AAH #654 - EVs Need Less Repair Work, But How Much Less?

I'll do online after hours. This brought to you by Bridge Dome Tires Solutions

for Your Journey. John is thirty years younger. No just kidding. John

and Gary are actually out today and you know, to just kind of tell you the truth here, they were supposed to be traveling. Gary's actually got

his trip canceled and he said he'd come on. But I figured, you

know what, this would be a good sink or swim swim moment for myself and not to have the crutch of Gary who's always here with me, so, you know, just do it myself. And with that in mind,

I figured I'd stick to a topic that I knew pretty well and to kind of give you a background on myself a little bit, I was an automotive tech for over thirteen years, so I just kind of wanted to stick with that or a topic along those lines. And so you may have seen the

headline for the show today and it's all about, you know, evis need less repair, but how much less do they need? So with that mind,

I brought on some guests that can talk all about that. So why

don't we bring some of those folks in? So I'll start out with Craig

van Battenberg. He works for a CDC and he's kind of like a pioneer

in ev repair and training. Got Sam Furani with Auto Forecast Solutions, Dan

Neil with The Wall Street Journal. These guys have been on before, great

guests. Just wanted to bring them back. So really, thank everybody for

being here today. Yeah, thank you. It's great to be here.

Ye. So Craig, let's start out with you. Yeah. I mean,

evis obviously need evis obviously need a lot less repair, but you know, kind of what's been your experience with them? Well, I go back

to buying a Honda Insight in nineteen ninety nine. So I've been following this

actually since the very beginning, and it seemed like the hybrid days, you know, took a while the Prius became mainstream, and then people wanted electric cars. There was a company called High Motion two engineers up in Canada that

had a plug in kit. This goes back to two thousand and six,

two thousand and seven. A lot of previouses got converted to a plug in

just your extension cord and you go about thirty miles an hour, maybe twenty or thirty miles in the city so they would This was like do it yourself first, but more professionally done. A couple of companies came in. Then

what happened the Chevy Vault, which was to me an awesome car. I

bought it brand new when as soon as they came out, it gave me the drive bubble electric because I could go one hundred miles an hour of pure electric the way that was designed, and I have to worry about infrastructure, there wasn't any. And we pared first a used twenty eleven Leaf two years

later, and that was a good car, but I had eighty three miles of range only, so it was pretty limited. And then things got better.

Test of course comes out with their models in twenty twelve, but they weren't very nice to the aftermarket. We couldn't get parts, couldn't get the

scan tools, so I kind of put that to the side and we didn't do any training with that of any extent. And then other cars started popping

up, so we ended up leasing a Chevy bolt Bolt. The state was

almost giving them way I'm in Massachusetts, Great Car traded that in and then we bought a narroev really like that was a nice car and then Testa finally says, guess what they're scanduls. So we have a Model three. We're

actually I'm actually protected while the class is going on. We just finished we'll

be finishing at five, a three day class on just Tesla. So we

have an old model S, we have a fairly new Model three, and we have a model of hy that was brought in by a student. Six

students, I think six or seven are here learning how to work on Tesla.

For us, it's relatively new because we have to get caught up on twelve years of history without really being able to do much. And so on

the service side, you know, we're involved with every bit of it.

We're not that involved with Lucid or the newer ones because until they sell a lot of them, there really isn't service to do. And to your introduction,

there's a lot less maintenance. And I read a repair shop for twenty

six years doing Hondas and this is back seventies, eighties and nineties, little bit into the two thousands, and we did a lot of maintenance, and we did a lot of repair. They're good cars, but they had internal

combustion engine. They needed timing belts, and the old days Capito are wired

and all that stuff. That's all gone. So it's an interesting time.

It's a big time of transition. Very good. Yeah, No, it's

it's it's got to be really interesting now with Tesla coming on board. I

think maybe the last time that we talked it was still really difficult to get into service. With Tesla, it sounds like that's kind of changing for you

now. Well, just last week, the front and rear motors on a

Model three. They tend to have high voltage leaks. So you're driving along,

you get a code, it breaks down, and you bring it to Tessa and they replace the entire unit. Not a bad idea. We're not

rebuilding anything. You're just throwing parts at the car. And those were not

available to the aftermarket till three days ago. You go on the website.

Now you can buy that unit for about twenty five hundred bucks each. But

in our company, we have a Model three front motor induction motor that has a high boots leak. So we purchase it on eBay for twelve hundred bucks.

We'll take it apart and fix it. It's fixable, and then we're

going to try to source whatever we need for parts, and we'll come up with a solution, so an aftermarket shop can rebuild the motor at probably a little bit less money, not a whole lot less, but a little bit less, so that customers will have an option of getting it fixed by Tessa and they do perfectly good work, but they put a lot of parts in or independent shop. As an owner of a Tesla that we purchased used about

a year ago, I didn't realize the difference in how you get your service appointment. It's all done on an app and no one's going to talk to

you. And I had a rattle and they wanted me to take a picture

of the rattle. I couldn't submit it without a picture, So take a

picture of my tire and said, I think the tires rattling, and then I could get through. I mean, once you figured it out. It's

like any any app there's always something weird. And the service around Boston is

okay, but it's tied up. It's hard to get an appointment. So

I think the aftermarket is going to play a huge part. And the aftermarket

is good at this very good. And we're teaching mostly high end euroshops to

do the work because the high end euroshops are losing their business to people that had a BMW Mercedes that bought a Tesla. So the timing is perfect for

us. We like doing this work, getting the shops on board, helping

it through some of the weird things, the safety things. And with this

third or four extensive class, we do a little eight hour class on the road, something quick, but it takes three days to get through. It'll

probably four days in the future. I have a question how transparent is Tesla

with regard to you know, the shop manuals and procedures and and updates.

Is there Uh? Is there an inconvenient lag between what is you can access

and what you will You won't You won't get any live you won't get live tech support. But their service manuals, which are actually on the screen in

the car, they're excellent. I will actually relate it to this. We

do a lot of military training. We just picked up the Canadian military.

They have a lot of Fusion, the newer Fusion, so we bought one and we trained the military. When we're training the military, it's more component

based because really, if you're if you're in a war zone, I'm not from the military myself. My father was. But if you're in a war

zone, get a haircut, hippy. Let's say I said get a haircut,

hippy. Yeah, that could happen, but I don't know. You're

not cut it off and raise money for foster kids. Because we raise money

for foster kish. You had to play the foster kid card. Fine,

whatever, they keep going. I'm sorry interrupt, but that's okay. I

don't mind it all. I was expecting this. So so when when the

military is trained, they're not trained to diagnose and fix little things. They're

trained to well to hook on the side of something if there isn't already a hook there, and drag it back or replace a complete component. If you're

a test the technician, that's your training. The diagnosis is done in California,

and they do a great job because their telematics are terrific in that vehicle, and then the California people will say, replace the rear motor, replace the front motor, replace the entire HVAC system. They don't have this new

octovalve system that's one item. So everything on a test is a component.

They ship it out pretty quickly. The technician replaces it they update the software

over the air. So a technician is like the people like trained for the

military, big components. You don't do a lot of diagnostic skills, just

put the parts in bus saying that's wrong. That's totally different than the aftermarket.

We're doing HODD to work for so long, we would fix cars.

I had had a hard time fixing because we're really good at diagnostics, lab scopes and whatever. We dig deep into a prelude or whatever it was working

on and find a solution and sometimes find a cure, and then later on there may be a recall. So it's a totally different mindset. I'm not

saying it's bad. But if you look at the technicians that work for Tesla,

they're younger, they got hired away from Ferrari Maserati. They're going there

because the brand is appealing to them. They get paid very well, they

get a salary and don't quote me on this with all, according to two technics I interviewed recently, there's a mandatory seventy hour week job right now because of the backlog. Quick follow up, is it a case of Tesla and

everybody else? Is what you're the situation? Describing the state of maturity in

terms of services Tesla and then everybody else is a distant second. Is that

the case? A distance second in what regard well, I mean like a

GM or BMW. They're kind of servicing of evs. I have a BMW

I three and they called them to ask if I wanted a oil change.

Yeah, yeah, I understand they don't understand electric cars. That'll take a

while. No, most technicians and leaderships work on a flatweight system. And

the faster you work, more money you make. And that's okay as long

as your qualities there. It's an incentive TESTA pays a big salary. You're

gonna get a lot of money and hurry up. And they got a backlog

because they sold one point three million Teslas last year, not all of the United States. So the waiting time that service centers is long. And if

something's wrong with your car and you call an independent shop and you independent euroshop, they answer the phone, Hello, how are you? Oh yeah,

come on over. They aftermarket and I would include myself and that one I

ran much it. We're friendly people, we have a waiting room, we

have coffee, we talk to you and we want to know how you're doing.

We take notes, we put it in the computer. They have two

daughters. That would be helpful to know. Because there's car seats in there.

We're going to make sure where they're fastening properly. Little things. That's

what the aftermarket does. Tessa is a totally different animal. I'm not saying

it's wrong, it's just completely different. The customer experience is not what people

expect now. If you're a totally geeked out on apps and you're twenty seven

years old and you're not socializing with people, that's all you ever do is spend your time on your phone. It's probably fabulous. But for a generation

like mine that's used to going in and talking to somebody, getting some service, being able to show up without an appointment because my wiper blazer streaking, this is not what they do. So I think the affirmarket has a great

opportunity find another level of service. You mentioned the power leaking is there?

What are the issues with Tesla's now? Well, so, we bought a

Model three extended range all wheel drive at the peak when you couldn't get them about a year ago. We paid a lot of money, had forty seven

thousand miles on it. The warranties five years or fifty thousands had about three

thousand miles about The warranty ran up. So I went the car where we

do our own service. We bought a factory scanned to We scanned everything.

It was a pretty good car, but we knew there was lots of issues that were reported. So I dropped. I made a couple appointments and that's

when I learned how it's just different to make an appointment. And they replaced

the front end, they replaced the room window, they did an update, replaced him wiring. It's just quality things. Our key and Niro has about

forty two thousand miles on it. Not a single issue. I don't expect

one. Well, we didn't replace the twelve vone battery. That's no big

deal. Now I tell people my brother interdusted. My younger brother, who

lives in Palm Springs called me today. I was at Cape Cod. I

drove back for this thing. I was down here with my wife on vacation,

but you know I wanted to be on the show. So I'm driving

back and my brother Clay calls me out of the blue. He says,

I think I want to buy a Tesla. What do you think, I

said, Do you read the Boston Globe? No? Why would I read

the Boston Globe? I said about six months ago, maybe longer. Hiawath

the Gray, the reporter for the Boston Globe, came out here to do a small story about preventive maintenance on electric cars. He didn't know who he

worked. He saw the facility, he saw the cars, hired a photographer

right away. They did a big story on the company, very nice,

lots of pictures, and in there they asked me, can we quote you?

You know where they then you're right articles you put something out in bold and you put like one quote might attract people. I said, yeah,

you can quote me. And what I said was this, I like my

key and niro Ev much better than my Testa Model three. And you know

why I said it, because it's true. It's it's at it handles better,

but the handle better, it's quieter, it has the features my wife likes that I couldn't even get on that. I think it's a better car.

And my entire life, I'm a technician, watching cars fall apart, trying to fix them, watching mother rushed here in Worcester, Massachusetts. Destroy

the cars. We have to work with the rusty cars. Wiring this well

made or not well made. And I think it's not a secret that the

model of three when they listen to Monroe of Associates all those it's yes, there's great stuff in it technology, but the build quality is still a little off, and I'll probably get better. I believe it already has believe those

complaints, especially with regard to three and one h three. I mean that

they they have their their panel gap issues are obsolete. Yeah, panel gaps.

I'm looking at thing. You know, we've taken this car apart,

and now that the warranties out, I was already reprimanded. Once I had

a windshield get cracked and went in to get the winshield replaced. They said,

great, you're working on this car. Yeah, well you know you

can screw up the warranty. I said, well if I did? I

did? Did I screwp the warranty per windshields? John Jell about the the

S and P data last week, and yes, it is some counterintuitive uh.

I like uh. I think Tesla's numbers are despositive, uh in terms

of whether or not they're a good car, whether they're a quality product.

You know, they do have higher than usual uh per hundred cards. I

think the numbers one eighty six issues per one hundred darts. But there's a

question of yeah, they're from the bottom on quality, fourth from the bottom.

Yes, but they or the best. They make the best selling car

in the world, and they have the highest leanner loyalty. And there's a

question about there's a disconnect. I think that really uh, none of us

I think adequately addressed. And this is the love over the hope over experience

element of owning a Tesla. And uh, you know they are they're they're

good cars, and they they work for many people, uh, without a fault, and they have they constantly get better in your possession, which is I think it is something that other cars simply don't do. But not disconnect

You're talking about is this measurement is things gone wrong where Tesla's and other ones are things gone right because they think about the vehicle that the aura around the Tesla is a reason why these people buy them and buy them again is because they want to own a Tesla. It's not that it's a great car,

it's that the image that comes along with it is a large part of what I'm buying in this vehicle. And so it's not it's not things gone wrong

that that are turning people off, it's things gone right that are bringing into the brand. Well, like we said, ah, it's it's different for

every buyer. There's gonna be a buyer that loves that IQs score that gets

really high, and then there's gonna be a person that doesn't care about that at all and wants the technology and the image of the Tesla. So I

think it's you know it, it's uh, we do. I I feel

like I shouldn't concede this one point, and that is this notion of the Tesla's image being such a big draw. Maybe I'm out of touch because you

know, we only know our own experience, but I don't. The one

thing that doesn't that I'm not craving about a Tesla is to join the the Tesla fan club and be yet another Tesla in in my block that is full of Tesla's, which is you know, a huge distance center. So the

image thing also seems problematic. Really, um, you know, like I

said, I have a BMW I three s H with the nool car oh, thank you. It's and it's not a Tesla. And I see Tesla

owners looking at my car going oh, I think I'd like that. It's

very unique car, and it's built in a way. Really it's really well

built. As you know that entire car was all about a carbon offsets.

When they're building it, you really have an hour. I could just go

on and on sandy volumes of this car. I think, I think want

to had one more thing. So my brother Clay says, should I buy

one? My question was do you drive long businesses in places you're not used

to going? He said, yes, he's retired. Then buy a Tesla

because you're guaranteed to get there. The charging infrastructure works, it works well

well. I had a business trip to Cincinnati. I'll leave boister, I

punched in the map. I just got this car year ago, and it

brings me to every test of charger that's always working or updating. Then that

the infrastructure is by far better than anything, by a margin of a hundred.

If you're not going to go a long distance, or if you have a petrol car or a hybrid car, then you don't have to worry about that. You'll just take your gas car long distances. But for that one

point test it is. And as we've been watching the news because Sean reported

on it recently, everybody's going to go to that new connector. Oh yeah,

connector is brilliant. Now our connector broke. So we've already had the

experience of having order parts. And that's because it sits a little bit loosely.

You can put that in there and wiggle it too much because if you don't know to push the button on a tester, it's locked in. People

that aren't used to that are going to break those little pins inside. But

once they get used to what they won't break it. Maybe we can make

them more sturdy. You should order extra because you know you're gonna have to

replace it at one point. It's like a submarine, you know you have

I hope not. I hope it doesn't implode. But if we if we

break the charge report, you're not going anywhere. And so I drove a

hybrid down to the Capes. I'm down in found with this morning. I

don't look at the gas tank. I'm on the mass Turnpike and it goes

ding ding ding, low fuel. So I had rains, anxiety and a

hybrid because we have forty seven cars at eleven are registered and I drive whatever's around right, you're going so rains. Anxiety happens with gasoline as well as

electricity. But it seems once you're close to three hundred miles of range and

you've got a Tesla, you're fine. The key and narrow. I don't

try that too far because my experience trying to get out to Syracuse for a meeting was one CCS charger was broken, the second one was busy. There's

only one in each place. That's changing. Thank god, we're doing something

about it, but we're not there yet. I said to my brother Clay,

in five years, it's a different story. Five years ago, it

was a different story right in the middle of this big transition. It's getting

better. But we get back to auto mechanics for just a minute. Or

technicians, which I think was part of the subject matter. The technicians that

I know and I read a shop for forty five years and I trained them.

There's seven of them downstairs right now in our training center, which is my old repair shop. We talk about flat rate, we talk about incentives,

we talk about do you like your job? I talked about it with

shop owners here, because we're having an active and honest conversation about not only do you have a good technician, how do you keep them, how do you make absolutely sure they never go anywhere. It's not just the money,

it's the respect, it's the attitude. It's let's pay for the tools and

stop having them pay for their own tools. The wife likes that one.

That's insane. For twelve years, we did a lot of training in the

Netherlands. There's sixteen colleges over there. Van Battenburg couldn't be more Dutch.

That's not why I was there, but I flew back and forth in the Netherlands. They came over here numerous trips to train automotive technicians because they're ahead

of us. The technicians are licensed, they have a four year degree.

They have never heard of flat rate and they've never heard of buying their own tools. They go to work in civilian clothes and put on an overall pretty

cool thing and they're happy most part. But technicians everywhere, we do want

to stop that. You can't have that, you know. But it's a

hard job. It's not a thankful job. It's a hot, sweaty job.

Well, look, I just want to say, I just to hear.

I just watched a video on YouTube where this Ford tech had to replace the transmission in a Ford transit. Uh, and it is a twelve hour

job. It took him eighteen hours. There's one hundred and forty some fasteners

and uh, he's halfway through it. And the dude, it's beat Man.

He's like and he turns into camera says, this is no fun.

This is not fun anymore. This is why people get out of the business

because this hourly bullshit, you know. And and the shop may have charged

one twenty five and the tech may get fifty. But did I curse?

I'm sorry, I should be it is after hours. I know, I

feel like I should be wearing a NEGLIGI you don't want to see that, but I do. It's I mean, no wonder people quit. I wouldn't

do that. And the way the way this platform engineering that is ubiquitous across

you know, all of these uh multinationals. The one thing they don't sweat

is serviceability. And they never have a huge problem. Well they never have.

That's never been designed into a vehicle, especially the more modern we get, the less designed in that is I worked years with Chilton writing repair manuals.

Oh my god. All the guys that I worked with knew that you

could not fix those cars, especially the way they were written in the books.

Let me let me give a little deference to Sciro Honda for dis added.

As you know, every president that ran Honda Corporation came from engineering, every one the president one as well, and they cut their teeth on F one and indie car and motorcycle racing. On My background is Honda. That's

what we specialized in. If you take a look at a nineteen seventy three

Honda Civic, the first year they came out, you had to take out the crankshaft bolt right. It's a transverse engine, and you took the wheel

off. There was a hole already there on the inner of fender panel so

you could go right in. Honda was a company I don't know if they

still are that actually cared about technicians because mister Honda was a technician. Embody

run that company was an engineer slash technician. I don't know if they still

do it because I don't work on cars, regular cars anymore. So there

was one company at least that seemed to care. I've been writing articles for

another magazine. They're out of business now, Autoinc. For a long time.

You can google my name. You'll find a lot of stuff I'd like

to write. I've been writing a long time. It was an article that

I liked. I did it for sixteen years. You've made a good example.

If you took the first generation Honda Civic hybrid two thousand and three, four or five, and you want to replace the fuel pump. You took

out the back seat. The fuel pump was there for screws, a connector.

You replaced it easy. When they redesigned the Civic in two thousand and

six, the hybrid, there's a big battery behind the back seat. That's

where all the stuff is. The hybrid stock. They put it right on

top of the fuel pump by about a half an inch. Now, if

I want to take the fuel pump out of a two thousand and six Civic, I have to remove the entire high bolted system and get it up on blocks, get it halfway out with some two body fours that take it out that's going backwards. So I had a five star rating. I looked at

all the serviceable things you would normally do. This is guys hybrids and then

electric cars. We did as well, and some manufacturers it got much worse.

Some stayed the same, but an average it was three stars out of five. Rarely was anything easy to do. Then I would add every time

at the end of that column, I was hoping engineers would read it.

If you were smart and you thought about it in the beginning, had a technician on the engineering board with you, you could cut down on warranty labor times because that's what sells at engineers. The management is worried about money.

We have to I run a company. I have to make sure we pay

the bills. And we've been in business for forty five years, so evidently

we know what to do about paying bills and making money. But if you

could get through the engineer's head, they're making it easier to service save warranty dollars when something goes wrong, they will listen to that. I think it's

the only thing to listen to. I don't know if it got through.

Unfortunately, these same beam counters, they're trying to figure out how to build the vehicle, not take it apart. Now let's get back to test them.

If you take a look at the twenty, twelve, thirteen and fourteen model s. The first one, the twelve vote batteries buried underneath the right

wiper blade mechanism. It's a real pain. And then they fifteen they guess

what it's right there. You take a look at a Model three. You

open the front. You can pop off this piece of plastic with your fingers.

It's just clips and the twelve batteries right there. Now. Testa's gone

away from twelve vote let acid batteries. If you don't know, they have

a lithium battery. Now, a little tiny one about that thing, and

that's right there. So with TESTA, the service is easy. Things are

there, the motor, the whole frame drops out the bottom. You swap

out the motor. There's no issue with that. That's pretty good. Most

electric cars designed to be electric car. There's more room than there was.

I don't have an exhaust system, a gas tank, I don't have an engine, I don't have a transmission. So it's getting better. But I

really feel, and I know, I hope I'm making the point that if we treated our technicians better, paid them, differently, appreciated how hard they work, and gave them the time to do it correctly, we'd have a good, robust service center. Now independent shops that I know. We left

dealerships. I worked for readership because I wanted a better work experience, and

then then we treated our employees differently. We never paid flat rate, and

I finally got bored by the way of running a shop for twenty five Still up, it's still rump industry. It's still a declining industry. And you're

going to see a lot of You won't see investment in I see you want see investment in? I see train you want to see? Well, I'm

just saying this is part of the disruptive. Part of disruption is that there

it's suddenly there's no one to work on the previous generation of cards. Well,

and there's no one, but certainly if your car is fifteen years are older, the OEMs won't even supply parts in some case when GM, when GIA went bankrupt, we forget about that. In two thousand and I had

no obligation for any Chevy parts prior to that. It's a new company.

Where are we on right to repair anyway? Well, I've in Massachusetts,

so you know I voted for where are you. It's a deal on right

to repair. There's a federal judge that's hearing the case over and over and

over again, has not made a decision, but I think the viewers should know what it is. Well, Nitza just came out saying something, you

know, saying not to telling the automakers not to comply with the Massachusetts law.

I get that, but I here is that automakers are going to use this as an excuse to not follow right to repair. And I mean,

we'll see what happens, but it's just I'm want to give your your people a little bit of history to do they understand this right to repair started really in nineteen ninety six when we put an OBOD two connector under the dashboard to test emissions. Was it called that yet? And then because in Massachusetts we

have a very strict emissions program every other year, it's got to pass up to fifteen years, including Martha's Vineyard in Nantucket. Because of that, you

couldn't just go to an OEM to get your car service. The state says

you can't drive it unless it passes. So we had regulations in this state.

I was for them. I was fully in business at that time.

ACDC stands for Automotive Career Development Center. That was my emissions training company certified

by the state across street from my repair shop. Doing honest Right to Repair

came in. We voted for in twenty twelve because what we wanted to be

sure is that the service information was the same, the parts were available, and scandals were affordable factory once, so we could fix cars and we already had most of that anyway. But we passed it and it allowed us to

sue in a court of law an OEM if an independent shop couldn't fix it.

It's never been a lawsuit that I know of. The second one,

though, is the most important one. We have a second right to repair

and the New England Service Station Automotive Repair Association between the SARA is leading that fight and I bet on that board for a long time. I just try

to help them down. That one is about the obody two connectors going away.

There's no obody two connector in a testline or let me get back TESTA never had to comply. They never had a tailpipe. Every owing they had

a tailpipe had to comply with these regulations. If they built electric cars too,

we just got that information just because they didn't want to separate it would be too expensive. So when our leaf comes out in twenty eleven, we

have allness uneath information, not because it's polluting. It's not polluting. It's

electric, because it's already in the manual mixed up with everything else. So

our second right to repair is specifically for telematics where there's no obody two.

As you know, I believe Suzuki and Hyundai have to disconnect some telematics to sell a car in this state. Now, the problem with the law that

we've passed not that it's not a good law. We didn't give the OEMs

enough time to implement it. And all we want that law to do,

the new o WED two law, it's not going through the new telematics law is Van Battenber's rage. What's the name of my old shop? The customer

could direct all that information to me and not the deadership. So if you're

driving down the road, I had a Chevy Vault, so I'll have a love that thought. I got on Star for five years included with the volt.

I'd grab it down the road. I see a little light come up

and start immediately calls me on the vote, said, mister van Battenberg, you have a low tire. We have an appointment made for you right now,

take the next exit. Blah blah blah. I'll send you a map

to deadership. It could also be an emissions failure. That's called steering in

the automotive industry. In the insurance industry, that's called steering. Steering people

to certain repair shops to get your body shop fixed, and that is also under federal scrutiny or I'm not fed, but state scrutiny. Is that okay?

So it's really a matter of information. Who owns it? Does the

dealership own it, does test to own it as a testa owner? Do

I own it? And I direct that information to Joe's, Tesla's shop,

the independent shop down the street. That's what that lawsuit is. That's I

think all we want, and it's preemptive. We want to make sure it's

there. So independent repair shops in Massachusetts are in the loop. That's the

only reason why that law was passed. No, I get all that,

and I agree I think the independence should have access to this. But my

fear is that NITZ is going to succeed in saying that this is a safety security issue and that's how they're going to end up getting around this, and that independence and people won't be able to get that sort of information. It's

just a fear. I know that it's going to happen. I don't know

how it will work out, but it's just a fear that I have.

Well, you probably know what NASTAFF is National Automotor Service Task Force that started in a near two thousand and a hotel room in Las Vegas, when the aftermarket got together and said we don't like what's going on out here. We

got in touch with every OEM who's in the marketplace two thousand and By two thousand and three we had an agreement with every OEM. BMW was holding out.

They finally signed it that said we're not going to pass a federal law.

We just want to have an agreement with OEMs that if there's a gap in the information, we can't get parts. So we work together. And

I was I won't mention which OEM. I'm at Detroit. It was meetings

in the spring and the fall. The spring was Detroit. The fall was

always at APEX in Las Vegas. I'm sitting there I'm representing training and at

OEM, and I don't blame them for saying it said, if you push this to the federal level, we won't give you anything for fifteen years.

We'll put everybody in court, will put you out of business. Now that

was a threat, an open threat. But if they put all the independence

out of business. Only thirty percent of repair tops repair work is done at

dealerships, seventy percent is done in the aftermarket. Who's going to fix the

cars? So we really have what I call a fight going on, and

it should be polite, it should be legal. It should many name calling.

But we need to figure out how we're going to service electric cars in the future, who's going to do it, and have some open competition.

I'd love to see licensing for technicians, but I'm in a minority. When

I bring that around technicians and shop owners, they don't like me. I'd

love to see licensing. There's not a current scheme from as E or a

C for a technician a Master tech ev. Uh well yeah, so in

twenty fifteen Automotive Servicing Excellence. If you don't thank you, I couldn't remember

what the hell. It's a voluntary license you don't have to do it.

It's voluntile, voluntary license. Yeah, it's voluntarily taking a test. I'm

ASC certified in a lot of things. We have been since the seventies.

Come out seventy two, I'm hot air balloons. Go ahead, So you

can you can go take a test to prove your competent in many areas.

And in twenty fifteen you could take the L three test. That meant you

were competent in hybrids. That test just got rewritten. It's going to be

redone coming out fairly soon. So there is yeah, and so that means

that I have the training. It's not hands on test. It's a it's

a test. It's very secure. You go in there, they check your

pockets, they want you they I mean, it's it's you're really getting tested.

Oh good, then that's that's the assid and answered. It seemed like

this would buy by. It is to the industry's benefit to prepare their human

resources for the future. But it is a voluntary thing. It's not a

mandatory thing about the industry exactly. And because we have a shortage of technicians,

you can't say to somebody, well you need to get L three or you're not. I'm not gonna let you. It just makes the Yeah,

well, when we ran our shop, it was simple. You got X

amount of dollars for getting certified. You know who really went bananas on right

to repair? The tractor agricultural industry. Uh, and the farming farmers of

America went completely ballistic when you told them when the Massey Ferguson and you know, John Deer and the other said, oh no, you are not allowed to fix your own tractors. You have to bring him into the regional dealership

in Des Moines. And uh, you know, one hundred thousand dollars at

the downtime, one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars worth the service. So

that was and do you know what the industry won that fight? Full disclosure.

By the way, John Dere's one of our customers, just so you know that it's one of my favorite lawnmowers. I like. I like John

Dear, but I was it was a topic I never brought up when I was at John Dear meetings. It was very sensitive because on the arm here

that I've forgotten to go to our sponsor here bridgetone. We gotta quick that

we got to throw out yet thrown here, but when I when we come back, Uh, I'd like to talk about repair costs. I think that's

something that our viewers, an issue that affects them that they'll want to learn about. So why don't we take a quick break and we'll come right back.

How do you bridge? Don't hire stop Shorter? On what roads?

Is there? Hydrotrack technology? Did? You don't have to know how the

science works, just where the brain is. What really matters is they're bridged

up. All right, Yeah, we're back. So I kind of mentioned

it there. You know, I think we kind of got into the right

to repair a bit, but I mentioned repairs. You know, I'm all

for getting technicians better pay and better working conditions and all that. But I

think something that I always hear from the average person people that are, you know, just the general people in my life, why the heck does it cost so much to get a car fixed? And Craig, you're talking earlier

about component replacement. You know, you get a code for a motor,

just replace the whole motor rather than rebuilding it. Right, It's typically been

the case where you could diagnose and rebuild something or repair it rather than just throwing components at a car. You know, you get a code or a

cylinder misfire instead of throwing plugs, wires and coils at it, actually figure out what the heck the problem is. Yeah, with repair costs going up,

is refurbishing and diagnosing still the better way than component replacement. I think

it depends on the market. I was just near Madrid, Spain, doing

a classing a convention with the Automotive Partial Rebuilders Association of Europe apr A, another one of our customers. So there are companies that rebuild parts, starters,

alternators, all that thing. They're not into EVS yet, they don't

see the numbers enough to make a business case out of it. Now there's

a small shop just north of Pittsburgh. A model S came in. It

had it's a rear drive model. It needed electric motor. The customer could

leave it. Very smart is one of the technicians we've trained and we support,

and he was able to source the bearings, he found the gaskets, he found what he needed in different places. It rebuilt the entire rearmotor and

it's on the road for about six months without any problems. So it can

be done as a former shop owner. We have to be careful with the

use of our time, so we obviously want technician to be efficient. That

means tooling equipment. I'm a big believer in specializing. Go for your strengths.

I'm not a big fan of general repair shops. They're trying to do

everything for everybody. It makes them inefficient. As a specialist, we were

very efficient, so you could really get a lot for your daughter because we know what we're doing. The parts were in stop. This transition is going

to disrupt everything. But I'll tell you, as a technician for so many

years, I will not miss crob of monoxide poisoning. I will not miss

gasoline dripping down my arm into my armpit. I will not miss burning my

arm on the exhaust system when I drive a car. And I'm not going

to miss all that stuff. Somebody's born today in every town that you're in

right now, somebody born today, boy or girl that will be an automotive technician in eighteen years and never ever work on a internal combustion engine. They'll

have a better job, it'll be a healthier job. Get a load of

this. We have a new governor, Heally, I forget of first name,

mar Healey. She's our new government. January. Of the top seven

political appointments political positions in Massachusetts, if you include the mayor of Boston, six women are running the state. The day she took office back in January,

Maria Healey she created a new cabinet position in Boston for climate change.

And within a month they decided every automobile technician working in Massetts a fossil fuel worker because they're working with a substance that's going to harm your health. And

because you're a fossil fuel worker, the state's looking at doing training for them for free no charge. Because we're outlying internal combustion in twenty thirty five.

So if the state is going to say we can't sell them, it means eventually internal cobushon is god and we're forcing an entire industry to go to evs.

And the bulk of technicians do not want to do this, by the way, the ones I made the bulk of them that at LEAs we'll pay for it were we don't have a contract with them, but we're negotiating something like that. We'll see what happens. So this is a big change.

And if this state can get behind retraining technicians that no charge to them.

I think that would be a good model for the country because we really are asking an entire industry to stop what you're doing. Look at coal miners,

right, they're out of work, So let's teach them how to work on wind and solar. But they don't want to work on wind and solar.

That is a the The development of that example is that you could import all the new new technology jobs you want in West Virginia and they would go unfilled.

That's a that's a manufactor if you aren't trained. But yeah, that's

a buggy manufacturer one hundred years ago. You know, if they don't want

to move, they there, it's their loss. One of the education is

is the liberated that for social mobility, and you know that's uh the case, certainly the case in West Virginia. Uh when you're at saying these day

and I get the feeling painting with a really wide brush, which I do as well, But there's outliers and I've noticed that the technicians that we train that they've come in not liking evs, that leap that like evs. When

they get back to the shop, then they become the disciples and that entire shop like that they understand. Oh I wouldn't. I would expect that that

would only be the case. The reason I'm like this is because a brake

cleaner, you know, when I was a kid, you know not Yeah, and then up to our elbows in it. So yeah, I feel

you on the hazardous work conditions. Yeah, it's not fun and it will

get better. M this transition. We're gonna do what adults always do,

screw things up and try to fix it later. Isn't that how we run

the country? I think that's just what we just we Doit is quite a

default. I really think there's you know, good people are putting their heads

on this issue, and it's not easy. Obviously, nothing from involved with

electrification and disruption. There will be creative destruction along the way and independent repair

shops. Maybe. Actually I was going to say not to sort of bottom

line or be reductive about it, But isn't the real the prime agent here is the dealership economic model that depends on the service the end, the margin being you know, sufficiently generous to make it worth you know, sticking a concrete a dealership out in the middle of nowhere wherever it is. That legacy

business plan probably is a more fault than anything else, you know, it's just the business is. I worked at dealerships, so I opened my own

independent shop. Then I started reading Automotive News how to Detroit back in ninety

one, because there's a Honda specialty shop. My my competition were dealerships,

not other independent shops, so I got tuned into the dealership. It's funny,

you know, I mentioned Citiro Honda. Roger Pisky has a lot of

shops and I bought a used hybrid down at their BMW deadership down in Rhode Island a few years ago. What have BEAUTIFU shop? Because he's so much

into motorsports, I get that. I've met him a couple of times at

the track. He's one you could approach and say hello, it'll talk to

you. He reminds me of the of the type of dealership owner that you

want. Understands technicians, they know what they go through. Um. I

don't know him personally, but I admire what he's doing because everybody I talked to that works at a Penske leadership loves their job. There's a culture there

that I see It's different than other dealerships that I've worked with, where it's just the bottom line only and the CEO doesn't have a clue how to open the hood or check the oil. I think, I think when you really

get somebody at the very top, there is anyone timed Roger on an oil change lately, by the way, curious, I mean, because you know, if he can, he's has to go back to training. I'll be

seventy three in December, so I'm no young guy, but I was talking about Roger, not you, Craig. There in fixed cars with everybody not

right. My fingernails still have a little grease. And even if they know

on the real deal fair enough, I'm guess Roger probably doesn't have too much grease underneath his fingernails. These it's money, but I'm still betting you could

change an oil change. Jay Leno has a little bit kind of like muscle

memory. It feels like maybe thinking of Jay Leno, look at what happened

to him because of gasoline. Yeah, Walker became Paul Walker. Roger Rotis

and Paul Walker. You know that it's a horrible tragic death that was gasoline.

You look at the tragic deaths. It's gasoline. You don't see batteries

killing anybody. I'm sorry, I just just to a footnote the I mean,

it's all coming by so fast. I don't mean to, you know,

make this's a colloquy between the two of us. But uh, you

could show walker accident was bad tires. Are you referring to the bad tires,

the old tires, the tires on the Porsche. Yeah, okay,

that's what you're mean. Okay, that's scary. It was I was just

putting them. It was an electric car. They would have got out of

the car or maybe no. Roger Rohdis and I had had a meeting about

one month before he died to have ACDC work with him and Paul Walker for a whole chain of hybrid independent repair shops. Not too many people know that.

What a tragic ending. But the ending was the gasoline. Yeah,

they crashed. I've gone too fast and many I'm an old motorcycle racer.

I just bought a zero sr F in my seventies. My wife made sure

my life insurance is paid up. Because he goes zero to sixty and three

seconds of top speed one hundred twenty six miles I ride this bike like a support bike. It is. It's the only bike that has ever thrown me

off under throttle. I had that thing and I spun out under throttle and

I was lying across the side of the street like a starfish on my back, you know, And so that you survived, Yes, it is.

It's a it's a sporty car, but that's quite a trolly making. When

we get to electric cars, they're so much safer to work on than the gasoline car has ever been from the technician level as well. Yeah, gasoline

is so combustible, it's heavier than air. It settles down low, there's

a spark, the building goes up. It's not good. I'm not even

talking about CEO two. That gets controversial. So we'll talk about death and

dying in Mayhem. Well, a lot of the vehicles we've been talking about

here are kind of like more mainstream type evs. But I'd like to get

into another topic about like ultra luxury evs. I know Dan has just driven

the Specter. What was that, Like, what's a Specter? Oh,

it's the electric rolls Rolls. Royce said, didn't know. I didn't know

they even had one. Oh well, the one of the propagandas UH starts

with this quote from Henry Royce, who observed very early on that the end of the electric powertrain would really be the more ideal Uh, when you consider the brand verities, the wafting power blah blah blah, you know, the silence and so forth. That was Uh, that was a very prescient quote

that they dug up from somewhere. Uh. And Uh. It is true

that no other brand UH is more suited to the haptics of electrification. But

it's also true that no other brand could have, say, the the narrower marginal utility of electrification, because they were already super quiet and super smooth and all that stuff. The specter. I'm I'm not allowed to give you driving

impressions. Uh that so I just wanted This is one of the rare occasions

when I was actually at an event, So you know, it feels good to say that. But um, it's a very big car. I think

one of the things that's a tell of its technical generation is the scale of it and the and of course you know they've made the scale of you know, a part a future, not a quirk. Uh. They the word

Grandioso had been used officially, Uh by Torsten uh Mueller, the boss.

And uh, but it is a beautiful car, and they are I have two two numbers for you. Two years ago, Bentley told me that eighty

percent of their buyers or intenders one in an electric vehicle. The people will

buy a bunch of percent eighty percent Rolls Royce their number forty percent, which knock their socks off. They couldn't believe it. It was eighteen percent two

years ago, it's forty percent. Now it'll be eighty percent very very soon.

Uh. And and the you know, you'll only have your eccctary connoisseurs

getting the twelve cylinders. Uh. But uh, it's I think one of

the things that always gets lost in this conversation, in these conversations is the fact that the demand far out strips the industry's willingness to satisfy the demand.

Uh. You know. And and just today the SEAN reported on the Alliance

saying that you know this, you know, if we move too fast on electrification, it will reduce consumer choices and raise costs. It's exactly the opposite.

It is exactly the opposite. And they're not representing consumers. They are

representing the industry and the industry's interest is I WinCE when I think of this?

Uh this? You have a thought, as we discussed last time we

were on the show, that ultra luxury is the place to be for electrics, at least for the first wave, because a Rolls Royce is perfectly suited.

They are not long distance drivers. These people don't drive them, you

know, take them out and go four hundred miles on a family vacation.

These are I would just want to observe today locally. Yeah, that's all

true, but somewhat irrelevant and because of the irrationality of buying us a luxury.

But it's only part of the package, part of the package. It

is enviable, it's covetable, it's scarce, it's new, and of course I think of it Salford Sloan or I forget. I think it was Alfred

Sloan who said the auto industry runs on the new, and by god, it should be carved in granite over every eleanl It's like, if it's not new, it won't sell, so why pursue the old. So here's the

question for you, Dan. My wife and I both write for magazine.

So we've been a member of the IMPA International Motors Association for ever. We

get down the New York Auto Show every time. It's always fun. So

they introduced that prototype a few years ago. I wasn't even interested. I

went off to another part and my wife stuck around deb to be that.

She came back, she said, what's interesting is the rolls. Royce fellow

said, no one is going to pick up a dirty chord and plug the car in, right, Your man servant is going to do it. Yeah,

of course it need well no, what we heard or Deb heard then reported to me, was it was all going to be inductive charging. Heareu's

actually plugging it a Rose Royce, it would be unheard. It's a good

question. They did not mention inductive charging, And you're right, it would

be the more elegant sort of white glove chord might touch the ground. You'd

have to touch it, and Evan forbid you can't do that. Your hands

would get dirty. They will put your natal astrology in lights in the doors

and uh headline very cool. Well now that's the selling point. Well,

Sam, you say it's it makes total sense for these ultra luxury ev and exclusive brands to go EV. But what about a company that pushes back against

that. It almost seems like Ferrari has kind of pood Electric a bit.

You know, I know they've got hybrid and I know they're doing that, but it still seems like they're very dedicated to ICE and at least the way it sounds to their customers. Do you managed to a company that pushes back

against EV. Well, there's there's the Rolls Royce end of the spectrum where

the idea is smooth, powerful, quiet, and electric fits that model perfectly.

Then you have the other side of the spectrum, which is Ferrari, which is loud, abrasive and powerful, and so that that becomes the DNA of the brand, is the boise of the engine, of the feel of the shifting, it's it's all part of that package that is not electric.

Ferrari is going to be drug screaming and kicking into electrics eventually, but in the meantime, the point of selling of Ferrari is the guy. And it's

usually a guy who buys a Ferrari is looking for that that visceral feel of that that that vehicle he wants the twelve clinder or the eight cylinder to be rumbling behind him. It's it's all part of what you're spending hundreds of thousands

of dollars to have the Ferrari logo on the front. If I if I

wanted a fast car, I can in the Tesla, but it's not a Ferrari. It doesn't wear that that prancing horse on the front. I want

to just break in there to the UH. This a lot depends on how

the European UH, the EU, UH, Italy, the UK and Germany all sort of sort through, UH these various thresholds that they are considering for low volume manufacturers who like Ferrari, who might be able to build in perpetuity, UH, you know, small numbers of icy powered cars. But it

won't be all. It'll be like ten percent of Ferraris will be IC and

they'll be the most expensive. And I think you probably see that with things

like Pugatti and companies like Bugatti and UH. There will be a vintners select

of IC cars UH and UH, which is fine by me because I tell you what, the like the Ferrari. Right, the ferrets got a V

six and it's got a very very whop daddy hybrid harness on it. And

so it's very much a creature of two power plants. And when you have

them both working completely at one hundred percent at maximum together, yes it's nine hundred power but and you know, tear your head off. But the stage,

the way it has to stage its power output is not spontaneous, does not feel Ferraris to me is not impetuous, And I think it's really it denatures the I think it takes a lot of um uh self hypnosis to convince yourself that the two ninety six hybrid is making ferrari as sounds. It's it's

nothing like you know, like a Let me ask the question, don't I don't know the answer to this. If we produced a carbon neutral fuel,

so the carbon is already in the air or on the outside of our planet, is used to make a fuel that ferrari can use, what would have cost What would it cost have a gallon of fuel made and still make a profit. Anybody know about a thousand dollars? Yeah, right now, it's

really expensive. I gotta think that the technology is only at the beginning right

now. So if we if we get people developing better fuels along those lines,

we can bring that price reason, but it will still be it'll still be controversial subjects biofuels. How do you know biofuels engineers lying his lips are

moving or hurts. Don't want to be sexist, but I have I have

lived long enough and covered this industry long enough to say with great certainty and you know, conviction, that there are is no carbon neutral way to make a biofuel. I don't care if you're going to use reactors or you're going

to use you know, sellualistic ethanol, you're going to extract it from the nuts of wood elves, I don't know. Uh, you know, there's

just no way it can be done. And we have to be careful because

there's a lot of bullshit out there. Anybody who says we're gonna like for

our you're exactly right, that's their news. Anybody who says they're going to

do this, they have You must demand an auditing. And if I think

any reasonable empirical analysis of a you know, dust to dust biofuels supply will reveal that it is, uh, making more carbon and causing more problems, it's also crutch. Uh let's let's face it. We should it's a crutch

for for industries like the power motorsports industry. I wanted to do a thing

about electric boats I called mer cruisers. They were like, no, no,

we're into We're not gonna do electric boats. Uh, we're gonna do

you know, biofuels and uh. And so we're gonna build twelve cylinder outboard

motors where there's the drive moves and not the motor. It's you know,

crazy. And that's where a certain industries, Uh, they're investing and they're

hoping to weather the storm. Yeah. From everything I've seen, it looks

like the production of the fuel is still going to be pretty minuscule even by the end of the decade. And from what I've heard Craig to kind of

answer your question, is that it takes three times as much to produce the fuel, so therefore the cost is three times as high. I don't know,

water, water, land, other resources. It's a it's a negative

spiral, got it, Okay, thank you. Yeah, But the long

term would be would be dreamed to have hydrogen as a power plant, you know, if you could, if you can make affordable and clean hydrogen.

Very difficult to do both of those things or either for that matter. Uh,

if it would be great to either I'm against burning the fuel just because there's there's stuff in the air and it'll mix with hydrogen and you won't have the pure exhaust that you would have if you have a fuel cell set up, but a long term having a hydrogen power plant and and just finding a way to make it affordable and uh plentiful. The hydrogen's everywhere, so it'd

be great to have it, but getting to that point is going to take years and uh and billions of Yeah, I'll be back to to uh to I mean, I'm I'm I also want to knock down hydrogen in a in a loving and beautiful and sharitable way, uh, to knock on hydrogen, but another time perhaps, Well here I got I got one more thing about this ultra luxury EV stuff, Uh, Dan, The Rolls Royce is built

on its own like unique platform, isn't it. Yeah, well, it

uses the flex platform that they sort of pre engineered for EVS uh several years ago. But then it will spread to other models throughout the lineup as well.

Right, Yeah, it looks like it will. They'll sun set it

around twenty thirty. This particular what they call the Rolls Royce the architecture of

luxury flex, I think is what the term of art. Yeah, let

me drive my point home. Here is what I'm getting at is there's all

this talk about like mega castings and all this sort of thing and speed at which the vehicles are developed and produced. Speed has never really been a thing

of the ultra luxury And do these customers even care about that kind of stuff?

Do ultra luxury customers care that they got the latest and greatest the way a car is built. Do they care about the latest and greatest battery kind

of stry? Well, it's funny because the average age of Rolls Royce buyers

has dropped dramatically. Their average age now is forty three, which is,

as you know, a very low number. Right. You know, these

are practically kids, so that what those buyers value is much different than traditional Rolls Royce value buyers. Also, it has to be said that the plant

tour is a very big part of this whole. The romance of buying one

of these cars is getting it fitted for you now, money on the upgrades.

I think they they got to do something right. You know, they're

they're not hurting, Okay, this thing sells starts at four twenty. It'll

say, you give me a half million dollars, I'll give you a nice car, I promise. But what's interesting back at the house you mentioned castings.

Uh, the roll Stars architecture has four. They're not megacastings, but

they're fairly large uh node castings that you would use in a suspense around the suspension, and they're and they're able to hang all kinds of fun things on it at will with minimum uh kinds of retooling and so forth. It all

goes to their their their drive toward more specialization, more bespoke. Also,

things can get through safety REGs faster than they used to. It used to

be, uh there was there was a limit how much you could put into in terms of a bespoked car. But Rolls Royce is working their way through

that and so they can give you pretty much what you want. And now

I think that's the biggest technical difference. And it is cool that the back

of the house, you know, the plant tour that they do sort of start with these common four common pieces and then it becomes the Rolls Royce of your choice. So if you're a buyer of rolls Race. You're not buying

it for the technology of a megacasting. You're buying it for the quality of

the vehicle that comes from that. So the EV and squeaks less and it's

more solid, and that's what you want as a Rolls Royce buyer. What

do you think, Sam, What do you think if but let's say the person is considering an Rolls Royce EV, how does that change their psychology?

It's all the parts that come with getting an electric Rolls Royce. It's going

to be smooth, quiet, powerful. It's if if it's environmentally friendly,

that's icing on the cake. But it's not. You're buying a twelve cylinder

now, so it's not environmental friendly. Is not part of the package that

you're looking forward? Not wishing any of this said, they're not. They

don't get prattle on about efficiency, I promise you. But but it becomes

a part of what I'm spending my half million dollars on. Is that.

Look, I'm cleaning the environment, I know. But look, okay,

Tesla people bought testa model s IS and a lot of the bottom because it goes zero to sixty and two seconds, which which nobody did, right so now this Rolls Royce, they very purposely did not make it a rocket ship because you know, they have the champagne test where you know, your driver has to accelerate without spilling the passenger's champagne not a drop, may I say?

And no bearing this question though there's no beer of going on with Rolls Royce. Uh. You know, it would be a pretty high end craft

beer. But yeah, maybe uh because Barrow was never part of the role

for package either, because they've never advertised that. But the thing is that

they have a certain you know, experientials that they consider up they consider a valuable enough that they've made a trade, you know, trade off a certain grand waft ability uh, has to take the place of like that sudden jarring acceleration. So you know, in one it was irrational for people to buy

Model Is for that particular reason, and it's irrational for them to you know, not be attracted to the Roles Rights for the same reason. Uh.

There's a lot of irrationality between one thing and another. Frankly, Uh,

I don't get it, but it's I think people will like the way it looks. It just you know, comes around a corner and just keeps on

common. Well, when you when you got that kind of money, it

seems like a rationality seems to follow around sometimes you know it's true, But I mean, I think these companies they're totally set up for the future.

I mean you look at Rolls, Royce, Bentley, Ferrari. Every year,

every quarter they're selling more cars, they're making more money, and and you know their bespoke divisions are doing even better. And EV's just seem like

they're totally so right, I asked Horsen. Uh, I calmed Torsten that

we're that close. Uh no, hey, doctor Mueller. Uh, if

I said last year, you know, six thousand is up where the watermark, the water level is for the company now and if so is Spector displacing other models? And he said, we're going to let the water level float

a little while longer. So Yeah, for Ferrari, once was sworn to

ten thousand units, they're probably gonna make closer to fourteen thousand units this year.

Uh and yes, uh and Bentley, we're you know, it's gone back and forth on production numbers. So there's one of the big luxury world

they're out there. Yeah, one more factor. I have a chance to

speak to a lot of young children. My older brother's daughter was a science

teacher in Hartford, Connectic. I would go down to just at a very

preppie school, a very high end school, a lot of wealthy families, and what I noticed is the children, this is going back about ten years ago, maybe fifteen, They were very interested in the environmental aspect of hybrid cars before electric is here. And my niece, the teacher, would report

back to me that these fifth and sixtuators would go home and talk to their father about why are you driving such a big gas guzzling whatever. And I

bet that as we move into these very wealthy people that are driving electric vehicles, it will have a good effect on the children and their grandchildren as they see Grandpa. I know, forty three z avery jh. But at Grandpa

driving electric. I think there'll be some residuals that will just naturally happen as

the wealthy people realize that my carbon footprint with my lear jet and my eighteen thousand square foot summerhouse might be able to be smaller. And so for me,

there's a little bit of hope here because our carbon footprint here is small because we're a small company with a lot of money can for a lot of responsibility, and I think it's great that someone can afford a Rolls Royce and have that kind of luxury. But the people I know, and there's not

many that have that kind of money, well, I think it's a moral crime myself, that's but I'm not stand I think data past me. I

think I think it's a good thing because it'll bring a little bit of a climate awareness to the family, unless they're going to live into a you know, a small three thousand square foot home, which is probably not going to happen, which I think it's the size of my house. So I'm not

thinking so any rate, you know it. Conversation, we've we've cruised passed

an hour here. We're past four o'clock. Uh, you know, I

know we could go longer, but man, I just want to thank all of you guys, H Craig, Dan and Sam. Thanks so much for

joining me today. Like I said, it was kind of flying solo here,

so I really I really appreciate you guys coming on and helping helping me do this. So and hey, I've loved hearing some of the stuff here.

If anybody out there has liked what they've heard as well. I highly

recommend you search these guys names, search the companies that you see on the screen here because there's some good stuff. So just again really thank all you

guys. Welcome Sean Pleasure yep, and thanks to everyone out there. Take

it easy, okay, guys aut Online after hours. It brought to you

by Bridge Don't Tires Solutions for your journey. If you liked this program,

I would like to learn more about the automotive industry. Check out our website

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