Covering EVs Since 1997 with Jamie Butters

Paul J Daly: 0:00All right, Cerillo is out. This is Auto Collapse. Jordan Cox tag team you are in, let's do it.

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:15

What's so perfect about him? Tag teaming right now is the main place where you see tag teaming happen. Oh, here we go. Is in a, is in a ring, you know? Like, like WWEWWS.

Paul J Daly: 0:32

Oh my gosh, and they know anything about or Nate pants is definitely a requisite.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:37

They love or Nate pants and you? You won't know this in the poor video, people won't even know this, but right now Jordan Cox is wearing or Nate gold stand up, Jordan.

Paul J Daly: 0:48

We don't time for this.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:49

So the tag team is just like the perfect reference for this one.

Jordan Cox: 0:53

But what if I stood up and was like naked right now? You?

Paul J Daly: 0:55

won't, you won't do that.

Jordan Cox: 0:56

That was a family show.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:58

Jordan, you're just listening.

Paul J Daly: 1:00

He's got shiny, shimmery gold pants on and we'll tell you the story. I was doing high kicks now not like Nathan, nathan and Greg like, but it doesn't have anything to do with today's guests. Actually, jordan and I were met Jamie Butters, today's guest editor of automotive news for the first time at a David Kane event and I think we both were kind of blown away by just his his level of insights and his kind of chill vibes. He's kind of got Bill Pullman vibes. You ask me?

Jordan Cox: 1:25

Yeah, especially like this suit jacket he was wearing. Oh so classy. So like that classy jacket with the patches Like, oh man, that was it, it was, it was just fit is personally perfect.

Paul J Daly: 1:35

It's funny to have a guest that we all read on a regular basis. His work is like on our computers auto news day in and day out, and so we thought we would definitely want to get him on the podcast and ask him you know, maybe some of the questions that they don't ask him in the regular shows, because that's how we're going to ask him the tough questions and see if he can handle it. It would probably won't be that tough.

Speaker 2: 1:59

We're just not that mean.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:00

He's a class. Yeah, he's a class. Well, we hope you enjoy this conversation with Jamie Butters.

Paul J Daly: 2:12

Hey, Jamie, it's good to be with you again. Thank you so much for joining us here on auto collabs, you bet Paul glad to do it. All right. So a lot of people probably recognize your name because everyone reads automotive news and you know you're kind of running the show over there, the. There's a texture to your story, though, that I heard a little bit of when we we met for the first time at the David Kane event and I we love to talk about how people like, how did you get here into automotive to begin with? Give us the background. The people need to know who you are. Oh my gosh.

Jamie Butters: 2:44

Do you want the two day version? The two day version.

Paul J Daly: 2:48

Well, you give us the two day version of a soda con over cocktails.

Jamie Butters: 2:51

Yeah, I'm trying to keep it a little focused. You know, I started my dad was a journalist and I always loved hanging out in newsrooms but I kind of thought I wanted to do something different. I was really interested in business and economics but then I got to college and it's sort of like I want to study journalism. I feel like it's something I want to do with my life. I can, I would feel good about, but I man, I did not enjoy journalism school. I loved doing it. I worked at the radio station and the newspaper and kind of really struggled in my classes.

Paul J Daly: 3:24

What is journalism school like? What assignments do they give you in journalism?

Jamie Butters: 3:28

You know, it's like you go out and you write stories. You come up with ideas and you interview people and you write stories, but they go nowhere. I mean, maybe if you turn it in, maybe the teacher likes it, they'll show it to the rest of the class. You know, I would go write something for the student newspaper and it'd go to, you know, 20 or 30,000 educated people. The next morning you get your feedback.

Jordan Cox: 3:47

Yeah.

Jamie Butters: 3:47

Serious feedback from the audience, you know, and it was even in those print days when we didn't have all the interactivity. It was a very direct feedback loop, you know, from our college community in Iowa City, iowa University of Iowa. So I did that for a while, stopped going to school for a little while it's a tending bar and thinking I wanted to get a real job, but not quite getting around to it. My parents said, hey, smart guy, there's a job. You know, cedar Rapids Gazette has an opening and so I ended up getting hired there, kind of started back to school then, because I couldn't get the writing job that I would want Until I had a degree. I could get a job because of my talent, my hard work, but I couldn't get the jobs I wanted. So I started back to school. Luckily, I met a woman at the Cedar Rapids Gazette. She got a job in Lexington, kentucky. After some negotiating. I followed her down there, ended up getting my degree in finance from UK. Oh, it's okay, it's all good. We worked out. We got married, three adult lovely daughters, everything's cool. You know, I was just like I don't want to move to Kentucky unless we're gonna get married and have kids and everything's gonna work out.

Jordan Cox: 4:56

Amen Great place to start. I feel that way.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:00

Kentucky's like the armpit of Ohio is the way that I see it, lovely things about it.

Jamie Butters: 5:06

But I was wary as a Midwestern or of moving to the South. But it was a lovely place and a great experience for both of us. And so then I got my degree in finance and the business desk at the Harold leader had just lost like three of their five reporters a bunch of really good people, going off to Nashville and Chicago and places like that, and so I kind of stepped in and started covering everything until we filled in the rest of the team and part of that ended up being, you know, going to cover the job one at the Sienna at that Toyota Georgetown plant in central Kentucky and that's, that was my first auto story and I did that. You know I started writing a little about Toyota. I ended up getting to go to the Tokyo Motor Show in 1997. That was my first ever auto show.

Paul J Daly: 5:57

That's a heck of a one to start on right One.

Jamie Butters: 6:01

my editor was so cool and smart, you know she had been a business writer, Went in earlier in her career, and so she said you know she had a little money in the budget and could send me. She said don't try to cover the show. You don't know what you're doing, we don't know how to edit it, the time zones are all against us. We'll just run AP like we usually do. But go, you know, fill up your notebook, learn all you can, come back and we'll figure out what the story is. And I got to come back and write about this new kind of car called a fuel cell and I'm sorry, you kind of car called a, called a hybrid. That was this stepping stone toward EVs and ultimately something called a hydrogen fuel cell. So I got to learn all about that and try to explain that I also.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:45

The other two stories were like let me try my hand at this super simple thing.

Paul J Daly: 6:52

He's back. That was like Jetsons mode, right.

Jamie Butters: 6:54

Oh yeah, yeah, it was, it was. Well, it was so cool that first gen Prius and you still see it in some. But they had the little graphics, the video.

Paul J Daly: 7:02

You know that they're just very simple graphics, but it was on the little energy's going from the wheels to the engine, from the engine to the battery.

Jamie Butters: 7:09

Yeah, and that whose power and what here, and you you know, and it was really Let you understand what could be a really complicated process.

Paul J Daly: 7:18

That's okay. So when did you decide? You liked auto. What is it Like? Are you a car guy at all?

Jamie Butters: 7:25

came later. I'm. I like cars. I don't consider myself a car guy.

Paul J Daly: 7:30

You're a good company.

Jamie Butters: 7:33

I do like cars, but I'm like I don't know if I, when I buy cars, I really want the value. I'm like a lot of regular American consumers. I want a reliable car that's gonna get me where I need to go, do what I need it to do, cause me as little headache as possible. But I was there. It covered autos about 20% of the time in Lexington and then the Detroit Free Press called me up there had had a strike and a turnover of their team and the strike was settled and I was like all right, I can come to Detroit. And Well, I thought like that was the pinnacle of journalists, business journalism, right, covering autos for the Detroit Free Press. Yeah, that seemed that was pretty big deal for me and it was still, you know, really hard to get by, even though you know the auto riders tend to get paid better than a lot of other reporters.

Paul J Daly: 8:23

It's kind of like every other position in auto. Why is that though?

Jamie Butters: 8:29

Oh, it's so competitive. It's so competitive and ours Not that other reporters don't work hard, but our hours are so routinely grueling.

Paul J Daly: 8:39

Oh my gosh, it's so funny how automotive journalism Really does reflect that in my mind. You can literally go and say all those things about all the other positions in a dealership, and whether it's marketing management. This is all right, we're already on a good collaboration.

Jamie Butters: 8:57

It's going absolutely so.

Paul J Daly: 9:00

Okay, so you're a Detroit Free Press, right. You're working the long hours, You're doing the work and it's still there's something there that is like so more yeah, and I was.

Jamie Butters: 9:11

I was probably getting a lot closer to burning out than I was aware that I was. And then I was fortunate enough to two things. First I got to go to China and work on a project about General Motors and its strategy in Asia, and that was Super experience, great to get to, you know, write something that long. Get to go to a place I'd only ever read about before. Really fascinating stuff. And then that work really helped get me into the night Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. So I got to take like a school year off from the Daily Grind and I woke up one day in like November and it's like, oh, this is what it feels like to be caught up on your sleep. I was catching up on some sleep.

Paul J Daly: 9:54

My wife, unfortunately, was not so.

Jamie Butters: 9:59

Came back to the Free Press. I then became auto editor and kind of ran that coverage for a while through another round of UAW talks. Then I went to Bloomberg news and spent about 10 years there and I was like I'm gonna go to the next one, I'm gonna go to the next one, I'm gonna go to the next one, I'm gonna go to the next one, I'm gonna go to the next one, I'm gonna go to the next one. I went to Bloomberg news and spent about 10 years there here in Detroit Running mostly running the auto team and other transportation coverage. Of course, I started there right before you know GM and Chrysler's bankruptcies and it was a really incredibly turbulent and working around the clock and Really intense but very great learning experience being there. And then almost five years ago I came to automotive news and it was sort of it's this different? You know we're all I covered. I've done so. I've covered autos for now, for 25 years I've covered autos exclusively since basically the day after the bush versus gore election and. But at the Free Press, you know you're writing mostly, mostly for employees and Also for consumers and the general public, politicians and stuff. But but employees, employees of the manufacturers employees yeah, employees of the manufacturers Yep, there are big readers and employees of suppliers. You know you a w members salary folks. Yeah, that's our, that's our core audience at Bloomberg. Of course it's the financial markets, it's the bond market, to a lesser extent the stock market, again policy people. And then here at automotive news, like we have a huge footprint, of course, with dealers there, you know a big chunk. They're not even half of our readers, but they're a much bigger chunk than they are for anyone else, any of the other. You know big players. So it's been a great opportunity for me to learn a lot more about dealers, get to meet a lot more of them. Then I really got to in the other jobs.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:58

Gee. I want to go back to, because it's fascinating to me that you we were in a Toyota dealership the other day and Not to like give away all of the you know there's not a of the Toyota dealer meeting but you said, hey, I was kind of the first on the scene, I was there writing about this new technology that was gonna be the hybrid technology and being in the Toyota Prius and and Toyota having been in the game for a significant amount of time and still being a massive leader in the hybrid game and I'm sure, your perspective on the industry because you're seeing everything that's going on with EVs and with the, with, you know, the new entrance to the market and that's the massive push, with Toyota still staying in this like Very heavy hybrid game. The majority of their their vehicles. How how is that going from? Like I covered this first thing, now Everything's about EVs and Toyotas over here. Like remember the one time when we were doing the thing back in 97 and we're still doing it? Yeah, like what is that? What does that feel like to kind of cover those things in that, in that world of you constantly being in that?

Jamie Butters: 13:12

Yeah it's. I mean it's. It's been a fascinating journey in a you know I. Of course you only can benefit from all that perspective by spending all that dang time, but it's been really fascinating. Toyota is definitely in the crosshairs of a lot of environmentalists now because they've stuck with the hybrid strategy and I think they've just been trapped by a lot of traditional thinking. You could call it logic if you want. I mean, evs are money-lick-lick.

Paul J Daly: 13:48

He goes traditional thinking, thinking logically, that was great, that was great.

Jamie Butters: 13:53

But because the tech world sometimes is a different kind of logic, we're going to lose money on everything until we suddenly become huge and awesome and then it'll all turn great. And that worked for Elon and it worked for Bezos, but there's a lot of cats it doesn't work for especially if you also factor things. So if EVs are going to lose $5,000 each during a ramp-up period of five years, 10 years, you look at Tesla's own curve from deep losses to significant profits. If you're Toyota and you make $10 million a year, you can't even lose $1,000 a piece or a year. That's $100 billion You're going to lose every year. I'm sorry, $10 million times $1,000 would be $10 billion. $10 billion a year in losses would be devastating for Toyota. That's not the way they roll. I think Toyota and Honda and the other Japanese really had a light bulb moment this spring when they went to the China show and saw all the EVs that were coming out of China. I think they've seen in the West Europe mostly, but also in the US a lot of excitement and enthusiasm around EVs to where they're now saying, okay, maybe it is a losing business proposition for the short term, but this is where the market's going. It is where enthusiasm from consumers is. So we've got to do it and now they're really buckling down. Toyota has already added 20% to their investment on EVs. It's going to take some time, of course, because everything takes time, but they're going to come back. I think they're going to come out real strong eventually, late this decade maybe I mean, toyota is definitely one of those.

Paul J Daly: 15:38

It's like well, maybe we didn't do it first, but we're definitely going to do it best. Yeah, that's usually their play and some of their batteries solid state battery technology, like they might just come out of the back and be like oh, how does 700 miles of range sound?

Kyle Mountsier: 15:52

Now we would be remiss if, in the middle of the UAW strike, we didn't say something about it.

Paul J Daly: 15:59

So here's my angle for you, here's my question, because I feel like we need to play this for Jamie because he probably hasn't heard it yet, but we have a little sound track that we play every morning when we update it, and it sounds like this UAW update.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:17

We had to do it we had to do it.

Jamie Butters: 16:18

Does that opening riff? Is that from like Johnny Carson? Is that?

Paul J Daly: 16:21

Bob Barker prices. Oh right, yeah, you got it.

Jamie Butters: 16:26

Something from the 70s? Yes, yes.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:30

So here's my question for you and the angle, because we see all the updates. Everybody can read that, but when you all are thinking, especially at Automotive News because you have readers and audience in dealer partners, dealers, uaw and union workers and OEMs, right that, like all of those, are a massive part of the audience that's paying attention to what the news cycle is how do you honor and also keep all of that updated in a way that serves them but also recognizes that the other side is listening and watching, because it's the central source of truth for the majority of automotive. What does that look like? What's that conversation look like behind the scenes? Give us a peek into what that feels like right now.

Jamie Butters: 17:26

Right, some of it. I don't want to sound like a cop out, I mean, some of it is just doing what we always do, which is just try to get the facts, put them in context, be fair. We expect every story to be read, scrutinized and prosecuted by management, shareholders, labor and everyone else.

Paul J Daly: 17:55

That sounds like a low stress position you have there.

Jamie Butters: 18:00

It goes with the territory, because you don't want to do harm to anybody by short changing them or being flipped with their situation. But you also need to be interesting. And again, it's about being relevant and being right. We also I think I've talked about this before. I think I talked about it, probably at the cane thing, paul, but I reorganized the newsroom around what used to be my formula for the front page Still kind of is, but the idea of what I call making, selling and thinking. So we have our automaker team, we have our retailer team and then we have our tech and innovation mobility team and of course, it affects the tech and innovation group less, but right away it's like, hey, what's happening with dealers? Retail team, be out there talking to your dealers. What are you hearing? What are they hearing? What are they worried about? Ok, if something's happening with UAW, let's get out there, let's see it, let's hear people and, of course, let's talk to our sources at the companies. Let's talk to all the experts, all the historians, all the labor pros, and really it's just trying to know as much as we can and then really to tease out the stuff that we don't know, the stuff we don't understand. So we have a story I guess I could talk about it still in the works, but hopefully it'll be out before this podcast Right here.

Paul J Daly: 19:29

Well, hold on a minute Before you do that. Why are we launching this? Because it could be tomorrow. We're switching on tomorrow morning, OK good. No, this won't be out before then, Right Good?

Jamie Butters: 19:40

So we're looking at one of the big issues. When you see Sean Fain, when he's been out during these rallies and when he's been at the picket lines, he wears a red t-shirt that says no tears. Well, I mean, we had a contract already where we eliminated the tears there used to be. If you were hired after a certain day. You could only get to a certain way.

Paul J Daly: 20:01

I was trying to make sense of that shirt today when I saw it.

Jamie Butters: 20:03

It's frustrating, but to them they've sort of. I mean, it's frustrating to me that the semantics have changed and they redefined what tears are apparently. But they have this issue where if you get hired at a McDonald's like Wage, it's eight years before you reach the top pay and it used to be 90 days, no-transcript, that's a long time, that's two contracts really, before you can get to the top pay and that's that's a lot to expect from people and it's really not competitive in this labor market. So I would certainly expect the bottom, the entry pay, to come up and they've already offered the automakers have all offered to cut the ramp up time in half. They may have to come down further. I mean, to me it's like there the UAW has a couple of really major non starters in their demand list the four day work week, the return of defined benefit, pensions. You know the automakers just can't do that, as I keep saying, you know they why they might run into a get fired if they came out with an agreement like that. So maybe if they can give up some of that, maybe they can gain some more on this issue of tears, you know. But it's just, it's like it's a, it's a puzzling one, because the truth or the reality, or the perception of the reality has shifted over the years. So that's it's challenging, but that's what makes it interesting.

Paul J Daly: 21:30

Certainly interesting.

Kyle Mountsier: 21:33

No, no small tasks, so kudos to you and your team for just keeping us aware and and serving the industry in that way.

Jamie Butters: 21:43

The Mike Martinez and Nick Bunkley, of course Vince Bond and Lindsay Van Holy as well. But Martinez, you know, in addition to being a top notch forward reporter, has really owned the UAW coverage and super proud all the great work he's been doing. It's so good.

Kyle Mountsier: 21:59

It's quite a team. Well, it's been fun to get to know a little your journey. Take a peek behind the curtain and of the real time stuff. Right now I'm excited to to hang out with you at a Sodu con and hear your perspective there amongst panelists, and it'll certainly be fun. So thanks for joining us on our website. Absolutely glad to do it. Ok, he handled that UAW question with all the boys in the world. I was like what he said.

Paul J Daly: 22:30

He was like what.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:33

No, but he actually gave some some really cool insights into like hey, some of the things that you don't see and we've got to figure out as journalists and we do this work too here at a Sodu is like wait yesterday and then four years ago and but now today, and mapping all that to together across teams serving dealers, serving you know all of that. The experience that he's had for the past 25 years in auto sets him up for that and I like I for one, the when he goes prosecuted daily, for I'm like, yep, that sounds right, but the way that he handled it seriously.

Jordan Cox: 23:15

So how knowledgeable and humble he was and the fact that he just basically said we cover the story the way that you should like, that was mind blowing.

Paul J Daly: 23:24

That's pretty mic dropping. I know we're his new fan club, if you haven't noticed, and he's like what number one? He's like you got a soda, kind of like you're making a bigger deal than I get around here and we're like, yeah, we're just trying to help you build your resume so you can leverage it into your next contract negotiation with Casey Crane. So, that's all we're trying to do really on the show today. Thank you so much on behalf of Kyle Mounts here, jordan Cox in standing in for Michael Cirillo and myself. Paul Jay Daly, thank you so much for listening to Auto Collapse.

Speaker 2: 23:54

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive retail media and pop culture. You can get it now at a so to dot com. That's aso tu dot com. If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time. Welcome to Auto Collapse.

Jordan Cox: 24:28

Why are we recording Are?

Paul J Daly: 24:30

we rolling yet.

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