EVs Soar, Vetter Tweets, Bitcoin Rebounds

Kyle Mountsier: 0:32

All right, good morning. It's Tuesday, December 5. Paul's on a plane Cirilo is right here on the pod. We're talking a counter narrative to the Evie decline Alex better on x and crypto

‍Unknown: 0:44

currencies that people really want to know who is and who didn't expect that last one. You did.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:51

We're talking crypto again. No,

Michael Cirillo: 0:53

Chris, I forgot all about crypto

Kyle Mountsier: 0:56

doesn't even exist anymore. I'm like I have I actually, as soon as I read the story yesterday on crypto, I was like, Oh, I think I have some crypto. And like went check out for the first time in probably nine months.

Michael Cirillo: 1:12

I went into x for the first time in like, forever. And I saw Gary Vee pushing some NFT still and I was like, Oh, yeah. And

Kyle Mountsier: 1:21

NF T's. That's right. Well, yeah, I don't know if you remember, but two years ago, I think it was for the year and extravaganza which we actually are doing this year, again for the third time on December 28. But two years ago, we had a little thing where we were we had a poll app, which is called which is a proof of attendance protocol. And it's a type of NF T. And so I have that app on my phone as well. And I saw that again, because it's on my little app bucket for crypto and your

Michael Cirillo: 1:51

phone when you've tried to delete it because it's Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:55

Exactly. Oh, man. Well, yeah, so we are doing the extreme urine extravaganza. There'll be a LinkedIn event out soon, but you're going to want to mark your calendar circa the date for December 28. We got a bunch of cool guests coming on for that. And can't wait for that also. We're basically like an old Southern Baptist Church because all of our stuff our our is on Wednesdays this month. So Wednesday, December 13. We're doing an upstart webinar, a webinar with upstart called Transforming car buying the power of connected auto retailing. And you can get more details on that@asotu.com or find it as an event on LinkedIn. That's all the stuff I got for today. We're gonna get into it. You call with us in a row. Let's go. All right. I don't have a segue into the first one. But we are looking at Bloomberg Nef latest zero emission vehicle report, which was unveiled at CLP 28 in Dubai. And it challenges the narrative of an Eevee slowdown like we've been talking about for the last month or so highlighting significant growth and a big future potential in the Evie market. So here's the numbers. Worldwide projections right now are to reach 14 million retail units in 2023, a 36% increase from 2020 to evey only sellers such as Tesla and BYD are on pace to capture 7% of the global sales in 2023. The US market is actually one of the fastest accelerating still with a projected increase of 50%. In evey sales, like when's the last time you saw that type of increase in any type of vehicle growth. Additionally, emerging economies like India, Thailand and Indonesia, Indonesia are rapidly adopting EVs. They've got some Evie models in the US$10,000 range. And they have some interesting market dynamics along that. And then the the US inflation Reduction Act is also contributing a lot to the growth. So overall, it seems like the year over year growth is actually way up. Even though we're seeing this minor decline over the next last few months. It's kind of a little bit of a counter narrative to the narrative that we've been hearing internally in retail auto over the last month.

Michael Cirillo: 4:16

I just hope it's like it's all from reputable brands like I don't want none of these Wish. Wish Evie showing up in a wooden crate that you power with RYOBI power tool, lithium batteries. I don't want those being counted in here. But that's I mean, I can speak for the country of Texas and man there are EVs everywhere and it's not because they care about saving the environmental.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:42

Yeah, for no that's. That's absolutely true. One of the other interesting things that I saw in the article was that actually BYD is not solely an Eevee manufacturer or is delivering some I'm not 100% plug in vehicles so they're even though they're a Evie manufacturer, they don't have combustion engines. They have like hybrid and alternate fuel technologies it looks like so I was just kind of an interesting thing. So there is there's these kind of two conversations going on. I'm not sure which one to really look at all I know is that EVs are coming one way or the other, just depends on how fast they come and whether or not the consumers are are ready for it. And speaking of consumers,

Unknown: 5:34

segway.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:38

Our good friend Alex Vetters, always looking out for the consumer. We know that from the pandemic days and what he did to support auto retail during COVID. And he started out with a little cheeky tweet after the Amazon Hyundai partnership, and is casting a little bit of a skeptical eye on the DL, emphasizing his company's superior capabilities and facilitating vehicle sales. He was critical of the project scope, and also its implications on the auto industry. Here's his cheeky take this one's beautiful this is this is a little I didn't know Alex had the sentiment on Twitter. He says at Hyundai, please DM me, we can enable all of your retailers verse 18. And do it with people actually buying cars not. Couple of the was a really great article, we linked in the show notes that our auto news ran and they were able to get just a candid conversation with him. A couple of his key notes was that he was stressing that Carbine is a multi channel experience. And it was doubting Amazon's ability to match the depth of research and advice provided by some of the platforms like his in the two sided marketplaces. And then also was highlighting the question on whether or not this would have an actual impact on car sales, highlighting the need for targeted digital platforms. So like things that would go across the online and the in showroom interaction, and was saying that also, he was highlighting that cars commerce could potentially reduce a lot more waste in mass market advertising do to their audience sizes, their traffic. So he was coming out swinging?

Michael Cirillo: 7:31

Yeah, well, and you know, having recently gone through the car buying process again, here's here's my take, you know, we talked about online car buying, because we think it's going to be this be all end all what I'm actually discovering, and I am a guy who's worked in the industry since I was 17 years old, I still have questions when I'm buying the vehicle. Now, I've gone through two different buying processes, I've gone through the Tesla buying process. That's what my wife drives, that's, you know, I'm not going to be ashamed to admit it anymore, especially on the back of the last news piece. But you know what, we didn't have questions during the buying process, because the buying process went so quickly, all of our questions happened after the buying process. And so really, if you think about it, we were still engaged in that buying process for the same amount of time. Just you have to decide do you want to make all that investment on the back end when you already have the vehicle? And you're not sure if you just made the right decision? Or do you want to make it on the front end of the transaction? Working with the dealer working with somebody that can answer your questions. And going through the process there, it still really took the same amount of time. And so I'm not entirely convinced that everybody wants online carbine, the way that it's being pitched to us.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:44

Yeah, I think that everybody wants more information upfront so they can make a quality decision and interact well with a dealer. Why we're just getting so much anecdotal evidence in little interviews a man on the street stuff that we're doing that saying these people actually they would, they would prefer to talk to a competent, well mannered, caring individual about this large purchase, as long as the information was right and it was up front and they could do some some of the purchase digitally and some of the purchase in store. And so I think companies like cars and others and and larger auto groups that are looking at the buying process that way are doing it the right way. I'm interested to see where another third party marketplace like Amazon can come into the industry and support that type of sales network. So we'll see. Speaking of we'll see

Unknown: 9:38

segue

Kyle Mountsier: 9:42

I think the jury's still a little bit out on crypto but since it's been a while since we've talked about it, we had to take a look because the major news outlets are citing a major currency rebound, as Bitcoin has recently jumped over 41,000 Again, and eath gets back back, just over 2200. The there are experts saying that there are two major reasons while they're why they're seeing these major indexes in the crypto space rebound. The first one is that there is this potential for dropping interest rates by the Fed, which impacts the crypto outlook as well. And another big piece, which is that Bitcoin is close to its next what's called a halving. So every four years, they go in and literally reduce the number of Bitcoin miners down to half, which historically has led to really high values leading up to that having so that is coming up in just a few months, I think in the end of q1 2024. And then, there there was another piece that said, and this is directly from from the article, it says, but perhaps a bigger impact on bitcoins rises, increasing confidence within the sector, that additional cryptocurrency exchange traded funds ETFs may be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the SEC as soon as next month, which is a story that we haven't been following. But there's there is regulation going in that is hopefully going to be approved and would clear the space for a lot more legitimacy in the crypto space. So kind of some fun news coming out this morning. Intro

Michael Cirillo: 11:26

okay, you first set the halving I wasn't thinking happening like halfing I was thinking this sounds like a really bad low budget straight to Amazon Prime. That wants to be millionaires. Game geeks

Kyle Mountsier: 11:49

I can't wait. I'm excited to see if like you know the all of the tax companies came out with their like, crypto wins crypto fails crypto with that those commercials so I'm excited to see if those jokers come back and I'm just excited that I think my crypto is kind of almost back to where it was before all the doom the doomsday stuff so I'm sure there's much rejoicing in the crypto world are you hold any crypto?

Michael Cirillo: 12:16

I do I think I have point 000000 7% Bitcoin or something like that sounds about right That sounds so it's probably worth 100 bucks now.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:27

Well, hey, whether it is crypto or caring for customers in third party exchanges, we know that the best retailers are focusing on the things that care for customers the most so if you're the best retail go do that.

Unknown: 12:55

Oh,