Why America Is Struggling with EVs with MotorTrend's Mexico Editor Miguel Cortina

MotorTrend

MotorTrend's Ed Loh & Jonny Lieberman sit down with MotorTrend's Mexico Editor

Transcript

00:00:00Welcome to The Inevitable, a podcast by Motor Trend.

00:00:04Hi there, and welcome to The Inevitable.

00:00:17This is Motor Trend's podcast, our video podcast about the

00:00:22future of cars, future transportation, the future of like,

00:00:26well, maybe it's not so inevitable, right, Ed?

00:00:28But anyways, before Ed answers that, he does have a special

00:00:34message just for you.

00:00:35The Inevitable podcast is brought to you by the all-electric

00:00:38Nissan Aria, inspired by the future, designed for the now.

00:00:42And right now, we have a question.

00:00:44It's a good question.

00:00:45It's a pretty good question from a great Instagram account

00:00:49at Fast and Glutonous.

00:00:51Sounds like me.

00:00:54Sanjay, I'm going to butcher your name.

00:00:56Sanjay Jalalj, I think, Jalalj.

00:00:59That's not butchered.

00:00:59Listened to the It's Electric episode with Tia Gordon.

00:01:03Great episode.

00:01:03And he writes, I have a Mach-E Rally.

00:01:05Good car, by the way.

00:01:08It's the lifted, cool, off-road-y version.

00:01:11It does everything that a Porsche Dakar does for one-third the money.

00:01:15Yes.

00:01:15I have a Mach-E Rally.

00:01:16I live in an apartment building in New Jersey that has eight

00:01:19level two and 25 level one chargers via a company called Plugzeo.

00:01:23That's cool.

00:01:24The level ones, I have to plug to my own Ford mobile charger

00:01:29into a normal-looking house outlet.

00:01:30The level twos have the CCS cord attached.

00:01:33Besides the level ones being essentially useless,

00:01:36I do worry about someone snagging my personal charge cable

00:01:40and selling it on eBay for $50.

00:01:42Ford sells them for $400, so there's definitely

00:01:46going to be a black market for cheap stolen chargers.

00:01:48Did Tia have anything else to say about that concern?

00:01:52I can't imagine, as these become more ubiquitous,

00:01:55that the thieves won't catch on.

00:01:57Unlike his level one Ford charger, which is plugged into just a wall outlet,

00:02:03it's electric ones, Tia told us, they lock.

00:02:05They lock in place.

00:02:06So could someone cut it and steal it?

00:02:09Yes.

00:02:10Are people stealing copper wiring out of buildings every day?

00:02:13Are people literally cutting?

00:02:14Some of them were cutting Tesla supercharger cables for a while.

00:02:18Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:19So yes, there is that.

00:02:21It's electric.

00:02:22You'd have to destroy the cable to steal it.

00:02:24So you'd be stealing it just for the copper wiring, which, yeah,

00:02:27I don't know if it's worth it.

00:02:28It's not going to be that big of a cable.

00:02:30Also probably considerable risk, much higher risk,

00:02:32to be any kind of cutting or yanking on a level two charger

00:02:35while it's charging a car.

00:02:36While it's plugged in is really a bad, horrible, dangerous, terrible idea.

00:02:39So I hope a thief-

00:02:42Are you saying it's a self-solving problem?

00:02:44Yes, somebody tries it, and it gets socialized,

00:02:47and this is a bad idea because it's not going to happen.

00:02:49Just to reiterate what Johnny said, good, thank you for the question,

00:02:53first of all, Fast and Glorious, Sanjay, great question.

00:02:56Just slightly misinformed, TIA's, their whole,

00:02:59the premise of it's electric is not providing regular wall outlets

00:03:04for the 120 volt home charger that you're going to be carrying around.

00:03:08Because yes, if you just left that out on the street,

00:03:10plugged into your car, someone's going to take it.

00:03:11Yeah, this is 220.

00:03:12This is 220.

00:03:13This is a level two.

00:03:14And locked.

00:03:15And it should lock at both ends.

00:03:17There should be, you know, on the charger side and on the car side.

00:03:21Will people still attempt to take them?

00:03:22Probably.

00:03:24People, this is America.

00:03:25We still, you can't go to a CVS these days with nothing.

00:03:27Everything's behind a glass, right?

00:03:29So thanks for the question.

00:03:32Today's guest.

00:03:32Today's guest, my man.

00:03:34It is your man.

00:03:35My man, Miguel.

00:03:36I should tell the story about how I met him.

00:03:38Tell the story.

00:03:39I'll tell the story real quick.

00:03:40It's a great story.

00:03:41He's our Mexico editor.

00:03:42He's our Mexico editor, Miguel.

00:03:43He talks like he's, I'm Miguel.

00:03:48Yes, he's everything.

00:03:49He looks like Danny Ricardo or Checo from Formula One.

00:03:52He could, he could, he's, he's great.

00:03:55If you're single

00:03:58and a beautiful woman, please, please reach out.

00:04:01It's MotorTrend, at MotorTrend.

00:04:03He's a great guy.

00:04:04You should, you want to marry this guy.

00:04:06Cut that part out.

00:04:07No, it's great.

00:04:09No, the best part about Miguel is that I met him when we had MotorTrend in Espanol.

00:04:12We had a site devoted to the Spanish speaking market,

00:04:16all from Mexico, all the way down to, you know, the tip of South America.

00:04:19And he worked at this company and he was the junior guy.

00:04:22And I flew in, big hot show, head honcho, to come and like check it out

00:04:26because they wanted to re-sign the deal.

00:04:29And they tasked the, again, really great guy, Miguel, very charismatic,

00:04:33to give me a tour all around Mexico City where he lived, his hometown.

00:04:36And so he takes me to see all the Diego Rivera murals.

00:04:39They're fantastic.

00:04:40We go drink some weird margaritas, some disgusting, like really sweet.

00:04:45He likes these drinks.

00:04:46I was like, oh, great.

00:04:46Ate some great food.

00:04:47And again, I'm digging all the art and he shows me like these murals

00:04:51and this one fresco at the top of the Castle de Chapultepec, I remember.

00:04:56It's a child soldier and he's falling from the sky while clutching the Mexican flag.

00:05:01And I was like, oh man, this is like amazing.

00:05:04The most amazing mural I've ever seen.

00:05:06But my brain is full and I've posted too many Instagrams.

00:05:08So I'm just going to take a picture of this, tell me the story.

00:05:10And he's like, tell me the story about how these kids are battling the French or this.

00:05:14And I was like, ah, fantastic story.

00:05:16Or the Spanish.

00:05:17Yeah, I don't know.

00:05:18And so it's great, right?

00:05:19So I'm like, you know, go home, go back to the hotel.

00:05:22I'm hanging out and I'm finished dinner.

00:05:23I'm about to go to bed.

00:05:24I'm like, yeah, I should post this picture.

00:05:25This one really moved me.

00:05:27So I'm like, what did Miguel say again about this?

00:05:29The fallen soldier, child soldier?

00:05:32So of course I Google it and I'm like, what?

00:05:36What?

00:05:37They totally lied to me.

00:05:38Like, this is not, this is the wrong war.

00:05:40It's not this, not this.

00:05:41It's like, what is going on?

00:05:42Okay.

00:05:43I gotcha.

00:05:44I post it.

00:05:45And then of course I call him out the next day.

00:05:47He's like, hey man, like, I don't know.

00:05:50And then I fast forward to hire him six months later.

00:05:52Nice.

00:05:53Yeah.

00:05:53Of course, I got to love the guy.

00:05:55Yeah.

00:05:56And you do got to love the guy.

00:05:56He's one of the nicest guys.

00:05:58Nicest guy.

00:05:58Hardest working.

00:05:59One of the hardest working guys in the business.

00:06:01Uh, as you'll hear through him into the deep end

00:06:04on exploring two very interesting and deep topics.

00:06:09One of which we uncovered ourselves.

00:06:11And also you kind of said like, hey, go make a movie.

00:06:14Having, he's never made a movie before.

00:06:15Yeah.

00:06:15I don't know what I was thinking.

00:06:16Yeah.

00:06:16But I was like, um, go, go nuts on this, on this project.

00:06:20And the success of the first one led to a very successful second one.

00:06:25So without further ado, let's bring on Motor Trends, Mexico editor, Miguel Cortina.

00:06:31My man, Mike Corton.

00:06:34Miguel Cortina.

00:06:36AKA.

00:06:36AKA Mike Corton.

00:06:38Yes.

00:06:39Which we're going to need to call you in the coming four years.

00:06:44Thanks for coming on.

00:06:45You are only the third Motor Trends staffer.

00:06:48We had Christian and Scott one time talking about TAT.

00:06:53And now we're going to talk to you because you've done some amazing work.

00:06:58Uh, two documentaries over the last two years, both, um, related to.

00:07:05The inevitable.

00:07:08Grinch of it.

00:07:09Yes.

00:07:10The, um, and we'll get into it, but let's, we'll, we'll go back to front only because

00:07:15this one has done really well.

00:07:17Now we are recording this, uh, what are we still in the first week of December.

00:07:21So by the time you hear it, it hopefully is well over a million views.

00:07:25Uh, in two weeks, this thing has gotten over close to 170,000 views.

00:07:30Candidly is a lot for this kind of video on Motor Trend.

00:07:34It's called why America is struggling with EVs.

00:07:36It is a 27 minute, 26, 26 minute documentary.

00:07:42All about America's problems with EVs.

00:07:44We actually said it was going to be America's big problems with EVs.

00:07:47We, what else, what else, what other titles do we have?

00:07:49Ah, a lot.

00:07:50Uh, I can recall right now, but yeah, we like America struggle with adoption.

00:07:55You know, um, uh, yeah, there were a lot of titles that we played with it.

00:08:00Um, I guess this is really more about, well, the genesis of this was that, um,

00:08:09and I don't know why you're on here.

00:08:10I can just tell this whole story.

00:08:11Uh, that's great.

00:08:15Also doesn't look like Daniel Ricardo today.

00:08:16Danny Ricardo.

00:08:17A little bit.

00:08:18A lot.

00:08:18I mean, we're going to get to his hair.

00:08:20Yes.

00:08:20Miguel has great hair.

00:08:22Anyways, so the genesis, I'll just give it in broad strokes.

00:08:25The genesis of this whole thing was we were still in this two and a half years,

00:08:30almost three years ago, two and a half years ago.

00:08:31We were still in the pandemic.

00:08:32We were still at our old office.

00:08:34Miguel and I were like the only people coming to the office on a regular basis.

00:08:38And we were talking just in the hallways and Miguel's at it.

00:08:42This is the other documentary, by the way.

00:08:44Miguel was at his computer and he comes in and he's like, Hey, you know, like China,

00:08:49Mexico, they don't have like eight Chinese.

00:08:52Car manufacturers have just recently set up shop in Mexico.

00:08:54And I was like, what?

00:08:55And we just start talking about it.

00:08:56I'm like, huh, that's super interesting.

00:08:58Uh, go dig around, like see what else is, see what's going on.

00:09:01Right.

00:09:01Yeah.

00:09:01And then, and then what happened?

00:09:03And then, uh, I came back with a three page dossier and I'm like,

00:09:09this is what's happening in Mexico.

00:09:11Yeah.

00:09:11And which was roughly at the time, uh, BYD had just built.

00:09:15BYD had just launched in Mexico.

00:09:18Um, they, they had pretty ambitious plans to, to go in Mexico.

00:09:23They said that they were going to build a plant.

00:09:25Uh, then there were other automakers, Chinese automakers.

00:09:27We also said, we want to build a plant.

00:09:29Tesla announced they were going to do Gigafactory.

00:09:31Tesla had announced Gigafactory in Mexico.

00:09:34Basically what Mexico was booming for automakers.

00:09:37Right.

00:09:37I mean, as it's, it's already a big, uh, uh, country for car production.

00:09:42Yeah.

00:09:42A lot of people don't realize that like their F-150 is built in Mexico.

00:09:46Tacoma is built in Mexico.

00:09:48Yes.

00:09:48A lot of American pickup trucks.

00:09:49And when you see on the window sticker on the Monroney and it says, uh,

00:09:53so-and-so percentage parts, uh, made most of that, it's not Canada actually.

00:09:57Well, some of it's Canada, but a lot of it goes back and forth.

00:10:00Like the wiring harness will be built in Mexico,

00:10:02but then it gets sent over and installed in the vehicle,

00:10:05in a plant in Kentucky or something like that.

00:10:07You know, it's, or, uh, parts of the, whatever system goes,

00:10:10it just goes back and forth.

00:10:11Yeah.

00:10:11It's, it was the biggest success of NAFTA was beside food.

00:10:14I think it was the automotive.

00:10:15Now called MCA.

00:10:17Whatever it's called now.

00:10:17Yeah.

00:10:18Anyways.

00:10:18So then what happened?

00:10:20And then, uh, you said, let's do a documentary.

00:10:23Exactly.

00:10:24I said, let's go.

00:10:25No, you were like, do you think you can get a production team together to,

00:10:29to do a documentary?

00:10:30So how did you guys decide on a documentary as opposed to just write a story about it?

00:10:35What, why, why did it have to be?

00:10:36I don't remember.

00:10:37Well, we got this YouTube channel that just crossed 7 million subscribers.

00:10:39Yeah.

00:10:39Well, besides the YouTube channel, like what, you know?

00:10:41Uh, I think the best way to tell this kind of story,

00:10:45more people would see it more read about than read about it.

00:10:49And I think there's sort of like a hype with documentaries going on right now.

00:10:51Right?

00:10:52Like there's a lot of media companies that are doing documentaries.

00:10:54And so we kind of like said, let's jump on the bandwagon.

00:10:58The real reason is I got this, I, I, I'm very fond of New York times op docs,

00:11:03which I've loved doing.

00:11:05If you don't know what op doc is, it's just because they stopped doing them.

00:11:07They do these little shorts.

00:11:08I envisioned, I said, let's do something short.

00:11:10And then it ended up being like 25 minutes long.

00:11:11Yeah.

00:11:12Uh, but it was like, let's do let's, Hey man, one motor trend.

00:11:15Let's flex some editorial, you know, credibility.

00:11:19And, uh, let's do something like actually higher brow, not just the fast and dangerous.

00:11:24Let's go drag race stuff.

00:11:25Let's go do some exploration.

00:11:27And we got some budget.

00:11:30Miguel hired a crew.

00:11:31You and Kristen Lee went down to Mexico, Mexico city, Mexico city.

00:11:36Uh, and you talked to a whole bunch of people.

00:11:37We interviewed three executives from Chinese automakers.

00:11:41We interviewed a couple of finalists, uh, two journalists, an economist and Mexican

00:11:47official, Mexican public official.

00:11:49And I think that's, that might've been it.

00:11:51We got one, one of the Chinese, uh, exactly.

00:11:54Trouble.

00:11:55Yeah.

00:11:55Oh, tell the story.

00:11:56I know this story, but tell the story.

00:11:58This is, yeah.

00:11:59So, you know, like, um, uh, this is a cherry executive, Brian Wu, who's the CHERY.

00:12:06Yeah.

00:12:06Correct.

00:12:07Uh, one of the, which is a Chinese car company.

00:12:09Yeah, correct.

00:12:11Um, basically the number one person in number one executive for CHERY Mexico, uh, sat down

00:12:16with him, you know, and during the interview, I asked him, so what is your plan to, you

00:12:21know, about building the plant in Mexico and, uh, coming to the U S and he just like started,

00:12:27you know, just telling me the whole deal.

00:12:28Right.

00:12:29And we got him on record.

00:12:31And, um, we put that on the documentary.

00:12:33He was the only, uh, executive from the Chinese automakers that actually talked on record

00:12:38about their plans to export cars from the plant in Mexico to the U S which that was

00:12:43the key.

00:12:43Right.

00:12:44No one had a, um, and this was the first interview with it also for the documentary.

00:12:49So I came back just like, you know, super happy, like, yes, we got it.

00:12:53You know, we, we, we exactly what we went for.

00:12:56We wanted to inquire about what was all this boom of Chinese automakers in Mexico.

00:13:01Mexico is a car market of 1.1 million vehicles, you know, right.

00:13:05It doesn't make sense for, uh, now there's 20 brands, 20 Chinese brands in Mexico.

00:13:10Why are they putting factories there?

00:13:12Exactly.

00:13:12Yeah.

00:13:13The narrative was, as we started to discover, it's like, it was eight.

00:13:16And then a few months later it was like 12.

00:13:19Yeah.

00:13:19And then now what, how many is it?

00:13:20Like now it's 23, I think.

00:13:2223 in like two years.

00:13:23Yeah.

00:13:23Right.

00:13:24So the question was, it literally, I don't, I hate to use the invasion, like, like analogy,

00:13:30but it's like, these guys are lining up these factories, these setting up shop, building

00:13:34these factories and manufacturing plants right across the border.

00:13:37And they're all saying, we're going to sell to Brazil.

00:13:40We're selling to Argentina.

00:13:42Well, I mean, they are going to do that.

00:13:44Yes.

00:13:44But Miguel's task was to go ask all of them.

00:13:47So you ever come into the U S and everyone's like, we don't talk about going to the U S

00:13:51except this dude at Cherry.

00:13:53And literally his PR is behind him.

00:13:54They got three guys and like, yeah, okay, cool.

00:13:56And then the doc, the doc comes out and they're like, can you edit that piece?

00:14:02No, are you crazy?

00:14:04That was on record.

00:14:05You know, it's not taking it out of context.

00:14:07Right.

00:14:08Right.

00:14:08Direct question.

00:14:09The dude said it.

00:14:10So, uh, and then, yeah, I don't know what happened to him.

00:14:12He's still, I think, alive.

00:14:21Okay.

00:14:22But yeah.

00:14:22And you know, I think that's when you, when you think you did that nice job, right?

00:14:26Yeah.

00:14:26High fives are in the office.

00:14:28That's what we're supposed to be doing.

00:14:30And truly Miguel did a great job.

00:14:32This thing it's look, I've been here at Motor Trends since 2007.

00:14:36You've been in 2010, 2010, the brand is 75 years old, 2015.

00:14:44We break news.

00:14:46We break, but it's only product news or some exec quits or some scandal or some, some new

00:14:50cars coming.

00:14:51It's fairly insular, like very narrowly focused stuff.

00:14:54I, I like to take a lot of credit.

00:14:56It's never been officially confirmed.

00:14:58But this story that we ran got a lot of much broader, real, real journalism play.

00:15:05And other folks started to do like some CNBC did a story.

00:15:08Yeah.

00:15:08CNBC, um, the street of a lot of financial, uh, outlets covered this, right?

00:15:15Because it's, it's big business.

00:15:18And the primary piece being that they went from like nothing or a couple of really small

00:15:24outposts to like 20 or teens.

00:15:26And then 20 over like 18 to 24 months was the, was like the part that we uncovered.

00:15:32Right.

00:15:32Yes.

00:15:33Yeah.

00:15:33And so this was, um, the Motor Trend documentary, China's Big Bet on Mexico.

00:15:39Uh, when we won, uh, a telly award, Miguel got us a sweet, uh, it's like a, like an Emmy

00:15:47for the, it's like a local Emmy for the web.

00:15:49Okay.

00:15:50Let's call it the award for video journalism, which I like that category.

00:15:53Yes.

00:15:54Okay.

00:15:54We've got two, we've got two.

00:15:55Uh, we need four super turbo, super turbo.

00:15:59Oh, super turbo.

00:15:59Yes.

00:16:00Super turbo.

00:16:01We did?

00:16:01Yeah, we did.

00:16:01Yeah.

00:16:02But that wasn't for video journalism.

00:16:04Yeah.

00:16:04No, it wasn't.

00:16:05I was on that.

00:16:06Um, but, but really the, the beauty of it is that we, we did this thing and, uh, uh,

00:16:13you got still under a hundred thousand views on YouTube.

00:16:16Not a lot of play on that channel, but I think across certainly in-house where we gave, uh,

00:16:21Miguel his flowers, high fives all around.

00:16:23But also outsize influence.

00:16:24I mean, yeah.

00:16:26Yeah.

00:16:26You know, Forbes also covered it, right?

00:16:28Forbes named it one of the best documentaries you should watch.

00:16:31Yes.

00:16:32Yes.

00:16:32Which to me was like, really Forbes?

00:16:34Yeah.

00:16:35Yeah.

00:16:35And you know, uh, uh, we like to your point at, you know, we break news, but we don't

00:16:40break that kind of news.

00:16:41Right.

00:16:42And when you have big outlets like Forbes, CNBC, the streets getting media pickups from,

00:16:48from what you did, it's, it's, uh, you know, a journalist.

00:16:51Yeah.

00:16:51And, and, you know, like this is something that automotive news, like typically that's

00:16:55kind of there, like, like the business behind it.

00:16:57Like we dabble.

00:16:58The brand, the crane communications brand automotive.

00:17:00Sorry.

00:17:01Yeah.

00:17:01With capital A, capital N.

00:17:02Um, you know, we dabble in that, you know, um, uh, mostly out of our Detroit office,

00:17:08but you know, we're more like, you know, new metal people.

00:17:10Like how fast is it?

00:17:11You know?

00:17:12So yeah.

00:17:12And, uh, Sean McClain, who we, who we interviewed for the Wall Street Journal, he, as you will

00:17:18see, gave you props on air.

00:17:19He's like, I watched that document.

00:17:20He watched both of them.

00:17:21And he's like, those are great.

00:17:22Great, great.

00:17:23And he's like, he's like legit.

00:17:24He's like, he's an actual real journalist.

00:17:26Capital J, we're lowercase, we're lowercase J.

00:17:28Even though he didn't go to, uh, J school.

00:17:31Um, anyways, so we'll continue to pat ourselves on the back.

00:17:34Like we did a great job.

00:17:37China's, China's, baby, I mean, VVS, go please, please, uh, go watch it.

00:17:40But that's last year, isn't it?

00:17:42Yeah.

00:17:42But, well, let me just clarify, you wrote it, you hosted it, you helped essentially

00:17:50produce it because you arranged it.

00:17:52You went down to Mexico, you did a whole thing.

00:17:53You helped edit it.

00:17:54You helped do how many, four or five different versions of it by the end.

00:17:59Yeah.

00:17:59Like the narrative.

00:18:01Your first time.

00:18:02First time doing something like this.

00:18:04Yeah.

00:18:04A documentary like this.

00:18:05And all Miguel's truly a labor of love.

00:18:09Like you were, you spent hours, you spent like an entire month.

00:18:11Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:12Yeah.

00:18:13And, uh, so congrats.

00:18:15It was awesome.

00:18:17Please go watch it.

00:18:17And then because of that success, again, we get very well received within the company.

00:18:21Like we're not, we are the biggest dudes at Motortram, but it's a company.

00:18:25The other people, the CFO, the CEO, they all watched it.

00:18:28They loved it.

00:18:29So we got the green light to do, I wanted to do four more, um, in 2024.

00:18:36Uh, but instead we get the budget.

00:18:37I see the budget was cut to don't do any of them ads.

00:18:39It's budget cuts.

00:18:41I said, uh, I'm going to take actually some of this existing budget.

00:18:44I'm so shocked.

00:18:45Yeah.

00:18:45And we'll do, we'll do two.

00:18:46Great job, Miguel.

00:18:47Yeah.

00:18:48So we ended up doing two and I was kind of reading tea leaves on where the industry is

00:18:53going to, is going and all this, you know, this narrative that EV sales are slowing down

00:18:57and, oh, look at the death of the Hemi.

00:19:00And so let's do a VA documentary, which is out and awesome.

00:19:03Um, and then let's do this one, which at the time when we, oh, we were going to call it,

00:19:10it was going to be the video documentary version of your column, which I think might still be the

00:19:16number one, most read piece of journalism, piece of piece of lowercase journalism on

00:19:23motor trend, which was called you're being lied to about electric cars, electric cars,

00:19:27electric vehicles.

00:19:28Right.

00:19:28So Johnny wrote this piece 18 months ago, a year ago, something like that.

00:19:32And I was like two years, a little while ago.

00:19:34And it was the most amazing went viral, uh, took off because for the wrong, I think all

00:19:39the wrong reasons, everybody thought it was going to be a absolute annihilation of EVs.

00:19:45You're being lied to about EVs, remember the title.

00:19:47And it was the other way.

00:19:48It was like, yeah, what it was.

00:19:50So what happened was, uh, it was like, there was a Yale study and I, you know, unlike some

00:19:55people I, I trust Yale studies and, and then, uh, yeah.

00:19:59And there was a, there was a New York times study and they were just like, basically like,

00:20:03look like EVs are four times, not, not like 4%, four times more efficient than, than internal

00:20:10combustion engines.

00:20:12So no matter what you do with them, they're just more efficient.

00:20:14They win.

00:20:15Even if you power them on coal forever, which you shouldn't do.

00:20:18And the coal industry is shrinking like crazy.

00:20:20So it's not even really going to happen.

00:20:21Like they're just way more efficient.

00:20:23And, and, you know, and then, um, the, the Yale study said like, okay, what's the, what's

00:20:28the point?

00:20:29Like, yeah, right now, because battery industries in China, although that's changed since I

00:20:33wrote this, um, there's a lot of CO2 goes into, uh, battery production.

00:20:38But like at what point does it cross over where you stop emitting CO2, um, with your

00:20:45EV and you're forever have to emit CO2 with your gas vehicle?

00:20:49What's the point?

00:20:50And it was like much lower than I'd been led to believe.

00:20:53Like I remember I read a Goldman Sachs thing where it was like, oh, it's 70,000 miles,

00:20:57which again, most cars are kept for longer than that.

00:20:59But this was like, you know, actually for, uh, like cars, it's, uh, it's, uh, 12 months.

00:21:05I forget the exact numbers, like 12 months SUVs, 18 months in trucks, it's 24 months.

00:21:10Um, and, and, and, you know, and that's like about 10,000 miles a year, 15,000, 20, 20,000

00:21:15miles.

00:21:16And I was just like, it's crazy.

00:21:19You know, if we really are concerned with like human life existing on this planet for

00:21:25a long time after we're gone, our kids, you know, like we gotta get global warming under

00:21:30control, you know, we've dumped, what is it?

00:21:326 trillion tons of carbon dioxide that wasn't in the atmosphere, into the atmosphere since

00:21:37the industrial revolution.

00:21:39Like, we gotta be serious about this.

00:21:41If something, if there's a, if, if, if getting from point A to B is four times more efficient,

00:21:46like it's over for gas.

00:21:47It may not be over tomorrow, but like long-term it's over.

00:21:50And nobody who read the, read that, wanted to read that, they thought they were going

00:21:57to read this again, this takedown of EVs and Johnny gave them the absolute other in a knuckle

00:22:01sandwich kind of way.

00:22:02It got picked up by Google discover.

00:22:04It was like 2 million.

00:22:05Yes.

00:22:062 million in like a week or something, views in a week.

00:22:08It was crazy.

00:22:09So anyways, many death threats.

00:22:11Oh yeah, it was bad.

00:22:13It got really bad actually.

00:22:14So I started getting texts, like, you know, like, well, I started getting texts like,

00:22:19this is your address, right?

00:22:20And your wife's name is this, you know, it was really bad.

00:22:23Yeah.

00:22:23A power of a power of yellow journalism.

00:22:26Way to go, Johnny.

00:22:28It was, it was a great, it was a great, uh, it was an easy

00:22:32call for me.

00:22:32I'm like, we should just do that.

00:22:33Let's go, let's go trigger more people, but not put, uh, let's not put Johnny in the crosshairs

00:22:38this time.

00:22:38Let's put Miguel in the crosshairs.

00:22:40So, so, but it changed a little bit.

00:22:42The brief was, it did a lot actually.

00:22:46Cause the brief was, let's do the, a documentary or a video version of that.

00:22:50And I'll just keep rolling here.

00:22:51And I wanted essentially what, what Johnny did super provocative, poke the bear, like,

00:22:58can we just go and knock down all these dummies on Instagram and YouTube and their stupid

00:23:04comments about, Oh, everybody, the plants need all that carbon dioxide.

00:23:08You know, climate change is a hoax.

00:23:10I'm like, let's, let's go punch those guys in the nose.

00:23:12Right.

00:23:13And actually Miguel and I kind of had it out in the conference room.

00:23:15He's like, no, no, no.

00:23:16And I'm like, I'm telling you, you want viral success on YouTube, poke the bear.

00:23:21And he's like, we're going to do, do you tell me what do you want?

00:23:25You tell me your side of the story.

00:23:27I, so that, yeah, that conversation we had is, you know, uh, it's one of the hardest

00:23:32conver- I, you know, usually you do what your boss tells you to do, right?

00:23:36Not me, but go ahead.

00:23:36You don't stand up to your boss.

00:23:39So we had, you know, this was also like well underway.

00:23:42Like we were already having production meetings, you know, uh, looking at shooting schedule.

00:23:47Like this was pretty well underway.

00:23:49And I just kept thinking, you know, we shouldn't be telling that story.

00:23:52Like Johnny did a great job, you know, telling that story,

00:23:55but it is not investigative journalism.

00:23:57You know, I was, it was an opinion piece.

00:24:00Right.

00:24:00Yeah.

00:24:00Totally.

00:24:01Well, opinion piece based on a lot of, based on a lot of facts.

00:24:04Yes.

00:24:05But I, but I, my point to Ed was like, Ed, if we're doing a Motor Trend Investigates,

00:24:10you know, that's on Motor Trend Investigates, you know, Motor Trend Investigates goes further

00:24:14than that.

00:24:14And, and it is investigative journalism and we shouldn't be poking the bear.

00:24:19We should be doing, covering the entire picture, do a 360 story, go deep.

00:24:23And, and, you know, and we'll see what we come up with.

00:24:26Right.

00:24:27And, uh, and, uh, you know, uh, left the room, you know, not agreeing.

00:24:31I did the total seagull thing, which is I flew in, crapped on everything and then flew away.

00:24:36Yeah.

00:24:36So, uh, and to his credit, Miguel's didn't, didn't, uh, didn't break.

00:24:46He's like, no, I think this is the right way.

00:24:47And I was like, I got another meeting.

00:24:49I got another, I got another two hours of meeting.

00:24:52I'm laughing because that's how Ed ends every conversation.

00:24:55About something way less interesting.

00:24:56So, all right, whatever.

00:24:58And then, and then, so go.

00:25:00So then, then what'd you do?

00:25:01So, so then we started, we started looking at, you know, who we're going to be interviewing,

00:25:06what are we going to talk about, et cetera.

00:25:08And, you know, I don't think I told anybody about like my plan of coming up with this

00:25:13documentary until we had already like a pretty well edited piece about it.

00:25:18Yeah.

00:25:18He really did.

00:25:19He's working in the corner.

00:25:21Um, yeah, I, I, you know, everybody thought like we're doing the, you're being lied to,

00:25:26you know, and all of that.

00:25:27And then, uh, you know, we, we shoot all the interviews.

00:25:30We come back with the story.

00:25:32And I don't even, to be honest, and this is the, this is the most hilarious part of this,

00:25:36this podcast.

00:25:37We're going to spend an hour talking about a 25 minute or 26 minute video that you can

00:25:41watch right now on YouTube.

00:25:42Uh, but when you came back with that first cut and I was like, I'm sorry, you went to

00:25:46Congress?

00:25:47Yeah.

00:25:48Like Miguel goes to Washington.

00:25:50Right.

00:25:50Like walking around the halls in a suit, in a suit with that, with that hair, with the

00:25:54hair.

00:25:55Uh, I was like, you're gonna, you're gonna get arrested.

00:25:58Um, walk us through like, and you aimed for some big folks.

00:26:04You wanted Pete Buttigieg.

00:26:05Yeah.

00:26:05You wanted like, yeah.

00:26:06Yeah.

00:26:07So, so a little bit of background.

00:26:08So we wanted to cover, um, the policy side was super important.

00:26:14Right.

00:26:14We wanted to cover recycling and processing of materials, batteries.

00:26:19Um, especially here in the U S uh, we wanted to cover energy and, um, uh, the grid.

00:26:26Yeah.

00:26:27And then, uh, what else?

00:26:28And I think that was, those were like the three main parts.

00:26:32Oh yeah.

00:26:33The charging, the charging points, the grid, uh, policy.

00:26:39Oh yeah.

00:26:39A little bit on the, the, you did, you did tackle one of the most controversial parts,

00:26:45which is this comment we get in every single EV post.

00:26:49What about the Congo?

00:26:50What about, what about Congo?

00:26:52They care about the Congo.

00:26:53And Congo.

00:26:54Yeah.

00:26:55Which I think kind of blends in with policy, public policy.

00:26:58Right.

00:26:58I don't mean to be, and I didn't mean to say that in a way that was like, no, yes, I'm

00:27:01not.

00:27:02No, it's a hypocrisy of using, you're typing this on a thing.

00:27:06Uh, you're complaining about EVs having cobalt in them on a device that has cobalt in it

00:27:11mined by the same children.

00:27:12You use your power drill, which has a cobalt in it, mined by the same children.

00:27:16You put gasoline and diesel fuel in your car, which cannot be refined from crude oil without

00:27:21using cobalt as a catalyst.

00:27:22So you use cobalt every single day, but you only care about EVs because God forbid your

00:27:27Hellcat may not make a lot of noise.

00:27:29It's the hypocrisy that he was getting at.

00:27:31Yeah.

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00:28:08You just talked about Cogon Congress.

00:28:10Was that cool?

00:28:11Was that fun?

00:28:11Oh, yeah.

00:28:12I've never been to DC before.

00:28:13This is my first time going to DC.

00:28:15I'm a political junkie, so I spent a couple of days before we started shooting by myself

00:28:21to get to know the city.

00:28:22And I was just, you know, blown away by everything.

00:28:25Did you go to Smithsonian?

00:28:27I went, yes.

00:28:28Okay.

00:28:29It's a shockingly cool town.

00:28:31Yeah, super cool.

00:28:32And great food.

00:28:33In DC, no building higher than four stories.

00:28:35Right.

00:28:35Because it's an old colonial style town.

00:28:37So it feels very, like, just open and awesome, right?

00:28:42Yeah.

00:28:42No, it's awesome.

00:28:42I'm walking around, you know, the National Mall, and I went to do the Capitol tour, and

00:28:48you know, just like, I walked around like 14 miles or something like that.

00:28:53Just crazy.

00:28:54Yeah.

00:28:54Yeah, that's why whenever I see, like, politicians complaining about, like, you know, Washington,

00:28:59DC, and then I see how they live and eat, I'm like, oh, you guys love it here.

00:29:03Like, there's nothing better.

00:29:04Yeah.

00:29:04This is why you've been in office for 30 years here.

00:29:06Yeah.

00:29:07Before you went, though, there was a lot of legwork getting in touch with...

00:29:11How many reps did you reach out to?

00:29:16On the Republican side, only two.

00:29:18And those two, right away, answered, agreed to our interview.

00:29:23Did any Democrats agree to it?

00:29:25No.

00:29:25So we wanted to cover...

00:29:27That's the interesting part, you know?

00:29:28That's crazy.

00:29:28So we wanted to cover, obviously, both parts, the Democrats and the Republicans.

00:29:31Fair and balanced.

00:29:32Fair and balanced, correct.

00:29:34Yes.

00:29:34That's copyrighted.

00:29:35Don't get ahead of that.

00:29:36Yeah, yeah.

00:29:37Okay.

00:29:37But actually fair and balanced.

00:29:38Yes.

00:29:39Don't lip service.

00:29:39Yeah.

00:29:40And, you know, I thought at the beginning, Democrats are...

00:29:44This is their play, right?

00:29:45Like, EVs are super pro EVs, you know, investing a lot of money into a new green deal.

00:29:52New charging infrastructure, right?

00:29:54Like, it is what we have been hearing for the last four years.

00:29:57Now it's your chance to support that, to talk about it to an enthusiast-based audience.

00:30:04None of them returned our calls.

00:30:06Let's call them out.

00:30:07Because you didn't do this in the dark.

00:30:08Who'd you call?

00:30:10I need to have a list, but I reached out to Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

00:30:14They declined.

00:30:14AOC turned us down.

00:30:16AOC, AOC.

00:30:18Her office turned us down.

00:30:20There were three senators, all from the transportation committee that turned us down.

00:30:26Democrats.

00:30:27Democrats.

00:30:29But maybe they shouldn't, like...

00:30:30Buttigieg.

00:30:31Buttigieg, we tried.

00:30:32He's busy, I get it.

00:30:33Department of Transportation.

00:30:34And, you know, we asked for Buttigieg, but if there was someone like an undersecretary...

00:30:38Yeah.

00:30:39You know, we were happy...

00:30:40No.

00:30:40Like, okay.

00:30:41Department of Energy.

00:30:42DOE, okay.

00:30:43DOE, no.

00:30:44And the White House, too.

00:30:46Now, were these...

00:30:48Were there ever, like, super Heisman or, like, didn't return any call or note or email?

00:30:54Or were they, like, polite?

00:30:55Like, I'm sorry, not...

00:30:56Was there any back and forth?

00:30:57Or were they just like, no, get out of here?

00:31:00Yeah, it was a no.

00:31:02Our calls were either ignored or declined.

00:31:04Fully, fully ignored.

00:31:06Never heard back?

00:31:06Never heard back.

00:31:07Did AOC never hear back?

00:31:09AOC declined.

00:31:10Officially declined.

00:31:11From, like, how low down?

00:31:12Was it the intern that told you no?

00:31:14Yeah.

00:31:14Really?

00:31:15Yeah.

00:31:16Yeah, I made the pitch and the response was, no, thank you, but we're not interested.

00:31:22In the forensic examination of the, you know, election that just happened, a lot of it was

00:31:26like, yeah, Democrats wouldn't go on Joe Rogan, you know?

00:31:30Yeah.

00:31:31And, like, and so it's interesting.

00:31:32The Republicans are the ones that said, sure, interview me.

00:31:35And they were great.

00:31:36Both those guys were very interesting.

00:31:39Yes.

00:31:39Yeah.

00:31:40I agree.

00:31:41Forthcoming, and you got Westerman.

00:31:43Westerman.

00:31:44From Arkansas.

00:31:44Yeah.

00:31:46And Duarte.

00:31:46Duarte from California.

00:31:48Right.

00:31:48John Duarte, who just lost re-election, by the way.

00:31:51Probably because of this documentary.

00:31:52Good job, Miguel.

00:31:53No, no, no, because we were, as part of being fair and balanced, we didn't want to influence

00:31:58any kind of, you know, decision.

00:32:00So we published the documentary after the election, which was our whole plan from the

00:32:05very beginning, anyway.

00:32:05Right, right, right, right.

00:32:06Nice try at the spin.

00:32:07It's really, our PR guy at the time was like, don't do it at this point.

00:32:11It's going to look like we're taking a side.

00:32:12I was like, get out of here.

00:32:14Right.

00:32:15Okay.

00:32:17Again, on the context, so when you reached out to the Republicans, they were immediate,

00:32:22yeah, let's talk, let's find some time.

00:32:24Right away, yeah.

00:32:25You know, I made the pitch.

00:32:26They said, hey, yeah, we're really interested.

00:32:28You know, these are the dates that we're looking at.

00:32:31How does that work for you?

00:32:32We agreed.

00:32:33And we got really lucky because Westerman, you know, when we were in DC, the house ended

00:32:39up, it went on recess earlier than they were supposed to.

00:32:43So Westerman was not going to be in town when we were there.

00:32:46And that's why we interviewed Duarte in California.

00:32:48Right.

00:32:49That's why you see a Hummer in the background.

00:32:50Right, right, right.

00:32:51That says Duarte.

00:32:56And so, but Westerman was pretty interested.

00:33:01I mean, they said, you know, sorry, like a week before, sorry, you know, recess is going

00:33:05to be dismissed, or Congress is going to be dismissed earlier.

00:33:09Can you do this via Zoom or like, you know, what can we do?

00:33:13And I was like, oh, man, you know, we were going to be in this, in the Natural Resources

00:33:18Committee hearing room, which was, you know, like they had reserved all of this.

00:33:21They were super accommodating, super, super accommodating.

00:33:24And then I was like, oh, man, that sucks, you know.

00:33:29And then we were trying to like see what we do, what we did, because we already had booked

00:33:32flights and hotels and everything.

00:33:35So we were on the midst of rescheduling when they came back to us and they said, hey,

00:33:38actually, the congressman is going to be flying back to D.C. for another thing.

00:33:42And he really wants to talk to you guys.

00:33:44So we can move it to this time, same date, but this time, if that works for you.

00:33:50And we obviously said yes.

00:33:52And were you nervous?

00:33:53I was nervous.

00:33:54Yeah, I was nervous.

00:33:56Walking into Capitol Hill, you know, a federal building and like that.

00:34:01And then you see everything you see on TV is like, you know, right there.

00:34:03Right.

00:34:04And then walking into the hearing room was like just, you know, mind blowing.

00:34:09I mean, it wasn't in Congress.

00:34:12So the Capitol is, you know, it was adjacent to the Capitol.

00:34:15So it was in one of the House office buildings.

00:34:20Right.

00:34:22But it was very cool.

00:34:23Was he a nice guy?

00:34:24Super nice guy.

00:34:24Yeah.

00:34:25Huge fan of Motor Trend.

00:34:26Oh, really?

00:34:26Yeah.

00:34:27And he was very well informed.

00:34:29I think he's mistaken.

00:34:30So 100% and the comments roasted, which is what I love about this doc.

00:34:35By the way, 170,000 views, roughly, and over 1,000 comments.

00:34:40And a lot of them are like, again, our PR fears were misaligned.

00:34:45They were like, oh, my God, you guys are going to come out as being anti-EV.

00:34:48In fact, a lot of the EV folks were like, you guys are idiots.

00:34:51You didn't go hard enough on Tesla, on this and this.

00:34:55I was like, fair and balanced, baby.

00:34:57It was only 27 minutes.

00:35:00I mean, it was, you know.

00:35:01But anyways, Westerman.

00:35:02So nice guy, loves Motor Trend.

00:35:03Super nice guy.

00:35:04Yeah.

00:35:05Big fan of Motor Trend.

00:35:07You know, car guy, drives a truck, works on his truck.

00:35:13I think he drives a Ram 1500.

00:35:15Arkansas.

00:35:15Yeah, good tracks.

00:35:17Four kids.

00:35:18They all drive, you know, like a guy that is a car enthusiast, likes EVs, right?

00:35:24I mean, right off the bat, he said,

00:35:26I like EVs.

00:35:27You know, EVs should be here to stay.

00:35:29It's very rare you find a human being that's driven an EV that didn't enjoy it.

00:35:33That's the crazy part to me.

00:35:34It's like, they're fun.

00:35:35Yeah.

00:35:36And same with Duarte.

00:35:37You know, Duarte was like, hey, you know, I've driven EVs.

00:35:41They have their place, right?

00:35:42Yeah.

00:35:43And we're not trying to take away EVs.

00:35:45He was a Republican, but he was a California Republican.

00:35:49He has to say that.

00:35:50Well, I mean, you know.

00:35:52Yeah.

00:35:52So.

00:35:53Anyways, okay.

00:35:54Cool.

00:35:55They, how long did you end up talking to them?

00:35:58With Westerman, it was about 30 minutes.

00:36:01Okay.

00:36:01And with Duarte, it was almost an hour.

00:36:03Wow, that's great.

00:36:04How do they roll?

00:36:05Do they got like, is it like an executive?

00:36:06They got like, were there like 15 people standing behind you?

00:36:09No, like three people with Westerman.

00:36:12And Duarte just walked back himself.

00:36:13He drove to the dealership by himself.

00:36:16Congress people, you know, they're not senators.

00:36:18These are just Congress people.

00:36:19There's, you know, hundreds of them.

00:36:20Yeah.

00:36:21They give you a pen or a t-shirt or something?

00:36:23Nothing.

00:36:24I don't know.

00:36:27I don't know if I would have to.

00:36:30Disclose it?

00:36:30I probably declined.

00:36:31No.

00:36:32I don't know.

00:36:33Anything short of $500 should be fine.

00:36:34Yeah.

00:36:34Or maybe $20.

00:36:36There is a limit.

00:36:37I think it's $25 or something.

00:36:38Yeah.

00:36:38So they don't give you stuff.

00:36:40That's you giving.

00:36:40Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:41I don't know.

00:36:41You don't know that.

00:36:42Yeah, you're right.

00:36:43You're right.

00:36:45So, okay.

00:36:47Westerman, would you vote for him if you lived in Arkansas?

00:36:50I don't know.

00:36:50I don't have to answer that question.

00:36:55So tell us about, what I was interested, what was new to me was the recycling component.

00:37:04Not that it was new, new, but it would tell us about that part of the doc.

00:37:07And tell me why you didn't get the Redwood materials, JB Straubel.

00:37:11So we reached out to JB and they declined also, you know.

00:37:14At first they were like, yeah, let us talk about it internally.

00:37:19And then they came back and they said, you know, thank you, but we're going to pass.

00:37:22I'm going to, I know the, I got, what's her name?

00:37:24I'm going to send her that doc and say, look at how well, ABT?

00:37:28ABTC.

00:37:29ABTC.

00:37:30American Battery Technology.

00:37:31Look at how well these guys look.

00:37:32Cause they look, that dude is awesome.

00:37:34Amazing.

00:37:34Ryan Meltzer, I think he's like the Elon Musk of batteries.

00:37:38Okay.

00:37:39Well, JB Straubel thinks the same thing, but I mean, what I liked about the documentary was,

00:37:43you know, and again, I hate the term fair and balanced, but you know, you had,

00:37:46you had Westerman who's like, EVs won't do anything.

00:37:51Only 2% of pollution, which he's again, conflating pollution with CO2, but it was only 2%.

00:37:59And then, you know, but then you also went to the other side, you know, the, the, the

00:38:02showing people that like, you can recycle a hundred percent of these materials is huge.

00:38:09Yeah.

00:38:09Is huge.

00:38:10Yeah.

00:38:10And they don't lose their quality either.

00:38:13I mean, sometimes you think, well, if you reuse it, you know, three times and you know,

00:38:17by the third time, then it's no, but it doesn't.

00:38:20And I, you know, I learned these two is that you can mix

00:38:23virgin materials with recycled materials in the same battery and it works totally fine.

00:38:28Exactly the same.

00:38:29So yeah.

00:38:30Yeah.

00:38:31So yeah, that was very cool.

00:38:33You guys should interview Ryan Meltzer.

00:38:35Don, get him here.

00:38:36Sean, get him here.

00:38:37Producer, get him here.

00:38:38All right.

00:38:39You got his number?

00:38:40Yeah.

00:38:40He connected me.

00:38:41The other guy I want, is Gopal, Dr. Gopal.

00:38:46Gopal.

00:38:47Gopal.

00:38:48Him.

00:38:49Yeah.

00:38:49I want him.

00:38:50Sean, Dr. Gopal.

00:38:53Tell us, he was like a grid expert.

00:38:56Correct.

00:38:56Yeah.

00:38:57Yeah.

00:38:57Scott Evans actually reached out to him.

00:38:59Okay.

00:39:00So we, we divided and conquer all these assignments.

00:39:03Our colleagues, Scott Evans.

00:39:05Who else helped you on this, on the research?

00:39:06Kristen Lee.

00:39:07Kristen Lee helped with the research.

00:39:09Eric Tingwall.

00:39:10Oh yeah.

00:39:10Tingwall's in the doc.

00:39:11Yeah.

00:39:11Shout out to Mike Floyd for helping edit the script.

00:39:14Correct.

00:39:15Numerous revisions, right.

00:39:17I'm in the doc.

00:39:18Yeah, but.

00:39:19Wearing, wearing my Birkenstocks.

00:39:21I'm in the doc.

00:39:22I saw myself a lot.

00:39:23I was like.

00:39:23Oh yeah.

00:39:23But we had clips of the clips.

00:39:25It was 90 seconds, I'm driving that, I'm driving that.

00:39:27We had clips from Dr. Emily Fisher.

00:39:29Of Science Moms and Colorado State University.

00:39:31And then we had clips of BJ Birtwell from Electrify America.

00:39:34Yeah.

00:39:34But we also had like the, the Tesla party where you're handing Elon the award.

00:39:38Yeah.

00:39:38I'm looking in the background.

00:39:40Yeah.

00:39:41Younger, less distinguished.

00:39:42Much less distinguished.

00:39:44It was Gopal.

00:39:45Tell us about this guy.

00:39:46Yeah.

00:39:46No, he, he was also pretty good.

00:39:49You know, we, we interviewed him in San Francisco.

00:39:52And you know, he told us about like, you know, even if EVs come online, like they're not gonna

00:39:58do any kind of damage to the grill or to the grid or anything like that.

00:40:02Right.

00:40:02Like we're going to be able to power EVs even at an aggressive rate.

00:40:07Like that won't change.

00:40:08I thought he had the best point of the whole documentary because he was saying like, look,

00:40:11you know, uh, if like the current plan to deal with mass EV adoption in California by

00:40:172035 is we're going to add 2% capacity a year and that'll handle it.

00:40:21And the people that stand up and say, oh, you can't, they can't do 2%.

00:40:24He's like, in the fifties, we had an 8% a year.

00:40:27Right.

00:40:28America can do it.

00:40:29And I thought that was such a great message.

00:40:30I wish, I will say, while that is a good point.

00:40:33And we had Cody from Cal ISO on and he had a lot of good points.

00:40:37The one thing we failed to address in both, both that podcast and in the documentary is

00:40:43what actually do we mean by the grid versus a service provider versus a utility and where,

00:40:49what it, what it means when the grid actually goes down.

00:40:51Because we've had all these people say it's like, you guys are lying to us when you say

00:40:55that the grid can handle it because we've had, we've had these brownouts or these grid

00:40:59fail, these, and that's, that's not the lack of capacity that people, it's literally like

00:41:04a wildfire is happening.

00:41:05So let's not build, that's called force majeure.

00:41:13It's not the, it's not the, I'm saying we did a poor job of explaining why there still

00:41:18are outages, but you have to understand what the, what the attribution is.

00:41:23Right.

00:41:23But again, there hasn't been an interruption in California power since it wasn't an

00:41:27interruption.

00:41:28They just said, Hey, for this week, that is really hot.

00:41:30Could you like not charge your car during the day?

00:41:33Could you not watch your clothes during the day?

00:41:35And that was taking, but people still get those alerts and they don't understand.

00:41:37It's not the grid.

00:41:38It's the, it's the utility provider.

00:41:40It is, it is, but again, to the guy in the street, that's the grid.

00:41:47The grid is a grid.

00:41:48Well back to the grid for a second.

00:41:49So I thought Gopal was great.

00:41:50Also Westerman, I loved his point.

00:41:52Like, Hey, if we're serious, like nukes, like you want, you want a mission-free energy.

00:41:56You want CO2, you know, neutral energy.

00:41:59Now I, he didn't talk about the fact that like nukes cost billions and billions of

00:42:04dollars and solar and wind are pretty cheap and that we probably shouldn't build.

00:42:08He made a point about hydro.

00:42:09That was interesting.

00:42:11Probably if we want like, you know, fish and rivers, probably shouldn't build more hydro.

00:42:15But yeah, but no, I agree with him.

00:42:17Like, you know, the atomic energy is really overlooked in this discussion.

00:42:21And like, you know, if you're gonna have everybody in an electric car, boy, you know,

00:42:25modern new plants, 99.9% recyclable, the material that powers them and no emissions whatsoever.

00:42:32Yeah.

00:42:32So the cool thing about American battery technology company too, besides the recycling part is that

00:42:38they also do our start or will be starting to do processing of minerals here in the U.S.

00:42:44Right.

00:42:44Which up until now, China is basically the only country that processes.

00:42:50Right.

00:42:50The cobalt, the lithium, the manganese.

00:42:53In other words, it's mined in the democratic Republic of the Congo,

00:42:57but then it's turned into something usable in China.

00:43:00Correct.

00:43:00Shipped to China.

00:43:01Shipped to China.

00:43:01Processed in China.

00:43:02Which is oil.

00:43:03And then, you know, put into cathodes and anodes and then eventually put in a battery.

00:43:08And processed with cutting edge, state of the art, high efficiency processes that have been

00:43:15pioneered by Chinese researchers that have mostly been trained in America,

00:43:21but are now setting up shops in university.

00:43:23And this is a huge problem from a supply chain perspective,

00:43:27because they don't just own the mining.

00:43:29They own the entire piece of it from raw material all the way to what they're trying to sell.

00:43:33Correct.

00:43:34And then China just literally, after the documentary came out,

00:43:37they've dropped the hammer.

00:43:38Now, this is like a week old.

00:43:40They're now shutting down the...

00:43:43Exports of minerals.

00:43:44Exports of minerals to primarily America, but also a lot of our allies.

00:43:49Yeah.

00:43:49Well, good.

00:43:49We have a new administration coming in that'll deregulate everything.

00:43:52You know, mine under your feet.

00:43:54Well, I actually...

00:43:56Because the people are...

00:43:57You got it, Matt.

00:43:59This, I believe, it's the tough medicine, but I think we need this.

00:44:02And actually, we need the administrations to say,

00:44:04yeah, you know what?

00:44:05It's cool.

00:44:06We need to do this stuff in-house.

00:44:08We cannot be reliant on...

00:44:10And certainly not at this level where they're doing 97, 98% of it.

00:44:15America has to have this capability.

00:44:16Absolutely.

00:44:17Within our borders or with our...

00:44:20Friends.

00:44:20Our longest, our oldest friends, Japan, Germany, France.

00:44:27Yeah, Germany.

00:44:28I mean, Japan and Germany, the same amount of time we've been friends.

00:44:30Yes.

00:44:32But we're not in a...

00:44:34Canada.

00:44:34In a...

00:44:35Australia.

00:44:36I don't know if you call it a cold war, but we're rivals with China right now for empire.

00:44:41We're not really rivals with Germany yet.

00:44:43We'll see how this new administration goes.

00:44:47What did you not get to do that you really wished you had time to do?

00:44:51What questions did we leave on the table?

00:44:54I think just go deeper into it.

00:44:56Right?

00:44:57Make it an hour.

00:44:58Like an hour.

00:44:59Yeah.

00:45:00Part one.

00:45:00Yeah.

00:45:01Nobody gonna watch an hour.

00:45:02We could have done a documentary on each of these four topics that we discussed individually.

00:45:07Yes.

00:45:07And I think that was the original plan, but then resources were short.

00:45:13By the way, we delivered this.

00:45:15And a shout out to Brent Bear.

00:45:16Yes, absolutely.

00:45:17Brent Bear, he's the head of our editorial video operations.

00:45:20Good dude.

00:45:21Super good dude.

00:45:22Been with us...

00:45:23I asked him the other day.

00:45:24It's like 2011.

00:45:24That dude's been with us for a long time.

00:45:25Yeah, no.

00:45:25Yeah, he's...

00:45:26Just a baby when he joined.

00:45:27He was like the fifth guy of the video team.

00:45:30Yeah.

00:45:31We hired Ryan Foss.

00:45:32Yeah.

00:45:32Ryan Foss Productions.

00:45:33He helps out on a lot of other stuff that has nothing to do with this.

00:45:36Like he did the VA doc.

00:45:38He does mostly the high performance stuff.

00:45:40And he...

00:45:41They kind of like...

00:45:41They loved it, right?

00:45:42They kind of geeked out.

00:45:43They were like...

00:45:43They were super into this thing.

00:45:44Ryan was fantastic to work with.

00:45:47And he traveled everywhere too.

00:45:49And Alex Valencia, who was director of photography.

00:45:52Also did a fantastic job making sure that all the interviews looked really nice.

00:45:56Tried to get you to eat vegan food?

00:45:58Yes, we went...

00:45:59We had Indian food in DC.

00:46:02Oh, I bet it was good though.

00:46:03It was very good.

00:46:03Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:05So you wish you had gone deeper, but there was no category.

00:46:08Should we...

00:46:08Shouldn't we have gone deeper on China?

00:46:11Deeper on China is always good.

00:46:12Yeah, there's...

00:46:13I guess because you've already done the first one, right?

00:46:15Yeah, yeah.

00:46:16But, you know, like recycling and processing of minerals here in the US.

00:46:20That's a documentary on its own, you know?

00:46:22There's a lot of companies who are doing that, especially recycling.

00:46:27And there's a lot of opportunity to do processing of minerals here in the US, you know?

00:46:32Also, I think...

00:46:33Sorry to interrupt.

00:46:34I think you're totally right.

00:46:36Because people are so misinformed.

00:46:38They think EV battery is like this crazy materials.

00:46:45It's like, you know, big bang happens.

00:46:47We get hydrogen, helium.

00:46:49And one other element was created during the big bang.

00:46:52Lithium.

00:46:52It's third on the periodic table, you know?

00:46:55It's not some space age crazy thing.

00:46:57It just really didn't have a use before batteries.

00:47:00Yeah.

00:47:00And, you know, it's not crazy exotic.

00:47:03Like cobalt is not some...

00:47:04You know, cobalt...

00:47:05And that's the thing.

00:47:06There's really not a cobalt mine.

00:47:07They're copper mines.

00:47:08And one of the byproducts of copper mining is cobalt, you know?

00:47:10And like manganese is like...

00:47:12I forget.

00:47:12One of the most...

00:47:13You know, it's everywhere.

00:47:15Yeah.

00:47:15It's not, you know...

00:47:16And then you hear rare earth.

00:47:17It doesn't mean it's rare.

00:47:19Rare earth is a category of materials.

00:47:21So I think a materials documentary, like what's in your battery, you know?

00:47:25What's in your phone?

00:47:26Yeah.

00:47:27It would be something.

00:47:28The other part that public policy where we could have gone deeper, you know,

00:47:33the day we finished recording our interviews in DC,

00:47:37there was a Senate Budget Committee hearing on EVs themselves.

00:47:42And that is a clip at the end of the documentary.

00:47:44We have a clip of Lindsey Graham talking about, you know, he wants to compete.

00:47:48That was the greatest clip.

00:47:50Was that from the day after you finished?

00:47:52The day we finished.

00:47:54So while we were recording the interview with John Bocella

00:47:56from Alliance for Automotive Innovation,

00:47:59this committee hearing was going on in the Senate.

00:48:02And actually John's number two was testifying at the hearing.

00:48:08It's wonderful because Lindsey Graham says like electric vehicles are inevitable.

00:48:12Yeah.

00:48:13I wish you hit the bell in the dock.

00:48:15That would have made my life complete.

00:48:18Yeah, yeah.

00:48:21You know, my point is there's a lot of things happening in DC

00:48:25in terms of public policy in regards to EV.

00:48:27And now with the incoming administration, the coming years,

00:48:31the coming months will be, you know, full of a lot of news happening.

00:48:35But when you look at Congress, you know,

00:48:37like they talk about EVs and transportation all the time.

00:48:40Sure.

00:48:41And we, you know, sometimes those things are not really covered.

00:48:45And there's a lot of very key points that are said by important senators on both sides

00:48:51that, you know, we should be paying closer attention to

00:48:54and maybe following up on things like that.

00:48:56So that hearing from the Senate committee hearing,

00:49:00I would have loved to be there, you know, and be part of it

00:49:04because it was just super cool to hear all the different points.

00:49:08And, you know, even there was another senator who said,

00:49:12you know, it's great to hear all these different voices

00:49:14about what we can do with EVs and how we should react to EVs.

00:49:18But we're the U.S. government, you know, like we as congressmen,

00:49:22we have no clue how to react to that.

00:49:24You know, we have, you know, there's so many,

00:49:28we bounce our heads all the time and we're guided by what you guys tell us,

00:49:32but we don't really know like what's how to really do it.

00:49:36Right.

00:49:37And so it was kind of like a mea culpa in a way of saying like,

00:49:41you know, we kind of know how we should react,

00:49:44but we don't know how we can react.

00:49:46Do you have any thoughts on, you know, new administrations coming

00:49:50and Elon Musk has somehow now become like central to the U.S. guy?

00:49:55Seems like, like really has President Trump's ear.

00:49:59I think.

00:50:00Like, do you have any thoughts on like what's that going to do?

00:50:04Because Trump was very famously anti-EV saying, you know,

00:50:07we have more gasoline, let's burn the gasoline.

00:50:09But, you know, like this Musk guy,

00:50:11most of his fortune is from his electric car company.

00:50:15Like, would you have any thoughts?

00:50:17I mean, I'll give you my thoughts from an automotive journalist,

00:50:20and I think it's a fascinating time to be an automotive journalist.

00:50:25That's what we had Sean McClain from the Wall Street Journal say the same thing.

00:50:29Yeah, you have, you know, a president elect who's planning to stop

00:50:33any kind of funding for electric vehicles

00:50:36when the current administration has spent billions of dollars

00:50:40to incentivize EV adoption.

00:50:41Billions and billions.

00:50:43You have the chairman of the best or the most profitable EV company

00:50:50being basically the right hand side, the right hand man.

00:50:53Unelected.

00:50:56Of the elected president.

00:50:58Right.

00:50:59You have China trying to come into the U.S. with their cars.

00:51:03And then you have all this Cold War evolving, you know,

00:51:06around the world and the struggle also for EVs,

00:51:11you know, the adoption for EVs worldwide.

00:51:13Right.

00:51:13So you're saying there's a lot to write about.

00:51:15I think the next four years are going to be fascinating to cover.

00:51:18Yeah.

00:51:19So, you know, we are the ones who get to tell the story.

00:51:21We're the ones who get to ask the questions.

00:51:24So as an automotive journalist, I think it's,

00:51:27you know, the best time to be around.

00:51:29So based on what you just said, what's the next doc?

00:51:34Well, you want to do it.

00:51:36We just we just submitted these both of the docs for some awards.

00:51:39It's not awards.

00:51:40Let's see if they win any awards.

00:51:42OK, but what's what's the next?

00:51:43What's what are you, you know, you must think like, OK, here's my my round two.

00:51:48You know, I would stay in America.

00:51:50I think that, you know, the Mexico documentary,

00:51:54even though it didn't have like as many views or wasn't as

00:51:58popular or as trendy as as this new one, part of it was probably because,

00:52:04you know, who cares what's happening in Mexico and who cares about China?

00:52:07And, you know, and really there's no Chinese cars in the U.S.

00:52:09or not as many Chinese cars in the U.S.

00:52:11Right.

00:52:12No Chinese.

00:52:13Yeah.

00:52:13So and but but this EVs are, you know, are divisive in a way, right?

00:52:19Do you want to really poke the bear?

00:52:21How to make it real?

00:52:22Let's talk about the Chinese EVs and hybrids that are already in America being sold

00:52:30by non-Chinese brands like the Lincoln.

00:52:32We just named SUV of the year.

00:52:33Like the Lincoln Auto.

00:52:33That's our 2025 SUV of the year.

00:52:35Like I think Cadillac Vistec.

00:52:39It's they make them in America, but they also have a factory.

00:52:43They're built for the Chinese.

00:52:44They were designed for the Chinese.

00:52:45Vistec and Optic were made for the Chinese market.

00:52:47But there are some of them are built here.

00:52:49Well, there's Chinese Buicks.

00:52:51Chinese Buicks, which get, I mean, those unions love to hammer on those.

00:52:55Yeah, those guys.

00:52:56And then all the Volvo.

00:52:58A lot of Volvo.

00:52:58A lot of Volvo until they build their factory here or they open that factory.

00:53:02So the stealth Chinese cars.

00:53:03So we can do that.

00:53:04We can talk about, yeah, where's your car made?

00:53:07What's American made?

00:53:08What's American made, Doc, would be insane because Honda wins that off every year.

00:53:11Odyssey.

00:53:12No, Tesla.

00:53:13Yeah, Tesla, Honda, yeah.

00:53:15Tesla, Honda, Hyundai.

00:53:16Odyssey and Pilot.

00:53:16It was like 79% or something.

00:53:18It's really high.

00:53:20Yeah, so sorry.

00:53:22But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of topics.

00:53:24I mean, we can also just like focus on, you know, what's going to happen with all the

00:53:28budgets that were allocated for, you know, as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

00:53:35Right.

00:53:36That, I mean, if you look at NEVI, like to me, NEVI for the National

00:53:42Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program.

00:53:46Sorry, I didn't have that right off.

00:53:48But yeah, NEVI, $7.5 billion allocated from the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

00:53:54Right now we have less than 40 chargers installed.

00:53:58And while the majority of those chargers are coming in 26 and 27.

00:54:0127, 28.

00:54:02Or 27, 28.

00:54:03Yeah.

00:54:04We have a huge problem right now that can't wait another three years.

00:54:09Right.

00:54:10To be solved, you know.

00:54:11Do you know if NEVI's at risk with the new administration or

00:54:14the money's already allocated?

00:54:15It's fine, it'll be spent.

00:54:16Well, it's also weird how NEVI works because NEVI, you know, it's federal money given to

00:54:21states and then the states build the chargers, right?

00:54:24And the process of doing that takes a long time.

00:54:29And that's why it has taken a long time.

00:54:31And those chargers are expensive too, right?

00:54:33Chargers are a fortune.

00:54:34Yeah, they're a fortune.

00:54:35Yeah, unfortunate.

00:54:36But, you know, I think, you know, an interesting point would be like, you know, what is the

00:54:42maintenance around NEVI chargers going to be like?

00:54:44Because we know, you know, these chargers are being built by Electrify America, EVgo,

00:54:49ChargePoint, that we know have really bad reliability problems.

00:54:54They are not maintained and they're broken all the time.

00:54:58And our experiences have been pretty bad with them.

00:55:01So are we kind of like going in with the same, everything that we know already, that all

00:55:06those problems that they have?

00:55:09I'm just thinking like, you know, there's a famous book, you know, Kansas, you know,

00:55:13what's the matter with Kansas?

00:55:14Like, what's the matter with chargers?

00:55:16Like just doing a deep dive on like, you know, because remember we had, what's this

00:55:21finish from EVgo on?

00:55:22And I said, you know, why don't these things work?

00:55:23He's like, oh, credit cards.

00:55:24I'm thinking about it.

00:55:26Every other time I've used a credit card, 100% works.

00:55:29I've never, you know, like, like, you know, like scroll on Instagram, there's like a hat.

00:55:33Oh, boom, bought, you know, like don't even think about it, brainless.

00:55:37Yeah.

00:55:37Why didn't you ask that when he had them here?

00:55:39I did.

00:55:39And he, I forget what he said, but I go back and watch, but you know what I mean?

00:55:43Like, like what's really going on?

00:55:45Like, how can they get this so wrong?

00:55:47Right.

00:55:48You know, and, and, and also, and, and, you know, look, and Iona is addressing this, but

00:55:53like, and we said this for years, like the, the, the, the Model S was, was great, but

00:55:58the smartest thing Tesla did was the supercharger network, you know, like that was so smart.

00:56:03They did that because you had, you know, okay, I'm going to buy this brand new hundred thousand

00:56:07dollar thing that no one's ever heard of.

00:56:08We don't really know how it works, but I'm going to be happy about it because there's

00:56:12a, there's a supercharger there.

00:56:13Yeah.

00:56:14You know, you guarantee that the, the, the early adopters were thrilled.

00:56:18And like, how did like GM, they've been in the car business forever.

00:56:21Like, how did they not like, well, here's your Cadillac.

00:56:24You won't be able to like drive it, you know, like how did they not see that?

00:56:29You know, like I'd, I'd love to interview, you know, like charging what went wrong or

00:56:34how do we get this so wrong?

00:56:36Yeah.

00:56:36We, we interviewed on that point Dr. Tao, who's a UC Davis professor at the EV lab that

00:56:45they have in UC Davis that basically manages the whole EV lab.

00:56:48And he was saying, you know, automakers are in the business of creating a good experience,

00:56:56right?

00:56:56And if charging is a good experience, it's a, it's part of getting a good experience,

00:56:59then they should take responsibility on that.

00:57:01And he's absolutely right.

00:57:03Yeah.

00:57:03Let me, let me ask you, cause you talked to so many people that we normally don't talk

00:57:08to.

00:57:09Um, like the UC Davis professor, the guy at Bloomberg, um, Cory Cantor, Dr. Gopal, is

00:57:19that Gopal?

00:57:20Is he Dr. Gopal?

00:57:21He was a doctor.

00:57:22Yeah.

00:57:23And of course, did, did you, did your, um, did your feelings or your thoughts change

00:57:31about how we approach our content?

00:57:35Like the way we, cause you talked to some real nerds.

00:57:37You talked to some real business type folks that are not at all close to the actual product.

00:57:42Zero to 60 times.

00:57:44Yeah.

00:57:44We spent so much time like, Ooh, this is not soft touch.

00:57:47Right.

00:57:47I don't like the call that stitching looks lame or, oh, you know, whatever, this thing

00:57:51is slow.

00:57:53What, what was it like for you personally or professionally talking to these guys who

00:57:57are just about the big, the much bigger picture?

00:57:59Um, you know, yes, uh, I, I think that, uh, we, we do miss the point sometimes.

00:58:08On our coverage on that.

00:58:09We are too, too enthusiastic.

00:58:13We're too enthusiastic.

00:58:14We're an enthusiastic magazine, you know, but that's, that's how, that's who we are.

00:58:19That's motor trend.

00:58:20Right.

00:58:21And, uh, I mean, I, I honestly, I love the, having the opportunity of doing the, these

00:58:26documentaries because it allows us to kind of like, you know, do the stories that we

00:58:31don't usually do.

00:58:32Right.

00:58:33And tell the stories that are still out there.

00:58:35And I think that's a huge opportunity in our automotive journalism is to do these deep

00:58:39dive stories, these investigative piece pieces, uh, in, in, uh, especially right now, uh,

00:58:46because nobody's doing them.

00:58:47Right.

00:58:47I mean, these are kind of like the types of stories that you see maybe on 60 minutes or

00:58:51CNN.

00:58:52Right.

00:58:52But those guys are covering also, you know, abortion and gun control and all these other

00:58:59issues that are way more important.

00:59:01Uh, and we are covering our zero to 60 times and what cars faster than the neck, than the

00:59:06other one.

00:59:06Right.

00:59:07And there's not really this focus on, on telling these kinds of stories from, from an

00:59:11investigative point of view, uh, that I think, you know, it's important for the consumer.

00:59:16Um, so doing more of this would be great.

00:59:20I think I got it.

00:59:21I got it.

00:59:22I think, I think, uh, you know, at least a brittle who's a great journalist with a capital

00:59:27J, um, does a little bit of this.

00:59:30She works for us.

00:59:31Yes.

00:59:31She, she, a Detroit editor of motor trend who lives in Canada.

00:59:34Oops.

00:59:35It's Windsor.

00:59:37It's literally South of Detroit.

00:59:39Yeah, exactly.

00:59:41So Detroit, um, but, uh, um, you know, doing a little bit of, of, you know, don't really

00:59:48focus on the enthusiast part, but also do a little bit more broader market stories.

00:59:51I think would be great for us.

00:59:53What are you looking at me for?

00:59:54Oh, okay.

00:59:55Right.

00:59:55As a head of content.

00:59:56Well, I mean, our show, we don't really do very, do very little enthusiast based stuff.

01:00:00I mean, this is, we're getting, we're getting into like, as you can see in the comments.

01:00:04Yeah, that's fine.

01:00:06I like our new attitude where we're just attacking them back.

01:00:09That's not new, by the way.

01:00:10I just have enough time in the day.

01:00:12We do that all day long.

01:00:14The other thing that I would add is, you know, we, we tend to be very EV focused, right.

01:00:20And cover like, um, yeah, the inevitable, you know, with that highlighted with the EV.

01:00:26There's a reason why, but yeah, yeah.

01:00:27But, but, uh, you know, and, and we cover them from, from, you know, the, the, the part about

01:00:33like to your point, Johnny, about, uh, uh, your, your, your column is, you know, all the data,

01:00:38right.

01:00:39And, and, um, uh, CO2 emissions and global warming and all, but there's the other part

01:00:44that we're forgetting about that.

01:00:46It's the convenience, right.

01:00:48And the price.

01:00:49And the price and the economics.

01:00:50Yeah.

01:00:51For a lot of people, EVs simply don't work right now, you know, and we forget about that.

01:00:56I mean, we live in California where it's a bubble of its own, but you go, you know,

01:01:00big bubble, go, go, go to Arkansas.

01:01:03You know, that's why Westerman was so great to have him too, because, you know, he's,

01:01:07I think from, um, Texarkana, right.

01:01:10Middle of nowhere.

01:01:11Yeah.

01:01:12And, uh, uh, you know, where these people are also, you know, kind of like not being

01:01:18forced, but, you know, are, are hearing about all these, uh, news about the stopping the

01:01:24sales of, of the internal combustion engine and, you know, meeting certain rules to, to

01:01:29down the line, to, to, to cut down the emissions.

01:01:33And for those people, an EV doesn't work.

01:01:35Yeah.

01:01:35You show them, uh, an $85,000, uh, lightning, uh, F-150 lightning and say, and then, oh,

01:01:40cool.

01:01:41I can't afford that EV pickup truck.

01:01:43My lightning costs half that.

01:01:44And where am I going to charge it?

01:01:45Yeah.

01:01:46Yeah.

01:01:46I would also point out the population of Texarkana is like 70,000.

01:01:50I knew you were going to say that.

01:01:51Yeah.

01:01:51And, and when Miguel says these people, these people love being referred to as these people

01:01:56and reminded how many people.

01:01:58I was just going to say there's 25 million people in Southern California, not to mention

01:02:01the 40 million in the state.

01:02:02But yeah.

01:02:03But, but, you know, you know, living here in California are most of our editorial stuff

01:02:07being Southern California based.

01:02:09And we do hear a little bit from this, from Detroit.

01:02:11Oh, our Michigan guys.

01:02:12Yeah, sure.

01:02:13During the cold, you know, during the winter months, they're like, you know, it's just

01:02:17crazy.

01:02:18Shout out to Eric Johnson.

01:02:18Who's reminding me, Ed, not every place in America is California.

01:02:23Yeah.

01:02:23Not every place is Detroit either, you know.

01:02:25And even here in California, like in my case, you know, I live in an apartment.

01:02:29I don't have a home charger.

01:02:30Yeah.

01:02:31And for me to take home an EV is a struggle.

01:02:34So Ed should pay you more so you can buy a house is what I'm hearing.

01:02:38Excuse me.

01:02:39We have chargers at work and the guys are using them for much to success.

01:02:43And that's where I charge.

01:02:44But, you know, you take it on a weekend.

01:02:46You drive down to Orange County and back, you know, and then you want to go to maybe

01:02:51the valley and back.

01:02:53And then, you know, it's Sunday and then you're like, OK, where do I charge this?

01:02:58Or I have to take out time of my weekend to go charge.

01:03:01And that's a convenience part, right?

01:03:03When it's not convenient.

01:03:04No, you got it.

01:03:05You got it.

01:03:06For EVs to make sense, you either got to have a schedule that allows you to spend 30 minutes

01:03:11charging a couple of times a week, or you got to have a way where you park your car.

01:03:15It's got to have a way to charge it.

01:03:16So go listen to the It's Electric episode with Tia Gordon.

01:03:20There's a great solution there, especially for people who live in the province.

01:03:23A solution, a great solution.

01:03:25I like how we've had, as part of our long term fleet, a few EVs with editors that don't

01:03:31have home chargers too, right?

01:03:33Alex Leans is in one.

01:03:34Alex Leans.

01:03:35I think Billy Rivock was also in one of those.

01:03:38But talking to those guys, they do have to take time off their schedules to go charge.

01:03:44And I don't want to be doing that.

01:03:46I don't want to be spending time on a charger.

01:03:48Sorry, you got to charge the free car from work.

01:03:51I mean, I would also say, though, could I ask you, last time you saw your Apple screen

01:03:55time, what was that?

01:03:57Yes, seven hours.

01:04:00Was it six or seven hours?

01:04:01I don't recall.

01:04:03So you could do 30 minutes of those daily seven hours sitting in a car.

01:04:07It wouldn't kill you.

01:04:10That's a good point.

01:04:11That's a good point.

01:04:12We waste a lot of time.

01:04:13Still.

01:04:14You know, the convenience factor.

01:04:15Sure.

01:04:16No, no, you have to leave your couch.

01:04:17Yeah, I get it.

01:04:19Okay.

01:04:22Again, the documentary, the two documentaries we'd like you to check out, China's Big

01:04:28Bet on Mexico.

01:04:30That was last year.

01:04:31And both this one, again, written, directed, starred, co-hosted, Miguel Cortina, Mike

01:04:36Corden.

01:04:37And then the one from literally, at this point, two weeks ago, America's EV Problems, both

01:04:43on YouTube.

01:04:45Really great way to get up to speed.

01:04:47If you kind of don't understand what's going on, we can give you, these give you a really

01:04:52good.

01:04:53Very comprehensive.

01:04:54Very comprehensive.

01:04:55Solid pieces of journalism.

01:04:58What did you, can you, are you able to summarize what the, what the biggest learning for you

01:05:04was personally, professionally?

01:05:06There is a very long ways to go for EV adoption, for massive EV adoption.

01:05:13I have really high doubts that we're going to get to 2035 and we're not going to have

01:05:19any internal combustion vehicles, new internal combustion vehicles sold in California.

01:05:23I think those goalposts are going to have to be moved.

01:05:26Uh, maybe not in California, but in the States that are, uh, like New York is less than 10%

01:05:34right now.

01:05:34And they should be by 25% by the end of next year.

01:05:38That's not going to happen.

01:05:39You know?

01:05:40Uh, um, so, and, you know, talk about like a rural state, maybe like New Mexico that

01:05:45also has adopted those, you know, it's, it's just, you know, it really, we have to, I like

01:05:50the ambition goals and, and I like to try to, you know, be at, uh, the, try to kind

01:05:57of like curve the pace of Norway or try to do the same pace as Northway.

01:06:01Norway has been doing it.

01:06:03Yeah.

01:06:03I mean, Norway, uh, you know, in three weeks done, no more internal combustion.

01:06:07Yeah.

01:06:08But, but, uh, uh, but here in America, you know, we're not Norway, you know, it doesn't

01:06:12work for a lot of people.

01:06:14We want to use the metric system.

01:06:16So, so, so last question.

01:06:20So is it, or is it not inevitable?

01:06:24I think, I think it is, but, um, it will take a very long time to get there.

01:06:32Okay.

01:06:32More than what we think.

01:06:33To be clear.

01:06:34I don't care either way.

01:06:34I just asked him a question.

01:06:35Like people think like, I, I'm willing this into existence.

01:06:39No, I just, the question is, we know it's going to be a struggle, just how much of a

01:06:43struggle.

01:06:43That's why it's an interesting conversation.

01:06:46Just like it was an interesting conversation today.

01:06:48I mean, look, I go back to, you know, the, the, the cars patented in 1886, like, you

01:06:54know, when, when, when the first model T was when, so like mass adoption of the car took

01:07:00decades, you know, and, and even, even when the model T like they, okay, I put American

01:07:04on wheels, but like the rest of the world.

01:07:06And so, you know, things take time.

01:07:08Yeah.

01:07:09I think we also should give choice all the time.

01:07:13You know, I don't think these mandates or this, because, you know, EVs don't work for

01:07:18a lot of people.

01:07:19And, uh, you know, you have the right to buy a gun.

01:07:22If you want, you have the right to buy an electric vehicle if you want, or a gas car,

01:07:27you know, America was built on freedom and the freedom of choice, uh, even in the automotive

01:07:33industry should still be respected.

01:07:35But you weirdly don't have the freedom of choice to be around people without guns.

01:07:41That's another, that's an entirely different, uh, different podcast, but I think that freedom

01:07:46should be respected.

01:07:47And, uh, um, I'm not a fan of, of these, you know, I don't want to call them mandates,

01:07:51but you know, the California ban, it's a mandate, you know, the APA.

01:07:56I just say, like, I, I totally hear you saying freedom choice, but also, you know, what's

01:08:00behind is life.

01:08:02Like the idea is like, we gotta seriously get climate change under control.

01:08:07Like, I don't know if you were reading about like, you know, what the, they just discovered

01:08:11in Antarctica, but like the rate of ice melt is seven standard deviations greater than

01:08:18it should.

01:08:19Like, and again, like one standard deviation is nuts.

01:08:23Three or four gets you to like 99 point something percent.

01:08:26Like seven means like, it's just going to go away.

01:08:29Let me tell you, we're going to have real problems.

01:08:31Yeah.

01:08:31But let me tell you where you lost the first 50% of all of America, which is talking about

01:08:38ice caps in the North pole.

01:08:40And then when you, the rest of the 50%, you lost on the standard deviations, like nobody

01:08:46cares.

01:08:47Like that's, you're going to start caring.

01:08:49I know, but nobody, nobody, this has been a problem.

01:08:51Everybody, as we found on the election, everybody's only concerned about what's in front of them

01:08:56right now.

01:08:57Literally this moment, how much are eggs?

01:09:00How much is gas?

01:09:00Can't do long-term.

01:09:01Cannot do any kind of long-term.

01:09:03But yeah, this is, this is the role of government though.

01:09:05It should be is like.

01:09:06And when an EV is $10,000 over sticker than a gas car, comparable gas car, you know, cars

01:09:13are already expensive, you know, go buy a $10,000 more expensive car.

01:09:19And you know, it's material.

01:09:21What do you do?

01:09:22You know, it's right.

01:09:23For sure.

01:09:23I mean we need to come to a point where, you know, EVs first of all are profitable for

01:09:28automakers.

01:09:28Otherwise they won't be building them.

01:09:31Then they're affordable for the consumer.

01:09:34And then we also need to improve charging, not only charging infrastructure, but charging

01:09:38times and longer range batteries would help.

01:09:43I know we always say about, oh, you know, 300 miles.

01:09:45It's like the sweet spot, you know, or, but really, you know, what's that into the real

01:09:50world, you know?

01:09:51Yeah.

01:09:51Look, I mean a wise PR man told me like, you know, look, the range is never going to be

01:09:57long enough.

01:09:59If you give them 500 miles, they want 501.

01:10:01Yeah.

01:10:01You know, it's just, it's just, if you're into it, you're into it.

01:10:03If you're not into it, you're not into it.

01:10:05And you know, stopping at a gas station for five minutes, even though a lot of people

01:10:09don't like to stop at gas stations, it's only five minutes.

01:10:11It's not 30 minutes.

01:10:12It's not.

01:10:13Sure.

01:10:13You know?

01:10:14Yeah.

01:10:14But again, as a, you know, lucky enough to have a home with a charger, like I never charge.

01:10:22You're lucky.

01:10:23It's like, what's this gas station you're talking about?

01:10:25I remember those, you know?

01:10:27Yeah.

01:10:27So it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, yeah, I guess we have a long way to go.

01:10:31All right.

01:10:31But I would just say, just remember what's behind the mandate.

01:10:34It's not just like, we hate you and your car.

01:10:37It's like, we got to get a handle on this or it's going to be real bad for everybody.

01:10:45We're all in it together.

01:10:46All right.

01:10:46We got a last question.

01:10:48How does Johnny make his hair look like yours?

01:10:51Johnny?

01:10:51No, no, no.

01:10:52Sean, come on camera for a second.

01:10:54Look at this guy.

01:10:55What's in there?

01:10:56Like, to be honest, like that was amazing.

01:10:58I'm super fascinated.

01:11:00It's just good genetics, I guess.

01:11:03All right.

01:11:04Miguel Cortina, Mexico editor for Motor Trend, investigative journalist, writer, producer,

01:11:10host of award-winning documentaries for us.

01:11:13Go check them out.

01:11:13They're on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Motor Trend.

01:11:17China's Big Bet on EVs, China's Big Bet on Mexico and America's EV problems.

01:11:23And here's to Ed letting him make more of them.

01:11:25Yes, that's right.

01:11:25Yes, we'll see.

01:11:29So

01:11:51the inevitable vodcast brought to you by the all-electric Nissan Ariya,

01:11:55inspired by the future, designed for the now.

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