Tesla Fights Tariffs, Gen Z Drives More, Most Disappointing National Park

Paul J Daly: 0:00

On Thursday, August 29 the guest hosts continue today. For the first time ever, I get to do a show with Ben Hadley talking about Tesla Gen Z and the most disappointing National Park. I feel like this is a good one for you.

‍Unknown: 0:17

The people really want to know who i is. Yo,

Paul J Daly: 0:19

how is this the first, you know, I think you're like, you've been like, Kyle's go to when I'm not here. Yeah, true. And just, and just, I don't know, I don't know, but I'm happy you're here and you're wearing the, like, the one of five. So do you know that too? What kind of camo is that that's called? There's a special kind of Camel. I'll think of it like after we get off this call, but it's just a brilliant piece of art, right there. Had

Ben Hadley: 0:48

to flex. I had to flex on everybody. It's a flex. There's only four others. I don't even know who are the other four.

Paul J Daly: 0:54

Patrick, a bad son, has one, and he talks about it a lot. Matt Lasher has one. Oh,

Ben Hadley: 1:01

company. So

Paul J Daly: 1:02

far there is, I think I have one in my office. And then I think maybe Tom Greg, the CEO of Van, has one. And these hats was, well, we did some crowdfunding to get the more than car series off the ground. Like this was it? Like you getting these? We're never making more, and you get one. So we're in an NFT. Let's go. Guess depends on which NFT, I guess. Remember those, gosh, I rode that whole roller coaster. I bought some V friends nfts from Gary V and at one point they were, like, worth so much money. Like, so much like, you throw up if I told you how much they're worth. And I'm like, they're gonna even double again. I'm gonna pay for my kids college. It's gonna be amazing. And then they went to, like,

Ben Hadley: 1:46

every other text I would get, dude, you're not in gorilla apes, 10,000 Come on, like

Paul J Daly: 1:53

eight platypuses. It's attached to real estate. It's very complicated, but the guy that told me about it really knows it, right? Oh man, here we are. We're in. We're in our Thursday episode. Today, we did release a new episode of our in the dirt podcast with Perry Watson the third, if you don't know Perry watts in the third, he is an OG he's one of the partners in Marysville Toyota out in Seattle. They started an open point Toyota, focusing on the people, focusing on one price. And now they're, I think, six years in, and they've started to see the cycle flip a couple of times. Boy is does he think about how to cultivate the people side of the business and how that translates to business. So check it out. You can just search in the dirt and put a sodu on there. It'll make it'll get you there quicker. Or you could just follow our LinkedIn page, and it's always that's all that stuff's always going up on the LinkedIn page and all right, I think it's time for news. We talked about nfts. What else is there to talk about? Well,

Ben Hadley: 2:51

I just realized this is probably why we don't do it together, because I'm gonna chat your brain off. And that's fantastic.

Paul J Daly: 2:57

We may be. This is probably the only podcast that's talking about nfts today? Yeah, which is wild. There's now, there's some, there's some NFT podcast that's talking about today. But you know, I'm speaking of a company who I'm surprised didn't release an NFT segue into the first story. That's how you know you're balling. So Tesla has reportedly lobbied the Canadian government for lower tavers on Chinese made electric vehicles. Before Canada announced their 100% duty on these vehicles batteries, it comes as they they're talking about an overabundance of Chinese imported EVs, and decided to align with the US to import imposed tariffs on these Chinese EVs, starting on October 1. So it's really soon, Tesla requested a lower tariff rate, similar to the 9% rate imposed by the EU on its vehicles. They've basically been exporting their model three vehicle and model Y from Shanghai to Canada. Can they Canadian? EV imports from China are up 460% in 2023 driven largely by Tesla shipments. A government source noted that Tesla's approach, noted Tesla's approach, but no comment has been made by the company as a result. So that's the Canadian tariffs. Wow, I'm,

Ben Hadley: 4:12

I haven't been keeping up with this. Are we doing? We're doing the same thing, right? United States,

Paul J Daly: 4:16

um, you know, we,

Ben Hadley: 4:18

you know, I

Paul J Daly: 4:19

should have been keeping up with this. I don't think we're doing tariffs on october 1. I've heard a lot about this, about everybody thinking about it, shots across the bow, right? Like Trump said, he would definitely do 100% tariff. I don't know if that, you know, actually made its way into any kind of execution. I think I've heard the 25% Yeah. But Canada is just, well, Tesla, also, you think about it, they export a lot more vehicles from China to Canada. They

Ben Hadley: 4:46

don't really do that in the US. The US vehicles are mostly made here. Yeah, I'm just worried. I'm worried that this the shots fired means like, I mean, how many, how many Fords are we sending over, over to China? China, right? Like, I Right. Like, it's going to go both ways. 100% Yeah. Like, all of a sudden, this is going to ratchet things up, and we're going to have tariff wars. It's

Paul J Daly: 5:09

one of those things like, who does it hurt more, right? And I think that's the balance whenever you're, like, working on tariff wars, like, who does it, who does it hurt more? You know, because if we stop, stop, that's a great question. You know, that's a great question. But, you know, I don't see it. I understand, like we need to protect the economy, and when you're manipulating currency and you're you're flooding the market with cheap goods, right? We've seen this for years and years with all types of goods, right? And then the EV race is just the impact of the EV tariff, or flooding the market with EV goods, batteries, vehicles, is much more impactful on the economy than you know, I don't know, notebooks or whatever. We figured that part out. Not to mention, yeah, not a lot of people in the US making notebooks.

Ben Hadley: 5:56

I imagine there's all these dealers that are doing that are like investigating right now some of these new EV Chinese brands that want to create franchises here, yep, that are probably paying real close attention to this. And the just the tariff possible, tariff war, right? Hey, we got,

Paul J Daly: 6:14

we got some info from the community. David Thomas says we don't send any to China. They make Ford. Build them there.

Ben Hadley: 6:21

Okay, there we go. Value of an answer. We have an answer. We have

Paul J Daly: 6:25

an answer. Yeah, well, we'll see how this develops. And obviously, we're in this election year, and that will definitely influence how quickly I think that terrorists move on Chinese vehicles, and, you know, depending on whichever way the election goes, will probably really affect the follow through on any threats, so I guess we'll have to see Yes, yep, to see speaking of having to see segway. A lot of questions about Gen Z, what's going to happen with them? And a new survey from Enterprise Mobility reveals that Gen Z and millennials are driving more than previous generations. They're driving more challenging. The notion that younger people are less interested in cars, basically, Gen Z Millennials report driving more now than they did five years ago. 73% of Americans still see privately owned vehicles as their top transportation choice over the next decade. While excited about autonomous vehicles, 72% of Gen Z respondents prefer being in control of the car. EV adoption also faces challenges, with 68% of Gen Z citing inadequate charging infrastructure as the major barrier, and basically showing most commuters are unaware of alternative transportation solutions like carpooling or van pooling. So you know, you're up not even like probably feels like five years ago, the sky, the Earth, the world was on fire with this threat that no one's gonna own a car anymore. Kids don't want cars these days. And this is kind of slapping that, right? You

Ben Hadley: 7:50

remember? You remember when people were like, Oh, I think, I think people just Uber to work, like they'll just get an Uber subscription and just, man,

Paul J Daly: 7:59

efficiency. It's efficiency, right? We have to start thinking and cost per mile, not you know what I mean, like done over

Ben Hadley: 8:06

done. And I actually think this is another example when covid happened, and everybody was like, Oh, you got to do digital retailing, because that's just going to be the way we do things. And then all of a sudden people are so starved on human to human contact, they wanted nothing more than to be in a store. I kind of think this is an example of when you get too much AI, you get too much tech, you get too much of whatever. You press that button too hard. It's Whack a Mole. The other button that pops up is Wait a second, right like you get, as soon as the digital watch came out, everybody was like, You know what? These Rolexes and these mechanical watches are pretty sweet. Let's see. And as soon as

Paul J Daly: 8:49

watch you've ever seen, see,

Ben Hadley: 8:51

there we go, proof and point. And so, yeah, I think people just get a natural appreciation for, you know, driving themselves, yeah, as soon as I think it starts becoming a thing.

Paul J Daly: 9:08

Look, people in this country in general, want their independence. They want to be able to express themselves. They want to be able to be in control of things. Now maybe, if you're in a major metro, right, that changes just because the inconvenience and expense of owning a car just quickly outweighs what it would take to actually not have a car and just get around. But once you're outside of major metro, I think people want the freedom covid Obviously knocked everybody back into like, you know what? My personal space isn't such a bad thing. You know what I mean. So like that even put, put, like, the car sharing and all that even on on notice. But I think you said it right. It gets back to the point that people will always migrate back to human connection, and like these things that we just talked about, show it also the metaverse. Oh my gosh, we have a metaverse. You can be anywhere you want to be. Put the headset on. You can visit a national park in the in the metaverse. You know what? Really quickly like? The Movie, ready, player, one made sense of it. But when it comes down to it, I think people just don't want that. Here's a comment from Doug. He says, Gen Z are even more interested in creative direct mail these days because they didn't grow up getting personal, tangible mail. That is an amazing point. Oh, think about it. Like kids just don't get mail. I

Ben Hadley: 10:19

believe it. I've been on a whole, I think traditional needs to come back a bit. There's also to that guy's point. I missed your name, the effort, Doug Klassen. Doug Klassen, the effort put in. You know, how many messages you get on your text message? You're like, this is just a robot sending

Paul J Daly: 10:36

nothing. This is automated. I think it's empty calories, right? It is, yeah, it's not, you know, make

Ben Hadley: 10:42

me some foie gras, send me like, yeah, maybe even sign the sign the bottom of the postcard. Oh, man, this person actually took human time, creative.

Paul J Daly: 10:51

Direct Mail. You might think about it. Direct Mail. Take it a step further. Everyone talks about the word experiential, right? Oh, people want an experience. Opening a piece of mail is an experience. Opening a text message is not right? It's just blah, oh man, solving the world's problems. Gen Z, let's go look see Daniel Abel say, my kids loving getting mailer packages. Shoot. You know what that's Can you imagine? Like just having a campaign, sending everyone who is 16 in your DMA or 17, whatever that year is. They're about to start driving, but aren't yet. Yeah, send them something cool.

Ben Hadley: 11:25

I get the Amazon logo on there and they'll open. Everybody will

Paul J Daly: 11:30

just open.

Ben Hadley: 11:33

Yeah. Oh, well, speaking

Paul J Daly: 11:36

of the opposite of surprise and delight, let's talk about disappointment the way to end the show, after Mammoth Cave National Park was listed as the third most disappointing us tourist attraction in an online study, they flipped the script on the bad reviews, embracing its reputation as disappointing with a viral tongue in cheek social media post, the Post basically reads, come experience what has disappointed millions for over 225 years, visit our website, choose for our many activities that will leave you unfulfilled. You can be disappointed by a quote, dry hole with very few stalagmites or stalagmites, or discover nothing other than trees on an over 80 plus miles of trails, a world of regret awaits you at Mammoth Cave. Basically, the park was established in 1941 as the world's longest cave system. Despite negative reviews, they do have a 4.7 rating on Google. That's

Ben Hadley: 12:33

amazing. Okay, so I actually think this is so good, because there are so many things that you can lean into that you know that if No, as long as no one else is leaning into it, it becomes great marketing. It becomes great advertising breaks the noise, and it breaks the noise. Yeah, exactly. Well,

Paul J Daly: 12:54

marketers ruin everything, right? Like this is a great play, and this, this is just an example. You know, in the auto industry, a lot of times, you know, dealers clients, they will struggle with, like, how do we make something fresh and interesting? The bottom line is, there is always an interesting way to spin something always, always, always. And that's why, in this world where I don't know, like content, ad content, social media, content, even AI generation is going to start making things look better faster. The creative strategy behind all of this stuff is really going to be be the differentiator between who can succeed and who can't succeed, right? This, this post, is just words. It's just words, right? But they found a way to be fun with it, to connect, to tie it back to the value proposition, and really put it in your to put, yeah, to put it in your head. You were like, You know what? It's kind of fun. Let's go see the most boring one. And I bet, once you get there, I bet it, I bet it over delivers 100%

Ben Hadley: 13:51

or it's just going to create so much social media of like this, you know, just a bunch of people being bored. I mean, there's like, a, I imagine,

Paul J Daly: 13:58

a million posts for the, like, most disappointing trip ever, right? Yeah, hey, Mammoth Cave National Park was never on my list until this moment when we read this story. So what I'm gonna say about that, I know it well. Ben, I think our first show together was a winner. It definitely started my day off, right? Thanks for joining us. Thanks for wearing the hat. Thanks for being part of the positive motion of this industry. Go out there. Love some people sell some cars. We'll see you tomorrow.

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