Electric Vehicle Expert: The Inconvenient Truth About Electrification
发布时间 2024-07-18 09:00:05 来源
摘要
Welcome to the Car Dealership Guy Podcast. In this episode, I'm speaking with Chris Nihan, President of EVready Energy where ...
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中英文字稿 
Electrification is inevitable. It's a better technology. It's going to be better for the grid long term. Can the utility grid handle the electrification of the automotive industry in the United States? Forsh required branded Porsche chargers. But the reality was Porsche doesn't make those charges or definitely pass the honeymoon face into a more challenging piece of the electrification that the world has in front of it. It's an inconvenient truth in a fast growing industry.
电气化是不可避免的。这是一种更好的技术。从长期来看，这对电网会更好。那么，美国的电力网能应对汽车行业的电气化吗？Forsh 需要品牌化的保时捷充电器。但事实上，保时捷并不生产那些充电器，或者至少说电气化从蜜月期进入了更具挑战性的阶段。这是一个快速增长行业中不太方便的真相。
A big thank you to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. Cars commerce, car dealership guy, industry job board, and EV ready energy. And now let's get into the show. Chris Nyan on the CDG podcast. Chris, welcome. You're she. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. A lot of talk about the EV industry nowadays, as we all know, you know, we put out an article. I'm going to pull it up right now. We put out an article on the day. And the headline of the article was EV charging network expands despite public doubts. So I'm really, really looking forward to seeing your opinion on this and really the future of our country and where we're headed. It feels like the last couple of years have been a roller coaster. We've had our the highs have been high. The lows have been low, right? I know dealers that were making a lot of money when the valuations were creeping up. And that lost their pants when these, you know, the bottom came out from under them. So it's definitely been quite the roller coaster.
非常感谢我们的赞助商，使今天的节目成为可能：Cars Commerce、Car Dealership Guy、Industry Job Board 和 EV Ready Energy。现在让我们进入节目的正题。欢迎来到 CDG 播客，Chris Nyan。Chris，欢迎你。你是她。谢谢你邀请我。我很感激。如今大家都在谈论电动车行业的现状。正如我们所知，我们发布了一篇文章。我现在就拉出来看。这篇文章的标题是“尽管公众存疑，电动车充电网络仍在扩展”。所以我非常期待听到你的看法，以及我们国家的未来和发展趋势。感觉过去几年就像坐过山车。我们经历了高潮，也经历了低谷，对吧？我认识一些在估值不断上升时赚了很多钱的经销商，但当市场崩盘时，他们损失惨重。所以，这确实是一段相当曲折的旅程。
I'm not a relationship expert, but we're definitely past the honeymoon phase and to a more challenging piece of the electrification journey that the world has in front of it. And I think we're experiencing a lot of those pains right now, but that's what happens when you try and accelerate a new technology. So you've been in some form or fashion with the within the or adjacent to the EV industry for quite some time. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and your experience and sensory? Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I did not do anything related to energy in college, but thought it was something that was really interesting to hop into. So it shows to do it over what I got my degree in and started on the ground floor to solar company. So if you got an obnoxious phone call back in the day looking to put rooftop solar in your house, that could have been me eventually ended up moving up in the ranks at the solar company. They were required by Tesla and Tesla needed to create an energy strategy. So worked in the showrooms across the United States of Tesla, helping them build their Tesla energy showroom strategy for battery storage, rooftop solar, and eventually got a phone call from ChargePoint, which is the largest charging company in North America today.
我不是一个关系专家，但我们显然已经过了蜜月期，进入了电动化旅程中更具挑战性的阶段。我认为我们目前正经历许多阵痛，但这就是加速新技术发展的过程中不可避免的事情。你已经在电动车行业或其周边领域工作了相当长时间。能不能跟我们聊聊你的背景和经验呢？
当然可以。我在大学期间没有学习与能源相关的专业，但我觉得这是一个非常有趣的领域，于是决定投身其中，开始在一家太阳能公司从基层做起。如果你以前接到过希望在你家安装屋顶太阳能的烦人电话，那可能就是我打的。后来，我在这家太阳能公司逐步晋升，该公司被特斯拉收购，特斯拉需要制定一个能源战略。我于是开始在全美的特斯拉展厅工作，帮助他们构建电池存储和屋顶太阳能的特斯拉能源展厅战略。最后，我接到了ChargePoint的电话，ChargePoint是目前北美最大的充电公司。
The initial focus at the time, we were looking to build one of these fast charging networks. What it ended up materializing into is a focus on working with the utilities and policy makers. Across the United States, helping them build the rules towards electrification and funding that's available and eventually moved into leading automotive dealership strategy at ChargePoint, helping dealerships make investments that, and I think this is going to be a large part of our discussion today, but help dealerships make investments that stand the test of time. After a while, it realized a big gap in the industry, which we're going to get to and realized that it was possible to start a company around this inconvenient truth in the industry. And so it's a big focus of ours now, but the name of our company is EV Ready Energy. And we work a lot with automotive manufacturers, dealer groups, dealerships, as well as other verticals as well.
当初，我们的重点是建立一个快速充电网络。但最终我们转而专注于与公用事业公司和政策制定者合作，在美国各地帮助他们制定电气化的相关规则和获得资金。随后，我们开始在ChargePoint领导汽车经销商策略，帮助经销商进行可持续投资，我认为这将是今天讨论的一个重要部分。过了一段时间，我们发现了行业中的一个巨大空白，并意识到可以围绕这个行业中的不便真相创办一家公司。因此，我们现在大力专注的公司名为EV Ready Energy。我们在与汽车制造商、经销商集团、经销商以及其他领域合作方面投入了大量精力。
You said something, what do you mean by this inconvenient truth? What does that mean to you? I think what's happening in the industry right now, and it was something that identified several years ago, is that because the world is trying to transition to a cleaner future or let's call it an electrified future, there are components of installing charging stations that end up costing the end user a lot more money, and they never realized it. And it's tied to how utilities work and how customers are charged for electricity. And in general, it is an ignored fact in the industry for most customers, where they kind of find out this inconvenient truth after the fact, after they made the investment, they were forced to make the investment. And in many cases, customers who install charging stations are being charged significantly more than they need to be or should be.
你提到了一些事情，你所说的不便真相是什么意思？这对你来说意味着什么？我认为，目前行业中正在发生的事情，也是几年前我们发现的一个问题，是因为世界正在努力向更清洁的未来或电气化的未来转变。在安装充电站的过程中，有些因素会导致最终用户支付更多的费用，而他们事先并不了解。这与电力公司的运营方式和客户被收取电费的方式有关。通常来说，这是行业大多数客户忽视的一个事实，他们在做出投资后才发现这个不便的真相，基本上是被迫进行这项投资的。结果是，许多安装充电站的客户支付的费用远高于他们所需要或应支付的金额。
What are you seeing in the industry? And I was what's the variance there? If I'm a dealer right now, and I'm like, OK, I want to invest in this EV transition, I think that there's lots of money to be made, and that I'm going to be selling more of these, right? What are dealers actually facing there when it comes to the variance in costs? There's two ways that dealers are installing charging stations today. One is because they want to. That happens. That's the exception. But in almost all cases, it's because they're being forced to. It's because the auto manufacturers telling them, hey, you have to install this many charging stations by this point in time, or you're not going to get allocation of new inventory, or you're not checking off all of your compliance for whatever the auto manufacturers are requiring. And so the challenge, though, is where the focus is. The focus is generally on the installation. And it should be, obviously, that should be a focus, is the installation. The other focus is on the charging solution, and what charging solution they recommend or that they require. And these are all things that require expertise. But in general, what is ignored is how utilities work.
你在这个行业里看到了什么？如果我是一个经销商，现在我想投资电动汽车的转型，我觉得这里有很多赚钱的机会，我会卖出更多电动汽车，对吗？那么经销商在成本差异方面究竟面临什么？目前经销商安装充电站有两种方式。一种是他们自愿安装。这种情况比较少见。在几乎所有情况下，他们是被迫的。是汽车制造商告诉他们，你必须在某个时间点前安装这么多充电站，否则你就拿不到新库存，或者你没有满足汽车制造商要求的所有合规条件。然而，问题在于焦点在哪里。焦点通常是安装，显然，安装应该是一个焦点。另一个焦点是充电解决方案，以及他们推荐或要求的充电解决方案。这些都需要专业知识。但总的来说，通常被忽视的是公用事业公司的运作方式。
That is ignored. The focus with utilities is how to get capacity to a site so that stations can be installed and activated. But how you're actually charged for that electricity is ignored. And it's not a great story for dealerships. I would estimate that dealerships in Massachusetts combined are probably losing over $100 million a year in costs that they could be saving if they were to change and alter and think through how they were installing charging stations with the utility. Now, when you say 100 millions of big number what are your current costs associated with them actually supplying these charging stations? Yeah, so it doesn't have to do with the supply of the chargers. It doesn't have to do with the installation. It strictly has to do with the way that utilities charge for electricity. And so, just to give you some context there, utilities are essentially construction companies, right? And so they're responsible for recovering the costs of a utility grid.
这个问题被忽略了。公用事业部门关注的是如何将电力输送到一个地点，以便安装和启用充电站。然而，实际的电费收费方式却被忽视了。这对汽车经销商来说不是个好消息。我估计，马萨诸塞州的汽车经销商合计每年可能会因为没有优化充电站安装和使用方式，损失超过1亿美元。如果你觉得1亿美元是个大数字，那么你现在的相关成本是多少呢？其实这与充电器的供应或安装无关，完全是与公用事业公司如何收取电费有关。为了让你了解情况，公用事业公司基本上是建设公司，它们负责收回电网建设的成本。
Utility grids in New York City look very different than rural Kansas. And so, the cost structure is very different across the United States. Related to EV charging, what's unique about EV charging is the load profile for charging stations. Most dealerships use, let's call it 100 kilowatts, 125, 150 kilowatts. Some brands are requiring right now that dealerships install 700 kilowatts of power. So, in some cases, just the chargers are using seven times the amount of power of a dealership. And there's this process with the utility called rate design, where utilities build rate tariffs, they have rate tariffs and they build them for different load profiles of customers. But because EV charging has such a unique load profile, generally what happens is a customer gets thrown into a rate that costs them significantly more money for charging than it needs to.
纽约市的电网与堪萨斯州乡村的电网看起来非常不同，因此在全美各地的成本结构也非常不同。与电动汽车（EV）充电相关的一个独特之处在于充电站的负荷特性。大多数汽车经销商使用的负荷大概为100千瓦、125千瓦或150千瓦。而有些品牌现在要求经销商安装700千瓦的电力。所以，在某些情况下，充电器的用电量是经销商的七倍。还有一个称为电价设计的流程，公用事业公司会根据客户的不同负荷特性制定电价。但是，由于电动汽车充电具有非常独特的负荷特性，通常情况下，客户会被分配到一个 wesentlich mehr kosten als nötig 的电价类别，从而花费大量不必要的费用。
And that can be avoided in many cases. And that's one thing that we primarily focus on is helping customers understand how to navigate their rate tariffs. How did you uncover this stuff? This is very deep, almost esoteric stuff. Do you have a background in engineering? Or where did you have this? Aha! This is a massive waste in our industry. Where did that come from? Yeah, it was a very specific moment in time. When I joined Chargepoint, what we were doing is we were helping companies, we were helping states release appendix D funding so that whether it was a dealership or whoever it was, could get their capital cost covered. If you're familiar with the NIVI funding, I'm sure you've heard about that related to EV charging, where you can get 80% of cost covered, we would help states essentially come out with the funding.
很多情况下，这是可以避免的。这也是我们主要关注的一点，我们帮助客户了解如何处理他们的费率。这些事情你是怎么发现的？这些东西非常深奥，几乎有些神秘。你有工程方面的背景吗？还是你从哪里了解到这些？啊哈！这是我们行业中的巨大浪费。这是从哪里来的？是的，那是一个非常具体的时刻。当我加入Chargepoint时，我们的工作是帮助公司和州政府通过发布Appendix D资金，使得无论是经销商还是其他什么人，都能获得其资本成本的覆盖。如果你熟悉NIVI资金，你肯定听说过与电动车充电相关的事情，你可以获得80%的成本覆盖，我们会帮助州政府发布这些资金。
And then on the utility side, we would help utilities come out with funding as well. But what we realized very quickly was what was cost prohibitive wasn't because we would build payback models for DC fast charging. And what we would realize is that what was cost prohibitive wasn't, well, it's the capital cost too. That's a pain point for everybody, of course. But the thing that nobody's talking about is literally how the utility charges you for electricity. And so as we would build models across the United States for customers who were installing these charging stations, we would see the risk in different utility territories across the US, which would then cause us to go to these utilities and try and figure out alternative solutions so that end users were not risk.
然后在公共事业方面，我们也会帮助公用事业公司获得资金支持。但我们很快意识到，高成本的原因并不是因为我们会为直流快充建立回本模型。我们发现的高成本并不仅仅是资本成本，虽然这对所有人来说都是一个痛点。当然，没人谈论的真正问题在于公用事业公司如何向你收取电费。因此，当我们为在美国各地安装这些充电站的客户建立模型时，我们发现不同地区的公用事业收费存在风险。这促使我们去找这些公用事业公司，尝试找出替代解决方案，以便最终用户不会承担这种风险。
And that's kind of where EV ready stemmed from. Don't get me wrong, we're charging experts. We can talk about the charging solutions, we can talk about the installation. There are a few other dealer challenges related to EV in the industry that we can talk about on this podcast. But the biggest challenge is how the charging stations are connected to the building, connected to the utility and how they're being charged for it. How is this not like a bigger topic in the public discourse? Again, you threw some really big numbers out there and you're making some great points. But how is this not, all the news is about the hardware, right? And like, hey, these chargers, that chargers, this seems like a pretty big deal. So why do you think that hasn't made it to the mainstream media headlines and stuff like that? Yeah, it's an inconvenient truth in a fast growing industry.
这就是“EV准备”概念的起源。不要误会我们，我们是充电领域的专家。我们可以谈论充电解决方案，可以谈安装相关的事宜。还有一些其他与电动汽车相关的经销商挑战，我们也可以在这个播客中讨论。但最大的挑战在于，充电站如何连接到建筑物，连接到电力公司，以及他们是如何为此付费的。为什么这个问题在公众讨论中没有更热议？你提到了一些很大的数字，也提出了一些重要观点。但为什么这些问题没有登上主流媒体的头条，而新闻报道中总是充斥着各种充电设备的信息？对吧，这些充电器，那些充电器，这似乎是个很大的问题。所以，你觉得为什么这没有成为主流媒体的头条新闻呢？嗯，这是一个快速发展的行业中的不便真相。
So I would say rate tariffs are some version of a college degree. They're not easy to read. And a lot of utilities, you know, utilities are these big monopolies in general, some of them have deregulated and they're more user friendly and are trying to solve the problem. But but then the day these utilities are monopolies, right? So monopolies move slower than other types of companies. And so in general, rate tariffs aren't something that that every person that a utility fully understands no disrespect to the utilities met. But there's usually like a rates department in that rates department has created the rate design. And so you have to get to a specific department and few folks that understand all of the nuances of this college degree that doesn't exist. Okay, so that's that's that's one piece. Why don't you hear this from the EV charging industry? If you're a contractor, it's not something that that you learned when you were younger. And if you try and learn this thing and bring it up, it's going to slow down your installations. So how much are you really going to talk about it? Not necessarily all the time. That's why I always say to folks is what is driving the company that you're working with core business?
所以，我会说费率关税有点像大学学位。它们不太容易理解。很多公用事业公司，知道吧，这些公司一般都是大的垄断企业，有些已经被放松管制，更加以用户为中心，正在努力解决问题。但归根结底，这些公用事业公司还是垄断企业，对吧？所以垄断企业的行动速度比其他类型的公司慢。总的来说，费率关税不是每个公用事业公司的员工都能完全理解的东西，无意冒犯公用事业公司，但是通常会有一个费率部门，费率部门设计了费率结构。所以你必须找到一个具体的部门和少数了解这个复杂问题细节的人。这就是问题的一部分。为什么你从电动车充电行业听不到这些？如果你是个承包商，这些东西你年轻时也没学过。如果你试图学习这些东西并提出来，会拖慢你的安装进度。因此，你真的会经常谈论这些事情吗？不一定。这也是为什么我总是告诉大家，你与你合作的公司的核心业务是什么。
Because everyone's an EV charging expert in 2024. And so what's driving the core business and and how much do they, you know, do they really understand it? That yeah, it's just that that's the big thing. And what are you doing today? Right? Like, are you working directly with dealers on helping them kind of solve through these issues? Or like, I'm just curious to know what you're really doing today? Like, who's your customer? How that works? Let's just talk about the dealership circumstance. We kind of we kind of view in the automotive space for car dealers. I want to think about it at three levels or two different types of customers.
因为在2024年，每个人都觉得自己是电动车充电的专家。那么，是什么在推动核心业务？他们真的了解这些吗？这才是关键。而且你今天在做什么？你是否直接与经销商合作，帮助他们解决这些问题？我很好奇你今天到底在做什么，比如你的客户是谁，这一切是如何运作的？让我们来谈谈经销商的情况。我们在汽车领域对于汽车经销商的看法分为三个层次或者说两种不同类型的客户。
You get your dealer group, right? You got your dealer group. They have 20 different brands in six different states with 15 different utilities. So they were just told by each other manufacturer exactly what type of hardware and software they should get and where they should put the charging stations. So what does that what does that create for a large dealer group? Creates a circumstance where you got 15 types of hardware. How do you handle all the support issues issues for those as employees end up leaving leaving the dealership or the dealer group? How do you train somebody to use that that new charging station from a software perspective? Then you have multiple different logins. It comes becomes a little bit chaotic from what I by logins.
你有你的经销商集团，对吧？你已经拥有你的经销商集团。他们在六个不同的州有20个不同的品牌，涉及15种不同的公用事业公司。所以，他们刚刚被每个制造商告知应该购买哪种类型的硬件和软件，以及应该将充电站安装在哪里。那么，这给大型经销商集团带来了什么情况呢？这会导致你拥有15种不同类型的硬件。随着员工的离职离开经销商或经销商集团，你如何处理所有这些支持问题呢？你如何从软件的角度培训新员工使用那些新的充电站呢？然后你还会有多个不同的登录账号。这样一来，情况会变得有些混乱。
I mean, logins for very software because all these are managed charging solutions that have software front ends. And then in most cases, they're being told where to put the chargers. And in many cases, the chargers sometimes are the proper use case, but sometimes I'll see a 24 kilowatt fast charger in a public area. How is that going to feel against a Tesla supercharger when someone's going to a Tesla store comparing a 258 kilowatt station to a 24 kilowatt station? So what we try and do is take three steps. We try and create ownership strategy around the charging solutions, the investments that are being made, how they're being connected to the utility grid. We try and simplify the management of that for for ownership. And then once we understand the strategy on our ships trying to take, because everybody, you know, can do it a little bit differently, then we enable management.
我的意思是，由于这些都是带有软件前端的管理充电解决方案，所以每个软件都需要登录。在大多数情况下，我们会被告知在哪里放置充电器。而且在很多情况下，这些充电器的使用场景是合适的，但有时我会看到在公共区域安装一个24千瓦的快速充电器。当有人去特斯拉店面，比较一个258千瓦的充电站和一个24千瓦的充电站时，这种感觉会如何呢？所以我们尝试分三步进行。我们试图围绕充电解决方案、所做的投资以及它们如何接入电网创建一个拥有策略。我们尝试简化所有权的管理，然后在我们理解了我们的船舶战略之后（因为每个人都可以稍微以不同的方式进行），我们便开始实施管理。
We help them understand the strategy ownership trying to build around electrification and installing charging stations, how it's going to drive sales, how it's going to make operations more efficient. And then we train sales and service staff on the investments that ownership made that management is now being enabled to utilize to drive the core business. This episode is brought to you by cars commerce. The platform is simplified everything about buying and selling cars, including the quote unquote follow up. Let me explain dealers fast and effective follow up is crucial for converting leads into customers. But here's a problem. 40% of shoppers report that they are not getting timely or helpful responses from dealerships. This is a huge problem because your own team could be leading four out of every 10 sales opportunities on the table.
我们帮助他们理解电动化和安装充电站相关的战略所有权，解释这些措施如何推动销售以及提高运营效率。接着，我们培训销售和服务人员，让他们了解管理层在公司进行投资后，现在如何利用这些资源来推动核心业务。本期节目由汽车商务平台Cars Commerce赞助。这一平台简化了买卖汽车的所有流程，包括所谓的“后续跟进”。让我解释一下：经销商的快速有效跟进对将潜在客户转化为实际客户至关重要。但问题在于，40%的购物者表示他们没有从经销商那里得到及时或有用的回应。这是一个巨大问题，因为这意味着你们的团队可能在每10个销售机会中错失4个。
Cars commerce makes it simple to measure and improve your follow up performance. A cars.com experience report tracks the percentage of leads your teams responding to and how customers rate those responses. While dealer inspires retailing technology enables your team to quickly text follow ups with personalized financing options to make the most out of every opportunity to learn more about how you can measure and improve your team's follow up performance, go to cars commerce dot Inc slash experience or click the link in the show notes below. You know, I'm curious, like, given you work so close to so many dealers in the industry, what's the sentiment right now on the ground floor with respect to EV charging and disinvestment? Look, I we all know what sentiment has been for the past couple of years, but it has oscillated.
汽车商务让衡量和改进你的跟进表现变得简单。Cars.com 的体验报告会跟踪你的团队对潜在客户的回应百分比以及客户对这些回应的评分。同时，Dealer Inspire 的零售技术使你的团队能够快速发送个性化融资选项的跟进信息，从而最大化每次机会。想了解更多关于如何衡量和改进你团队的跟进表现，请访问 cars commerce dot Inc slash experience 或点击以下节目说明中的链接。你知道吗，我很好奇，鉴于你与行业中众多经销商密切合作，目前在基层对于电动车充电和这一领域的投资情绪如何？看，我们都知道过去几年的情绪状况，但它一直在波动。
So I'm curious to know, like, right now, as it stands, what are you, you know, hearing feeling on the ground floor from owners and GMs? Yeah, I think the majority of dealerships that we're talking to, they don't necessarily want to work with us. They're being put in a position to make an investment that they have to make. And they want some expertise in how to make the investment before they spend all the money. So I would say in general, the sentiment man is is frustration. That's what it is. I think there was a phase three years ago where they're, you know, they're thinking, well, they're telling us EV is coming, but it hasn't really come yet. And so we're going to make the investment because they're telling us to. And we've run into, you know, past that early adopter phase, I think we've run into like that second phase where all of the difficult questions are coming up and challenges.
所以我很好奇，现阶段你从车主和总经理那边听到和感觉到的情况是什么？我觉得我们谈到的大多数经销商并不是真的想和我们合作。他们被迫做出投资，这笔投资他们必须得做。他们希望在花钱之前得到一些关于如何投资的专业意见。总体来说，他们的情绪可以说是沮丧。大概三年前，他们的想法是，电动车要来了，但实际上还没到。所以他们做出投资是因为被告知需要这么做。现在我们已经过了早期采用者阶段，进入了第二阶段，各种难题和挑战都浮现出来了。
And it's, you know, it's difficult to get inventory is difficult to sell the inventory that they're getting. I think there's a little bit of frustration around DV right now. I think that's real. I think it's very real. And especially hearing it from you, you're in the front lines. You know, I feel like every day someone on some social media platform plays engineer and says, you know, the grid can support this. The grid can support this. Like, I didn't even, I have no idea like what the hell a grid can and cannot support. I can't even read my own electric bill. Like they get, they tell me like how much electric I use like they could, they could be ripping me off. They probably are ripping me off. I have no idea.
这句话翻译成中文可以表达为：
“你知道，现在真的很难获得库存，也很难卖出他们得到的库存。我觉得目前围绕DV存在一些挫败感，我认为这是实实在在的，尤其是从你那听到这样的声音，因为你在第一线。每天在某个社交媒体平台上总有人扮演工程师的角色，说这个电网能支持这个，那个电网能支持那个。我自己都不知道电网到底能支持什么或不能支持什么。我连自己的电费单都看不懂。他们告诉我我用了多少电，他们可能在坑我，我完全不知道。”
Right. So let's not pretend like I'm an engineer. But I want to ask you, right? Like, are these like people like, oh, the US grid can't handle a growth in EVs or can like, is there truth to that? To what extent is there truth to that? What's your take? Yeah, yeah. I think, I think what you're asking very much is turned into like this political question. Unfortunately, you hear both sides of it on, on the news channels. And this is kind of how I laid out. Can the grid handle it? Yes. Can the grid handle all DC fast charging stations? Let's say handle what when you say handle it? What do you specifically refer to?
好的。我不是工程师，但我想问你，对吗？有些人说美国电网无法应对电动车的增长，或者说能应对，有没有道理？这种说法有多少可信度？你怎么看？嗯，我认为你问的问题很容易变成一个政治问题。不幸的是，你在新闻频道上会听到各种观点。我会这样解释：电网能够应对吗？能。电网能应对所有直流快速充电站吗？你说的“应对”具体是指什么？
Yeah. Can can the utility grid handle the electrification of the automotive industry in the United States? Yes. How much percent how much are we talking? I believe it can handle 100% over time. But here's a thing. I think like there's an assumption. There's a really poor assumption made at the beginning of that question anytime it's asked. And it's around, can the grid handle the amount of gas stations that the United States has for electric? But that's not how electric cars work. So that world will never exist. So I think that's the interesting thing about the grid here. So is our utility grid perfect? Absolutely not. It needs to be improved. It has all these challenges. I think electric cars long term are going to be a solution to making the grid more resilient.
是的。美国的电网能应对汽车行业的电气化吗？能。那么能应对多少百分比呢？我相信随着时间推移，能够应对100%。但这里有一个问题，我认为在这个问题被提出时人们总会犯一个很大的错误假设，那就是认为电网要像应对全美的加油站那样来应对电动汽车。但是电动汽车并不是那样工作的，所以那种情况永远不会发生。我认为这就是电网的有趣之处。那么我们的电网是完美的吗？绝对不是。它需要改进，还有很多挑战。我认为，从长远来看，电动汽车会成为一个让电网更有韧性的解决方案。
That's a big part of like what we talk about with the, you know, a lot of customers. And so how do we do that? Most utilities build and, and you know, if I'm from Boston, right? So Cape Cod in Boston is not built for the middle of the winter. It's built for the 4th of July at five o'clock. It doesn't need the amount of infrastructure that it has. And so if you can start to charge cars at certain times of the day and the utilities are going to tell you what times of the day they charge it at, they're creating rules that incentivize discounted fueling at certain times of the day across the United States. And so if you can charge at certain times of the day where the grid is not as strained, and what we'll be able to do is we'll be able to maximize the infrastructure that has been placed out there.
这就是我们常跟很多客户讨论的一个重要话题。那么我们该怎么做呢？大多数公共设施的建设和，我本人来自波士顿，对吧？所以波士顿的科德角并不是为严冬而建的，它是为了7月4日下午5点的高峰期建的。它并不需要现在这么多的基础设施。因此，如果你能够在一天中的特定时间为汽车充电，而公共设施公司会告诉你具体的充电时间，他们正在制定一些规则，激励在一天中的特定时间段以折扣价为汽车充电，这些规则在整个美国都适用。如果你能在电网负荷较低的时间段进行充电，我们就能最大化利用现有的基础设施。
The second piece I would add is this is going to evolve but over time, but battery storage is getting cheaper. There are ways to monetize capacity at dealerships today or to monetize battery storage in a way where, you know, hypothetically down the line, 15 school teachers are plugging their cars in at the school and the school is charging off the batteries as opposed to off of the grid. That's not, you know, it's not in our immediate future the next couple of years, but that technology is coming. And once that technology comes, it's going to lower the cost of the grid. It's going to make it more stable. But that is, you know, too complex of a message sometimes to give to the American public on a debate stage. Oh, I can imagine. So you're saying that you could see a future where the utility companies are sort of like load balancing, you know, the usage of the grid or whatnot. And maybe they are, you know, charging these storage batteries overnight. And then during the day, when you need to go charge your car, you don't have to tap into the grid quote unquote. You can tap into these storage batteries and you're not straight in the grid and everybody's happy.
第二点我要补充的是，随着时间的推移，电池存储成本正在降低。这方面正在逐步发展，目前有一些方法可以在汽车经销商处实现盈利，或者通过电池存储实现盈利。比如，假设不久的将来，15位教师在学校给他们的电动车充电，学校利用这些电池来供电，而不是依赖电网。这种情况虽然不是近期内会实现的，但这项技术正在到来。一旦这种技术普及，它将降低电网的成本，使电网更加稳定。然而，有时在辩论的场合向公众传达这个信息可能会显得过于复杂。
我可以想象，所以你的意思是，你能看到一个未来，公用事业公司能够平衡电网负载，比如在夜间给这些存储电池充电，然后白天当你需要给车充电时，不需要直接使用电网，而是利用这些存储电池。这样就不会给电网直接造成压力，所有人都能从中受益。
To take it a step further, if if you were a car dealership and you had 25 electric cars in your lot that were service cars hypothetically, you could use those to power your car dealership during the day so they don't have to pay the electricity. And then the utility might offer free charging and aid in all those cars so that that capacity is being used. So that that is a future that now, our eyes, I like that. Does any car dealership care about that today? No, but that is technology that's coming. That is super interesting. I see I totally get what you're saying. And look, let's be honest, like they'll probably have some limits around these things, whether it be, you know, or I don't know how to limit it, but I get your point.
更进一步来说，假设你是一家汽车经销商，并且你店里有25辆电动汽车是用于服务的，理论上你可以利用这些汽车在白天为经销商供电，这样你们就不需要支付电费。而且电力公司可能会提供免费的充电服务，并帮助管理这些汽车的电能使用。这样的未来正逐渐变成现实，我对此非常感兴趣。现在，有哪家汽车经销商会关心这个问题吗？目前还没有，但这是即将到来的技术，非常有趣。我完全明白你的意思。坦诚地说，这些技术可能会有某些限制，不管怎么限制，我明白你的观点。
So tell me a little bit about like, we're dealers making mistakes right now when it comes to electrification of their dealerships. And you mentioned earlier, right? We know that auto maker auto manufacturers are forcing dealers most of the time to install these chargers. One, you can make an argument that it's for a great reason. It's for not great a reason. We are selling more EVs, EV market share is growing. I've also been very vocal that I think that as an industry, I think that dealers that are leaning into it from a commercial perspective will do well. I do think that the overall opportunity to make money here from whether it's selling the car to, you know, ancillary services, I do think it's going to grow.
那么，跟我说说，目前经销商在电气化他们的销售网络时，常犯的一些错误吧。正如你之前提到的，我们知道汽车制造商大多数时候都在强迫经销商安装充电器。对此，你可以认为这是个好理由，也可以认为这是个糟糕的理由。但不管怎么样，我们都在卖更多的电动车，电动车的市场份额也在增长。我一直认为，从行业角度看，那些在商业层面积极投身电气化的经销商将会受益。我确实认为，不论是从卖车还是提供附加服务的角度来看，整体的赚钱机会都会增加。
So but with that said, where are dealers making the biggest mistakes today with respect to electrification in your opinion? I work with both sides. I work with the auto manufacturers. I work with the dealer groups. I work with the dealerships. I think one of the one of the main challenges that I see is a lot of times the way dealer equipment programs are built. It will be like, hey, you know, you have to install these stations in nine months or else it puts dealerships in a really challenging situation because many utility timelines to get a new service take longer than nine months or take longer than a year depends on the part of the country.
那么，请问在您看来，经销商在电动化方面今天犯的最大错误是什么？我和两方面都有合作。我与汽车制造商合作，也与经销商集团和具体的经销店合作。我认为一个主要的挑战是，很多时候经销商设备计划的制定方式问题。例如，有时候会要求经销商在九个月内安装充电站，否则就会面临很大的挑战。然而，在很多地方，申请新的电力服务的时间往往超过九个月甚至超过一年，这取决于不同地区的情况。
And so in many cases, timelines kind of force them to install stations a certain way where the utility forces them to go on one of these expensive operational tariffs where it might cost them 10 grand, 50 grand, 100 grand if you're in Massachusetts right now. And you've been told to install a lot of power 300 grand a year. A year. And so that's one piece is making sure that the installation is done with utility economics in mind. That is missing in the automotive space in 2024 period. And what's driving that is it just like the auto manufacturers with their arbitrary timelines? That in most cases, yes, generally, the and it's not for every auto manufacturer. I'm speaking, I'm trying to speak generally.
所以，在许多情况下，时间线迫使他们以特定方式安装站点，而公用事业公司则强制他们使用这些昂贵的运营费率。如果你现在在马萨诸塞州，这可能会花费他们1万、5万甚至10万美元。而如果你被要求安装大量电力，每年可能花费30万美元。因此，关键之一是确保安装时考虑到公用事业的经济性。这一点在2024年的汽车领域是缺失的。通常，这背后的因素是汽车制造商设定的任意时间表。我在这里试图概括地说，并不是针对每一家汽车制造商。
There are some auto manufacturers that I think do a really good job with their programs or other ones that put dealers in a more challenging spot. But yeah, there's circumstances where where auto manufacturers will have deadlines. And those deadlines, that's the thing is, you know, it's good for the contractor, you know, because the installation's occurring. It can be good for the charging company, but is it good for the dealership? In many cases, you know, the answer might be no. So yeah, I think that's a big piece. The second one is an investment obsolescence is what I like to call it. The EV charging industry right now is a moving target. It's chaos right now. There are, you know, the world went public in 2019 every every charging company.
有一些汽车制造商在他们的项目上做得很好，但也有些会让经销商面临更大的挑战。确实，有些情况下，汽车制造商会设定最后期限。而这些最后期限，虽然对承包商来说是好的，因为安装正在进行中，也可能对充电公司有利，但对经销商来说是否有好处？很多情况下，答案可能是否定的。所以，我认为这是一个重要的问题。其次，我称之为投资的过时问题。当前的电动汽车充电行业是一个不断变化的目标，局势非常混乱。自从2019年每家充电公司开始公开上市以来，整个行业发生了很大变化。
And you know, with all these, you know, really strong projections and don't get me wrong, I like a lot of these companies. But this is what happened in the industry is a lot of the companies in public. And obviously in 2019, there's an opportunity at that moment in time for companies from Europe, for companies from Asia to gain on the North American market, because they know that so there are these policy requirements where people are being forced to put in EVs. And so a lot of new market entrants that should necessarily be in there were even a lot of companies that tried to do EV charging. It didn't work and they tried to get back into it five or six years later once the market started heating up again.
你知道的，虽然这些预测都非常强劲，别误会，我也很喜欢这些公司中的很多。但这是行业中的一个现象，很多公司都在上市。显然在2019年，欧洲和亚洲的公司有机会进入北美市场，因为他们知道有一些政策要求，迫使人们安装电动汽车(EV)。因此，许多新的市场参与者进入市场，其中一些本不应该在这个领域中的公司也尝试了做EV充电，但没有成功。后来在市场再次升温五六年后，他们又尝试重新进入这个领域。
And I think for car dealers, everybody kind of knows, you know, they have they have more money. They're being forced to make the investment. And, and you know, if you're a car dealer, how many times have you gotten cold over the past three years? And, and so it kind of created this like chaotic circumstance where, and you know what the other big one was, Yoshi was when Ford made the announcement that they were switching from the standard J172 CCS to Tesla's Nax connector, and then the, the entire industry in North America essentially followed how many charging stations in the United States right now have been installed without replaceable cables.
我认为对于汽车经销商而言，大家都知道他们手头有更多资金，但也被迫进行投资。而且，你知道，作为一个汽车经销商，在过去的三年里有多少次你因市场变化感到困惑？这就造成了一种混乱的局面。而且，另一个重要事件是，当福特宣布从标准的J172 CCS接口切换到特斯拉的Nax接口时，整个北美汽车行业基本上都跟随这一变化。那现在在美国有多少个充电站是安装了不可更换电缆的？
So once the industry starts in volume, putting the Nax plug on their vehicles, what percentage of the industry is going to have to replace their charging stations? And I think what that also forced in the industry as well is companies that had non-replaceable cables kind of started putting their chargers on clearance. And where do you think those charging station, you know, advertisements went to, to the people that had the money to buy them in that moment that were forced to do it? So I think car dealerships across the United States are going to have to replace a very large percentage of their charging stations in the US. I, you know, I don't want to say the percentage because it's so high. To your point, like, it seems like we're getting into a lot of, you know, quote-unquote technical debt, except in real life. We're not talking about software.
所以，一旦行业开始大规模地在车辆上安装Nax插头，行业中有百分之多少的充电站需要更换？我认为，这也迫使那些拥有不可更换电缆的公司开始清仓处理它们的充电器。你觉得那些充电站的广告会投放到哪里呢？当然是投放给那些有钱在当时被迫购买它们的人。所以，我认为在美国的汽车经销商将不得不更换非常大比例的充电站。我不想说具体的比例，因为它非常高。正如你所说，这似乎让我们陷入了大量实际生活中的“技术债务”，我们不是在谈论软件。
A bit of a tangent here, but as you were speaking, I was thinking about just the complexity of a lot of this. Do you see dealerships offering charging installation as a value-added product, like, you know, in the FMI office, like dealers are selling charging installation? Do you see that happening nowadays? Yeah. Oh, I've seen it. And I've also seen ones that are against it. The ones that are forward, obviously, are trying to provide the entire service. And I think providing services like that are really valuable in the EV world. There's a networked component to, to EV that I think dealerships can take advantage of. That's also another one. But some of them are concerned with the liability of that charging station. Something happening to that station in somebody's house and dealing with insurance issues.
这个有点偏题了，但是当你在说话时，我就在想这些复杂性。你觉得经销商将充电设施安装作为增值服务的一部分来提供怎么样？比如在FMI办公室里，经销商卖充电设施安装服务。你觉得现在有这种情况吗？是的，我看到了。我也见过一些反对的。那些支持的显然是想提供全面服务。我认为在电动车领域，提供这样的服务非常有价值。电动车有一个联网的部分，我认为经销商可以利用这一点。但也有些人担心充电站的责任问题，比如充电站在某人家里出了问题，以及处理保险问题。
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本节目由我自己的汽车经销商行业招聘板CDG Jobs赞助。CDG Jobs正在革新人才与顶级汽车公司之间的连接方式。令人惊讶的是，我们并没有使用任何高科技或人工智能。我们只是建立了一个简单的HTML招聘板，仅此而已。但效果非常好。而且最棒的是，CDG听众可以免费在上面发布和填补职位。因此，你可能会想知道是什么让我们与众不同。其实，当公司通过CDG Jobs招聘时，他们挑选的是行业内最知情的候选人。不要犹豫，无论你是要招聘还是寻找新机会，请今天就访问CDGjobs.com，或者点击下面的节目备注中的链接。就是CDGjobs.com。
All right. So flipping back to the chargers, right? Give us a little like spark notes over the actual hardware in stores. Like dealers that are installing these, you mentioned lots of chargers will need to be replaced. Are you referring to like on-site dealership chargers or you're referring to like the more public superchargers, right? Are these investments? Listen, Ford recently announced that they're changing up their entire, you know, electrification program with dealers, dealers were pissed. They were, you know, I received a ton of messages from dealers are like, hey, I just spent a million bucks and now they're kind of, you know, rescinding this program. Like what the hell? You know, do you anticipate a lot more of that? Just give us a little overview. Go ahead.
好的。我们回到充电器的话题，对吧？给我们简要介绍一下商店里的实际硬件。像那些安装这些充电器的经销商，你提到很多充电器需要更换。你指的是在现场的经销商充电器，还是指更公共的超级充电器呢？这些投资是怎么回事？听着，福特最近宣布他们正在改变整个与经销商相关的电气化计划，经销商们很生气。我收到了大量经销商的信息，他们说：“我刚花了一百万，现在他们有点取消这个项目了，这是怎么回事？”你预计这种情况会更多吗？请给我们一个大致的概述。继续。
I think what you're going to see is more deliberate programs in the future. You know, I think in the past, you saw programs where every dealership had the exact same requirement across North America or the United States. And it didn't matter whether you were in like Manhattan or you were in North Dakota. All of the requirements were the same. I think where you're going to see is a more thoughtful approach to how many chargers are needed where. I think you're going to see more interest in going after funding across the United States. And I think in general, funding isn't really thought of very well in the industry right now. In the dealership space, you know, dealerships are losing out and funding all the time because program projects are going too fast. So I think you'll see, you'll see a heavy focus on that in future programs.
我认为你会看到未来会有更多深思熟虑的方案。过去，每个经销商在整个北美或美国都有相同的要求。不管你是在曼哈顿还是北达科他州，要求都是一样的。我认为未来你会看到更为周密的规划，根据不同地区的需求决定需要多少充电桩。我觉得大家会更关注在全美范围内争取资金。目前，在这个行业内，对资金的重视程度还不够。在经销商领域，由于方案项目推进的速度太快，经销商经常在资金方面吃亏。所以，我认为未来的计划会更加注重这一点。
I think instead of requiring a specific vendor in many cases, there's going to be more optionality. You know, Porsche, for example, Porsche require that dealerships got Porsche branded charging stations. It's like, Porsche is like, they're like the like Zadaka of, you know, the I glass. Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. They're like, they're like, they're like producing for like $10 like Burberry glasses, Gucci glasses. And so when you tell me that, I'm like, come on, Porsche, like, what are you doing? It's crazy. It's crazy. So, yeah, so Porsche required branded Porsche chargers.
我认为在很多情况下，与其要求特定的供应商，不如提供更多选择性。你知道吗，保时捷就是一个例子。保时捷要求其经销商安装带有保时捷品牌的充电站。这就像，保时捷就好像眼镜行业的Zadaka（假定是某一知名品牌）。哦，对，完全是这样。他们就像以10美元成本生产出像巴宝莉、古驰这样的品牌眼镜一样。所以当你告诉我这件事时，我会觉得，拜托，保时捷，你在干嘛呢？这太疯狂了，太疯狂了。所以，保时捷要求安装带有保时捷品牌的充电器。
But the reality was Porsche doesn't make those chargers. What Porsche did is the same thing that my company does. They went out, they found a hardware manufacturer, they found some type of a software platform and they have some time. And if that, if it works out for it, if it works out great, but they have to deal with, you know, whatever they they they on ramped or white labels.
但事实是，保时捷并不制造那些充电器。保时捷所做的是和我的公司一样的事情。他们出去寻找硬件制造商，找到一种软件平台，然后投入一定时间。如果一切顺利，那当然很好，但他们必须应对他们所引入或贴牌的产品带来的各种问题。
I have my computer screen here to my left and I have my notes and I get these notifications on the screen. So I received a message right now as your speed actually is techniques 20 minutes ago from a guy named Tom Gilbert. He's a GM of Lexus of Kendall. Great, great, great guy. He's been a longtime follower. And he just wrote to me, he's like, maybe you could get someone from a charging company to discuss how EV charging infrastructure is coming along, just a thought. I swear to God, I can, I will show you my screen. I'll share my screen right now. I just wrote to the guy as your speed. I'm like, I'm like, dude, I'm blown away. Like, what are the odds that as I'm recording this episode, I get this message. So very timely. All right, I'll leave it at that. Let's keep going. But that was crazy. So yeah, it's crazy. Absolutely nuts. But it just shows you that people are actually genuinely like curious about this stuff.
我的电脑屏幕在我左边，我的笔记放在旁边，而屏幕上会不断有通知弹出。就在20分钟前，我收到一条来自Tom Gilbert的消息。他是Lexus of Kendall的总经理，非常棒的人，他已经关注我很久了。他在消息中建议，也许可以请一家充电公司的人员来讨论一下电动汽车充电基础设施的发展情况，表示这是个想法。我向天发誓，这真的发生了，我可以给你看我的屏幕。我刚刚回了这条消息，我很震惊。在录制这个节目的时候居然收到了这个消息，实在是太及时了。好了，我们继续吧，但这真的很疯狂。这表明大家对这些事情真的很感兴趣。
I want to ask you about, I want to get to the brass tacks of like, what are you actually seeing as like the costs of like installs and stuff like that? One thing before we do that, what are you seeing again, install process? Like, how much should this cost? How much is it costing? Like, give us a little kind of benchmarking. Yeah. So so I can answer that question. But what I'd say, oh, she is the problem in the industry is that's the focus. The real cost is this other cost. That is the more expensive thing that doesn't have a line item that people are getting crushed by. Related to install costs.
我想问一下您，具体来说，安装费用到底有多大？在问这个问题之前，您能先给我们介绍一下安装过程吗？这个过程大概需要花费多少？目前的费用是多少？能给我们一个基准吗？是这样的，我可以回答这个问题，但我想说的是，行业中的问题是大家只关注安装费用。其实真正的成本还有另外一部分，这部分成本更高，但没有明细说明，很多人因为这个而吃了亏。
What I would say for dealers, like, you know, the average level three charger usually here, you know what? Wait, Chris, let me explain this in dealer terms, right? Let me explain this in deal terms. You know how the vehicle when we sell a used car, right, let's just on average, you're making like, I don't know, 10% margin, maybe 6%, maybe 12%, whatever, right? But when you saw that warranty or that, you know, that gap insurance, that vehicle service contract, you're making 50, 60, 70% margin depends on the dealership, right? Same exact thing, right?
我想对经销商们说一下，比如说，你知道吗，这里的普通三级充电器通常是怎样的水平？等一下，Chris，让我用经销商能理解的方式解释一下。你知道，当我们卖二手车的时候，通常能赚大概10%的利润，可能是6%、12%，不确定，对吗？但是，当我们卖出保修服务或者缺口保险、车辆服务合同时，你的利润可以达到50%、60%、甚至70%，视经销商而定，对吗？这就是同样的道理。
The customer comes in, they're mainly focused on the price of the car, the low margin product. Although it is a higher actually absolute number, but it's a lower margin product. They're not as focused on the, yeah, they're not as focused on the vehicle service contract because, you know, it's, it's after the after you've already agreed on the price, it's like the afterthought, right, in a way. So this is kind of the same thing with what, based on what you've told me, that's how I would summarize this conversation. It's at us as dealers, we are being the consumer right now, right? We are focusing on the price of the car, but we're not focusing on the vehicle service contract, which is that 60% margin, while the car is only like 10% margin. That's my nail. That's your net. That's it. That's feel free to use that one. I'm going to steal that from you. I'm going to use it. I am going to use it. Yeah. It's tough. So talk to me about cars. Go ahead.
顾客进店后，他们主要关注汽车的价格，即利润较低的产品。尽管价格总体上较高，但利润率较低。他们并不那么关心汽车服务合同，因为在商定价格之后，这类似于一个事后之计。这与我们刚才讨论的内容类似。我总结这次对话的方法是：作为经销商，我们现在就像消费者一样，关注汽车的价格，而不关注利润率高达60%的汽车服务合同，而汽车的利润率仅为10%。这是我的观点。这是你的观点。就是这样。请随意使用这一点。我打算借用你的观点，确实要用。很难。想跟我聊聊车吗？继续。
Yeah. So generally the focus is on, is on the cost of the charging solution. So it's a combination of hardware, software, and then some type of a maintenance solution. In general, the hardware is commoditized. There are certain charging solutions that are better than other charging solutions. I would say that the commoditization is more so on the level two side, back a house. But you're paying for hardware software services. Let's just say the cost of a DC charger is $40,000 cost of software for five years, about $5,000, something like that. And then there's usually a maintenance plan. Maintenance is usually about 25% of the cost of hardware. Give or take. I'm just given an industry average.
好的。一般来说，重点是充电解决方案的成本。这是硬件、软件和一些维护解决方案的组合。通常，硬件是商品化的。有些充电解决方案比其他的更好。我会说商品化更多体现在二级充电设备上。在这些情况下，你付的钱包括硬件、软件和服务。比如说，一个直流充电桩的成本是40,000美元，五年的软件成本大约是5,000美元，还有一个维护计划。维护通常约占硬件成本的25%左右。这个是行业平均水平。
The thing about the maintenance plans is a lot of the maintenance plans are not great. They cover the hardware. They have two people in support. And good luck trying to get your hardware covered or get your hardware fixed. The other thing too is a lot of charging solutions don't have replaceable parts. And so the end charging vendor has to decide do I sell another charger or do I fix one of the broken ones that we already sold. So those are the cost hardware software services. Let's just say a fast charger is $40 grand. It can vary. There's $250,000 fast chargers out there. But let's just say it costs $40 grand. Software is five. Maintenance is 10,000. And then the installation.
关于维护计划的问题在于很多维护计划并不理想。它们通常只覆盖硬件部分，并提供两个支持人员。如果您想使硬件得到覆盖或修复，那真是需要点运气了。另一个问题是，很多充电解决方案并没有可更换的部件。因此，最终的充电设备供应商需要决定是再卖一个新的充电器，还是修复已经售出的坏掉的充电器。
这些就是硬件、软件和服务的成本。我们假设一个快速充电器的价格是4万美元，尽管有些快速充电器的价格高达25万美元。软件费用是5000美元，维护费用是1万美元，然后还有安装费用。
So I'm just going to give you some data across the United States right now. Utilities are coming out with what's called utility make ready programs where they are paying for the cost of the installation of charging stations. It's funny because everybody wants to talk about the Navy funding. The utility make ready funding is much more. Can you explain this? Can you explain this? Can you explain this Navy funding for the audience? Just what this means? It's national electric vehicle infrastructure funding. It's funding that Biden came out with a few years ago where he gave the different states money to subsidize EV charging station installations or solutions. And so every DOT was provided funding across the United States.
我现在要给大家介绍一些关于美国的数据。各地的电力公司正在推出所谓的“电力公司准备计划”，他们为充电站的安装成本买单。有趣的是，大家都在讨论海军的资助，但其实电力公司准备资助的金额更多。你能解释一下这个吗？你能解释一下这个海军资助给观众听听吗？这到底是什么意思？这是全国电动汽车基础设施资助，由拜登几年前提出的计划，他向各个州提供资金，用于补贴电动汽车充电站的安装或解决方案。所以，各州的交通运输部门（DOT）都获得了这笔资金。
What's challenging about that funding though, everyone really focuses on it. We always hear, hey, can you get us Navy funding? Can you get us Navy funding? There's red tape. DOT has to come out with the funding and build a plan. And then they pick specific pins on the map in most cases for fast charging where you can be qualified. If you're not within one of those pins, you're not qualified. Then you have to put in the minimum requirement, which is 450 kilowatt chargers. And then even if you do all that, you have to go compete against everybody else for the money.
关于那个资金的问题，挑战在于每个人都非常关注它。我们经常听到人们问：“嘿，你能帮我们获取海军的资金吗？你能帮我们获取海军的资金吗？”事情并不那么简单。交通部（DOT）要先批准资金，再制定计划。然后，他们通常会在地图上选定一些点作为快速充电站的资格。如果你不在这些点范围内，就不符合资格。接着，你还要满足最低要求，比如安装450千瓦的充电器。即使你做到了这一切，还要和其他人竞争这笔资金。
What's happening right now in the US is Tesla is winning the majority of the funding. In the United States because they've just locked, they built their own product. Their installation services are so locked in. They've built these slabs that lower their installation costs. And they're winning the majority of the funding in the United States right now. So that's Navy funding. What dealers should really care about is, and there's other funding mechanisms, but the core one that they should care about is utility make-hardy programs. Programs where the utility has rate-based. They've taken money from the general population of ratepayers.
目前在美国发生的情况是，特斯拉赢得了大部分的资金。在美国，他们已经牢牢掌握了市场，因为他们制造了自己的产品。他们的安装服务非常稳固，他们建造了一些降低安装成本的板块。因此，特斯拉目前在美国赢得了大部分的资金。这其中包括海军的拨款。经销商真正应该关心的是，还有其他的融资机制，但他们最应该关注的是公用事业公司的激励计划。这些计划是由公用事业公司通过向普通用户收费筹集的资金支持的。
And they've put it aside to pay for the installation of charging stations. These exist in certain territories across the United States. Massachusetts has $500 million. New York has a billion dollars. California had a billion dollars. It's gone now, but I'm sure they'll find some more money. Utility make-hardy programs are where dealerships can usually very easily go after funding if it exists in their territories. You know, I had a dealer from Pennsylvania send me a note like a month or two ago, and they were very frustrated.
他们已经把这笔钱预留出来，用于安装充电站。这些充电站分布在美国的一些地区。马萨诸塞州有5亿美元。纽约州有10亿美元。加利福尼亚州曾经也有10亿美元，现在用完了，但我确信他们会再找到一些资金。公用事业公司的补助项目是经销商们在有资金支持的地区通常可以很容易争取到资助的地方。你知道，一个月或两个月前，一位来自宾夕法尼亚州的经销商给我发了条信息，他们非常沮丧。
They were like, hey, so I'm being forced to install these chargers. And guess what? I just got a note in the mail or from their dealer association that now they have to start paying usage tax on the charging. And so they specifically told me they're like, when was the last time I was forced to install a gas station and then get taxed on the usage? I posted this thing, got hundreds of comments, and it went pretty viral. But that was someone that really exhibited that frustration.
他们说，嘿，我现在被迫安装这些充电设备。你知道吗？他们刚刚收到一封邮件，或者是来自他们的经销商协会的通知，现在他们还得开始为充电支付使用税。他们特别告诉我，说什么时候我被迫安装过加油站然后还要被征使用税？我把这件事发了出去，得到了数百条评论，变得很火。但这确实表现了某人的那种沮丧情绪。
I'm not sure who you're speaking with. We might have talked. We might have spoken with the same guy. Because we had a dealer in Pennsylvania reach out to us to say like, how do we handle this? And you know, the truth is like, this is very early. Do I think other states are going to do this? Yeah, probably. All right. So Chris, this has been an awesome conversation. Talk to me about, you know, the next couple of years here. We've gone through all this change. Where's our industry headed? Right? And I want to know from a charging perspective, you know, from an infrastructure perspective, right? Where do you see this industry headed in and over the next couple of years with respect to the EV charging network and infrastructure?
我不确定你在和谁说话。我们可能聊过。我们可能和同一个人交谈过。因为我们有一个宾夕法尼亚州的经销商联系了我们，问我们该怎么处理。你知道，事实上这还很早。我觉得其他州也会这样做吗？是的，可能会。好了，Chris，这次谈话非常棒。跟我谈谈未来几年吧。我们经历了这么多变化。我们的行业会走向哪里？我想知道关于充电方面，从基础设施的角度来看，你认为未来几年电动车充电网络和基础设施的发展方向如何？
First, I just want to talk from like a politics perspective, right? We have a huge election coming up. Like this is a really strong political topic. I was in the industry in 2016 when Trump was elected the first time. And there was a lot of concern about on the, you know, the pro-EV side of what's going to happen. From my perspective, I think the political piece, like everyone's sort of going to let go and separate. Let's think about this about a new emerging technology only. I don't care, you know, what your political circumstances, this is a new emerging technology. It requires really good infrastructure. It requires education. And once you, once you, once there are more fast chargers out there where people feel like they can get to where they need to get to, in Massachusetts, it's easy where I live.
首先，我想从政治角度来说说吧。我们即将迎来一次重大选举，这是一个非常重要的政治话题。我在2016年特朗普第一次当选时就在这个行业。当时，支持电动车一方有很多担忧，不知道未来会怎样。从我的角度来看，我认为政治因素大家最终都会放下，各走各的路。让我们单纯地来看待这项新兴技术吧。不管你的政治立场如何，这是一个新兴技术。它需要非常好的基础设施和教育支持。只要有更多的快速充电站，人们感觉自己能去到他们需要去的地方，在我住的马萨诸塞州，这样的充电站越来越多，情况会更好。
But I went to Ohio once, not so easy. It was a lot more difficult to get to where you need to get to. I think electrification is inevitable. It's a better technology. It's going to be better for the grid long term. They're fun cars to drive in many cases. They can be safer. And so EV is happening. And I think everybody should get ready for it. That said, one of the gentlemen who works at EV Radio is kind of last when I say this to people, but stop buying chargers for a second and sort of question what you're being told to do. Find somebody that can help you make investments that are going to put you in a strong position.
但是我曾经去过俄亥俄州一次，不太容易。那里的出行要复杂得多。我认为电气化是不可避免的。这是一种更好的技术，从长远来看对电网也更有利。许多情况下，这些电动车开起来也很有趣，它们还可以更安全。因此，电动车的普及是不可避免的。我觉得大家都应该为此做好准备。话虽如此，电动汽车电台的一位同事听到我对人们说这些时，总是最后才说，但还是先别急着买充电器，先质疑一下被告知要做的事情。找到一个能帮你做出有利投资的专家，使你处于强势的位置。
Because now we're not just talking about selling a car. We're talking about fueling the vehicle. And it is tied to a cloud which creates challenges, but also, but also creates opportunities. And now it's tied to the utility, which creates challenges and opportunities. If people can educate themselves on what their electrification strategy needs to be, and that's not just charging, that's also battery storage. But the whole thing, to take the whole, the whole puzzle, put it together. And then tell a story to an end user that they can relate to, that they can see their lives and how they would fit into owning some type of an electric vehicle.
因为现在我们讨论的不仅仅是卖一辆车。我们说的是为这辆车提供动力。而且，这还与云端相连，既带来挑战，也带来机遇。现在它还和电力公司相关联，这同样带来挑战与机遇。如果人们能了解他们需要怎样的电气化战略，那不仅仅是充电，还有电池储存。那么，把整个难题的所有部分拼凑起来，然后向终端用户讲一个他们能理解的故事，让他们看到自己的生活如何融入拥有某种类型的电动汽车。
And look, the reality is sometimes they won't. If you have a snow truck and you need to plow snow in the Northeast, you're probably not getting an electric car right now for your day to day. And I respect that and I understand that. And there's going to be other use cases. But in general, I think over the next several years, we're just going to get to a position where the costs of these EVs are going to come down over time. People are going to be driving them more, which means they're going to get more educated. It's like 2008 when the smartphone came out.
看看，现实情况是，有时候它们并不是完美的选择。如果你在东北地区有一辆铲雪车，需要清理积雪，现在你可能不会选择一辆电动车来天天使用。我理解这一点，也尊重这一点。当然还会有其他使用场景。但总体来看，我认为在接下来的几年里，电动车的成本会逐渐下降，人们会更多地使用它们，从而变得更加了解电动车。这就像2008年智能手机刚出来的时候一样。
And in general, people that are kind of like on the edge are slowly going to, going to be more comfortable with purchasing an EV. I want to give you one more statistic. When Apple made iMessage, I don't think that they ever expected that iMessage was going to maintain consumers within entire generations. And why? Well, go ask the generations. Most of them will say, because the text messages are blue. 87% of Gen Z had an iPhone three years ago. Today, 90% of Gen Z has an iPhone. Why do they have such strong market share? That was quite the fact. Exactly. Exactly.
而且总体来看，那些对购买电动汽车持观望态度的人，慢慢会变得更愿意购买电动汽车。我想再提供一个统计数据。当苹果推出iMessage时，我不认为他们预料到了iMessage会在整个世代中维持消费者的忠诚度。为什么呢？去问问这些世代的人吧，大多数人会说，因为短信是蓝色的。三年前，87%的Z世代拥有iPhone。今天，90%的Z世代拥有iPhone。为什么他们会有这么高的市场份额？这正是事实。没错，没错。
So that's kind of my opinion to the auto manufacturers or my recommendation of the auto manufacturers into the dealership groups is get past just selling the vehicle. This generation cares less about style and focus more on the experience, more specifically the software experience in the center dash. Obviously, that's something that Tesla does, and they do a very good job of it. But I think whoever capitalizes on the software experience over the next five years is going to gain significantly more market share. And those that are still trying to sell the stitching and the steering wheel are going to have some trouble.
所以我对汽车制造商的看法或者建议是：要超越单纯卖车的思维。这一代人对车辆的外观没那么在意，更注重的是体验，特别是在中控台上的软件体验。显然，特斯拉在这方面做得非常好。但我认为，未来五年内，谁能在软件体验上占据优势，谁就能显著增加市场份额。而那些还在卖车内装饰和方向盘的厂商可能会遇到麻烦。
Well said. And I totally agree with you. I have this infamous tweet that I've posted a couple of times, which is, nowadays consumers come and they just want four wheels and Apple CarPlay. So again, it's just really meant to be a proxy for people care about the experience a lot more than the car, in many cases, not always, but that it's become increasingly important. And real quick, you mentioned the manufacturers, I'm curious, like, which manufacturers would you say are leading versus lagging on the installation and electrification journey? And when you asked that, do you mean the actual installation of chargers? Do you mean the experience of the electric vehicle? Just in general?
说得很好，我完全同意你的观点。我有一条非常有名的推文，我发过好几次，大意是：现在的消费者来买车，他们只想要四个轮子和Apple CarPlay。这实际上是为了说，很多时候，人们更关心的是体验，而不是车本身，尽管并不总是这样，但这变得越来越重要了。顺便提一下，你提到制造商，我很好奇，你认为哪些制造商在安装和电气化的过程中是领先的，哪些是落后的？你指的是实际安装充电器吗？还是指电动车的体验？总而言之。
I think, yeah, in general, general space, like, is there any manufacturers that are like excelling when it comes to equipping their dealers with chargers and the process and the, you know, anything, any manufacturer that stand out as a great experience versus a not so great? I mean, we all know, again, I mentioned Ford and kind of their kind of back and forth. And the challenges they've had, but I'm curious if anyone else comes to mind on a positive or negative?
我觉得，总的来说，在这个领域，有没有哪家制造商在为他们的经销商配备充电器和处理流程方面表现特别出色？有没有哪家制造商的体验非常优秀或者相对更差？我提到过福特，他们在这方面遇到了一些挑战，但是我很好奇，是否还有其他厂家在这方面给你留下深刻的正面或负面印象？
Yeah, yeah. So one auto manufacturer that I think has been very thoughtful, whom I have a relationship with them. And I think all of their dealers would agree, Toyota, Toyota and Lexus, they take a very unique and thoughtful approach to everything that they do. I think that's the the Kye Zen and them that they always that they always talk about. And so they didn't necessarily tell their dealers to do too much or too little. I think they really took feedback from their dealer body and and look for experts in the industry to tell them what they should be focusing on. I think that's why they had the reputation that they have.
是的，是的。那么有一家我认为非常周到的汽车制造商，我和他们有联系。我想他们所有的经销商都会同意，那就是丰田和雷克萨斯。他们在所做的一切事情上都采取了非常独特和周到的方式。我认为这是他们经常提到的“改善”（Kaizen）理念。因此，他们并没有要求经销商做太多或太少的事情。我觉得他们确实是从经销商那里收集了反馈，并寻找业界专家来告诉他们应该关注什么。我觉得这就是他们享有声誉的原因。
So I'm sure that's like no, no, no shock. I think Mercedes is doing a great job with Charge Point right now, building the center dash experience with with Charge Point. And I'm not sure what other ones are, under NDA or not an under NDA. But I think in general, they're the ones that are trying to build the central dash experience are on the right track. I've seen Ford's, I haven't used it too much, but I think that they're thinking about it the right way that they need something like that in terms of the central dash experience.
所以，我相信这并不令人惊讶。我认为奔驰目前在与Charge Point合作打造中控台体验方面做得很好。我不确定其他的项目是否在保密协议下。但总的来说，我觉得那些尝试构建中控台体验的公司是走在正确的道路上的。我看过福特的设计，虽然我没怎么用过，但我认为他们在中控台体验方面的思考方向也是对的。
Everybody knows the frustrations of some of these larger programs where fast chargers were required. And we're coming out of COVID and what's the allocation look like and and what parts of the country is it more difficult to sell those vehicles. So I think like some of those bigger programs that I applaud the OEMs for trying to push it out fast and trying to build it. But I think there's been more frustration there and there's still more value to be had.
大家都知道一些大型项目令人沮丧的地方，例如需要快速充电器。而且现在我们刚刚走出疫情，分配情况如何、哪些地区更难销售这些车辆等问题都浮现出来。因此，我认为尽管我赞赏原始设备制造商（OEM）试图快速推进并建设这些项目，但这些项目确实带来了更多的挫折感，仍然有很多潜在价值尚未实现。
I would say, I think what's really important here in the next in the next few years is if you're a dealer group, if you are a dealer group, what is your plan? You're being told to do 10, 15, 20 different things. What is your plan? Otherwise, you end up investing $20 million in potentially obsolete set of circumstances. There is an opportunity here. Yes, investment is being forced upon you. But at the same time, there's an opportunity to add a new element to your business, new revenue streams to your business.
我想说，我认为在接下来的几年里，如果你是一个经销商集团，什么才是真正重要的？你有计划吗？现在你被要求做10、15、甚至20件不同的事情。那么你的计划是什么？否则，你可能会在一套可能过时的情况下投资2000万美元。在这里确实存在机遇。是的，投资是被迫进行的。但是与此同时，这也是一个为你的业务新增元素、新增收入来源的机会。
Having a plan before making all the investments is going to allow it puts you in a good position. I think I think there's even an opportunity for dealer groups to make Tesla has a supercharging network. Oh, we, I'm just trying to do it. I think dealer groups can do localized networks too, utilizing software to sell more cars. I think there's an opportunity there. You just got to build it and you get to make sure that you build a plan before you spend the money.
在进行所有投资之前制定一个计划，会让你处于有利的地位。我认为甚至可以有机会让经销商集团建立像特斯拉那样的超级充电网络。哦，我们，我只是想做这件事。我认为经销商集团也可以建立本地化的网络，利用软件来卖更多的车。我觉得这是一个机会。你只需要建立一个计划，并确保在花钱之前制定好这个计划。
Well said, Chris, this has been awesome. You're a wealth of knowledge. So I really enjoyed this. If anyone listening wants to get in touch with you or wants to ask you more questions, is there somewhere they can get in touch with you? Yeah, definitely. So we have a consulting and energy service that we provide and users called EV already simplify. And it really is meant to either help you with your future plan, course correct on an existing plan that already happened. But we want to help you save money. That's the goal. It's not about buying more chargers. It's about saving you more money.
说得好，克里斯，这真是太棒了。你真是知识渊博。我非常享受这个过程。如果有听众想联系你或向你提问，有没有什么联系方式呢？
是的，当然有。我们提供一个名为“EV already simplify”的咨询和能源服务，旨在帮助用户制定未来计划，或纠正已经实施的现有计划。我们的目标是帮助您省钱，而不是让您购买更多充电器。
So we have a if you had a EV ready energy.com go to our website. We have a questionnaire that questionnaire will ask you specific questions about the decisions that have been made so far where you're trying to go and it'll allow us to understand where you are in your electrification journey. From there, what we'll do is we'll schedule a consultation to follow up with you to help you take whatever next steps that is going to help you save more money in the future. Yeah, we'll add it to the show notes as well below. So if anyone is interested, they can just go to the show notes below. Awesome. Awesome.
所以，如果您已经准备好使用电动汽车，请访问我们的网站 EV ready energy.com。我们有一个问卷，问卷会问您一些具体问题，了解您到目前为止所做的决策以及您的目标。这将帮助我们了解您在电气化旅程中的位置。之后，我们会安排一次咨询，帮助您采取下一步措施，以便在未来节省更多资金。我们也会把这个信息添加到下方的节目备注中，有兴趣的人可以查看下方的备注。太好了，太好了。
And I just want to thank Rexel Energy Solutions, their partner of ours, that we work with. Rexel Energy Solutions is a distributor across the US that helps dealerships procure and install charging stations with EV ready energy and provide other specific services that's going to help lower their total cost of ownership. So I just wanted to say thank you to them. Chris and I, and thanks for coming on, really enjoyed it.
我想要感谢Rexel能源解决方案公司，他们是我们的合作伙伴。Rexel能源解决方案公司是一家遍布全美的分销商，帮助经销商采购和安装电动汽车充电站，并提供其他有助于降低总拥有成本的专门服务。所以我想对他们表示感谢。Chris和我都非常感谢你们的参与，真的很享受这个过程。
Okay, thanks, man. Appreciate the time. All right, hope you enjoyed that episode. Please give the podcast a rating. Consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about. Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you guys next time.
好的，谢谢你，兄弟。感谢你的时间。希望你喜欢这一集。请给我们的播客评分，考虑订阅我们的节目，并查看节目备注中的链接，了解我们谈论的内容。感谢你的收听，我们下次见。