Learning To Drive in 2039 with Jimmy Douglas

Paul J Daly: 0:00

Let me ask you a question.

‍Unknown: 0:07

This is Auto Collabs.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:11

I'm nervous.

Unknown: 0:13

What does this man and our next guests have in common? They've

Kyle Mountsier: 0:18

been in a boardroom together and they're crazy. Oh, wait, no, that's not that's

Paul J Daly: 0:21

pretty good.

Michael Cirillo: 0:22

They both have better hair than me.

Paul J Daly: 0:25

That is also good. I'm holding on to just listening. I'm holding up Elon Musk's biography. And there are actually some similarities. Kyle mentioned two of them. Three, Michael mentioned one of them, between our guests. Jimmy Douglas, Founder, CEO of plug and Elon Musk. They used to work in the same place. They used to work with the same team called the Tesla little team called Tesla. Elon Musk. Did you know Michael Elon Musk had hair replacement surgery? You can tell? I mean, listen, if you do, bro, like me, Jeff Bezos, I think it's very quiet. You're Michael, you and I are in good shape, because it seems to be requirement of billionaires. So I thought

Michael Cirillo: 1:08

I went into the barber. And I because as those watching this will know, Jimmy has beautiful hair. And it's solid. It's like, solid fade. I went to the barber and said, I want the Jimmy Douglas fade and they just kept going. They just kept going. That's the real story of why

Kyle Mountsier: 1:27

that's the real story of white bald, I get it. I get it.

Unknown: 1:31

Okay, well, yeah, no one knows how we're started these things. No, but Jimmy, we Kyle, you and I met him for the first time about a year ago at the Reuters event in Las Vegas. And, you know, he he originally reached out was like, Hey, I just wanted to reach out to you know, the guy who talked about me on his show. And at this point, it was like Tesla, Jimmy Douglas. I was like, Oh, crap, what did we say about what did we say? Fortunately, we keep all of our show notes. So I was able to search for like, oh, we said a nice thing. Cool. Yeah, but since then, he's been taking the franchise dealership world by storm use cars, especially as he founded plug announced the launch the company out of stealth mode at ASOTU CON last year. And since then, he's just been on a tear, so it's gonna be really cool to catch up with him today. Yeah, why?

Kyle Mountsier: 2:15

We hope you enjoy this conversation that we get to have with Jimmy.

Michael Cirillo: 2:22

Jimmy Douglas, thanks so much for joining us on Auto Collabs.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:27

The most exciting well, as hands went up,

Michael Cirillo: 2:31

I started thinking about all the food Jimmy is going to be eating when he goes to Italy and in a few days, all of it. All of it. Yeah, literally. Delicious.

Jimmy Douglas: 2:41

Thanks for having me. So it's great to be back. Appreciate you all. What's

Michael Cirillo: 2:45

what's new, what's new and hoppin on your has been a while and of things?

Kyle Mountsier: 2:50

Yeah, it's like, let's just catch up us guys. You know. I feel like I see you everywhere. In

Jimmy Douglas: 2:57

a lot of places, Kyle, places,

Unknown: 3:00

but in recent travel budgets got nuts. It's great. You know,

Jimmy Douglas: 3:05

I was on a, I was on the same flight as Greenfield actually the other day. And he looks at me he's like, What are you doing in a middle seat? And I was like, Hey, I gotta be conscious with investors money, man. This is not luxury here.

Unknown: 3:19

Actually, he actually saw you like before they got out and he was like, crap, I better sit in the middle seat. I know somebody on this flight.

Jimmy Douglas: 3:29

Yeah, I definitely when I flew spirit the one time I definitely posted it on my Instagram story just to make sure everybody knew like, just how cost conscious we were trying

Unknown: 3:37

several seats took selfies and also you could post them for sporadically over the next year.

Jimmy Douglas: 3:43

It's evergreen content actually different

Kyle Mountsier: 3:45

reason for posting spirit photos. It's normally like people of Walmart. It's the same exact photo actually.

Jimmy Douglas: 3:51

Yeah, I'm one of those people. Yeah.

Michael Cirillo: 3:54

I've flown spirit once. I'm telling you boarding group nine on American Airlines is like flying private. Compared to I

Unknown: 4:02

had never heard spirit iPhone like all the other ones like that would be a good

Michael Cirillo: 4:07

piece of content. Paul was flight spirit for the first time reaction video. Watch that.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:14

Well, okay, so so to your travel like you, you have been I mean, we saw you at used car week you've been recently as you were speaking NADA, you've you've had a bunch of different conversations with different people across the industry because of the work that you're doing. Obviously, you have a storied past with, you know, being a part of the test organization and then doing something in evey, which is like the world of news right now. And so you had the opportunity to have a bunch of conversations. What what's like some of the interesting insights that you had, just in being a part of conversations that some people just don't get the opportunity to be a part of over the last six, nine months.

Jimmy Douglas: 4:52

Yeah, thank you. So much interesting stuff is going on. And a year ago, we never could have predicted what the near narrative around EVs would be today. And to some extent, there's a law sombering effect to it and the numbers aren't lying, right like there. There are real demand headwinds, relative to what's available today. On the flip side of things, the cataclysmic events in the last year have led to absolute downward pressure on resale values. But the bright side of that is suddenly the number of dealers who are entering the fold is growing quite fast. And it's compounded with two factors. The first is in a wholesale context, you can very easily acquire used model threes that are still under their battery warranty that are in reasonably good condition, well below the pricing threshold required to retail them in a way that's eligible for the 25 E tax credit for qualified buyers. And that business line in itself is creating opportunities for dealers who weren't really participating in this to start very aggressively start participating in it. So ironically, for us, I'm actually really excited for the state of the US Evie market in particular, because it's making it more approachable for more participants. Hmm,

Kyle Mountsier: 6:19

I do this for like, skirt. You mean money's?

Michael Cirillo: 6:26

Yeah, I was thinking about this. You think about like, I have a soon to be 15 year old who's about to get his driving permit. And the crazy thought to me is, first, there is no way in hell or high water. He's going to learn to drive on my GMC Sierra. So the only other option is my wife's Tesla Model three. And what was weird Jimmy, to me, the thought of my first reference point for learning to drive a car was a 1990 Plymouth Sundance five speed.

Paul J Daly: 7:02

I knew it's going to be a stick shift. Yeah,

Michael Cirillo: 7:04

and, and my son's first reference for driving a vehicle is going to be a an all electric vehicle with like, that is

Unknown: 7:12

crazy. Isn't that why will be his reputation? It makes me afraid that's a lot of power.

Michael Cirillo: 7:18

Yeah, well, you're gonna have to put you can put teen driver mode on. Are you kidding me? Yeah, and it throttles it, but, but it's just weird to me that that's where we are in. Despite all of the narrative, you're talking about EVs and where things have shifted, and there's the pundits who try and push against it. And there's the lobbyists for it. At the end of the day, there is a group of new drivers coming into this market whose only reference point for a vehicle we'll be driving a fully electric vehicle and everything that comes along with it. Well, absolutely. I

Paul J Daly: 7:49

pretty sobering thought. Like,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:51

I mean, my kids are 10 and under. And legitimately. The question is not Hey, Dad, are we gonna get a new car someday? The question is, Hey, Dad, when are we going to get an Eevee? Just like that's the blanket statement.

Jimmy Douglas: 8:06

I wonder if so my kids, my kids one and a half his first birthday it was right after ASOTU CON last year. And I wonder so I'm my story is similar to yours, Michael, I learned to drive on a stick shift 1974 Chevy love with a visa in it for some reason in the middle of dirt field on a Christmas tree farm where I grew up in middle of nowhere, Oregon. And I wonder if my son will ever learn to drive or if the vehicle that he learns to get himself from one point to the next will even have a steering wheel. Wow,

Kyle Mountsier: 8:45

that blew my mind. I need to go take a nap.

Unknown: 8:52

Think about I mean, my son, my son, miles 17 just got his license. And he just, you know, he's thinking his second car will be an Eevee. But he's got a four runner right now. That's just for the record. I learned to drive on. You're gonna love this. A Dodge Caravan that didn't have a third row. That was a four speed. Ah, that's you know, they made those but take somebody like redneck built like a wooden seat in the back that phased out the back window.

Jimmy Douglas: 9:22

I don't know why. But that line from Juneau just popped in my head. Did you hit someone with a Provia? Yeah. First thing in my mind when you said caravan.

Michael Cirillo: 9:32

What you just said though, is really interesting because, I mean, we are in such a weird state of being right now in this transition phase, where we're experiencing all of the friction of trying to understand where things are headed. But I'll tell you when we first bought the Tesla and activated full self driving mode, it was glitchy and they just pushed it on us. A month ago and said, Hey, we've reactivated a free trial, we want you to test it out. And just in a period of seven months, it has gotten so much better. So to your point about like no steering wheels, I feel like we need to impress upon people how rapidly things are actually moving, how quickly they are iterating and making moves, and and how close we are to sitting in the back of a vehicle that drives itself and that most people aren't fully comfortable with it.

Jimmy Douglas: 10:30

It's Moore's law, right? It's exponentially changing. It's not linearly changing. That's why the change is touching up on us so fast. Does this

Michael Cirillo: 10:38

give you more validation around your company that it's like, yes, we gotta lean in. And we gotta go fast. Like, what? Does that give you a sense of urgency of like, we need we need more people to understand and get comfortable with EVs? Or how are you guys thinking about the rapid shift. So

Jimmy Douglas: 10:57

I think of it mostly in the context of the software defined vehicle, which happens to be very closely tied to evey, but not exclusively, in that the way that we value or appraise or merchandise, or educate someone within the context of a vehicle or inventory purchase, will be a combination of factors that generally are not part of what we're considering today. Computer hardware, memory, software enabled features, the persistence of software features from one ownership transfer to the next. Those are some of the differentiators that we have been leaning into since day zero. And this conversation sort of brings to the fold that the array of possibilities that will come about as a result of this. And yes, it gives me great conviction that somebody should be focusing on that problem. And luckily, we are

Kyle Mountsier: 11:55

really cool. Um, there's two problems that I have right now is I can't get the picture out of my head that AI kind of generated about the the car in the field in Oregon and Christmas trees, like it's a perfect AI picture. That's probably the one I

Jimmy Douglas: 12:11

should probably I should throw that into chat. TPT right now

Kyle Mountsier: 12:14

you should that's like, I'm just giving you that as a free gift for a great LinkedIn post. This, the second problem that I have, is that this, you know, back when I was selling cars, you know, I remember when when kind of when x I was at a Mazda dealership when kind of it was the first year I can't remember what it was, it was probably in like that 12 1314 range where pretty much every car that we were selling, kind of push button start, right. That was the first time where like, mass adoption, I was at Nissan store than Mazda store everything at that point had a push button start. And I remember this world where basically, a customer would come in. And the last time they bought a car was three, four or five years ago. And simply explaining, walking up, hitting a button on the side of the door to open the door and then getting in putting your foot on the brake and pressing the button was like it was like a two minute conversation to get their heads around how that works like that. No, I'm not even kidding. You guys think I'm crazy. But like that's that's a reality that was happening all the time for me every single day. And what what you're saying is like us DVD adoption, massively increasing, right, which is probably one to four year old EVs, primarily Tesla's but also bolts, and there's been a lot of other entrants over the past four years. So we have this higher level of adoption, on used EVs. It's the first foray into an Eevee learning curve is already high for a consumer. But now, the gap that a consumer experiences in technology advancement because of the ability to have over the air updates and software that that Michael was just describing is pretty wild. When you think of like that person going from a US dv to potentially like as we come over this demand gap on the other side, and hit people going into new new EVs more because price parity happens, like the information gap is going to actually grow at a at a quickening pace. And I think that's potentially dangerous if dealers aren't ahead of it. Just like expository there is not really a question. I'm just like, how do we solve that? You know,

Jimmy Douglas: 14:42

I couldn't agree more. It's a really difficult task for a dealer especially in the context of use EVs because think about trying to be able to confidently sell any used Android phone for a second right? All the different brands, the software versions, the features the the hardware within that's sort of a representation of what these people are going to be asked to do. And without that information layer, it's an impossible job. It can't all be inside of somebody's brain because it all changes. Yes.

Kyle Mountsier: 15:14

Yeah. Cuz it's not just about the new cars you're selling, it's more complex than it ever has been on the used cars, right? Like you could, you know, historically, you could look at a used car, go to sell it and be like, yep, power windows, power doors, you know, it's got the Bluetooth thing, because I see that on the steering wheel. Now, like, sky's the limit. What's behind that screen? Right. Wow. See, Suzanne it was, um, just

Michael Cirillo: 15:40

thanks for coming to our therapy session. Jimmy.

Unknown: 15:44

I just texted all of you an image is the first time we've done this on the show. This is brand new. This is interactive. Yes. Interactive. Nathan has it. We'll put it on the screen for the good. Does that look like you as it? Yeah,

Jimmy Douglas: 15:58

exactly. I mean,

Unknown: 16:02

I'm not gonna lie. So first, I mean, I talked I told I told GPT your name was Jimmy. So actually said Little Jimmy was my little Jimmy. I was quite a little something like little Jimmy learning how to drive on a money Christmas tree farm in the 1978. Chevy love, and that's what we got. Yeah, that's incredible. That's

Kyle Mountsier: 16:21

amazing. Okay, so So give us give us what's next? Because, you know, I think, you know, obviously, you guys have kind of gone through the beta phase. And, and, and a lot of like, testing with dealers on the auction site, exactly what's going on with these EVs moving them across country, the dealers that need the most. But what's next, I know that there's a growth phase there you guys are hiring. But what does it look like for you over the next six to nine months to be in the market? Yeah,

Jimmy Douglas: 16:47

thank you. So we're still in the beta. And we are, by the time this airs, we will have on boarded our 100 of the dealer. And as of if you remember my presentation, ASOTU CON last September, the timeline I articulated was we would launch the beta in q4. And then within q1 of 2024, we would try to sell our first million dollars worth of cars. So we we did that we exited q1 at 1.3. And we just crossed two, a couple days ago. Thank you very much.

Kyle Mountsier: 17:14

Wow, that's been 30 days. Let's go. Yeah,

Jimmy Douglas: 17:19

let's go. And of course, we've got some really aggressive targets written here on our window for next month. But the reason we're still in beta is because we're still learning new things every day. And that's becoming especially true as we onboard new dealers in different states that we haven't transacted in yet, new makes outside of the ones that we've already sold. Different methods deployed for sizing up critical pieces of information, like battery health, for example, and how that can be accessed through consent flows at dealers versus fleet operators. So we're still working through kinks and still very methodically onboarding dealers on the demand side, especially who are interested in working with a startup that doesn't necessarily have it all figured out just yet. But what the future holds for this year is exiting that beta period, relatively soon, hopefully, within the next 90 days or so. And I'm hinging it to the launch of a couple of products that we haven't announced just yet. But I will say that categorically, it should make plug the safest place to acquire US evey inventory for dealers, particularly those who are not currently experts on used EVs. So going to be mean. Yeah. So what do you there are a couple of? Yeah, no, it's a great question, Paul. So there are there are three components of safety here that I hear about a lot. And the first one is, I don't understand what I'm buying or what I'm not buying. And that was sort of the thesis we leaned into, when we launched we said, every vehicle listed on plug will have been leveraged for the fact that an Eevee is a computer on wheels with an API that we can connect to and size up everything about it that you need to know and make that information fully democratize so that there's no more information asymmetry. That's what we launched with and what people know us for. The second concern that I've heard from dealers is concern around the high voltage battery pack and whether or not there will be some sort of catastrophic failure, either when it's in inventory, or, even worse, honestly, shortly after they retail it to a customer if they don't have the ability to properly size that asset up ahead of acquiring it. And even though battery health reports are becoming more readily available, I've continued to hurt to hear interest in downside protection, even in the case of a manufacturer's warranty claim, the ability to run it through quickly and confidently because it's a process people aren't necessarily comfortable or familiar with yet. So that's number two. Risk Number three is pricing volatility. And you can relate that to a number of Number One. Yeah, well, and you know, it might be if I, if I asked enough people, that one might actually be a number one. So without giving away exactly what we're planning on launching, it's my goal to make it so that if you're a dealer that's interested in transacting and use dBs, but you need all of those risks, mitigated, we will be the platform where that can be true.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:20

Wow, that's strong. That's strong. What

Paul J Daly: 20:25

is this? You think?

Kyle Mountsier: 20:27

He's like, he's like, when do I get my dealer's license over here?

Jimmy Douglas: 20:32

As soon as possible, Paul? Within 90 days is my plan. Fantastic. That's

Kyle Mountsier: 20:37

amazing. Wow, amazing. Well, Jimmy,

Unknown: 20:39

look, we're looking forward to speaking with you and hanging out with you in just a couple of weeks at a soda con. I'm not quite sure when this is airing. But one thing is for sure. There's no grass growing under your feet. I'm so impressed with what you've done. Since the very first time we met with was just just about a year ago, we met you at the Reuters convention for the first time ever. And then just you know, six, seven months ago to soda con you kind of launched and here you are exceeding your goals in q1, doubling your your your your revenue in just another 30 days, and you're about to launch kind of sounds like a game changer. So thanks for joining us today. And really fighting real hard to make the industry great at EVs.

Jimmy Douglas: 21:18

Well, I can't thank you all enough for the the incredible platform of launching this business and announcing coming out of stealth at ASOTU CON last year. And I'm even more excited to be sharing a stage with a couple of dealer principals who I just admire so much at the upcoming one in my mini keynote, which those who attend they're not really going to learn much about blog, but they'll learn a lot about a couple of dealers who combined have eight figures and social media views and on a monthly basis via Tik Tok and LinkedIn have sold more used TVs in the first 100 days of this year than most other dealers have in the prior year in its entirety. So that's gonna be a really value prop.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:02

That's a bold ask. That's nuts. First of all, I have if you are sitting here and you have not gone and watch the pod, I know if you're just a podcast listener, and you listen on iTunes, or the Spotify or whatever, totally get it for Spotify. The moment we're like find our LinkedIn I'm sure we're gonna post this and go look at the image that was created. Little Jimmy Douglas driving through

Unknown: 22:35

a row of Christmas trees on money every Hallmark card that you ever want doing yourself a favor. I don't know if you or Michael did this, but zoom in on Jimmy. And it's it's like, almost uncanny valley level scary. And the steering wheel and the hands get a little janky but using one on Little Jimmy and it looks way better when it zoomed out. I couldn't help myself.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:58

It's pretty weird, right? That's that's sideways. That's pretty wild. Yeah,

Unknown: 23:02

pretty weird. I think Jimmy was like, Yeah, it kind of does look like me. It's again, I don't think he's zoomed in the middle of a podcast. Well, look,

Kyle Mountsier: 23:10

this guy I'm telling you what he's not messing around his understanding of the used car market, even just the things that he brought up about how the pressure on the used car market from the new car pricing volatility and the demand, the lack of demand generation and now the Evie tax credit, making it possible to do this thing where you now have profitability and low price like Tesla Model threes and moats and things like that. And that being an accelerant. Yeah. To franchise dealers enter it. That's nuts. Nobody's having that conversation period anywhere.

Unknown: 23:46

Not at all. I mean, we know a number of dealers who are really excited to get into the Eevee game, because there's a game to have no, right and there's a little more certainty around it. And there's people like Jimmy and you know, some other friends you know, like John Foley, Alex Lawrence, like people that are showing you like actually, this can be a pretty great business for the group of people who are more and more willing to try this kind of,

Michael Cirillo: 24:09

well, look, this is exactly why people need to come to ASOTU CON. So first Hey firsthand, from guys like Jimmy and dealers throughout the world, the the Americas.

Unknown: 24:19

Well, I might earn the merkez. Michael.

Michael Cirillo: 24:23

I mean, guys, I was just in I was in store with a dealership, small dealer group last week and they had all sorts of questions about EVs. They're like our OEM is cramming EVs down our throats, we don't know how to talk about them, sell them do anything we've, you know, and it was a small town. He had 13 EVs sitting on his lap brand new that we're collecting dust. And I mean, that's just a validator to me why you need to be at ASOTU CON, where we tackle these topics, we get into the nitty gritty, nitty gritty, if you're on the fence. I mean, there's still time, there's still time unless of course you're listening to this in the future and it was a blast

Unknown: 24:59

and And yeah, absolutely. But next year you can be there.

Michael Cirillo: 25:04

Unless of course you're listening in the future and it was a blast. So hey, head on over ASOTU con.com Grab your tickets. And we hope you enjoyed this conversation with Jimmy Douglas on behalf of Paul J. Daly and Kyle Mountsier Marcel Michael Cirillo. Thanks for joining us. Sign

Unknown: 25:22

up for our free and fun to read daily email for free shot of relevant news and automotive, retail media and pop culture. You can get it now@asotu.com That's ASOTU.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.

Kyle Mountsier: 25:53

Welcome to Auto Collabs. We recording

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