Patrick George (00:00)
but like, look like the to the Daily Mail.

like it spent like 300,000 words shrieking about this campaign over the last few weeks. Like, we're going to make fun of you. Like, like calm down. Go cry at your museum full of stolen stuff if you're sad about it, guys.

Tim Levin (00:09)
Yeah.

Patrick George (00:24)
Hello and welcome to the Plugged In Podcast, a weekly news show from Inside EVs about the future of transportation. I'm Patrick George, Editor-in-Chief of Inside EVs.

Tim Levin (00:34)
And I'm Tim Levin, senior reporter at Inside EVs. This week we're talking about Jaguar's big pink comeback, the dumpster fire raging at one of Europe's biggest car companies, and California Governor Gavin Newsom's plan to stick it to Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Patrick George (01:27)
Tim, we did it, buddy. We're here, man. We're rocking and rolling. We promised the audience that the podcast would come back by November and here it is. It's in their hands, December 6th, 2024. But which is, you know, that's also totally November. If you look at a calendar or your watch or something, it's the same, it counts.

Tim Levin (01:30)
you

Yeah, no, it's November somewhere, so.

Patrick George (01:50)
Yeah. Is that how it I think that's how the calendar works. Yeah, no, it's it's it's look for anyone following along. It's definitely not like we punted this down the road for months, then ran into Thanksgiving, then tried to rush it out before Christmas and the New Year. This was the plan all along and we're going with it, you know, so super excited to be here. And we definitely are kicking this off with plenty to talk about. But I before we get into this week's news stories.

Tim Levin (01:51)
We basically did it.

Patrick George (02:19)
I want to elaborate a little bit about what you can expect from this podcast. And like Inside EVs itself these days, we don't just cover cars or electric cars. This is about the high tech transformation of the entire auto industry and how we're going to get around some day. We'll be talking about hybrid cars and China and the battery boom in America, software, autonomous vehicles, what's next, what's not working, the future of everything, really.

Tim Levin (02:45)
Yeah, and it won't just be us all the time either. We're gonna have guests on from the Inside EV staff. We're gonna have auto industry executives. We're gonna have smart analysts to help us break down the news. It's gonna be really fun. We're super excited about this.

Patrick George (02:57)
And with that, shall we get to our first story, Tim?

Tim Levin (02:59)
Yeah, let's do it. So the Jaguar saga continues on Monday night in Miami. Jaguar unveiled the Type 00, a chunky, colorful concept car that previews a one hundred and twenty thousand dollar EV coming in twenty twenty six. I think we can come back to the car itself in a couple of minutes, because I know we both have thoughts about that. But first, like what's what's going on here, Patrick? Why why are we talking about a Jaguar concept car? What's the backstory?

Patrick George (03:27)
Yeah, I feel like if you didn't hear about this the last couple of weeks, you were hiding under a rock. But we've sort of known for we've sort of known for months that Jaguar was going to unveil a new electric vehicle concept in December in Miami. A couple of weeks ahead of that, they unveiled the branding and ad campaign for this new EV. And it really just like blew everyone's minds and not necessarily in a good way. It looked like sort of a

Tim Levin (03:53)
Yeah.

Patrick George (03:55)
you know, like a high dollar fashion shoot, like lots of colors and lots of models of different skin tones and body types and no cars whatsoever. And I think it's fair to say that that ad campaign, like some folks like, OK, cool, you're going for this like high fashion, high dollar vibe now. But it really landed with a thud in a lot of other areas, including from like traditional car enthusiasts who love Jaguar. And we're kind of like, OK, where's the car?

And then I think it also got really ugly, too, because, you know, lot of the models that they use in this in this debut campaign were people of color. And so immediately this became like this very unfortunate Jaguar goes woke Budweiser 2.0 thing, which I thought was really just sad. Yeah, Bud Light. Sorry. Yeah. 2.0 thing, which I thought was really sad and unfair. don't I don't like the term woke personally, because I think it's shorthand for just like everything that the cable news tells you to hate as opposed to anything specific. But

Tim Levin (04:38)
Yeah, Bud Light.

Patrick George (04:52)
You know, this past week in showing off the actual car, Jaguar kind of attempted to bounce back from that a lot. And I don't know, man, you saw that car. Like, what did you think of it?

Tim Levin (05:03)
I mean, it's growing on me. It's growing on me for sure. Like I think it has some, it has these really sharp for lack of a better word, kind of like cyber truck esque angles. It's like shiny and pink and there's a blue one. It's a really out there looking car. And I think if they can make that like maybe people will buy it. It's definitely going to be something different. But I mean, say what you will about the rebranding or the car. Like there's no denying that.

Patrick George (05:09)
Hmm.

Tim Levin (05:32)
Jaguar needs to do something different here. What they've been doing hasn't been working. And I have some numbers to pack that up. mean, Jaguar sales basically have been tanking both in the US and globally. They've been tanking for years. They sold 8,300 cars in the US last year, down 80%, a full 80 % from 2017 and also falling every single year since 2019.

Worldwide last year, it sold 64,000 cars, which is about a third of its peak in 2018 So they've just never really been a major competitor to Mercedes or BMW and like this rebranding thing was weird and it looked like the Hunger Games and it put a lot of people off but like but like I don't see anybody else lining up to like buy Jaguars or lining up to you know, tell them how they should

Patrick George (06:17)
Ha

Tim Levin (06:25)
run their business better. Like they're trying something new because they need to, right? So yeah.

Patrick George (06:30)
Yeah, I think it helps to talk about how we got here too. And like I remember covering this like 10 plus years ago at Jalopnik, which is like at the start of the 2010s Jaguar Land Rover under under newish ownership by Indias Tata Group. They were like, yeah, like like you said, Tim, like we're going to take shots at BMW and Mercedes. We're going to become this big mainstream luxury brand with lots of like sporty sedans and crossovers and a sports car. And it didn't work like.

It's those are two really big targets to aim for. Everyone tries to take down BMW or Mercedes. It never works out like it was a miracle that Lexus was able to do that. And that was 30 years ago. It was even more of a miracle that like Tesla was able to pull that off. But they came out with some really rad cars like internal combustion cars 10 years ago. And like I think a good example of what happened to this brand is the F-Type, which came out in 2013.

and was immediately one of the best and most fun sports cars on the market. And like, I feel kind of bad saying this on the Inside EVs podcast. But like, if anyone ever asks, I'm sorry, if anyone ever offers you an afternoon in a Jaguar F type, like you say, yes, just just just just go up because it's one of the most awesome sports cars that's, you know, of modern times. It goes hard in every sense of that phrase. And then they come out with it they did nothing with it. And it's still for sale.

ostensibly, but like it's just totally irrelevant and languished. Then you have the I-PACE, like really groundbreaking car, the electric I-PACE. like that, that actually came out. was a Tesla Model 3 competitor, not a Model Y was a, it beat the Model Y to market by a couple of years.

Tim Levin (08:13)
Yeah, it came out in 2018, which was like for EV stuff, that was pretty early for the mainstream or for the legacy brands. Jaguar had this big head start with the I-Pace. Those are all the Waymo cars that you see, like the swoopy white ones. And they just kind of did nothing with that lead, right?

Patrick George (08:34)
Yeah, totally. It was like that car had great specs for its time. But like today, like the range and the charging speeds on an an I-PACE are, you know, they're totally outclassed by newer stuff. So they had kept that going. Like, I think it could have been really something. But by, you know, the end of the decade, none of these big plans worked out. Sales are tanking. They're dealing with the aftermath of Brexit, which made their business a lot harder to operate. They dealt with COVID and then dealt with a new CEO coming in.

who like immediately decided to kill off another EV project that cost them $650 million when it was like 90 % ready to go. And then he left or got fired a year after that, which is a great way to be a CEO. You just come in for a couple of years, kill some project that leaves the company in the lurch and then, you know, golden parachute your way out, one assumes. So yeah, like to your earlier point, man, it's like Jaguar had to do something big. And I think that like,

Tim Levin (09:23)
Golden parachute. Yeah.

Patrick George (09:32)
All the people mad about this car, mad about this ad campaign, like I think their perceptions of Jaguar are years or decades even out of date. You've seen a lot of just especially English people, British people this week just screaming, know, I don't like to do Jaguar, mate. I used to pick up lots of birds in mine. It's it's it's a bad one, I know, but like, look like the to the Daily Mail.

Tim Levin (09:51)
I did not expect an accent rendition.

Patrick George (10:00)
like it spent like 300,000 words shrieking about this campaign over the last few weeks. Like, we're going to make fun of you. Like, like calm down. Go cry at your museum full of stolen stuff if you're sad about it, guys.

Tim Levin (10:07)
Yeah.

Patrick George (10:12)
But like they need to do something bold. And like, I don't know this is going to work for Jaguar, but I like the way the car looks. like the crazy stuff they're trying with it. does not have a rear window at all, but like it's it's something you got to swing for the fences. Sometimes that works.

Tim Levin (10:26)
Yeah. Yeah. And like for some more background on what Jaguar is trying to do here, they basically decided like, we're not going to, we're not going to try to compete with Mercedes and BMW anymore. Those brands sell like 2 million cars a year. We obviously can't hang. So they're basically going up market and going EV only. And they're saying, starting in, you know, with this car, with this four door GT that, this concept car is previewing, we're going to be EV only. We're going to go up market. So it's going to be like,

Six figures plus and we're gonna be competing kind of more with like Bentley ish than Than BMW and Mercedes and they're gonna sell weight They're gonna aim for way lower volumes way higher prices and be this kind of like ultra luxury option And I don't know maybe it could work Yeah Rolls Royce too, right but not not quite as like pricey as the as Bentley or Rolls Royce. So That's kind of the plan here Love to see if it pans out

Patrick George (11:10)
Rolls Royce

Yeah, it's a look, it's a clever idea. Just like I kind of wonder also, like, and I kind of like this campaign, like pissed off so many people that I hate. But and again, I like the car, but I sort of wonder, this plan going to work in 2025, 26 and beyond? Like this is this might have worked 10 years ago when your targets really were Rolls Royce or Bentley or whatever. But now, all of these European car companies are dealing with just intense competition.

from China, which we're going to talk about on this episode. We've been covering all year inside of these. And it's like, this isn't really your problem anymore is what like Bentley and Rolls are doing. It's like XPeng and NIO and BYD and whatever other, you know, brands, brands they can bring to market, including at the upper end of things. And it's like, I hope the Brits are really come at this like both barrels because like this is getting more intense than ever. anyone will tell you, like if they don't pull this off, like that's probably it for this brand.

Tim Levin (12:02)
That's true.

Patrick George (12:17)
mean, well, then the only thing it'll have is history.

Tim Levin (12:21)
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great point because like the the Chinese brands have been coming into Europe hard and I don't think we've really seen like super high-end ones yet just because you know people have allegiances people want you know an Audi or a Bentley or whatever and like it's gonna take a lot for them to spend like a hundred grand plus on a Chinese car but who knows that's definitely coming so we'll have to see if Jaguar can can stand up against that. Yeah

Patrick George (12:47)
Tim, you pointed out too, let's also just like, even if we're trying to be optimistic and supportive, like this was, this was, this is an insane project. And it's really, it's comically over the top in good ways and bad, but like you mentioned like it was one of most bizarre press releases you've ever read. Do you want to favor us with an excerpt?

Tim Levin (12:55)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it was ridiculous. mean, I'm not going to say that this rebrand was, you know, obviously all the criticism I think was misplaced, but this was all really weird. The original ad had like all these cryptic phrases, you know, copy nothing, delete ordinary. It was like, it was weird. And the press release lived up to that too. Here's a little bit. A soothing travertine stone functions as a plinth.

supporting the floating seats and central spine and I was like What first of all I did have to I'm embarrassed as I did have to Google what a plinth is but but But this Jaguar has one it has a stone. It has stone in the middle of it so

Patrick George (13:37)
Mm. Mm, yes.

It has a plinth, folks. What more do you want? Okay. Everyone who didn't buy a diesel E-Pace 10 years ago, you have a plinth now. Like, stop complaining.

Tim Levin (13:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, I don't think I'll ever, I mean, I will never be in the tax bracket to afford a plinth, I think anywhere, much less like inside of my car. So if they can pull that off, I think they'll have the Chinese beat for sure.

Patrick George (14:13)
It goes on though, right? There's more that you highlighted that I, sorry, I love reading this out loud. I love hearing it out loud.

Tim Levin (14:16)
yeah. It was ridiculous. Yeah. And for those watching on YouTube, like we'll have photos accompanying this because you cannot understand really what this is just from the words. But this is another part. An exquisitely engineered power door on the body side contains three totems of natural materials, brass, travertine, and alabaster. And it's like, there's this little door kind of where you'd think a charging port would be. Like I saw the photo.

There's like this little patch opens up on the side of the car and there's like, I don't know, something in it. You can't tell what it is, but basically in this concept, you can like take out one of these totems and place it inside your vehicle. And it changes the sensory experience of, you know, sitting in this car. It's bizarre. It's all bizarre stuff, but like, this is what car companies do when they come out with concepts. They make up a bunch of words and, you know, they never deliver on it, but like it's fun to read.

Patrick George (15:10)
I love and really enjoy covering the global auto industry, but like this reminds me of a lot of like auto show debuts I've been to where they use this really over the top, crazy high minded stuff. And I'm just like, how the hell is this my life? Like, what am I doing here? I want to go to a bar instead. you know, but.

Tim Levin (15:17)
Yes.

Yeah, but it's nice that this isn't like a lot of the concepts that we see are like autonomous kind of pods or like futuristic kind of things like that. And this is like, you know, it's like a cool, huge luxury grand touring car with like a crazy design and stone on the interior. Like it's something that you don't see very often, which is fun.

Patrick George (15:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I watched the video, the debut video, and it was what I was seeing like the rear window and how that that moves around, it's like, holy crap, this is this is wild. Like, I hope some of that stuff works out. I don't know if you put the totem on the plinth or if the totem and the plinth are separate. But I for one look forward to finding out, you know.

Tim Levin (16:05)
I think, yeah, I think if you put the totem on the plinth, the whole car explodes, so you cannot do that. They don't recommend it.

Patrick George (16:13)
Indeed. Well, that's enough of Jaguar for now. What's next with that brand is we're hopefully going to see the production version of this concept in the coming months or years. Production's set to start in 2026 in the United Kingdom. We'll see what happens. But there are also more models coming, as you mentioned, like a GT car, a crossover because they got to pay the bills somehow. So let's hope they pull it off. I like weird stuff and I like big, bold experiments. So why the heck not?

Tim Levin (16:15)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, and not to belabor it either, but just last thing I'll say is this video that got all this flack online, it kind of worked in a sense that I feel bad for all these designers and the Jaguar, nice people at Jaguar who spent time putting this together and got it kind of dragged through the mud on the internet. we wouldn't be talking about Jaguar, nobody would be talking about this Jaguar concept or what they're planning or anything if they hadn't gone so hard on this. So in a way it worked out.

Like people are actually going to be staying tuned and seeing what comes out, you know, in the next couple of years and like maybe even buy it just cause this kind of caused so much news, right?

Patrick George (17:21)
Yeah. And the common theme here with a lot of what we're going to talk about a lot of what we cover on inside EVs is survival because this industry is facing this massive transformation, this transition to electrified power. Not all these brands are going to survive. Not all of their old tactics are working. They have this immense threat in the form of China, both in China and in Europe and other markets and

I think one of the companies that's had one of the worst years we've seen in a while is Stellantis, unfortunately, which if you don't know what that name is, because a few people still do, that is the parent company of, let me check my notes here, is it? It's 14, 14 different brands, including Jeep, Dodge, Ram in the United States, Chrysler, and Peugeot, Citroen, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, and...

18 others that I can't recall off the top of my head, but they've had a pretty disastrous year. Sales are collapsing and unexpectedly their CEO, Carlos Tavares, stepped down over the weekend and he was due to retire in 2026 anyway, but he's like, yeah, you know what? F this, I'm out. And just like left and that's it.

Tim Levin (18:38)
Well, or the Stellantis, more likely the Stellantis board was like, actually, you you don't have till 2026, like pack your bags. Right? Yeah.

Patrick George (18:47)
Yeah, pack your bags like John Elkann. Just put him in the back of an old Fiat, dropped him at the Italy-Swiss border. I like, don't let me see you around here again. And that was the end of him. But Tim, you have some data here on how Stellantis has been performing this year, and it's equally grim, isn't it?

Tim Levin (19:06)
Yeah, yeah. mean, so like the whole idea was Stellantis was made out of this big merger between Fiat Chrysler and the European PSA group. And the idea was like, put all these brands together. We'll save a bunch of money, you know, say by sharing costs and stuff. And that kind of worked for a while, but then this year it has really been kind of going downhill. So in Q3, Stellantis reported a 20 % drop in vehicle sales globally and a 27 %

drop in revenue year over year, is not something, that's not what you want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And

Patrick George (19:40)
Oof. Yeah. Not what you want. You want the numbers to go up and not down in business. Up and not down.

Tim Levin (19:49)
I'll try to remember that.

Patrick George (19:52)
Except for costs, those have to go down, but all the other numbers up. And that's how you do business. And that's what Stellantis is not doing.

Tim Levin (19:58)
Yeah, yeah. so like, you know, things are bad when both the United Auto Workers Union and the Stellantis dealers have both been like publicly complaining about the direction Stellantis is going and particularly about the CEO's leadership. it looked like he was on his way out already. They announced a couple of months ago that he was going to not stay past the end of his like appointment in 2026. And then, you know, a couple of months later, just now they were like, all right, all right, it's time to go.

but yeah, I mean, it's strategy in the US has been particularly like that's, that's kind of what we're most, you know, familiar with. And it's pretty obvious that they have not been investing enough in their products. like Chrysler complete shell of what it once was, right? They have Chrysler has one model, the Pacifica minivan. yeah, Dodge, Dodge,

Patrick George (20:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

depressingly so,

Tim Levin (20:55)
discontinued the gas powered Charger and Challenger like a little bit too soon probably. Those aren't on the market right now. Like Dodge isn't selling gas powered Chargers and Challengers which is kind of a misstep. Jeep, they tried to do this upmarket thing, tried to make a sub-brand Wagoneer that's like, know, sells these six figure kind of big SUVs. That didn't really work. And then you have Fiat and Alfa Romeo which are.

Patrick George (21:01)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Levin (21:21)
basically completely irrelevant in the United States. So they're in a really tough spot.

Patrick George (21:22)
Yeah. Yeah. If you've ever been to like a car dealership and you've wondered why a Jeep Gladiator truck is $75,000 or a Jeep Grand Wagoneer is $110,000 like that's Carlos Tavares and that's modern Stellantis. And that's the problem is that just post COVID their prices went nuts. And I think it's fair to say that like

We're seeing a lot of progress with from them on the electrification front. Like they have new electric platforms coming out like STLA large and medium, they call them. And they seem really promising, actually. I think that they're kind of late to the EV game and the electrified game. But like they have some cool stuff coming, but it's a little, you know. You know, too little too late, I guess you'd say. And just at the end of the day, it's just not stuff people are buying because they can't afford them. And yeah, to your point about Alpha, I mean, it's almost the same thing as Jack, like they like.

Interestingly, around the same time, like 10 years ago, Alpha was also like, yeah, we're also going to fight Mercedes and BMW, all these luxury cars. And it went even more poorly. now, like Fiat and Alpha dealers in America are like some of the saddest people in this country. So it yeah, I mean, it is.

Tim Levin (22:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well.

No, every once in a while, every once in a while, there'll be a story that's like, Fiat sold fewer cars this quarter than there are Fiat dealerships in America, right? There are more Fiat dealerships than they sold cars in this period. And it's like, oof, that is not good place to be. Yeah.

Patrick George (22:56)
It is. It's sad. It's like, again, they're doing interesting stuff. And I think like the Fiat 500E is a great example. But it's like I'm kind of baffled as to why that's sold in America. I it's this, you know, fairly low range, very cool looking EV. But it's like 35 grand. it's we all know you get a way better deal with more size, more room, more range, more power with almost anything else. So it's just you kind of you've got these brands like, OK, who's who's doing well? Like, who's winning here? What's the model?

What do we base this off of? How do we move forward in a way that's not going to suck? So I just, I don't, don't know where you would start with this company.

Tim Levin (23:32)
Yeah, yeah, mean investing in investing in more products, I guess. Yeah.

Patrick George (23:39)
Yeah, and probably going on an apology tour with your dealers, your suppliers, your employees in America. That's like what we're here to. Tim and I, we talk to people in the auto industry at all levels. Tips at insideevs.com if you ever want to send us something that we should know about that your boss doesn't wish that you told us about. We talk to all kinds of people and like morale is terrible at Stellantis in the United States.

They've had tons of layoffs from everything we've heard is that all these 14 different brands, they don't really work all that well together. They don't like each other. There's not really like a cohesive culture in this company that's leading to success. Like it's it's this kind of patchwork system. It was sort of driven by one guy and like his his sort of politics of resentment a little bit. And now it's like, OK, now what do we do? And I'm just really glad that's not my problem. I'm not I'm not going to be the CEO of Stellantis.

Tim Levin (24:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Patrick George (24:35)
They offered it to me, but I was like, nah, I'm good. I'm gonna stick with Inside EVs

Tim Levin (24:38)
I'm glad. Yeah, I mean, to go back for a sec, like just because I know people are going to be curious about like, Stellantis EV kind of strategy specifically, like, you know, the one that they have on sale right now, I believe is the Fiat 500E, like you said, which is a tiny city car that Americans don't really want. It's overpriced kind of for the range that you get. It's just not really something that people want here.

Patrick George (24:41)
Yeah.

Tim Levin (25:04)
The Dodge, there's gonna be the Dodge Charger is coming like imminently, which is also, a muscle car that's an electric car that is kind of, has a dubious, you know, market for it. We'll have to see how that goes. But I think.

Patrick George (25:15)
Yeah. Yeah. I like that thing. I think the specs are great. That thing. looks gorgeous. I just, like you said, I'm, I think that's a really tough crowd to win over. Like objectively, even as like pro EV people, like we are like, you're selling electric cars to like muscle guys, like Hemi guys, the Mopar bros. And like that, the brotherhood of muscles they call themselves. Like that's tough. That is, that is a really hard proposition. Yeah. You said cringe.

Tim Levin (25:35)
Yeah, cringe.

Yeah, and the one, the real, I don't, I think you said that. No, so the, yeah, I think the one, the one really interesting thing coming from them and you mentioned these, these electric platforms is that they're kind of pioneering in extended range EVs, which we call EREVs The Ram 1500 rev is coming next year and that is a big Ram truck.

Patrick George (26:05)
Yeah.

Tim Levin (26:09)
with a battery, but also a gas generator that makes it go farther. It means that you can tow things, you can do all the things that truck people want to do without worrying that you're going to run out of range, which has kind of been

of the big things that's been hampering trucks like the F-150 Lightning or the Rivian R1T or the Chevy Silverado EV. It turns out that truck people are a really hard sell for EVs. And Stellantis came out, they announced this

Patrick George (26:27)
Totally.

Tim Levin (26:37)
this Ram truck with the range extender and it was like, that's actually a really good idea. Like that hasn't happened for a while. there used to be, you know, similar kind of vehicles in the market, but not in a long time. And now you're starting to see that catch on like Hyundai is going to do it. I think Ford is also working on something like that. So, it's, it's, it's interesting because in, in some ways they're really falling behind and in some ways they're kind of really ahead of the curve.

Patrick George (26:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, there are a lot of us that think that the EREV is like the near term future of internal combustion. Like you said, that that course really cool V6 engine does not drive the wheels of that truck at all. It just recharged the battery. So, yeah, it seems like you're getting the best of both worlds. I have to assume that in terms of fuel economy and emissions, it's going to be way less than even like a hybrid truck would be. So, yeah, they have some big deal stuff coming out and in a make or break year with no CEO.

Tim Levin (27:13)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick George (27:36)
Like that's, that's a little scary. So, you know, I, I, how they're going to pull it off. don't know. But I mean, you, you, you point out earlier, like Stellantis is one part of like the challenges we're seeing in this business right now, especially in Europe, but it's not just them in, in, that continent. Did you, do you want to, you want to expand on that a bit?

Tim Levin (27:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. mean, like the European auto industry generally is kind of really suffering right now. It obviously depends like automaker to automaker, but Slantis is struggling Volkswagen, which is the other really big auto group in Europe is struggling. It's planning to close plants in Germany for the first time in its history. It has its union just like rioting about this. BMW and Mercedes are struggling too.

Patrick George (28:16)
Yeah.

Tim Levin (28:23)
It's a tough time for the whole industry. A lot of it is, a lot of it's problems with China. So there are Chinese automakers coming to Europe and stealing market share from these European brands. The European brands are also being pushed out of China because Chinese customers are increasingly favoring these like homegrown Chinese brands. right.

Patrick George (28:41)
Yeah.

They don't need our help anymore to make great cars. They've learned from the West and the Japanese how to make amazing cars and they've run with it and they're like, yeah, thanks for playing, but we'll help you pack your bags.

Tim Levin (28:59)
Yeah, no, exactly. And just to illustrate that, like, right now in Europe, recent stats say Chinese cars make up 20 % of the EVs sold in Europe, a whole fifth of the EVs sold in Europe. And they were basically non-existent a few years ago. And then if you go to China, foreign brands made up two thirds of the Chinese car market in 2020. Now they're one third. So they've lost, they've just shed like,

30 something percent market share in just the span of a few years. So yeah, it's not hard to see why these companies are really struggling.

Patrick George (29:38)
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is, man. For now, the yeah, but it's not my problem. I only write about these things as they happen. For now, tariffs and the geopolitical situation in America keep the Chinese out of this country. When he was campaigning, President-elect now Trump said if the Chinese are going to do business, they may as well put factories in America and build their cars here and sell them here. I'm sure that when the CEOs of like

Tim Levin (29:43)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Patrick George (30:08)
Ford and GM heard that they were like driving around alone at night listening to the national and being sad because like that's a threat that they don't want to deal with. We tend to think that like those cars from China will show up here at some point. Like it's maybe the next decade. It's inevitable. But for now, you know, what's happening in Europe is either a preview of what could happen in America or we can like learn from it and head it off. I don't know. Speaking of America, let's let's head out to your home state, Tim, or at least where you live these days.

Tim Levin (30:13)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, my adopted home state.

Patrick George (30:37)
How's weather in California? Let me guess, nice, right?

Tim Levin (30:42)
It's kind of always nice. It's pretty awesome. Yeah.

Patrick George (30:44)
It's always nice. Yeah, I hate you guys. I drove an EV home in 17 degree weather last night. My wife was like, we even have range to get home, right? yeah, yeah, it's totally normal for me to turn off the heater and the radio and the headlights and to put it in neutral and to start praying out loud. You know, so I'm glad you're enjoying your nice weather in December.

Tim Levin (31:04)
Yeah, it's funny. I remember one of the first times that I reviewed an EV, I also, I was like, should I turn off the headlights? Like I only have like 8 % battery left. And I don't think that that is a big draw on the battery, but it is something that you always think of. You're like, I don't know if I'm going to get there. Like, yeah, I did draft very close to the back of a truck. That was what I decided to do instead.

Patrick George (31:25)
Yeah, for the record, the headlights don't do anything. We were both joking and don't drive with your headlights off at night. Your electric cars are good, but they're not going to. Yeah, but it sounds like, know, also speaking of Trump, you know, where there's a lot of questions about whether the EV tax credit is even going to survive in the next few years. But sounds like, you know, Governor Gavin Newsom has his own ideas about that in California. You want to elaborate, Tim?

Tim Levin (31:28)
No. Yeah. And don't drive too close to trucks either, to be honest.

Yeah, for sure. there's been reporting recently from Reuters, got a hat tip to Reuters that, I mean, this just set off an absolute, what do want to say?

Patrick George (31:59)
yeah.

Firestorm, perhaps?

Tim Levin (32:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So basically, basically there's been reporting from Reuters that Donald Trump's transition team is planning to get rid of the EV tax credit, the $7,500 rebate that you can get if you buy a new electric or plug-in hybrid car in the U.S. And we don't know if that's actually going to happen, but

Governor Gavin Newsom of California plans to basically fill the gap. If that does happen, has said that the California said that they're going to instate a rebate of their own that would fill that gap. one kind of interesting part of it, that's great on its own because obviously who doesn't want to rebate on electric car? Great for the industry. Yeah, or any new car, sure. But you know, the EV industry needs it.

Patrick George (32:49)
for any new car, really, yeah.

Tim Levin (32:54)
But the one wrinkle there that kind of set things off online was that Tesla might be excluded from that rebate because they're considering restrictions around market share. And obviously Tesla has got a really big market share. So, I mean, what do you think about that, Patrick?

Patrick George (33:03)
you

Man, I think this is a funny one. It's hard to tell how serious that threat is. It could just be a shot across the bow at Elon Musk, who kind of has this like love hate relationship with California and Newsom in particular. You know, Tesla obviously got its start in California. Its first factory was is in Fremont. They still make cars there. They left California amid a dispute over COVID lockdowns.

Elon's politics have totally sort of skewed the other direction these days, but they had kind of a make nice like a year or two ago. Like, yeah, we're always going to have our tech center and our factory in California. So there's a lot of tit for tat between those two. And like, I can't tell if Newsom was serious about what he says about market share by excluding Tesla from these credits. Or if you want to take a shot at Elon Musk, who is now like best friends with Donald Trump and maybe runs the United States government, which is very exciting for everyone involved.

I actually don't know, man. Like, kind of don't agree with Newsom here. Like, I think let's go back to why are we doing EVs in the first place? What's the goal here? And it's if this technology exists to create cleaner cars and to help fix air pollution, then just give the tax credit to everybody. Hell, maybe let in the Chinese makers while you're at it, just because people driving cleaner cars is a net positive. But if you're doing it just for

protectionist reasons market share to help some companies, but not others. I don't know. That makes a little bit less sense. That's more of like the just the nakedly capitalistic approach. So I know what his intention is. I mean, you may not like Newsom's politics if you're listening to this, but like he's not stupid. Like, let's be let's be clear. Like he's very shrewd. He very clearly has designs for higher office. So like I don't think he just like shot from the hip on this one, but whether it happens or not, I don't know. But I think

If you're going to do an EV tax credit scheme, just like, let just let people buy Teslas. I mean, like hell, the way that Tesla's like market shares have been slipping lately anyway, they could probably use the help. Yeah.

Tim Levin (35:17)
Yeah, it's, it's, this is going to be, it's one of the, one of the rare instances, probably when you're going to like agree with, with Elon Musk, who's just like generally, you know, dis disagreeable. Yeah. He's, he responded to this Bloomberg story that kind of broke that news. And he said, even though Tesla is the only company who manufactures their EVs in California, this is insane. So, you know, you, you guys have a point. I'm going to, I, I'm not sure. I'm also not sure about this. I'm leaning the other way.

Patrick George (35:27)
It doesn't happen often.

Tim Levin (35:48)
I think it's okay to have a market share cap. If you look back at the original, if you look back at how the EV tax credit was before the Inflation Reduction Act kind of changed it, it had these sales caps in it, right? So you, manufacturer, the credit started phasing out after a manufacturer sold 200,000 or more EVs cumulatively.

Patrick George (35:48)
Mm.

Tim Levin (36:14)
So Tesla and GM were the only ones that capped out under that early program. like, I don't know. I think, I think you could look at it both ways. Like these incentives are there to get people to drive clean cars, but they're also there to seed this industry and have it like stand on its own eventually. And for that to happen, you do need to create like a real market with competition in it. And you don't want to just subsidize Tesla until it has, you know, and just, just keep it at.

Patrick George (36:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tim Levin (36:41)
you know, 50 or 60 % market share. Like you do want these other brands to that are just scraping by right now to like actually, you know, gain some significant part of the market. mean,

Patrick George (36:53)
Yeah. it's if there are people that'll throw out their hands and get mad here because they're like, we shouldn't be subsidizing the car industry like at all. like that's cute. But also like China has subsidized the hell out of its EV industry. South Korea has done the same. They're winning. South Korea has done the same. They're way ahead too the Japanese government subsidized the hell out of its auto industry after World War II for 20 years. We've done that here. We artificially keep gas cheap. We built highways.

Tim Levin (37:08)
And they're winning. Yeah.

Patrick George (37:23)
We, you know, allowed a pivot away from public transit in most major cities. Like the car market has never been just up to the hand of the free market in America ever, ever, ever. And like if, unless it wants to be made just totally irrelevant by what's coming, like it is going to need a little bit of help to protect a $3 trillion industry that, that, that employs so many people in this country and beyond. So, yeah, I definitely see your point too.

Tim Levin (37:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, and just to put some numbers to it, Tesla, Tesla's the dominant EV seller in America with almost 50 % market share. It's even more dominant in California, which is the biggest market for EVs, biggest car market in America and the biggest market for EVs. So through the first three quarters this year, 22 % of cars sold in California were EVs and almost 55 % of those were Teslas.

Patrick George (38:07)
Yeah.

Tim Levin (38:18)
So like, is it fair for Newsom to argue that Tesla doesn't really need any more help? I think so. You know, the next one is Hyundai Motor Group. So Hyundai, Kia and Genesis with a combined 9.7 % and everybody else kind of fighting for scraps at like, you know, 5%, 6%, 2%, whatever. like, you know, competition is good ultimately. So I think if a policy can like help some of these other brands, you know, pick themselves up, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Patrick George (38:19)
Yeah.

Right now, yeah.

Tim Levin (38:48)
and the other thing I would say is like, I think, keep an eye on California over the next four years. this is going to be like a flash point where a lot of these, a lot of the Trump sort of climate policy rollbacks are going to happen. you know, he's, he's most likely, he said that he's going to try to revoke California's ability to create its own, more stringent fuel emission standards, which is something that would be a big deal because, you know,

Patrick George (39:14)
Yeah.

Tim Levin (39:18)
A lot of other states also adopt those standards. That's something that's been pushing EVs forward.

Patrick George (39:24)
I 16, I want to say, off the of my head, like a state to use the California. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot. And so like, if you're an automaker, you're like, look at how many cars get sold in America's like biggest singles, like car market state plus, you know, 15 others, like you're going to follow those rules. Yeah.

Tim Levin (39:27)
It's something like that. It's in the teens. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, yet. It's a third. It's a third of the it's about a third of the car market abides by these rules. And so, yeah, that's part of the, you know, when people talk about California wanting to ban cars by ban, not ban cars, ban sales of gas cars by 2035. That is part of this, you know, California specific policy framework.

And Trump has said he wants to roll that back. And so we're going to have to keep an eye on what happens in California.

Patrick George (40:12)
Yeah, that's gonna be interesting. I'm always amazed that like, whenever I go to California for work or for fun, it's like there are three cars that exist in the state of California. It's like some kind of Tesla specifically, like a 20 year old Prius that's still running great or like this beautiful, pristine, absolutely rust free, like 1950s Porsche race car that was also somehow owned by Steve McQueen. And like those are the three kinds of cars that you that

Tim Levin (40:38)
Pretty accurate.

Patrick George (40:38)
are in California. Yeah. And you pick one when you land at the airport and that's how that state works. It's mind boggling.

Tim Levin (40:44)
Yeah, it's fun. mean, I don't know. I don't know if it's like a confirmation bias or what. it's not confirmation bias. One of the biases, but lately, like every other car I see is a BMW i3, which I just know there like aren't that many of them, but apparently they all exist in like a six block radius of my home in Northern California. So yeah, EVs, there are a lot of them here.

Patrick George (40:57)
Yeah.

Or like last year for the LA Auto Show, I remember just seeing the Toyota BZ4X everywhere. like it had a much better sales year in America this year, 2024. But last year I was like, that's where all of them went. It's just, they just got them all out here. So yeah, it's kind of cool to see. Like it's like that in like South Korea, the places I've been in my life, it's like, this is what an electric future and a hybrid future kind of looks like. And that's because of those rules you mentioned.

Tim Levin (41:12)
Yeah.

Patrick George (41:35)
and we'll see if they keep going, you know?

All right, cool. Well, this has been a really great and illuminating inaugural episode. I know that I'm a better person for having done it. I know you are too, Tim. Our listeners are. We're going to cap this off with a new feature that we're tentatively and with much disagreement calling plus and minus. You know, it's like a battery. Yeah, we haven't figured out a better name for it, but we might. But in this feature, what we're trying to do is end every episode by talking about who's up and who's down.

Tim Levin (41:48)
yes.

Patrick George (42:06)
Who are the winners? are the losers in this week of news in the auto industry transformation? And Tim, you first, my man.

Tim Levin (42:09)
Mm-hmm.

sure. Yeah. So I'll start with my plus, trying not to fall asleep during this one folks, cause it is a little bit wonky, but it is really important. so basically we've, we've learned today on Wednesday that, there's going to be a universal plug and charge protocol coming next year, which basically means that a bunch of automakers, the Biden administration, the SAE, which kind of makes these standards around cars, has been working on a way to.

Basically, you have it so that every car charges kind of like a Tesla does, right? Where you can pull up exactly.

Patrick George (42:50)
plug it in and you don't have to mess with apps or credit cards and plug it in and then your money gets taken out or whatever and you're getting juiced up. Yeah.

Tim Levin (42:56)
Yep. Plug it in. It starts charging. You pay at the end. That's it. if anybody is familiar with driving electric cars knows that's not, that's very much not how it works most of the time now. There are some cars that use plug and charge. Teslas are really good at that kind of thing. But in general, you pull up, you have to tap your card, or you have to open an app. It's just like a, it's a pain in the ass, and a lot of the time it doesn't work.

And so basically they're trying to make it easier, which I think is great news. So they're going to start testing that, next year, which will be a really cool development. Do you want to go with your first now? Okay. Yeah. I'll do my minus.

Patrick George (43:30)
Who's your minus? You do your minus first and then like I said, we're still working out the kinks folks. We'll fix the rest of the OTA update later. So who's your minus then dude?

Tim Levin (43:41)
Yeah, my who's down is, is Tesla Cybertruck. there was really good reporting out of Business Insider recently. that basically said that, Tesla had told some of the workers on its Cybertruck line to stay home for a few days, which, you know, to us means, there are not enough of them. There are, there are too many Cybertrucks being made and not enough buyers for them. which is kind of a problem when

The Cybertruck has only been out for like a year, almost exactly. I think a lot of industry watchers never thought that it would achieve the kind of volumes that Tesla said it would. Tesla was like, this is our best vehicle ever. We're going to sell 250,000 of them a year, which is a lot for a vehicle, especially like a really weird, really expensive one.

Patrick George (44:34)
People thought it was going to displace the Ford F-150. Like it's going to put the F-150 out of business. Like, sure, man. Like the only thing that does that is like, is like the apocalypse. That's it. Even then. Yeah.

Tim Levin (44:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. It's like a meteor. Yeah, no, exactly. yeah, all the Tesla fans and we're like, this is gonna, this is gonna ruin the F-150 or the F series. And like, they sell almost like, I don't know, a million of those a year, like close to it. So Cybertruck, apparently the hype is fading. The demand is fading a little bit. So why don't you go, Patrick? Why don't you start with your, with your plus.

Patrick George (45:05)
My plus goodness. The Honda Prologue, which I'm driving as a press tester right now. This is kind of like the big surprise in the EV world of 2024. It's like people love this damn thing. It's selling like crazy. They sold 6,000 of them in November alone, which is more than a lot of car companies have like sold year to date period. It's doing really well. And it's, know, we could go into more of the next episode because I'm.

Tim Levin (45:09)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Patrick George (45:34)
testing it more and I want to write a review of it on Inside EVs soon. But like it is the Honda sort of reskin of a General Motors EV platform. And they kind of put all their a few unique little Honda touches on it. But like it's it's the range is good. The charging is pretty good. It drives pretty good. It's incredibly normal. And that's what people want. And they want EVs from like brands they know and trust and have good dealer networks like Honda does. Like that's that's a surprise hit.

My minus, unfortunately, General Motors, which is getting hit so hard in China, it just announced a $5 billion write down to restructure its China business this year. That's like a third of GM's total profits last year. Like this is a major hit. And it shows you that like this China stuff is becoming like a catastrophic problem for these car companies. And we'll see how that if they can ever recover market share.

Tim Levin (46:10)
Yikes.

Mm-hmm.

Patrick George (46:28)
in that country, but like man is that that's a hit. yeah.

Tim Levin (46:31)
Yeah, it's like not only is the reskinned Chevy Blazer from Honda doing extremely well, they also had to write down $5 billion in China. Not a good week.

Patrick George (46:43)
Yeah. Yeah, but they've had a great year otherwise, and we'll be hearing more about that on the site soon, too. But I think that's it for now, man. I want to thank everyone for listening to this show. We appreciate everybody tuning into the Plugged In podcast from Inside EVs. We'll be back next Friday for a fresh take on this week's EV news. Today's episode is produced by Michael Perkins and brought to you by the Motorsport Network.

Tim Levin (46:47)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. It'll really help us out. And if you liked what you heard, you can find us on your favorite social media platform or check out our latest coverage on insideevs.com. See you next time.

Patrick George (47:21)
See you next time.