Transcript 0:00 [gentle music] So the NEVI program actually is gonna fill in all those areas where the charging networks actually haven't sort of funded it on their, on their own. 0:09 The second thing that's really key is, is that the NEVI program has a bunch of requirements and minimum standards, and it's gonna hold the networks accountable, right? 0:19 And so it's been kinda like the Wild Wild West today. These charging networks are, are just putting these, these chargers in as fast as they can, but they haven't been invested in uptime and maintenance. 0:36 [upbeat music] Welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show. I'm your host, Peggy Smedley. 0:50 My next guest is a data-driven analyst and consultant that helps companies and organizations better understand the market impact of and opportunities presented by the transition to electric vehicles and the corresponding need for EV charging infrastructure. 1:07 He leverages more than 30 years of experience as a marketing executive, consultant, and evangelist for companies including IBM and Arthur Andersen. 1:17 He has delivered nearly 200 webinars and more than 300 presentations in 19 countries, and his research and analysis have been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and Automotive News. 1:32 Please join me in welcoming Loren McDonald, CEO of EV Adoption. Loren, welcome to the show. Great, Peggy. I'm really, really honored and excited to be on the show. 1:43 Was, uh, that was an amazing, uh, sort of setup, but, uh, you know, this is a really exciting time. 1:48 I like to tell people that, you know, the transition to electric vehicles is the single biggest industrial transformation we've seen in the last 100 years. 1:56 So it's, uh, it's, it's an amazing time and a, an amazing industry and opportunity. Well, we've seen that the president wants to put, what? 2:03 $7.5 billion to make EV charging more accessible to all of us Americans, so it's a lot of dough [laughs] Yeah... that he's putting forward. So the question right now is gonna be whether it all happens, right? 2:17 So pro or con, depending where you are or what side of the aisle, you know, it's such a, a political hot potato right now, which is why you and I are gonna talk about it right now. 2:26 I love getting folks on the radio who, who understand it. So let's get right to it because that's what I want. Yep. Great. 2:32 You know, and, and the Biden administration, you know, really set this amazing goal, and you and I talked about this prior to the show about really saying he's got this goal of having- Right... 2:42 some 50% of new vehicle sales, and I've talked to others on the show about this, of selling both EVs, you know, we have, uh, uh, BEVs and, uh, plug-in vehicles, by 2030. We all know this. We've all heard about this. 2:56 But do you really think this goal is really achievable? I've had people on the show who say, "Are we gonna be able to do this?" You know, how many, you know, gas vehicles will still be on the road in the US? 3:08 I mean, is it doable? Can people afford this, or is it all pie in the sky because we're gonna separate the, you know, the country between the haves and the have-nots? 3:18 So great question, and, uh, if you had asked me, Peggy, three years ago, I would've said no, there's no way we can achieve, you know, 50% of new vehicle sales being electric. 3:30 And again, it's that BEV, that full battery electric vehicle, think about like a Tesla or something, and those plugin, plugin hybrids that have a gas engine and a, and a battery and motor. 3:41 In 2019, my forecast for new vehicle sales being electric was about 25%. As of now, three years later, I've upped it to 45%. So it's, it sort of keeps going. So the short answer to your question is yes. 3:56 Today I would say we absolutely can hit that. As I said, I, I have us being forecast slightly under that, but, but I think we absolutely can. 4:04 And, you know, the, the reasons are really not just sort of the regulations from things like the state of California and the federal goals and stuff. 4:12 A lot of it is really driven by Tesla and the sort of the competitive nature. 4:17 And Tesla really, you know, sort of kicked the, the other automakers in, in the behind, and they really sort of set the expectations around EVs with high performance, long range, great charging. 4:31 And it, it took many years for the other automakers to s- start to see a dent in their sales, especially at kind of the, the luxury level and the, you know, the premium level. 4:41 And, you know, a simple example is two years ago, if you looked at Ford, most everybody would've said Ford was a laggard. They were, they were falling behind. They had sort of no coherent electric vehicle plan. Today, 4:55 they are number two. They are clear, in a way, the leader outside of Tesla. They, you know, it's like pedal to metal. 5:03 They've reorganized the company into, you know, sort of the EV division versus the gas-powered division, and so it's really, you know, it's changing literally almost every day I could update my, my forecast on those numbers. 5:16 So yes, I think we're gonna make it. Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna get even tougher on this question. You know, we're talking about the numbers. I mean- Yeah... and I'm not, I'm gonna pick on you. 5:25 I pick on every analyst [laughs] that comes on my show. 5:27 So with all due respect, I mean, we, we can throw out any number we want, but the, the reality is nobody ever holds an analyst's feet to the fire at the end of the day. Right. 5:36 [laughs] So I, I believe, and I'm not gonna pick on you in the sense that you might be right, you might be wrong, but we, we've got a bigger problem, is how do we educate the average consumer to whether they understand how do you charge it? 5:50 Where do you find the charging stations? And so those terms, those processes, you know, of refueling your, uh, vehicle is different than in gas charging. 6:00 And, and again, this is something that it's, it's got its own set of challenges, and you believe that. Yep. 6:06 I think you understand that, so how do you get that mass adoption of educating everybody at all different levels, of all different education levels to understand how to do it?Yeah, the, the charging or, like you said, I like to refer to it as the refueling process for electric vehicles, it's an entire new language, it's an entirely new process. 6:27 It's basically consumers have to completely relearn how to refuel their vehicle. 6:33 And so the first thing I like, I like to explain to people is that, you know, if you think about your gas car, what most people do is, you know, depending on their comfort level, right, they, they drive it, you know, during the week until it gets down to close to empty or some people below empty [laughs] 6:48 and they pull into a gas station, fill it up to full, and in five minutes later they're out and, and on their way. That's a centralized approach to refueling. With EVs, it's a distributor approach. 6:59 I like to say whenever your car is parked, that's an opportunity to charge. And think about it, most vehicles sit parked about 22 hours a day, 23 hours a day, right? We drive to work, to the store, et cetera. 7:12 So whenever that, that vehicle is parked, it's an opportunity to, to charge. And the second part of that is, you know, that, that most people, around 80% of people will charge their EV at home. 7:26 So they drive home, they pull into the garage if they have one, and plug in and they wake up in the morning and, and they've replenished what they use. And that's the second part of it, right? 7:34 It's, it's a replenishment part. Like, you don't drive an EV from 100% down to, like, 10% of, of the battery power, right? 7:42 So if you drive to work and back and it's 40 miles, right, you, you just basically replenish that every day, again, every time it's parked. So it's a completely... 7:51 People have to rethink and understand how and, and where they, they refuel their car. There are two caveats that, to that though, Peggy. 8:00 One is if you live in, like, an apartment or condo or say you live in a, you know, downtown home in Boston or New York or Chicago or San Francisco or something where you don't have a garage, right? 8:11 And so in those cases you probably do have to rely on public charging, but what you're gonna do is, you know, you're gonna stop on the way home, when you get groceries, pull in the, into the, a supermarket and they'll have, you know, chargers sometimes for free out in front of the, the store. 8:26 You'll plug in while you're shopping. You'll pu- you'll charge at work, uh, et cetera. And the other one, the big one, which we'll talk more on a, a bit later, is road trips, right? 8:36 And so road trips is the one, you know, exception that's sort of more like the gas station approach, right? 8:43 Where you're gonna drive couple hundred miles and stop, and then you're gonna have breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever, stretch your legs, use the restroom, get some food, beverage. 8:52 And when you're, when you're done, your car is charged and you get back on the road. 8:56 So- Here's my problem with all of this, a- and, and I'm gonna date myself because I was back in the petroleum industry, is when we had stage one and stage two va- vapor recovery, gasoline vapor recovery systems, and everybody had to make that transition. 9:11 And no- people had the hardest time trying to put the nozzles in the tank. They didn't know how to do it- [laughs]... and it was an issue. Yeah. This is the same thing all over again, a different form. It's a transition. 9:23 Yeah. And people forget to charge their cars. They're gonna come out, the car's not gonna be charged. We've got some real issues that we're not facing right now that's going to be a charging problem. 9:34 People are gonna come out, their car's not gonna be charged, they forgot to plug it in. This is not gonna be like we make the transition to charging. 9:41 We're gonna have a big problem where people are gonna go, "I didn't make it to work." 9:45 Now, I know we're all at home, COVID, but, you know, as time transitions, people aren't gonna make it and it's gonna be a real problem that people didn't charge their cars and they- they're gonna be like, "Now what the heck do I do?" 9:55 And they've gotta wait a couple hours till the car charges or however long it's gonna take to charge that car. We're gonna face some real challenges. 10:02 Well, I, I would just say I've, I've been driving an EV for six years and, and I've never forgotten to charge, right? Like, it becomes like your, your smartphone. It's, like, more like a smartphone. 10:12 And the other thing is- Have you met humankind? Humankind isn't- No-... necessarily always remembering. I mean, you do, but you're on the upper echelon of humankind. The average- But that's-... person is not... 10:24 You're, you're, you're, you're saying you are. You're, you're... And you're driving a Tesla, right? Right. Right. Yeah- Okay. The average person- I know I'm clearly not-... is not gonna be driving a Tesla- 10:33 Clearly not-... gonna be remembering to charge it every day Yeah, because they will, they will learn and they'll understand, and the software in the, in the car will actually remind them to- Lauren-... 10:43 to charge and stuff... how often have you yelled at your children to turn the lights off in the house and they forget? Uh, well, my girls are, are... 10:49 My girls are grown, so [laughs]- So, but have you yelled at them to turn the lights off when they were growing up and they forgot to do it? It's the same kind. I, I'm sure. I, I, I'm picking on you. 10:59 I, I re- I, all due respect, I'm picking on you, but I'm, I'm making a point that this is going to be a challenge and we have to face it. 11:06 And your education point, and I think you're someone who's really smart, that's r- recognizing that we are gonna have a hurdle h- to overcome. Yeah, and I'll t- And I'm not saying it's not going to be... 11:16 and, yeah, and I'm not saying every person on the planet who has an EV will remember 100% of the time. Just like, it's... I think, just think it's overblown is, that would be my counter to you, is that once... 11:28 Like, how often do you forget to plug in your, your phone or whatever? Like, you put it next to your bed, you plug it in, whatever. It's... 11:33 And the other thing with EVs, as I mentioned, is, is you don't drive it down to zero, right? You're gonna have probably enough range in your car to get yourself to work even if you don't, don't plug in. 11:45 The other thing I would say, Peggy, is that one of the future things that's gonna solve this is what's called wireless charging. Now, it's more expensive, but basically you'd pull in and pull over a wireless c-... 11:57 coil that basically just automatically charges your car. So there's gonna- for those people that, that forget to charge, there is gonna be a solution for that. So we've got only a couple minutes left. 12:07 Let's talk about the big money we're talking about- Yeah... 12:10 that the government is putting, the $5 billion in federal budget that's going to be allocated to states over the next five years, but then we know that, you know, the charger, the, along the highway, I think the NEVI, the National EV Infrastructure, I think you know, uh, I think it's, like, 7.5 billion that I talked about there. 12:30 So what is that program gonna impact? You know, will it have con- consumer adoption of EVs and charging infrastructure? Walk me through just briefly that a little bit if we could. Yeah, absolutely. 12:41 Yeah, the NEVI, it stands for the Electric Vehicle, National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, and as you said, $5 billion is, is being allocated out to the states, plus DC and Puerto Rico, and each state actually has to match, uh, 20% of that. 12:57 So it actually ends up being six, $6 billion in, in total. But here's the two key things, Peggy, that the NEVI program is gonna do, is one, it's gonna fill out what we call s- charging deserts, right? 13:10 So there's a lot of places in America like, you know, between Montana and Wyoming or something like that, where the charging networks just haven't put in many, many of these what we call DC fast chargers, those sort of super fast chargers, because there isn't a lot of business and utilization there, so they don't put them there where there's very little sort of existing business need, right? 13:31 And so the NEVI program actually is gonna fill in all those areas where the charging networks actually haven't sort of funded it on their, on their own. 13:39 The second thing that's really key is, is that the NEVI program has a, a bunch of requirements and minimum standards, and it's gonna hold the networks accountable, right? 13:50 And so it's been kind of like the Wild Wild West today. 13:53 These charging networks are, are just putting these, these chargers in as fast as they can, but they haven't then invested in uptime and maintenance and things like that, and so there's a lot of problems right now of a lot of the u- you know, somebody drives to one of these charging station locations, and there's four DC fast chargers, and three of them might not be working, right? 14:14 And so the NEVI program is gonna actually hold these networks accountable to uptime and maintenance standards and reporting, and if they don't meet those, there'll, there'll be repercussions. 14:26 They might actually have to return the, the money or some of the money and that type of thing. 14:30 So it's really these two key things, right, is giving consumers more confidence when they go on a road trip that there will be chargers there and they'll be working. So there's a lot to unpack when we look at this. 14:43 When we talk about the NEVI program, there's just a lot to unpack right now. 14:46 There's a lot to unpack wi- when we talk about EVs, and I think as consumers, we have a lot of optimism on your part, lot of optimism on the administration's part. We all should be excited. 14:58 I've been picking on you about this because I think- [laughs]... when we look at this, I think we have to be realistic that it's not gonna be without pains, but sometimes the best thing in life does come with pain. 15:09 We're on roller coasters. We get off of it, we love it, but it wasn't sometime the easiest ride, but it's the most fun of all. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, and I don't mean to, to gloss over. 15:17 There are a lot of hurdles, especially on the, the consumer side, and we haven't even talked about the challenges the automakers with getting battery supplies and minerals, and we have to, you know, build out mines to, to basically produce all the lithium and nickel and everything to get in it, and those are... 15:34 That's a completely separate topic, but those are, you know, that's on the supply side that are, that are huge challenges that we may not actually be able to produce enough EVs to meet the demand. 15:44 Well, Loren, we are out of time, but Loren McDonald, CEO of EV Adoption, thank you for your time. Thank you for being patient as I picked on you a little bit. 15:52 Where can our listeners go to learn about what you're doing and spend more time with you? Because you're doing some great things. Great. Thanks. Absolutely. 15:58 It's, uh, just www.evadoption.com, just like it sounds, EV and adoption, so. All right, listeners. That is all the time we have for today. Make sure to share and subscribe to our episodes each week. 16:11 As always, you can share your thoughts with me at connectedworld.com. Remember, we broadcast live every Tuesday at 12 PM Central. 16:18 Please check out our website at connectedworld.com, our show website at thepeggySmedleyShow.com. This is The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world. 16:25 And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. Have an awesome week.
