology itself. So it's cool to think about
from an engineering standpoint because you're technically driving two different
inputs to the wheels at the same time, but you
also have the ability and the flexibility to shift between
those two on the fly as needed. So if you're

(19:36):
performing maybe a transmission shift with the engine to get
the engine back into an ideal operating RPM, you can
pump up your e machine or your emotor torque to
fill in that missing torque coming out of the engine
and the driver and everyone knows it. It feels like you're
accelerating at a constant pace the entire time.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Sounds like this was a massive calibration project.

Speaker 6 (19:56):
Yeah, there's a lot of work that went into us.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
It's a global engineering.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
When you do it simulation, Does that get you down
the road or does it have to be at a
track or approving ground.

Speaker 6 (20:05):
No, we definitely do a lot of simulation work. I
think it's important to leverage, you know, especially with the
way that technology is changing today and how fast it's changing.
You have to be flexible to analyze these systems make
design changes on the fly, and you can't do that
with hardware parts all the time, right, So we do
a lot of simulation, especially on types of projects like these,
to understand what's the impact of the transmission shift, how

(20:27):
much you know, how big of an emotor can you
put in the system, what's required from a final drive standpoint,
all of those types of things that go to simulation
first before they even go to mechanical parts.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
The seventy miles is there? What was that like a
magic number or is that where you ended up? Here's
what we can achieve. And the reason I asked this
is a lot of people in our audience are big
believers in p HAS, but they've been writing to me saying,
I want one hundred miles range. I think they'd be
very satisfied with seventy, but they're asking for one hundred,
and I just wondered, is there any consumer research? Is

(21:00):
there a magic number or you guys just said, hey,
we can get seventy, and that's the number we're publishing.

Speaker 6 (21:06):
No, I'd say it's a blend between I guess targets
and what's capable of a vehicle that size. Sure, if
we went to a bigger sized vehicle, we could do
a bigger battery and we end up with one hundred
and twenty miles, right. It just it depends on a
flexibility and a balance of the system. So we had
a target in mind, and seventy is is very close

(21:27):
to what our target was. It's it also drives you
know what size e machine that you want to put
in the vehicle, so you're really turning you know, ten
different knobs at once to get to your final result.
And you may not end up on that exact you know,
that exact line you're looking for, But seventy was for
sure in line with the target what we're looking for.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Seventy is impressive because, yeah, that's one of my complaints about.
We get to chest drive a lot of pehabs, and
the nice thing about them is they're small batteries. So
I come in here in the morning at the plugget
in and net by lunchtime though things full charged. But yeah,
typically they get a lot less than forty miles, right.

Speaker 6 (22:06):
Yeah, it's interesting to see the number of different technologies
out there and how people are kind of approaching that
same topic, right. I think the range of an electrified vehicle,
whether it's a PHEV or above, is a big topic
right now, right, and so we see a number of
different companies approaching it in different ways. We have our
own approach internally, right, We don't own the entire system

(22:27):
of the vehicle, but we contribute, you know, largely to
that being a drive line supplier.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
So maybe you don't want to give away the manufacturer's
vehicle that you gave, but what size vehicle more or less?
Are we talking about what size battery pack? Are are
you using to get this seventy mile range? And what's
the chemistry at the battery too?

Speaker 6 (22:47):
Okay, so yeah, I guess the battery pack because it's
a technology demonstrator, it's a prototype vehicle. I wouldn't say
the battery is a productionized version of any battery out
there today. So it's something that we've sourced from, you know,
partner companies to be able to leverage our technology.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
But it's what like forty hours what.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
We'll call it twenty two kill hour.

Speaker 6 (23:03):
Usable really is the size of the battery.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Well, relatively small battery.

Speaker 6 (23:08):
When we talk about p have batteries too, we know
we don't use the full size of the battery as well, right,
So when we say usable, that's really the range that
we're using for our application in this specific vehicle. But
the transition battery, i'd.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Have to go back and check.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
I don't remember off the top of my head when
our final chemistry came down to me. But when we
talk about size of vehicle, that the configuration that we
have between the rear axle drive and the transmission, the
hypertransmission in it. We're looking at the CD segment class
for this specific but we know it's scalable, and we
know it's the larger crossover. Yeah about that size, right,

(23:44):
and that's the typical size of the range rover evoke
that we decided to park it in for this demonstrator.
So you did say that's right in line.

Speaker 4 (23:52):
Yeah, there's a picture of it on your website. Yeah
something did I not see that?

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, I've got a picture of it up there. Yeah.
Because what I love about this approach too, is it
seems to me that you could probably use an LFP battery,
maybe not as energy dense, but maybe give up a
little bit of range, but absolutely take a more range.

Speaker 7 (24:16):
Chack.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Well, I know, but I'm just saying, you know, everybody's
complaining about the cost and new vehicles these days, So
anything that you can do to take cost out and
still come.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
Very close to you probably don't put it in a
range over and that'll bring the cost.

Speaker 4 (24:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (24:32):
We're focused mostly on the how do we get the
power to the wheel standpoint?

Speaker 4 (24:35):
Right?

Speaker 6 (24:35):
So the core exercise with this demonstrated vehicle wasn't necessarily
the battery or the chemistry. It was it was about
leveraging the technology that we had to enable. I guess
you know, the customer, the end customer, and our customers
to do more with what they currently have available to
them right in a.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
Very fast time.

Speaker 6 (24:54):
So it's one hand we talk about how efficient it is,
but on the same side, this vehicle is is quite
capable to do some very impressive things, whether it be
on the track in a snowfield, you know, at a
proving grounds with an OEM off road.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 (25:09):
We made it as flexible as possible to show the
different use cases because not everybody uses their vehicles the
same way. Not everybody uses a specific technology the same way.
We know that, right, we have to protect for that.
So being able to show how we can design something
that fits all of those different areas is important as well.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
So to what extent is the magic of this system
predicated on integrating the motor in the transmission.

Speaker 6 (25:38):
It's very important, I'd say, with this specific application from
our portfolio, it's it is the key feature of that
transmission because it's paired with the DCT, because it's capable
of driving through all of you all five speeds, because
you're capable of doing it in a parallel or series
hybrid operating mode. How it was architecture and integrated into

(26:02):
the transmission is everything for this application.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
So is this a pancake motor between the engine and
trans or it's built right into the trands itself.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (26:09):
I like to call it a P two point five
because it operates similarly to a P two, but it's
kind of nested next to it in a way that
we can drive through, you know, two different parallel shafts
at the same time, so almost like split input, but
functioning slightly different as well.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
So it's a unique application, right.

Speaker 6 (26:27):
I haven't seen I've never heard of any today that
operates in a similar fashion. And that's why I love
showing this vehicle to everybody. I love explaining the technology
and the vehicle. We have a nice center display that
shows powerflow as we're driving, and it clearly shows the
you know, the unique behavior of the system relative to what.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
We've seen today.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
How does it drive? Because one of my complaints with
strong hybrids is, especially with cvets, is this disconnect between
what the accelerator input is, i e. My right foot
and how the engine is revving up. And I still
don't like them. I still don't like them. Whereas you know,
I prefer much more linear kind of input and output.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
I e.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
When I put my right foot down, I want to
react exactly with what I'm feeding into the pedal.

Speaker 6 (27:15):
Yeah, with the precise control you get out of E machines, right,
we have software that controls in our vehicle at least
EV operating first, so you get you can set it
up to be linear to your pedal, you can set
it up to be you know, different types of driver comforts,
but the way we set it up is such that
you get that EV operating range first. So your electric
motor is very controllable, and you can kind of, you know,

(27:37):
give an aggressive or a subtle feel to it, and
then you don't even know that the engine really is
doing anything if you really get into the throttle, except
for hearing it if it maybe turns on. Because you
have such precise control over that emachine, you can kind
of feather or blend in your torque strategy. It's a
huge benefit to having vehicle supervisory controls right, being able
to control rear front, blend the two left to right,

(27:59):
side to side with torquectoring capability. There's there's a number
of different things you can do there, but I personally
love the way that we set up our vehicles because
you know, we show them off all the time to journalists,
to automotive news outlets, we do it with the customers.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
We do ride and drive events all the time.

Speaker 6 (28:15):
So it's it's important that these vehicles drive as as
close to production as possible, so we take pride in that.

Speaker 5 (28:20):
So so let's say, for the sake of argument, that
that John is in this vehicle, he gets on six
ninety six. It's got a full charge of the battery,
so you got the seventy mile range there, and because
he's John, he puts his input device i e. His
right foot to the floor. Okay, is is this going
to bring in the engine and the electric motors or

(28:44):
is this going to be powered by the electric motors?
Because it's got the full state of battery charge, you.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
Can do either. We've we've set it up so it's
flexibility to both.

Speaker 6 (28:53):
We've shown it where it's it doesn't even turn the
engine on at all until you get to a depleted
battery state of charge, and then you have to turn
the engine on and you can drive with the engine
and charge through your E machine. It's set up also
such that it could do you know, let's say, call
it above fifty percent pedal.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Maybe you kick on the engine.

Speaker 6 (29:09):
There and you'll only operate in the EV range for
low pedal inputs. Maybe around town you're targeted more of
a city driving environment. Or you can set it up
so the engine turns on as soon as you know
you're basically cruising along from a stop sign. So having
the flexibility to do both is important. But I prefer
when it starts in EV operating mode first and then

(29:30):
it goes into the engine strategy later.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
By the way.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Look, we're gonna have to wrap this segment up, but
I also want you to know that I volunteer to
test drive this anytime that you guys have got that
thing open, because I'd love to experience it.

Speaker 6 (29:44):
Yeah, we'll have to get you out and give you
the whole run through. It's there's a lot of technology
in it. There's a lot of different things to show,
but it's by far my favorite demonstrator vehicle that we
have to drive. So let's get you out and let's
get you in it.

Speaker 4 (29:56):
We're good with that.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
We're going to have to wrap this up. Well, thanks
so much for coming on out of line after hours
been great having you here.

Speaker 6 (30:02):
Thanks for having me here, guys, I appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (30:08):
Making your life full of memories, one road trick at
a time, That's what really matters.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Rich Don weather Peak Tires. But the seventy thousand mile
womited warranty.

Speaker 4 (30:22):
That seriously the book, Good.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Deal, Good deal.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Welcome back. Now we're here to talk about the news
of the week, and maybe not just the week, but
other big issues going on in the industry. And I know, Gary,
you put together a pretty good list of things I got.
I got a quiz for you.

Speaker 5 (30:40):
First, John, Yeah, doc is eight gone. So on July seventeenth,
nineteen eighty five, Bard introduced a vehicle that basically went
out of production around out of production around the same
time as in this I forgot about the existence to
this fegl The Ford.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Aspire okay, yeah, Ford Probe.

Speaker 5 (31:06):
Yeah, and the more memorable Thunderbird and Cougar. So what
vehicle went into production today at Ford on July seventeenth,
nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
Forty years ago? Right?

Speaker 2 (31:25):
So the Aspire, if I remember right, was a Kia.

Speaker 5 (31:29):
But these these are they went out of production around
the same time. Oh okay, So I'm just trying to
give you some contests.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
So it came and left in a decade and a
half ish. Yeah, I was gonna say the Taurus, but
the Tourist is a little later.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
No, No, Taurists came out in that timeframe.

Speaker 5 (31:50):
Not the Taurus.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
It's not I think it was gonna be the Tourists
because they had kind of multiple lives.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, I'm blanking out.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
XP.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Okay. One of the people in the chat room said
the Ford exp that was out sooner before that. The
exp was based off the Escort. It was a two
door quote unquote sports car Ford call it. I don't
think anybody else did.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
It was a Mercury Capri, but that was later.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Oh no, I don't was the Capri later.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
I think the Capri was eighty nine.

Speaker 5 (32:30):
This was a rare drive vehicle.

Speaker 4 (32:31):
We're getting.

Speaker 5 (32:32):
Okay, so Capri, but it's not the Capri.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
No, no, no idea, Okay, move the show.

Speaker 5 (32:38):
On Ford Aerostar.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Oh, the Arrowstar Minivan of course, close, of course.

Speaker 5 (32:45):
Oh they said close.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
Yes, it was like Jesus, Well, I shouldn't, John, we
should have known that.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Well, we do know it, it's just in the recesses
of our mind. That's all.

Speaker 5 (32:55):
But the thing that surprised me when I was looking
at this that it was succeeded by the Ford wind Star.
M succeeded, yes, and then it.

Speaker 7 (33:05):
Was followed by the Ford Free Star.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
Which was a wind Star. They just put Free on
it because Free was a cool name at that time.
You think, yeah, free was cool, free ride free was cool.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Now.

Speaker 4 (33:21):
Then came the Ford Flex, which was their kind of
next step of a but.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
These were all minivans. But that was remember there was
of one of those, and I can't remember which was built.
Ford actually built minivans for Nisso.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
The Quest, the Nissan Quest, then the Mercury, Mercury something.
It was a Nissan and Mercury models. Yeah, they were
nice little vehicles.

Speaker 5 (33:43):
But that was a different than than these you.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Okay, let's move on, okay.

Speaker 5 (33:51):
So so I thought this was this was more surprising
than the the Ford mini vans that so Uber is
going to be investing three hundred million dollars in Lucid
and also going to be investing in a company, Neuro,
that makes self driving vehicle level four technology available and

(34:17):
they're planning on deploying more than twenty thousand Lucid neuro
robotaxis and the first vehicle is supposed to come out
next year. Isn't this crazy money? Three hundred million bucks?

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Well, Lucid loves it. I can tell you that they
need the money.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
Who there's a common investor in both of those companies,
Saudis are invested. I believe in both Uber and I
think it's Uber and Lucid.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Lucid for sure. I didn't know that they were have
invested in Uber.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
I think it is one of the two of the
three companies had Saudi investment, I'm pretty sure, which might
have been to pass some money to keep things going well.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
Uber's profitable in and of itself right now, it's doing
pretty well. I don't know is that they need. Lucid
needs money. You know, they need even more than three
hundred So you.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
Go from here to to Uber to Lucid and makes
it look more positive.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Theory maybe, but I think this is interesting. I was
not aware that Uber had invested in Lucid. And is
Lucid going to build a purpose built robotax.

Speaker 5 (35:31):
Well, it sounds as though they're going to be building
this into the Lucid Gravity their SUV and they're going
to and so they're going to be taking the neuro
level four system and integrating it on the line in
the Costat Grande Arizona plant to start rolling out these things,

(35:53):
you know, next.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
Year for three people that have been in the auto
industry a long time. How weird is it to say
the Casa Grande Arizona assembli plant. You know, it just
doesn't come.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, it doesn't click.

Speaker 4 (36:06):
But it's also interesting because they have a similar arrangement
with Volkswagon, so they've got two different fleets developing. Uber
does and just again you're seeing you saw the decline
and now you're seeing the rise back up very quickly
of the automated vehicle.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Right Bubble, well, you know, Bubble or Uber just got
to deal with Weimo to have Weimo vehicles in the
Uber fleet in Atlanta, and I think they're talking about
some other cities too.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
So is this another bubble or is this that actual
where we're going to start to see this happen.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
I keep saying, twenty twenty five is the year of
the autonomous vehicle.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
Yeah, so was twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Yeah, right, And we all thought that at the time,
or certainly I did, because that's what all the experts thought.
But now it's happening. I mean, look at how many
cities where is expand or excuse me, Waimo is expanding
into and overseas, and look at by Do and Pony
and uh In in China and uh, you know Zeokes

(37:13):
is coming on, Aurora is coming on. Uh, It's starting
to happen.

Speaker 8 (37:20):
Uber also has a deal in the US for robotaxis
using it buzzes with both just recently this week trying
to deal with you for China and international markets.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah, Sean's filling us in with more details. Uh here
of where Uber is investing again.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
It's fascinating. It's really interesting, and it may be that
inflection point.

Speaker 5 (37:44):
Well, I mean I think it's interesting is that if
if you remember, Uber used to have its own autonomous
you know, advanced technology division that they said well maybe
not and that that went away. So it seems now
what they're doing is their buying systems. So is this

(38:05):
the approach that companies are going to be taking in
order to get autonomy into fleets? Is buying it from
someone else?

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Absolutely? Look gm Ford, Volkswagon all through in the towel
and felt that developing this technology was beyond their ability
to spend, and so why not rely on companies whose
sole existence of purpose is to make AV technology? And

(38:36):
I think it's really smart for Uber to it obviously
made the same decision years ago that man, it's expensive
to do this, and what's our forte. Our forte is
providing rides to customers. Our forte is not in developing
AV technology.

Speaker 4 (38:53):
What role does the change in administration here have to
plan this enthusiasm. Previous administration one to put guardrails on
this technology, right, the current administration is much less interested
in guardrails.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
They want to accelerate, accelerate it absolutely.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
So does that again I go back to I don't know.
This is a fascinating technology, it could be life changing,
but is it another hype cycle because they see the
government again electric vehicles? Government pushes the hype cycle happens.
Is there a real business case, long term model, for

(39:32):
the midterm model for this or is it just another
stepping stone to get closer look.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
I don't think Uber would be spending this kind of
money unless it thought there's a payoff in it. Now,
there's some study that just came out in the last
week that said it's going to take seven to eight
years for any of these robotaxi fleets to start making money.
I personally don't believe that. I don't think that even
Uber is taking that long of term a.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
View of you think it'll be shorter.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Th will be shorter than that. That's just my opinion.
We all have opinion, right, I don't know, but I
remember when there were studies that came out and said
robotaxis will never make money. They're always going to be
more expensive. But clearly there's a lot of smart people
out there that don't believe that that's the case, and
they happen to be in China, and there.

Speaker 5 (40:20):
Are a lot of smart people at General Motors that
stuck a lot of money in the cruise.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
So let's yeah, it's it's again. The developing new technology
is really hard and you don't know what the outcome
is going to be. Yeah. Right, that's why you've met
win big, you win real big.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Okay, next topic.

Speaker 5 (40:38):
All right, So speaking of speaking of General Motors and
smart people, So a couple of things announced by by
General Motors this week in the battery space. One I
think is more interesting than the other. The first one
being that the spring Hill Battery plant is going to
start building LFP batteries. That's the plant that they had,

(41:02):
the ultim plant, which is General Motors and its partner
LG Energy Solution. We had Bobb Lee on the show,
who's the president of LG Energy Solution for North America.
What I thought was interesting is two or three weeks ago,
LG Energy Solution opened up a plant in Holland, Michigan
to make LFP batteries for what oh, that's right, energy

(41:24):
storage for cars.

Speaker 7 (41:25):
Not for cars.

Speaker 5 (41:27):
And General Motors announced also this week that it is
with its joint venture with Redwood Materials, which started Redwood Energy,
they're going to start making batteries for data center and.

Speaker 7 (41:42):
Local energy storage.

Speaker 5 (41:45):
Use, which is what one of the main things that's
going to be happening in the Holland, Michigan plant. I'm
seeing I'm seeing this that General Motors are saying, you
know what, we can, we can build batteries, but maybe
these batteries are not going to be going in as
many vehicles we thought. And the energy storage market is

(42:06):
just exploding, I mean with AI and data centers.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
And bitcoin farms.

Speaker 5 (42:11):
Yeah, I mean, it's just like man there is a
lot of energy that we need and oh, by the way,
the grid ain't so great.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
There are two GM stories this week last week or so.
One is the trucks. Maybe we'll get back to that,
but two is the batteries. And it goes back to
something that when you introduce a new technology that is
changing so rapidly, you're pretty much guaranteed that you're going
to change your manufacturing system before you get any get

(42:42):
much of a payback on that first introduction, and the
iterations of new manufacturing of new chemistries is really expensive.
And you know that GM didn't get payback on that
first set of tooling and machinery. The question is will
it get paidback on the LFP before they go to

(43:04):
LMR or some new technology And how long can you
do that to get to the point that people actually
have a battery that they'll accept in their car. And
HI about mass Quandy's mass volume or do you find
other markets? Which I think this other market's part is
really fascinating.

Speaker 5 (43:22):
Yeah, so what do you think Ken?

Speaker 2 (43:24):
No, Look, I think you nailed at Gary. The energy
storage business is booming. You've sunk all this cost into
making batteries because you thought there was going to be
a lot more EV sales. Now the EV sales are
nowhere near what you thought they were going to be.
To Brett's point, find a secondary market. And so I

(43:44):
think this is a great step forward as for EV technology.

Speaker 5 (43:49):
And I think they're going to make money bread. I
don't think this is any question. I think that they're
gonna this is.

Speaker 4 (43:56):
Seg That market is a viable market again switch wait,
pivoting from evs to to stationary is a viable market,
is what you? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (44:08):
I just yeah.

Speaker 5 (44:09):
So I mean you're you're thinking, well, new technology takes
time to make money. I'm like, no, they're gonna. They're
gonna this one. They're gonna make money.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
On LFP will be used for that for a pretty
reasonable period of time. Whether it's used in automobiles for
any length of time is still certainly in question. But
to get that secondary market or that first market and
use the auto as a secondary market, I would The
Redwood story I think is also interesting, and that they're

(44:38):
using supplying the refurbished reuse batteries. I will admit I
was one that did not believe that you could long
term strategy to pull an old battery out of a
car and put it into a battery farm somewhere. I
thought the complexities of that would just make it more
easy to go straight to the manufacturer and getting a

(45:00):
new LFP battery and put in there. It'll be interesting
to see how Redwood, who has really smart people there
and GM Redwood works together with this and takes those
technologies and creates those battery farms with used electric vehicle batteries.
Because again, cynical me said, that doesn't seem like a

(45:21):
good strategy.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
I'll verify what you thought, because and this has got
to go. Eight years ago I talked to several different
utility companies DTE and Detroit, Consumers in Michigan, Pacific AC
and Electric out in California, and they said, we're very
interested in these batteries, but not used ones. We want
new ones. Now. That was then, we've learned so much

(45:47):
more about how to make batteries and make them last,
and they are lasting by the way, that maybe the
utilities will be persuaded. Yeah, if it's that much cheaper
to buy a used one and it comes with a warranty.
Suspect that GM and wrote Redwood will supply some sort
of warranty on it. Maybe the utilities will go for it.

Speaker 4 (46:06):
Jump back to Will's point about the control to your
points about the controls and the ability to better control
the batteries and better create you know, this harmony amongst
these very diverse batteries. Maybe it's maybe it works pretty cool.
Think about the application.

Speaker 5 (46:21):
I mean, so if if you're just sticking it in
the box and the box is sitting in a room
and the room is got air conditioning and heating and whatever,
you know, hvact that they need, it isn't moving around.

Speaker 7 (46:34):
It can be reliably recharged.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
When they need to. The douty cycle is known, you know,
there's and so the.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
State of those batteries and the differences between all of them. Yeah,
apparently they're really comfortable with it, right, which is cool.

Speaker 5 (46:50):
So I think that that would completely work out for them.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Next topic.

Speaker 5 (46:54):
All right, So again General Motors announces this week that
the lake plant will be right trucks and in the
in the escalades. So we're going to move the escalade
out out of Arlington, Texas and move it to Orion. Now,
what's interesting about this is staying with this theme more

(47:15):
or less, is is that's where the bolts used to
come from, so it used to be electric vehicles. Now
they're going to be putting in pickup trucks and escalade.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Well, you know, little history of orient. It was making bolts,
like you said, and then GM said, we're going to
the Sultium platform. The bolt is not on that platform, ergo,
we got to get it out of our lineup, and
the customers went ape. It was like, well, we love
our little bolts, we'd love it. And it was inexpensive,
you know, with the rebate and everything you could get it.
You could get them pretty cheap. I mean twenty two

(47:47):
thousand dollars brand new, even less than that. So anyway,
GM acts as that and then it says we're going
to build EV's in that plant, because at the time
when they made that decision, everybody was only talking about
And then you come to today's reality and it's like evs
have not materialized, like everybody was counting on, everybody in

(48:09):
the industry was counting on. And now you've got the
Trump administration saying, hey, we're throwing tariffs on everything, especially
on Mexico and Canada. GM makes a lot of trucks
in Mexico and Canada and their Arlington plant, which makes
all their full size SUVs Escalade Yukon Tahoe Suburban is

(48:32):
busting at the seams. They've been running that plant at
max overtime for years now. When you run a plant
like that at max overtime, your people love getting the
overtime money. But man, you give up your life, you
get worn out. It starts to beat you up. It
beats up the equipment. So GM is saying, Okay, let's
pull the Escalade out of Arlington. We'll put it in Orion.

(48:57):
We need more pickup production now because guess what, we're
not going to be importing as many trucks from Canada
and Mexico. We've got you know, Fort Wayne, We've got Flint,
We've got our other trucks and plants in the US,
but we can't put all that production or we're into
the same problem that we had at Arlington with max overtime.
So Bingo, let's put it in orient.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
So I'll take a different direction on this. Absolutely agree
with everything you said. But the GM executive team has
got to be brilliant because inn when they went from
Bolt to ev they got an enormous investment from the
federal government and got pets on the back from the
President and we're just wonderful people they did. They did

(49:41):
what trade for America And now they're doing the same
thing by flipping it to a truck and the President
is going to say, see, I brought you new jobs.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
A different president, a different president, thank you, a different president. Important.

Speaker 4 (49:55):
But again, pivoting to fit the technology, fit your product
to the market is really expensive. It really is. And
this is a kind of well they're doing this because
of you know, the technology of the tariffs, regardless of
why they're doing it, and it's certainly good that they're

(50:15):
bringing this back to the US. Although it's expensive. It's
not cheap. They're gonna have to I have not been
in that plant since they redid it for the for
the big truck evs, but I'm gonna suspect they're gonna
have to do a little bit of work on that,
aren't They put new equipment in there.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Absolutely, that's expensive to.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
Do that and not produce any product on that plant
for one whole iteration and then go to another iteration.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
That's tough.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
It costs money. But you'll recall two months ago or
whatever it was we had Warren Brown here. He told us,
then they're gonna put the Silverado and the Sierra and
the Escalade in Orion, I mean two months ago on
the show, we had a GM only announced it this week.
But Warren's read of the whole thing was GM's looking

(51:03):
at what's going on with evs, not where they thought
they would be. It's looking at the tariffs. It's going
to impact Canada and Mexico. And so what he said
is this is really GM looking at its US manufacturing
footprint and balancing it out and.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
A local kind of thing. That plant has had a
really challenging past. It's got lots of different products and
it's never really connected that the crew that works there
has you know, been off work back on building trucks
is a pretty good thing for him. Building I'm sorry,
building internal combustion engine trucks is a really good thing

(51:41):
for him. You can't expect anything last more than five years,
but that's a pretty good so good for them.

Speaker 5 (51:48):
So that leads to the thing that that part of
the budget bill that was passed and signed by the
President is the fact that basically, if you're building and
you don't meet cafe targets. You're not getting a penalty.
So does this mean we're going to see more things
like orient building pickup trucks and full sized escalades and

(52:11):
lots of things with intronal combustion engines versus evs.

Speaker 4 (52:16):
I think that's a pretty logical outcome. It's what the market,
for the most part wants. I'd push back a little bit, John,
you said everybody thought that we'd be going to EV's.
I think Toyota really didn't correct, and I think there
are others that kind of said all this isn't But yeah,
I think it makes sense as a company to be
flexible so you're not tearing out the technology, the manufacturing process,

(52:41):
you're able to build different products on the same line
or very similar. BMW does a wonderful job down in
South Carolina being incredibly flexible. They've built their products, and
they got scolded by a lot of folks six seven
years ago for not building only EV architectures, for building
flexible architectures. I think that comes back to the idea

(53:03):
that we don't know where this market is going. Yes,
China is going. China was going very EV and they're
still heading down that pass. Except for E ReBs, but
we don't know with the US market what is going
to happen over the next three to five to ten years.
And we've got to be flexible. And instead of make
an announcement building a plant or building a manufacturing system

(53:24):
and then saying oops, we'll rip it out and building
another one, the idea to be very flexible and when
you put in a facility, make it so it can
build lots of different products, including ice going forward, but
converting to eb or pbs or e ReBs or bvs.

Speaker 5 (53:43):
You're suggesting this is what they're doing. I mean, so
if we have the BMW example, as you said, they
designed their vehicles specifically to be able to be used
in different ways.

Speaker 7 (53:58):
Yes, I don't think that that's what they're doing.

Speaker 5 (53:59):
In general, they're not. So when you're talking about all
this flexibility, I think, what's the flexibility?

Speaker 4 (54:05):
Where's the flexibility? I think that the point being that
I talked to several companies that did build a flexibility
and they said, we need to be able to build
more than just evs at this plant because we honestly
don't know this. It was several of the companies, most
of them south of the Michigan, Ohio border. We're building

(54:26):
that flexibility now with big heavy trucks. You know, you
make so much money on those, and you're going to
build a lot of those. It's not as important maybe,
but this idea of understanding that there's nobody in this
business that knows what the market's going to be in
five years, eight years, ten years, and instead of jumping

(54:47):
all in, putting all your eggs in one basket, the
old cliche, those companies that have been pretty good at
being flexible, Toyota, BMW, others, tend to have a pretty
more positive forward motion.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
I would agree with that. But getting back to your
point there, Gary, will the market absorb more pickups, ice pickups,
ice SUVs? I would argue that the market's pretty much
saturated right now, so I don't see a big increase
in ice vehicles. What I do see for the auto
makers with the cafe fines gone, is their planning is

(55:27):
going to be so much easier because they literally had
to look at while we're selling so many trucks with
V eights and with turbo sixes or with inline naturally
aspirated sixes, We're and they have to track these things
literally by the unit to say, Wow, we're bumping up
against our cafe limit or we're bumping up against our

(55:49):
CO two limit. So we have to limit production of these,
and we have to increase production of those. And now
if the fines are gone, you build what the market wants.
But does that mean we're going to see more ice production.
I don't think we're going to see much at all,
because the market is the market's not growing.

Speaker 5 (56:10):
Okay, So but does this mean that we will see
more ice in less EV?

Speaker 2 (56:17):
I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
Well.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
Well, yeah, because number one, the Trump administration has gutted
all EV incentives. That's absolutely going to have an impact
on sales. Just that alone is going to lower EV
versus ice. But there's a natural market demand for EV.
There's a lot of people sitting on the sidelines that
are like, I want more range, or I want to

(56:39):
see more public charging stations or whatever. But once those
those concerns are satisfied, they're gonna they're gonna go out
and buy an EV and see if they really like
it or not.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
Gary and John can ask. So there's the fines, but
there's also the credits and the e p as we're
Tesla bought or sold credits.

Speaker 5 (56:59):
For a lot credits are going away as well, and that's.

Speaker 4 (57:01):
Why I just new things were fluid. I hadn't heard
for sure that was it, right, Yeah, that's gone. That
changes a lot of business models for a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Listen, if if we don't have Tesla's Q two numbers,
we have the first quarter numbers, if you take out
their regulatory credits, they would have lost money.

Speaker 4 (57:18):
And Tesla was doing pretty good with that even without
that credit. But they but that was before to the downfall.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
That was before we were fully profitable without those credits.
That's where they icing on the cake. But now with
sales down, with revenue down, those credits are critical to Tesla,
and like I said, they would have lost money in
the first quarter without them.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
And Lucid and Rivian might have similar challenges.

Speaker 5 (57:43):
Similar right now, the only thing Lucid got three hundred million,
then well that's where they got a three hundred million.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
To cover Yeah right, but uh yeah, it's going to
hurt them. But but Tesla was the one that was
making big money off the credits.

Speaker 7 (57:59):
So speaking Tesla, they just lost their.

Speaker 5 (58:02):
Head of North American sales service and delivery for vice president.
So far this year, they've lost their head of North
American European Operations, vice president of engineering who is in
charge of Optimists, your favorite robot, their director of HR,
their VP of software engineering, and another guy who is
a battery executive. So of six big people gone from

(58:24):
Tesla sales down.

Speaker 7 (58:27):
Elon talking.

Speaker 5 (58:29):
Who knows what what's going on with that company?

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Look, this sounds very similar to Stalantis in nineteen twenty
twenty four, with all these executives jumping ship and because
they saw the writing on the wall. They didn't like
the way the company was being run by the CEO,
Carlos Tavares. They saw the writing on the wall that man,

(58:55):
things are going to get really bad. Why don't I
bailed now and see where else my career takes me.
That's what I see going on at Tesla.

Speaker 4 (59:02):
So they're kind of like a real car company now.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Just unfortunately, Yeah, unfortunately. Why I say unfortunately because look Tesla,
and you guys know I was a severe critic of
them until you know, I got to drive the products.
I got to you know, talk with Monroe Associates and
the guys that carous off and see what brilliant engineering
was going on, and they were so innovative and every

(59:26):
and now they're kind of like a legsy automaker.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
I always went by the they're showing the world how
hard it is to become an automaker, but how you
can be creative and do things differently and become a
different kind of automaker. Right now, they're it's going to
be real. It's going to be a get your popcorn,
sit back and watch because it's gonna be fascinating.

Speaker 5 (59:46):
So, I mean, why do you think that is. Is
it because of the leadership of the company. Is it
because the other carmakers are beginning to have products that
competes with their product? Is it because of the Chinese competition,
or is it because the market is becoming less intrigue

(01:00:08):
with EV's.

Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
Overall, I think it's all of those. I think it's
hard to underestimate Elon's impact on the growth of this
company and his impact on the challenges of this company.
Right now, it's it's just a pretty darn remarkable story.

(01:00:29):
And I think that as you look at where they are,
they're still building pretty good cars, very good cars. There's
still a market for EV's out there. Yes, they have competition,
but they're still as good as anybody's vehicle. So I
think at the end it comes back to a good
portion of it is for the growth was Elon, and

(01:00:52):
I think for the downturn is Elon. Now they would
not have kept on the growth. Clearly they couldn't keep
that growth period growth pathway up. But yeah, it's a
leadership thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
It's a leadership thing completely Braddick, I agree with you.
It's look, Tesla's biggest problem is that Elon's foray into
politics drove a massive amount of the customer base away.
Sales have almost collapsed in Europe, almost collapsed in Europe.

(01:01:23):
They're down significantly in this market. Why because who buys evs.
They tend to be liberal Democrats, right, and they hate
Elon's politics, and so they refuse to buy his car.
I've seen pictures. I've run into people who know of
people who put Honda badges or Subaru badges or either

(01:01:44):
model threes and.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
Model wise I hate two.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Yeah, or I bought the car before Elon went crazy,
and so I mean, I have never seen an executive
drive customers away from the product like Elon has.

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
All of these challenging things you've brought up today and
Will's technology remind us of how cool it is to
watch this industry. I'm not sure it's cool to be
on the inside all the time, but the three of
us have spent one hundred years combined watching a really
cool industry.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
It's the best time ever.

Speaker 5 (01:02:20):
That'd be you two have like, well, yeah, puishing seventy
ninety years.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Anything else, garry or we wrap it up?

Speaker 7 (01:02:28):
Oh, I think we should wrap it up.

Speaker 5 (01:02:30):
I did think it was interesting that, you know, Kelly
Bluebook came out with their numbers for electric vehicle sales,
and you know, we're talking about the travails of Tesla
and looking in this market anyway, they've still for the year,
they've got forty five percent of the market and there
is not another single brand there has above ten percent.

Speaker 4 (01:02:54):
There's still a really good It's just like a product,
you know.

Speaker 5 (01:02:57):
You look at these these other you know, and like
we're we're all like, WHOA, Chevy's doing so great seven
point eight percent of the market.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
You've been to the tear downs, You've seen the brilliance
that they do from model to model, from iteration to Tesla.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
You're testa yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:03:13):
People talk about them, Well, it's the same Model three
that was on the road in twenty eighteen. No, it's not. No,
They've done incredible stuff to get from where they work
to where they are.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
Yeah, it may look the same, and I've always thought
it was a goofy as hecked looking car. But it's
sold well and it's still a great car.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
I know. I totally agree. Look, I want to see
them survive. I want to see them get back to
get their mojo back, as it were. Oh like that
takes leadership.

Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
I want to see him crash because it would be
a fun, you know, get the punk one kind of thing.
Nothing against Tesla at all or a great man that
makes for great theater.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Well, it might make for great theater, but I think
Tesla absolutely changed the automotive industry. Did I would like
to see them get back to, you know, poking the
industry to get going faster and be more innovative. So
I want to see them succeed. Takes leadership, and I
don't see it coming right now.

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
You're a positive, I'm a negative one.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
Yeah, yeah, okay, Brett, we'll wrap it up. Brett, thanks
so much for being back. Eyes always good and Gary,
always good to be with you too, and I want
to thank all of you for having tuned in.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
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