Rooftop Count and Throughput Up, Quick Supercharger Repair, Starlink on Flights

Paul J Daly  0:01  
Good morning, Monday, March, 10. Can't believe it's the 10th already today. We're talking about rooftop throughput going up, supercharger repairs and Starlink on airplanes, one of our favorite topics. Who i is, and

Kyle Mountsier  0:17  
everybody, please. I

Paul J Daly  0:20  
wonder, never mind. I was about to make a snarky, quasi politically charged comment about Starling, but I'm not, I'm not

Kyle Mountsier  0:27  
gonna do it. There was a whole 20 minutes on that this morning, on on the old run. We're gonna see run news van. Was I bet there. I was like, Wow, can we get some sports center back on the TV?

Paul J Daly  0:38  
Please? Oh gosh, please. Please. Everybody in a lot of places in the country actually going to experience some really beautiful weather this week. In New York and Syracuse, the snow is almost gone. I mean, only sick. I mean, the only snow that's left is that, you know, when they make those mountainous pile mountain parking lots, stuff like that. But it just feels like spring already. Daylight Savings hit. Ah,

Kyle Mountsier  1:01  
you know, we got our first I'm grilling tonight, bro, I'm grilling tonight. Be grilling in daylight. It's gonna be amazing, no

Paul J Daly  1:08  
matter when you do it. So it's been so nice. Oh, wait, Spencer Nathan is chiming in. Spencer is in a T shirt. Spencer

Kyle Mountsier  1:15  
wild thing. Because also, Spencer is always cold. He's always

Paul J Daly  1:19  
in a co Yeah, I think he's just, I think he jumped the gun. I think he's gonna end up putting a hoodie back on today. That's, that's my prediction for Spencer's wardrobe. Listen, everybody, ASOTU CON is coming in super hot. We are under 65 days to go, presented by Reynolds and Reynolds and coup boo. Podcast stage going up by our friends at Space auto. That podcast stage is awesome. I do want to say, if you are a startup, we've got something special cooking for you. This year, ASOTU CON has really become the Center for Innovation and startups, finding one another, finding investors, finding their first big customer. So if you have a startup, if you're interested in doing something special at ASOTU CON. We have some stuff for you. Kyle, what's the best way for them to connect? Hit

Kyle Mountsier  2:05  
us at crew@asotu.com let us know if you are a startup under three years lower revenue, under 20 employees and and you want to make a splash of ASOTU CON. Hit us up crew@asotu.com

Paul J Daly  2:16  
Yeah. We also got, I mean, you probably know about pitch tank if you've been around a little bit. Oh yeah. But coming this week pitch tank, I have to say, I love pitch competitions. And at ASOTU CON, we do them very special. And when you can have the chance to be up on that stage with that big, gigantic screen and that wall behind you, not to mention, though, even in the previous in like the in the rounds leading up to that, we have some amazing judges, which means you're going to get some amazing feedback that even if you don't win, because not everybody can win, you're going to go home with, like, measurable, actionable things you can do to make your product better and kind of connect to market faster. So I don't absolutely, if you're a startup, you need to be there, come on. I think one day, I think one day soon, like next year, possibly we're going to have, like, a whole thing dedicated to startups like, day, yeah, come on now. That feels good. It's got me excited, but get your tickets now. ASOTU CON com, a hotel room block, a big block sold before the weekend last week. We're like, we're really getting close to our rooms. So if you want to be in the event hotel, just go buy your ticket and book your hotel room this week so that you get to be in the event hotel room. I mean, event hotel that's the way to go. Alright, we got some news to talk about. We're moving through our Monday. Uh, us. New car dealership count rose. It went up by nearly a full percentage point. Oh, interesting. To 18,311 as of January 1, up from 107 up 171 stores, dealerships from last year, while the total franchise count fell 1.3% according to the latest Automotive News dealer census. So new store, new new car dealership. Count up, franchise count down. Detroit, three automakers shed dealerships, let them go, while import brands added stores with Ford leading the decline in the big three, losing 68 stores, which is a 2.2% drop. GM and stellantis also reduced their dealership networks by point 6% Buick, Lincoln, Jaguar, continued trimming their franchise counts, with Buick experiencing the most significant reduction down 135 stores. Their total count now is 927, by those things, they've had lots of buyout offers. So it's not like they're like going out of business, but they're buying them back. The number of exclusive dealerships across the country as of January 1, increased 3.5% to 13,226

Kyle Mountsier  4:35  
Yeah, all those. So this is so if you're not following, there's a lot of numbers. There's a baseline numbers. Basically, the new car dealership count is number of roofs, like actual roofs built with a dealership, right? Then you've got so many, like multiple brand franchises under a single roof, right? I know, like Melissa, Subaru stores, I know of you know, obvious. Like your stellantis type brands that are all those franchises, right? So that's how you get the 29 eight in total franchises that are given to those 18,000 dealers. But this, that the stat that's interesting to me, is that 3.5% increase in like single, single franchise, single rooftop dealerships. It's because I think OEMs are really, really pressing to have a brand segmented presence in the market. So you see that up to 13,000 which is a 3.5% increase. So you you're watching this thing where it's like more dealers, more individual, more single point rooftop situations, less total franchises. So like, the manufacturers are still trimming up, but they're prioritizing those that will build standalone buildings with their with their franchising. Yeah.

Paul J Daly  5:52  
I mean, it's it's positive. I think it's positive change for the industry overall. It means people are paying attention, learning the market's doing what it does, and it's weeding out what consumers don't want, and it's elevating things that consumers do want. And, you know, it's kind of unexpected news. I guess I wasn't expecting to see this story come out, but I think it's good. Personally, the overall, overall impact is good. Speaking of things that aren't good, oh, boy, this. This hurt my heart. This hurt my heart. As a new EV owner who was

Speaker 1  6:24  
trying really hard to find another one, tried really hard to find in charge. I didn't have

Paul J Daly  6:29  
this experience, but Tesla um last week, a fire occurred where a supercharger station was set on fire. Arson burnt the posts to the ground, but Tesla swiftly repaired the site in Massachusetts, bringing the entire thing back online. Get this in under 48 hours. Wow. So they immediately communicated with customers on X, formerly Twitter, promising we're gonna have this thing up in two days. They're considering enhancing its century mode on the vehicles. If you don't know, century mode is where you can set the car to pay attention to what's going on around it right, to kind of deter attackers. And they're thinking of enhancing it to potentially start honking if it senses someone up to no good arson, yeah, they only have to touch the car, pull the handle. It's like, if they think, you know, like I was just picking my nose. I wasn't doing you know, an arson investigation is underway with local police, so no suspects have been identified. The company is offer a get this $5,000 reward for information. I think they need to bump that up. They're

Kyle Mountsier  7:31  
gonna have to bump that up, for sure. Here's the thing, this is one of multiple reports of aggression against Tesla last year. It really ramped up over the week, and it has really ramped up some a lot of that due to Elon Musk in the public eye, you know, being being close to the executive branch of the government. And this is what I would say to car dealers, especially like one. This is another dealer. This is another dealership group. These are this is an OEM that has made it into every inroad of our industry, and we sell these used cars, and we are reliant on these charging networks and this brand as an industry at this point. And so I would say, if you're out there in the public eye or on LinkedIn or on social talking about Tesla, like there's dealership employees that work at Tesla, just like your dealership employees like promote the band, be a proponent of the industry abroad. I know that it's been sometimes the whipping boy, but this is an opportunity to stand up next to those that are kind of getting beat down. And you know, it's, it's dealerships again, it's, it's manufacturers. Yeah, they've got a figurehead in Elon Musk that people you know, love him or hate him are, you know, kind of taking sides against right now. But don't forget that there's real people in these places.

Paul J Daly  8:47  
I think another, I mean, take it back a little bit more pragmatically, just legit burning down charging stations is just wrong. That's just messed up. No, it's like watching this kind of unfold in real time. And if you think about it, Elon has kind of been a villain no matter which side he was on. Yeah, it doesn't matter. You know, like one side loved him for being ego friendly, and he's like, pulling that and so, like, the other side was like, hey, stop doing and now it's like, flipped and reversed. I think, I think everybody just always wants a villain. It's so easy to vilify people, and it's one of the things that's so hard to push through. Is hard to push through, is culture, right? I think we just need to ship out more and love people more. And you love cars,

Kyle Mountsier  9:27  
just send them more. I mean, just send them. The world needs more of these shirts, yeah? Speaking of what the world needs more of?

Paul J Daly  9:35  
Yes. Segue. Great. Segue. You know, we needed to get out of that one

Kyle Mountsier  9:41  
United Airlines has installed its first Starlink system on a regional aircraft bring the airline closer to offering free high speed Wi Fi across its fleet. The Starlink system offers free Wi Fi to mileage plus members, which is free to join with speeds up to 250 megabytes per second on an airplane fan 50 times faster than current. In flight. Internet installation is also significantly quicker, taking just eight hours, so one day compared to traditional Wi Fi systems, which require over 10 days. It's also it is also much lighter than the old Wi Fi systems, at 85 pounds reverse up to 300 pounds, which can reduce improve fuel efficiency, reduce downtime. Nada plans to install Starlink on over 40 planes this month, aiming to cover its entire regional fleet of 300 aircraft by the end of 2025 your boy might be a united boy. Let me tell you, it's kind of enabling the living room in the sky experience that grant Milstead, United's VP of Digital Technology snaps. Listen,

Paul J Daly  10:44  
I think I took precisely one united fight last year. Well, actually, probably maybe one or two, yeah. And it's all, you know, this is, I mean, Delta kind of started the, started the trend with, like, fast free Wi Fi, right? But it's not this fast. No,

Kyle Mountsier  10:58  
not at all. And, like, the majority of their small planes still don't have it, you know. So to be in, you know, entire regional fleet, 300 aircraft by the end of this year. That's a, I don't know, for business travel. It's so it's a game important, right? It's a game changer, that's time to get work done.

Paul J Daly  11:16  
And it's for, for all you streamers, I wonder if the upload speed, I wonder the upload speed is. Do you know what it is on Starlink? It's not like no clue. I mean, it's slower. Nathan. Nathan, do you know what the Starlink upload speed is?

Unknown Speaker  11:30  
I don't, but I can take a look. All

Kyle Mountsier  11:33  
right, we're gonna be out of the show before you find it probably, probably, I don't five, five to 20 megabytes per second. So, okay, so we're not that strong. I mean, not enough to stream, but strong enough to upload a document

Paul J Daly  11:47  
to GPT. You know what I mean? I think at that that's there's a great point right there. You know, there's something special that happens when you're using chat GPT on an airplane, like figuring out these really complex scenarios. You kind of feel like you're the king of the world. I'm using AI while on an airplane to solve this thing I never know how to solve. Like, four months ago, wild, I know, man, I'm looking forward to it. I know you're looking forward to it. Listen everybody, it's Monday. We have a fresh new week. It feels like spring. We got an extra hour daylight at the end of the day. And you know what? You can still go, go to ASOTU CON com. Get your tickets. If you're startup, reach out. We got a spot for you. You.

‍