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We also have some exciting sneak peeks at a California incentive that might substitute the now dead federal EV tax subsidy. Governor Newsom has proposed a $200 million line item in the budget for a new credit. I have a feeling Mike might have had something to do with some of the implementation details, which are still being worked out. So we're going to talk about the backroom dealing, the lobbying, all of the wonderful policy stuff you know and love here at Directly Current to kick off the new year. So I'll hand it off to Mike. Yes, Max. Always fun to be here. Good to see you. So we've got some polling in here at EVs for All America. Every November, we do a poll of what we call car commerce, which is pollster talk for we take voters, people who participate in civic life, who make $50,000 a year total family income or higher. So that's two-thirds of the electorate. We leave a third behind. But it's about 85% of new and used car transactions. It's all the new car stuff and a big hunk of used. because we want to focus the survey right there on the living, breathing car market because we're learning about how to sell more EVs, what messages work, what the apprehensions are. And we often look through it on a partisan basis because we ask people a lot of questions about what they believe. So every November we do it and we just released, you can get it on EVsforallamerica.org, our site. We, excuse me, we can do trend lines now after three years. And one of our key trick questions, very much out of political polling, not the kind of question that car makers normally do research work with. It's always eye-opening when I present our stuff at a C-suite of a car company. And they get very into it quickly because they're like, oh, we never, we poll on how many cup holders. We never thought to ask people about their political persuasion, but it's the number one driver really of attitudes about EVs. So what's the question? We ask what we call battery or several agree or disagree questions. Agree or disagree, and we give them statements. Here's the one that I find very illuminating. EVs are for people who see the world differently than I do. Very tribal question. That's not my people with EVs. Those are other people. And there's a lot of pejorative stuff loaded into it, so what side are they? among Democrats, most people disagree with that statement. No, no, hell no, no. They totally see the world I do. Among Republicans, three years ago, almost 60% of Republicans agreed with that. EVs are for people who see the world differently than I do. So it was about an 18-point gap between those who agreed and didn't. And it's been closing ever since. So this year, last November, year three, it's gone to 52% of Republicans disagree. And only 40, I think 9% of Republicans agree. So it's gone, basically it's closed by 20 points with the agree with EVs are for people who see the world differently than I do shrinking pretty dramatically. More room to go. It could definitely drop another 10 or 15 points, which I think over time it will. But that shows the categorical attitude about EVs is getting better and better, a thaw in the cultural hostility. Now, on other questions, are you interested in buying an EV in the next year or so? We break people into three categories. I'm seriously interested in getting an EV in the next year or so. I am open to EVs, but I'm going to wait for all the bugs to get worked out, which is charging, they mean, and prices to go down a little, or I'll never get an EV. And in that world, about 80% of Democrats either say I'm seriously interested or I'm open once the bugs are worked out. Only about 55% of Republicans do. So we're running about 25, 30 points behind Democrats on that. Are you what we call a swing voter? I'm thinking about it. When prices go down, bugs get worked out. Are you a Basie voter? Yes, I'm very interested the next year. And that number has been pretty flat for three years. So, you know, we have two dueling numbers here. But I think that cultural one is the leading indicator. And so we'll ask, what do we think is driving that? Well, it's a couple of things. One, word of mouth on EVs is good. We ask people, do you have friends or relatives who drive an EV? And when we cross-tabulate the people who say yes with all the other questions about EVs, they're only for liberals. They're great for the environment. I'm afraid of the technology, all the stuff we ask. People who say they don't have an EV, but they have friends or relatives who do rate EVs higher by 15 to 20 points on every question. So in a state like California, where there are a lot of EVs, even among Republicans, they rate higher. So as more EVs are sold, even among skeptical Republicans, the numbers go up because of the friend and relative thing. And so that's one reason it's thawing. The other is Elon. He's done terrible things to the Tesla brand. The Tesla brand is quite unfavorable, particularly with people interested in buying an EV in the next year or so. But he is so identified as a Republican now. He's popular for Republicans. He's dramatically unpopular for Democrats. So people see Republican Elon in the Republican world and they equate him with EVs. That's helped. That's helped a bit. I might have crushed Tesla's brand, but in the generic categories, it's been helpful for a Republican thought. So we're not there yet, but progress is coming. And then the other thing in our poll is the loss of the subsidies. The federal 7,500 has dramatically curbed interest. It's chopped it down by about 40%. Yeah, and that was borne out not just in our polling, but lots of the sales. Everyone saw this coming. The sky is falling headlines. And predictably, you did see quarter three to quarter four once the subsidies were no longer there, that sales of EVs didn't quite crater, but they noticeably dipped from the subsidies. Though what you were saying earlier about the leading indicator, I think it's interesting that culturally, right, people are more receptive to EVs regardless of their party. They maybe aren't ready to go to the dealer or get one in the driveway next year. But I think part of that is Tesla makes some of the most competitive EVs. Their brand is not doing great. Lots of the other competitive products have been delayed. Their prices were higher than they were initially. We're seeing lots of those stumbling blocks being hurtled over by now. With automakers, we've got BMW, Volvo, Mercedes, General Motors, their staple of brands. All of them are actually starting to release pretty competitive, affordable, compelling products for people. The average prices are going down, and we have a flood of used cars coming off leases, which are cheaper. So I think the price barrier over the next two years is going to get broken. And then you have stuff like the new Chevy Bolt. You've got the Nissan Leaf, which is a terrific car. I saw it at the LA Auto Show. And it's a very compelling car. If Nissan puts its dealer muscle behind that with some good offers, I think they will sell plenty of units, as we say. Yeah, I think the price thing is moving in the right way. The tragedy of the subsidy, we've been pulling that for three years. Only about 40, 43% of the world of car commerce knew and used, knew there were subsidies. The dealers did not push it in their local advertising in most places So the subsidies were a mystery Even among people who said I seriously thinking of buying an EV in the next year only 50 said they knew there were significant subsidies to buy them. So they never broke through last time like they could have. And now they're gone. And when we tell people they're gone, they say, yeah, a half say, nearly half. That makes me less likely to probably buy an EV. So now it's up for the states to take over. An important EV statistic, 80% of EVs in America are sold in just 15 states, led by California. So we're telling the car companies, put your marketing money into those states where all the sales are, because that's where there are more EVs and therefore more peer talk in a positive way about EVs. That hunt where the fish are. And those 15 states are where the fish are. And it's easier to sell an EV there in a Nevada or Hawaii or a Washington state or a California or even a Texas than it is in a Minnesota or northern Wisconsin. Yes. And we'll talk more about some of the California scheming you've been doing with the governor and folks and folks in the state government there. But before that, one of the anxieties that came through in the polling, and people can see this on the site, is that the President Trump's policies around manufacturing, people generally are pretty skeptical of and Republicans in particular, are actually very worried about losing manufacturing jobs to China, something that's been happening. And I think many people in the popular imagination recognize now is coming for the auto business, too. Yeah, the China fear is rising. We did a poll last year, I believe, end of 24. No, I think it was last year in 25 of only Republicans nationally about some of these issues. We asked them, does China play fair in trade? No, no. Over 80 percent said, hell no. We asked them who made the most cars in the world. A third of Republicans said the U.S. did. Another third said Japan was number one. And only a third thought, or even a little less than a third thought, it was China. So there's great ignorance. When we tell people China made nearly three times more cars than we did, they freak out. They had no idea. And then they get worried about national security. So that China worry about China eating the world auto industry fear is rising. And as Republicans hear those facts, they tend to get very worried about China. I think that debate is shifting too, and the sooner the better. Yeah. Trump the other day was just talking about letting Japan into the US market. He's a few decades late on that, but people are waking up to China as the real 900-pound gorilla. And the fact that particularly when it comes to batteries and EVs, that's where they have really leapfrogged every other manufacturer in the world. And it's important not just for EVs, but for the continued survival of the Detroit big three for folks that that still exists. And it looks like people are finally waking up. We got to hit the government on the side of American manufacturers. And I just, I don't mean only the Detroit guys. I get a big hoot. The chancellor of Germany, their president, drives a BMW made in South Carolina. The BMW plant in South Carolina is the largest exporter of vehicles in the United States. They ship more receives and almost many of these plants do. And so we want not only American companies, but our democratic allies who manufacture here, the Hondas, the Mercedes, the Hyundais. It's about American manufacturing. And now that the Canadians have retaliated to Donald Trump's constant trade persecution of our closest ally by letting in 49,000 Chinese EVs, rising to 70,000. By the way, the total Canadian market for zero emission vehicles last year. The official figures aren't out, but it's probably around 260,000. 70,000 is a pretty big chunk of that, which the Chinese can go eat now over the next few years. That's a real shot across the bow, and that's bad. That is bad for U.S. automaking. Yeah. If we had another hour, we could discuss the fact that BMW, Toyota, many of the foreign automakers who build many cars in the U.S., that the fact they're not unionized maybe was one of the weaknesses of the Biden administration and not hammering home their efforts enough. But now Trump has doubled down on with tariff policy, making it very hard for anyone who's trying to make stuff in the U.S. or with their neighbors up north. Right. And the problem is the leadership of the UAW is very pro-tariff because they're not connected to these global competitive issues. They're connected to the UAW leadership is mostly older guys. And they're like, I want a raise for three years and I want to retire of great benefits. The younger guys who would like to stay in the auto industry are much more interested in some of this EV stuff. So the problem is the union leadership, in my view, is not that reflective of the rank and file, the constant corruption investigations. And they're on the wrong side of this. We can lose American auto manufacturing over the next two decades. It is eminently possible. And on the topic of the age divide, It's not just the union leadership. It's the market to finish this polling point, right? The people under 45, much more receptive to EVs. That's accelerated. Folks over 45 are set on their ways of, okay, maybe I'll get a hybrid, but EVs are more negative for them. The other big indicator, we asked people, how would you consider buying a Chinese made car? And if you're over 50, hell no. If you're under 45, half of them are wide open to it. And I'm going to buy a house if I can save $20,000 on a car. That sounds great. It's from the Japanese. Nobody thought good car, good price, good quality. They buy it. So the idea that the U.S. market, if the Chinese makers show up here, will not, the future market, which currently is the under 45 market, will not accept them as crazy. And if you look at our, we have about 70 slides of polling data on the website, evsforallamerica.org. it's worth looking through because there's some real i've got some emails from auto industry people where our stuff is widely read about what an eye opener that was yeah and i'm sure the chinese brands are already aware of that or if they aren't they're definitely going to evs for all america.org to check that out but on the point of some of the mega ev adoption states california of course leads that still and they are one of the seems like aggressive most earliest states to try and fill in this big subsidy that got cut. There's a $200 million line in the budget Newsom proposed this month towards an EV incentive program. I feel like you had something to do with that. I'll honestly claim a little credit. I went to see the governor about 10 months ago. And I'm a conservative. I don't agree with Gavin on everything, but I live in California. He's my governor. And he's been strong for EVs from the beginning. I think he had an original Tesla Roadster. He is a legit EV governor. He sold the state Suburban and replaced it with a Rivian as the governor's official car. So he's the real deal on EV stuff. And I trapped him in his office. It was just me and him for what was supposed to be a 30-minute meeting. But I got out the old laptop and started working through the slideshow, about 50 slides. And to his great credit, he took out a legal pad and took notes. And we were there an hour and a half. And he had said that California was going to try to backfill the $7,500 credit, but we have a budget crunch here. And California is about 30% of all EVs sold in America. So that is a hell of a check to write. So that discussion led to more discussions. And I pitched to him, why don't you think about this like auto brands? So what's the public policy goal of these subsidies? More EVs. But what we really want to do is convert ICE drivers, gasoline engine or diesel engine drivers, over to EVs. And we know from a mountain of polling and research that if you drive an EV, you are more than 80% likely to stay with EVs. People who get them like them. The only bad experience people have is when they may live in an apartment building and they don't have level two overnight charging. And we're working on that too. But anyway, 80% are more like them. So let's spend all our money on a conquest credit. First time new or used EV buyers And so that kind of worked inside the bureaucracy over at CARB under Chair Sanchez who a very pro person and a great ally and at the California Energy Commission with Commissioner Nancy Skinner, who's an EV driver. I think she has an original leaf. And the governor's budget goals announced about, I don't know, two weeks ago, include $200 million for state credits. And we're working, I'm literally in Sacramento next week, working on the mechanics of how we do it. It may be a matching fund. So the companies put up two, the state puts up two, so you have a $4,000 lease or buy credit on a new one, something similar on a used EV. It won't be 7,500, but it'll be significant. We're big believers that if you can get the 3,500 bucks, you hit gold because on the average lease deal, that's a hundred bucks a month on the payment in most cases. And we all know cars are sold by the payment, not by the price. The other thing we'd like to do, Connecticut has played around with this, is get a cash spiff of some kind for the dealers. Because dealers don't make as much money on EVs because the service revenue isn't there that they do on ICE cars. So we have work to do to straighten out the dealer incentives. And we're working on some ideas about that. So California, it has to go through the budget. Budget here is tight. A lot of competing things. We're trying to get the 200 million and the governor, which is in his plan, the governor's influential here. I think it's got a real good chance. And we're trying to get 40, 60, $70 million to help subsidize putting level two chargers in apartment buildings. We have over 7 million people in apartment buildings in California. If we sold EVs to them at the state rate that California buys EVs, we would be the fourth biggest EV state in the country, just our apartment dwellers. So that's a big market we got to crack. And there's growing interest in that. We're going to have a bill in the legislature and could be a good session for EV policy here in California. And finally, good thing about that is a lot of states watch California and then copy them. We want to spread through all 15 of those leading EV states. Yeah, we'll have to see how it gets implemented. The conquest idea is interesting. It's nothing that's new to automakers in terms of getting their inventory off the books, but it's smart for if you've got a limited state budget to work with, makes it go further. Because like you said, people who have EVs, you've got them, they're squared away. The interesting thing also is the federal tax credit, many of the state tax credits have been income limited. And that's controversial. Some people from the equity side would say, that's good. Someone who's buying a Porsche Taycan does not need a subsidy. It feels wrong. And at the same time, though, even wealthy people like saving money. And there's an argument that air pollution reduces arguably even more for someone who's driving a big loaded Lincoln Aviator and switches versus someone who's driving a Chevy Spark. We lobby against income limits. Our theory is every time you convert a driver, it's a good thing. The other problem is people, the equity focused folks will say they don't need it. They can afford it. The problem is when you buy an EV for the first time, you have to overcome fear. And the main fear is charging. And people in the sales psychology need to know, I'm taking a little charging risk. I've watched a few Tom O'Logany videos. I think I can set up my garage. I get it. But I want to get paid for that. I want to get an offset to feel better about taking the risk. So even though they don't need the $3,000, it's a win that helps them psychologically get to the sale. It is an incentive, taking a risk, but boy, this deal is good with $3,000 right off the lease. We've looked at the distribution, not only on income, but on MSRP. And our view is MSRP limits under 100K are not a great idea because you want to penetrate that market. And also, you lease a $79,000 EV, 27 to 36 months later in most cases, it's now a $50,000 used EV or less, where it can be sold into a market at an affordable price. So over 40 months, you create two new EV drivers forever, or 80% of the time forever. Yeah. The other problem is when you incentivize, when you put all your incentives at the bottom end of the scale, you wind up with people who live in apartments buying EVs that they can't overnight charge. And that does not yield as much success. So until we fix multifamily level two charging, which is quite cost efficient, by the way, you can, for the, in California, it costs about a million three to build a six nozzle super fast charging station. And it'll take you three years. We finally got power to my favorite EVgo station a few blocks from my office here. It's got nine dispensers. It's been there three years, never been commissioned. The weeds are taller than the equipment. I finally got EVgo to cut them down, and we've been working together. I got the governor involved. I showed him a picture, and I said, there you go, Fox News. And Nancy Skinner got very involved at the Energy Commission. I was delighted for the first time in my life to sit in a traffic jam last month in California. They trenched the street to get the power in there. And that thing will probably be commissioned in the next 30 days. Fantastic station on Robertson south of the 10 freeway. So you can do 250 permanent apartment charging with wiring that can do two-way in the future for the price of one six nozzle station. And it's not just the cost. You just touched on this with EVgo. It's the fact that there's the bottleneck of the utility dragging its feet, getting that hook up. Level two doesn't really need that. Yeah, no, and you can load balance and generally the existing building power is pretty good, especially overnight. The utilities can make a little money so they can contribute. We have a good plan on that. We have, if you go to our website, Atlas Public Policy, who are real champs at this, have done a white paper for us. It's being widely read as we look for some solutions. Yeah, yeah, I think I'm excited about these state-level policy things that we're pushing for. And I'm hoping we pass the $200 million. That means we'll be able to write close to 100,000 matching checks at 2,000 if we can get industry in for another $1,500 or 2K. And $4,000 is a pretty meaningful credit. For sure. And while we have time, I want to touch on that dealer thing you mentioned. because to many of the early adopter EV folks, they think of dealers and they cringe because dealers have not been friendly to EVs. And from a pragmatic point of view, you could look at that and say, that's the problem. Why is it that EVs and dealers seemingly haven't mixed before? Some dealers are great at it. They get it. And they're in counties where EV sales are strong. Other dealers, from a dealer point of view, wait a minute, I've got to now train a bunch of mechanics. I can't do any meaningful service except new tires. If I take the battery out of the car, in many places I void my insurance on my building. That's a problem. So I've got to build a fireproof blockhouse for half a million dollars out in the parking lot for a job I might get one a month of. So it's a big money sink. And if I'm Waldo, the salesperson on the floor at Kansas City Chevy, and the guy walks in and says, I want a new pickup truck, I'm thinking about an electric Silverado. My little thought bubble is, if I sell this guy the car, I may get dinged on the J.D. Power post-sale report. Because we all know when we get a car, what's the last thing the salesman says? Hey, I got kids. Call me at home. You got any problems with the car? You're going to get a letter from J.D. Power or from Subaru or Chevy, somebody asking how I did. It's really important you give me five stars. because those reports come back and a lot of sales managers figure them in the comp. When they're thinking, this guy is going to take a month to get his garage charger figured out. Unless I'm a Ford dealer, where brilliantly they've started to do it, 90% of the time, they put a charger in for free in 10 days. We tested that plan. It's in the polling. It's a home run. People love it. But for most of them, they're thinking, so this guy is going to be a month before he can charge at home or six weeks. He's going to go to the Walmart and he's going to get an Electrify America thing that doesn't work. Or he's going to be behind five rideshare drivers. He's going to get pissed off and he's going to get a letter. He's going to give me one star. Why am I taking the risk? I don make any spiff for it The service manager hates me because there no revenue for them You know why am I doing all this I not Yeah they good There still some bugs You might want to look over here at the regular gas car You ought to say I can give you an LX for same price for having a sale. So the incentives are all wrong. So how do you fix it? You pay dealers to sell EVs. You make up for the less service revenue by putting up $800 spiff on the car. Salesman gets 250 of it. The CEO of one of the big foreign companies, I was pitching this idea or kind of just feeling him out on it because we're going to do a bunch of dealer focus groups to really get into this if we can raise money for them. And thought about it and said, you sell hell a lot more cars. You pay these guys to sell cars, they sell cars. I think a lot of politicians think we're giving the consumer 3,000 bucks. That'll help the dealers. Not really with EVs. There's no real service revenue. There's some used car revenue down the road. But the sales is thin. A lot of dealerships, the new car department is their least moneymaker. Service is number one. Used cars is number two. New cars are number three. And what a lot of them do is to win customer loyalty, they will sell a new car at a small loss. You know that car will come back and it'll go into the used car department. And it's cheaper to acquire a car that way than they go to the auction on it. And then sometimes slower moving cars they lose a little money on to hit factory incentives. You sell 10 of these or give you four extra 350s this month on the allocation that you can sell for a six grand profit. And so there's a lot of economic incentives with EVs in the dealership model that are all screwed up. Yeah. You touched on it too. It's like even the residuals, right? Used EVs, it's great for folks who are getting into an EV. it is bad for the person who takes a bath, including maybe the dealer who's hoping to sell it for something, maybe recover some profit they didn't make on it new. When the used EV market is in kind of, for good reasons, very quickly being made obsolete by much better, newer vehicles. You have a good F-150 Lightning today, but Ford canceled that vehicle and said, oh, we have a much better, cheaper, smaller pickup truck coming down the pipe. What happens to the Lightnings in two or three years? That's an uncertain question for lots of people. Yeah. And the dealers, so the used car department is often second most profitable because the used car business is really an arbitrage business. It's about two negotiations, what you pay for the car and what you sell it for and what that spread is. And it's not, they call it like a, this sale is a two pounder. That's dealer talk for $2,000 profit. You seldom them see that on new car sales unless you're a highline dealership. When EVs are really cheap and the market's flooded, the acquisition price is low, but the sales price is low too, so the margin gets squeezed. So dealers, many dealers, look at EVs like, I don't hate them, but they're a bit of a headache and they're not as profitable. So my incentives are not really to do this. So we have to change the incentives and we're doing some research on that. And I think, I think of spiff for dealers to sell new EVs and I tell on the residual point I tell everybody lease an EV don't buy an EV there you don't want to own that battery asset for a long time not that it's unsafe or it'll break no it's just the tech is improving too fast so lease it and roll into a new car yeah that that's the smart thing to do as a consumer and the dealer point I'll just finish and close and say that as much as early EV adopters and lots of the Tesla folks, people used to buying direct, maybe really dislike the dealer experience. Dealers are extremely powerful politically, locally, they're embedded in people's communities. And this, the stick approach versus the carrot you're proposing, that didn't work. Ford and several other manufacturers tried cracking down on dealers and saying, here, you're going to spend all this money in chargers. Dealer, that did not go over well. They got steamrolled on that. So maybe actually incentivizing making those things line up could actually have more success. Yeah, you need a win for the dealer and a win for the consumer. So make it a better business for dealers. Direct sales are fine too. Rivian's in a fight in Washington about that. We pulled it. People like direct sales and the scout thing will be a tough fight too. I'm going to plug one dealer to your vast audience out there in the interweb. As you kids say, just cause I've been impressed with them. There's actually two. One is a family Ford store. I think it's Gustafson Ford about, oh, I don't know, an hour and a half south of Chicago, small town family Ford dealer. They did it. They put in the chargers. They're beautiful. I've charged there. They're just good Ford people. And second is Grapone Ford in Concord, New Hampshire. It's a beautiful Ford dealership. Big. You can eat off any car on that lot. It is spotless. It's one run by the daughter of the family patriarch. And they put in the best charging station in Concord. It's a Ford charge point. And it's beautiful. Took them a year. I watched them build it because I was looking at putting a couple of free wire units in Concord near the state Capitol because I wanted to get a tax credit for charging for tourism like Vermont has. And I gave up one because free wire hit the rocks and two, we're ponies got a fantastic. They spent the money. It's fantastic. I told Jim Farley, you've got to call these guys out at the next dealer meeting. It's everything you would want a forward-thinking Ford dealer to be. So if you're in the New Hampshire or northern Massachusetts area and you're an EV nut and you're thinking Ford, or you want to charge on your way to the Lakes region, check out Cropone Ford. Nice. They don't support us or anything. I don't even know them. I've just watched them and been impressed. Yeah, I always appreciate that. And a well-maintained charger is more of a rare thing than it should be at dealers, even though the public networks have actually been getting a lot better. Worth highlighting. Any other plugs you want to make? Automakers you think are actually doing a great job in this weird time in the U.S. for EVs? Yeah. GM's coming around. They got some great product people in the Cadillac. My neighborhood's gone from zero EVs, not counting me, to four. And three of them are Caddy's, which is impressive, I think. The other one's a Hyundai Iconic 5. I would encourage people to check out the website, evsforallamerica.org. We have a little red donate button and we are low overhead. I don't pay myself anything. A mystery to my wife. And you can hit the donate button and we're tax deductible. We're a C3. So we would love to have your support. Sign up for our email alerts. We do cool stuff, including the EVs directly current podcast with the one and only Max Patton. We're all going to be at Charger Expo. So if you're going to be there in Las Vegas in March, Max, I think you're coming, right? And you're in charge of the mailman. EVCS in March. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have our whole squad there. We'll probably do the pod live. Check us out. Support us. And we're starting to thaw that Republican problem. And I'll finish by saying who cares about Republicans? They're 40% of the car market. So when Republicans start looking at EVs as cars and EVs start growing and growing, which has begun, it's better for EVs everywhere. Hard to have 40% of the market rule you out. You don't want that. Yeah, no, people are finally listening to you. The green bubble, polar bear messaging, I think that's behind us now. God, that's, yeah. Yeah. The environmental, a lot of people care about the environment. Buy EVs, I'm for clean air, good for them. Not how you sell them. You sell them as vehicles. Fast, fun to drive, no gasoline. And we're pragmatists here. Good news on the California front with the local bills. Progress on that. We'll stay tuned and I'll update the listeners. We've got plenty of exciting stuff down the pipe. But thanks so much for coming on, Mike. Thank you, Max. Always great to see you. See you in Vegas. Great time having on Mike Murphy. And I'm not just saying that because he pays the bills around here. We have some very exciting guests coming up for the rest of this season of Directly Current. And it's going to be an interesting cadence for the next few weeks. So let me fill you in. What we're doing is throughout February, we are releasing episodes fast and furiously with some journalists and analysts in the automotive industry who have some great insights. Then starting in March, we're going to go into a once a month schedule, and we're going to share with you some very high profile guests who we're very excited about. Thanks for staying tuned to Directly Current. If you aren't already, make sure you're following it in your podcast app of choice and look out for that furious release cadence in February, starting with another episode coming out next week. I've been Max Patton, represented by EVs for All America, and we'll see you on Tuesday.