GM Thinks About Hummer Lite, Netflix+ (Kind of), and The Tale of the Tech

‍SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:27

Yo, it's Thursday, October 20. When did October disappear so quickly? Today we're talking about GMs, Hummer light vehicle. Netfix plus kind of an A Tale of retail tech. Book. It's been a while since we've ripped off a headline, just like that.

Kyle Mountsier  00:44

That was strong. Good. felt right. Yeah.

Paul Daly  00:48

Good. Yeah, dude, I was like October 2020.

Kyle Mountsier  00:53

That's unbelievable to me. I don't know why I'm why I get to certain dates and you just kind of feel like it. It's not real, you know, which I think part of it is like, we like you. And I we go through these like event seasons. And it's like, everything was targeted towards September that was sort of gone. Now everything is targeted toward November because we're going to mahtim retail conference, right? And it's just like, all these things converge on that. And so October is just like,

Paul Daly  01:18

Okay, I guess I know. I don't know, I guess. I just saw you. 20 We have a lot of great stuff coming up. Actually. Next week, we're going to be in Atlanta at Glen Lenny's 800% Club, we're going to be hanging out with Patrick a bed in Beaver Toyota, because that's where the event is going to be held. And we're gonna be making some content with our boy Michael Cirilo the night before. So that's gonna be a lot of fun. And, of course, we will bring you all the good stuff, we're going to be setting up a podcast booth, and we're going to be launching a new podcast, we haven't talked about this publicly, but in the dirt with a Soto. And it's going to basically be comprised of whenever we're on the ground, like we were at name add, we're going to take all the name add content that we recorded, talking to dealers, and we're going to package that up. And we're gonna give it to as a podcast, as well as some other content. We have video, audio, and then the snippets. And then we were like, how are we going to put all these things in a bucket? Because we got so many places, we're like, well, let's just make it one podcast. That is whenever we're on the ground in the dirt. It's we're going to put everything so I've yet

Kyle Mountsier  02:21

but it'll be soon. It'll be real.

Paul Daly  02:23

It'll, it'll be live

Kyle Mountsier  02:25

art together and get the video editing this.

Paul Daly  02:29

Right, the description. Oh, man. Well, we have a few things to talk about today. This is a fun one. GM is considering a new concept to its Hummer line and midsize Evie pickup. There haven't been a lot. I mean, I guess is the rivian RT one considered a mid size pickup?

Kyle Mountsier  02:47

I don't know. I mean, it is kind of like a smaller structure. I feel like that. But I don't know what you consider that now it's really funny. Because if you link through the through to the article, it's kind of like it's termed as the people close to the matter. So it's obviously then kind of undisclosed, and it's kind of in the back channels. But there's clearly there's a concept car that's come out. It's been talked the talk is a couple of reasons. One, because like they recognize expanding through this Hummer line, because of the interest in the Hummer, they had 90,000 reservations for a vehicle price at $110,000. So there's obviously interest and mobile, and then they've got the opportunity to press into like European countries, because that's where like, typically smaller SUVs and pickups, make it over there. And so there's just kind of this this rumblings around. But it is clear that GM is not backing down on their strategy to press into the Evie market. We've reported on this before but they're spending and it's just it's crazy to even talk about but

Paul Daly  03:51

comes the billion number again $35

Kyle Mountsier  03:53

billion in three years, just on EV technology that's not even pointing to what they're doing for 2030 2035 That's just by 2025 to make sure that they've got kind of all the manufacturing all the you know, all the concepting out of the way the research and development the charging the battery, you know, their skateboard style battery that they've got. So Altium batteries that that it so yeah, super, super interesting. You know what the crazy stat here is? It's not it's not 90,000 reservations. It's not $110,000 It's not 35 billion. That's not the crazy status that said all that for 781 vehicle deliveries by the end of last month.

Paul Daly  04:43

So far. Yeah. Well, I mean, it was October 20th. So they have probably got 100 more so you know, something like that. I really wonder what we're going to say about this era in 10 years from now, or 20 years from now or 40 years. And now, I can't think of another time or even industry where the tide has turned so rapidly to something that has been done a certain way for 100 years. And is like, I feel like within like a nine month window, it's just been like afterburners on. And just this is the way it's going to be with. So far, fairly little evidence of it being sustainable into the future.

Kyle Mountsier  05:27

Right. I mean, we'll not even get started on the whole battery thing. But what's wild to me is like, this has been something that's it's come up before. I mean, you know, everyone kind of talked when the leaf came out the Nissan LEAF, they're like, Oh, it's coming. Now. It's rockin and rollin. And even back in the, in the 1990s. You know, Nissan and Mazda were really looking at Battery technology, they were really pressing that boundary, and it didn't happen then. But it's just like, all the energy is behind it. It's a wild new proposition. But again, like you said, there's just not a ton of results, because we're trying to do this thing in the middle of chip shortages and inventory shortage. Yeah, delivery shortages and staffing shortages, and all of that. And so we'll just we'll see how it plays out. But

Paul Daly  06:09

I mean, that's the part of it. That's a part of it. Because you're like trying to make sense of like, is it the tail wagging the dog right now? Or is we've talked about this before is demand is what pushing the technology forward? It doesn't seem like it, there seems to be a lot of skepticism. So it's like what is actually behind it? And it's hard to make sense of that with the chip shortage and political climate. And China, right? I don't know. All I know is that we're going that way. Whether we like it or not, whether we like it or not, and we'll be right there in the middle of that Scrum. Speaking of, geez, I was I thought I had one and I lost it. You didn't? I didn't have it's okay, I'm just gonna go. We're just going to stop we're not going to play is going to tell myself to stop. Oh, well, here's a good one with that game.

Kyle Mountsier  06:54

That's the one we haven't given. We haven't given it that one. And sadly,

Paul Daly  07:00

it happens. Well, it is the 20th. So I don't know what that means. But so here we go with AD generation. Ad in ad placements and gated multi logins on the horizon, Netflix announced an increase of 2.4 million subscribers in q3 after two quarters back to back of losses, and the stock diving and people questioning and Netflix saying Hold on, hold on, hold on. It's we know it's gonna be a little rough for a minute. But we're coming back now most of the new subscribers came from outside the EU, the US. And basically, here's a quote from the earnings call after a challenging first half, we believe we're on a path to re accelerate growth. The key is pleasing members. Well, yeah. Because that is kind of the key when you're saying yeah,

Kyle Mountsier  07:49

coders, you know, is, is what I hear in the next couple of things, you know, Netflix, they generated about $7.9 billion dollars in revenue. Interestingly enough, their net revenue was actually down last quarter, but that that gross revenue was up about 6%. Year over year, the company also has recently announced that they're not going to, they're not going to target subscriber count as their metric for success. They're going to go target revenue, which is really, like, it's obvious to me as to why they're doing that and why they're kind of positioning that way. Because of the the introduction to ads, and and the introduction of in early 2023, they're going to go global with this, like with the multi login gating. So you can't explain that for a second. Well, you know, right now, if you got Netflix, either you know who you are, you're the leech, right. And I'm not gonna point out any of those people, but you know who you are, right? And, and so they're gonna crack down on that pretty hard, they're gonna they're going to streamline that reduce the amount of logins where those logins happen from, and make sure that people are at least paying an additional subscriber fee for those additional logins. So, you know, it's interesting that that's, that's obviously two massive revenue generation opportunities that aren't attached to pure subscriber growth. So it's, you know, they're obviously headed in the direction of their decision making when they're communicating with shareholders right now.

Paul Daly  09:21

I mean, and I've seen some people like, oh, well, you know, you might not want to report subscriber growth because of the roller coaster it took you on. But I mean, to the people who are saying that it's just like, Netflix makes a really great case. Right, the revenue is the subscriber growth was the revenue metric, period. Yep. That's it. It was period. They're changing some things. I think they're gonna do good with the ads. You know,

Kyle Mountsier  09:43

I think I mean, Disney said they're coming in with it, like everyone's coming with it is funny to me. It's like everyone went for the, you know, you know, cutting the cord and Netflix is going you're gonna have about four to five minutes for an hour worth of watching TV of ads. Yeah. If you go with the ad supported tier, which is basically like TV, yeah

Paul Daly  10:06

20 minutes an hour, 20 minutes an hour, but you get it, I wonder if they're still going to do the tears with the resolution for Netflix, that's the thing that makes me like to have to pay it, you should have seen how offended my 16 year old son Miles was, I'm sure. He was like, you have to like what he saw there were actually three resolution tears, he almost lost his mind. First of all, I was like, why would anyone ever pay for standard definition? Anything? Right? It's like, that's like, I'm not watching it anymore. If we're at 480, or whatever it is. So we'll see what comes out, I think they're going to do a good job with the ads. It's a reasonable structure. And it's good to see there the back of the horse, and we'll see what happens again,

Kyle Mountsier  10:47

let's tie it back. Let's tie it back real quick. Because from automotive and retail, you're like, Okay, why do things like ad supported tears and gated multi logins and things like, you know, their their total subscriber count, is you just look around and you're like, all of these things that people are kind of getting hit with and these, like little ads here, little ads, their little changes to the to the environment that they're in, and like, what value is getting provided on the other side of that, like what value to the consumer and so my thought is always when when you're going to shift something, when you're going to move something change how people interface with the way that you do business, it better be extremely calculated, well communicated, and there still better be an additional layer of value added in at any point. Because that's what people will stay sticky so you can make changes, you have to continue to add the additional values of layers of value, to continue to keep customers coming back.

Paul Daly  11:49

That's a great tie in speaking of customers coming back. Good way to get that one. I needed something solid to repeat it for dead trombone. According to a new study, from Rhys retail research company payments, it's spelled p y M and T is very clever catch big retailers say they need more tech to deliver a better customer experience more. And this these will retailers that we're talking about in general, automotive needs to be more like general retail. Well, even the general retailers are saying we need more tech, American retailers use an average of 5.3 digital tools. How what do you think the average is for retailing tools in automotive

Kyle Mountsier  12:29

39 and a half disjunct and they don't talk to each other.

Paul Daly  12:37

So I think that's probably the whole moral of the story. We can just yet to the average retail 5.3. That'll probably solve 90% of our problems, but get this. So if average american retailers using 5.3 digital tools, only those who are using less than three digital tools. Only 17% of them say they're happy with their customer experience that they're delivering. Wow. So that means they're using too few. Right? So there's kind of the sweet spot since March of 2020, a record number of customers began using things like online ordering and curbside pickup a lot of those because of safety concerns. Right? Like I don't want to go in the store we're going to do curbside pickup, but most of those people say that's a habit they're going to continue. And, and the kind of like the punchline to this whole thing was despite, you know, those the retailer saying like yes, we need more tech, we need to do that to make the customer experience better. Overall tech spending actually dropped last year.

Kyle Mountsier  13:35

You know, it's interesting, because I think what if I could like read into some of these companies saying that they need more tech and even thinking about the automotive landscape when people say like, we need more tech, it's not just more it's better and more dialed in Tech Tech that actually like does the consumer experience the way that we want to have like our personal consumer experience and the way we want to give a consumer experience so I think it may not be just like we need more it's we need more of better we need we need to like jump leap and leap forward into tech that's focused on the consumer experience tying in consumer journeys across the across platforms and and what that does is an enable both employees and customers to do business better with the company. And so I think that's probably like my perception on when people say they need more tech that says that's what they need more tech in the overall it just needed to just need to do better in the thing, right? They are saying there's still room someone go make something more because I need that right? Yeah, whatever. I

Paul Daly  14:44

don't mean quantity more. They need quality more.

Kyle Mountsier  14:46

Yes. Hey,

Paul Daly  14:48

it's the 20th If you haven't heard already, you have a lot to do before this month is over. I don't know if I'm going to say go find some more tech, but go try to find some better tech at least

14:59

Hello

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