Because it's like you had this train of thought and I'm like I cannot stop him now and if I turn off the camera to go pick the Wallet from a tooth, he's gonna lose his train of thought. You absolutely have to leave this in.
This is amazing. What's up everyone? This is car dealership guy. You're listening to the car dealership guy podcast, which is my effort to give you access to the most unbiased and transparent insights into the car market.
Let's get into today's episode. Today I've Scott Case on the pod, founder and CEO of Recurrent. Recurrent's Adventure Back startup that's working to grow EV adoption by creating health reports for electric cars. In this conversation we spoke about the truth behind EV battery ranges, how changing Tesla prices are impacting dealerships, investment opportunities in the EV space, Scott's bare case for EV adoption and much more. Here's my conversation with Scott Case.
让我们开始今天的节目吧。今天的节目中,我邀请到了Recurrent的创始人兼CEO Scott Case,他的初创公司Adventure Back正在通过为电动汽车创建健康报告来推动电动汽车的普及。在这次对话中,我们谈到了电动汽车电池续航距离背后的真相、特斯拉价格变动对经销商的影响、电动汽车领域的投资机会、Scott支持电动汽车普及的理由等等。接下来,请听我的与Scott Case的对话。
All views of car dealership guy and guests on this podcast are solely their opinions. None of the views expressed should be treated as financial advice. This podcast is for informational purposes only.
All right Scott, let's get this going. So you wake up one day, you decide that people need EV battery reports. What does this even mean? Explain to us in very simple terms what you're working on nowadays.
All right, so Recurrent is basically a shopper. You could think of it as like a service for an EV shopper first and foremost and that's we realized when we started the company three years ago that people were asking fundamentally different questions. When they went to buy a used EV then they ever did for use combustion engine car. And it's sort of informed by like everybody that had a series of iPhones and they know the battery wears down and so they just they're trained to ask that question. They're like, oh an EV is a giant battery with wheels on it. So I'm going to start asking questions when it comes to buying one of those used.
And so like what we do for at the sort of fundamental level is like help the buyer of a used EV understand what they're getting and that in the battery like how far is it going to take them? How was that change in if for weather conditions and how will that change over their over the life of the vehicle as they own it?
So not to oversimplify this but are we talking like a form of car facts for EV batteries? Is that how I should think about this?
那么,不太简单地说,我们是在谈论一种用于电动汽车电池的汽车事实表吗?我应该这样理解吗?
I mean, so I would not describe our company as car facts. I think car facts as lawyers would probably have an issue with that. But I think like in terms of I would say that this is a the battery state is is probably the most important thing about these cars. It's by far the biggest cost item and it's literally a black box when it comes to buying used EV. So yeah, so so basically this that's the function we're serving.
Look, I'm a dealer, right? And I think one of the things I think about is what does that price elasticity look like for EVs? Right? So let me explain this specifically. Correct me from wrong. The Tesla battery EV warranty is 10 years. The battery warranty is 10 years. Depends on the model. Most of them are eight to 10 years, 100,000, some of them are much to 120,000 miles on the warranty. Yeah. So how are you predicting those valuations of cars?
Right? If I buy a Tesla, I'll just say, right? And I get to 10 years with that car. What happens to the value of my car when that warranty just eclipses? Prices are all time highs, interest rates are all time highs. I mean, we're everyone is becoming more efficient and they're being more thoughtful about their purchases, right? We're no longer in this monopoly money era. So how should consumers think about that when their warranty eclipses? And how do you play into that?
Yeah. So first of all, I'll say a couple of things. One is there's not that many of these cars on the road that actually have expired warranties. Like the, you know, the entire EV industry basically has been the last like 10 years, really like at volume five years. So there's a lot of unknown territory out there. Most of what we're doing is not like, oh, is this car going to just straight up die? You know, it's three, four, five years in. How much battery is left? And therefore, like what utility are you going to get out of the car? You know, for the next three years.
So let me explain what I mean by that. Like a car with an original EPA range, which is wrong, by the way, right on day one for a bunch of reasons, but a car within it with an originally. Why is it wrong? Why is it so?
So, so oh boy, we want to go on this sidebar. I want to go. I want to go. Yeah, doesn't account for weather variance. So like there's no heating tests. So the cars with heat pumps do way better in winter than cars with resistive heat.
And so like the difference between, you know, losing 40% of your range in the winter versus 10% like not at all apparent from from from EPA numbers. It's like kind of thing number one.
That's literally how the how the test works. And so all the time, I mean, there's like a bunch of material and consumer reports and Edmonds that have done real world tests that like most of the time, testless don't get their EPA range or even on day one versus most other EVs do actually and exceed it.
So, you know, in real world conditions, that's backed up in our data. And then, you know, that once the car is ages and the battery begins to lose capacity, which is a natural thing that happens to all lithium ion batteries, then just like the chemistry and the back size, everything is different about the car versus the iPhone but like you cannot violate the laws of physics.
Like there's still lithium ion batteries that do wear down the over time. Okay, so how wrong are these ranges? If they're saying, you know, the range is, you know, 100 miles, which I'm just making up, I know it's more than that. But like how how wrong are these ranges?
Okay, so, so let's just let's take new cars, right? So like this is just car on day one EPA range of 100 miles. We could you could have in the very best of conditions if you drive it like carefully in warm weather, you could get 140 miles. You wouldn't be crazy. You on the opposite side of that, you could with a car with resistive heat, meaning like the traditional kind of heating system.
In the dead of winter, you might get 60 miles. So as your max range, like that's that's a big difference just based on weather and the EPA test does not take in an account.
Okay, so let's take the opposite side of this. Let's just talk about ice, right? And a regular gas car, like that range can be perfect either. How wrong is the range or is the publicized range on a just internal combustion vehicle? Do you have any idea?
Yes, so that's an interesting question. So the there are as you know, like when you use the AC or when you, you know, it's probably less noticeable in the winter when you use the heat in a combustion engine car, it's efficiencies reduce somewhat.
I think it's particularly noticeable with AC in the summer. The I guess the problem, but also, you know, kind of it's eliminated, eliminated out of lemon situation is internal combustion engine vehicles are so inefficient with their ability to turn energy into forward motion.
They just create a lot of waste heat. And so over the over the decades, engineers have figured out how to turn that waste heat into essentially almost free heat for the cabin. Contrast that with that's why that's why it dries your skin when you turn on the heat in the car. Yeah, yeah, I guess that's right. Yeah.
Now contrast that with electric vehicles that are a something like I think it's like the number is 96% of energy from a battery is translated into forward propulsion. So they're very, very efficient. There's almost no waste heat. And so when you turn the heat on, you have to just straight up pull extra energy from the battery, right?
So it's, I mean, it's a it's a it's a great thing that they're so efficient, but it's sort of a the downside to it is that with with traditional like resistive heat systems, where just like you have to heat some coils, you know, and blow air through it, it takes a lot of extra energy.
Now some of the more modern EVs, the tech, every Tesla model Y pretty much every Hyundai at this point. So I think the the new Tesla Model 3s have a different technology in there called heat pump, which is like it's not like brand new technology.
I'm in a hotel room right now. There's a heat pump and then the, you know, and up in the ceiling. They are much more efficient in essentially translating energy into hot and cold air.
And so cars, cars with a heat pump in them lose like on average 10 to 15 percent of range in winter. They're just that more efficient. And so like honestly, I'm like, I'm an EV guy, right? I'm like fanboy the whole deal.
And I would say to my friends who live in northern, like live in places where it's so super cold in the winter, like, you know, unless you're only using a car to drive around the city, like I wouldn't buy an EV that didn't have a heat pump in it. I mean, I respect your intellectual honesty.
I would say so on that note, I mean, I have so many questions. But first things first, if that's your belief, right? What percentage market share do EVs hold by 2030 or say 2035?
All right. So I heard Steve Greenfield on your podcast last week. And here's what I'll say about Steve. Great, incredibly knowledgeable. He and I actually agree on the next about five years of EV adoption, right? So like we both, we both think five years from now, this is, you know, 30 percent, I think of the market, right? And then we'd start to diverge, right?
Now here's my my theory of the case. First of all, look at like all these different expert forecasts, Boston Consulting Group has been one in particular that reruns this like that very sophisticated model to sort of figure out adoption globally and in the US. So here's here's here's what their numbers have said. So the first time they ran this forecast was 2018 and they said they were using 2030 as their projection year. They were like in 2018. They said 12 years from now it's going to be 21 percent of the market as EVs. So these are new sales, right? They reran at the next year and they were like, actually, it's going to be 26 percent.
They reran it in 2020, sorry, 2021. They were like, yeah, actually, we think it's going to be 42 percent. And they reran it just nine months ago, middle of 2022. And they said, now there's only eight years away 2030. They think now it's over half for 53 percent. And then that projection, you draw that forward to 2035. And this was before any of all the federal sort of like tailpipe regulations and all the new stuff, the inflation reduction act, they were saying 72 percent in the US, right?
By 2035. So I probably think it's somewhere in between those, you know, where Steve's Steve's estimates and Boston Consulting Group is. But I think it's notable that every time they've rerun that analysis, it's leaps up for the same year. So I think there's something systematically that's happening faster than the underlying data would show. So to be clear, so you're saying at least 50 percent by 2030. I would, yeah, I would lay down a hundred dollar bet with Steve right now that it's over 50 percent of new car sales are electric vehicles by 2030. And I would actually, I would have probably even go 60 40 and Steve, if you're listening 200 bucks on that. I don't know. It's great. It's going to be so long before I have to pay out or he has to pay out. He's probably take that bet.
I mean, I talk to dealers all the time, right? I'm a dealer and there's definitely dealers that sell a lot more EVs than us. One of the concerns lately has been just the price risk, right? Like just to give you an example, Tesla has dropped roughly 15 percent in their values since the beginning of Q1. And, you know, as dealers, you hold this inventory on your balance sheet. If you don't sell that car, you know, relatively quickly 30, 60 days, I mean, you're stuck with serious depreciation and you're taking a big L. And so how do you at recurrent, right? You're clearly working on battery transparency and, you know, directly impacts the value. How can you fix that? How can you help, you know, ease dealers and, you know, ease that prevention of buying an EV now that in a way there's this new risk added to the market. It's no longer just, hey, I'm going to buy an EV and hopefully it's great and I'll sell it and, oh, you know, it's nice and dandy. It's going to follow a normal depreciation schedule. Now, as a dealer, you've just, there's another risk added into my calculus, which is, well, what happens if the OEMs change the prices? It's not only Tesla, right? Ford changed some prices of its new cars, new EVs.
So how do you get around that? And like, how does recurrent help mitigate that apprehension? Yeah. So listen, we are a bunch of battery, a company full of battery nerds, right? So we're not, I can't like tweeted Elon and tell him to stop changing prices. You know, so it's not like that there is some, some of this is out of our control.
You know, I think for dealers who are thinking about do I go and play the used Tesla roulette game? Because it like, there's a lot, I mean, these are like the model wise, the most popular car in the world now. Like this, this here, model threes are flooding the used market. Like there's an incredible, there's kind of a number of opportunities if you want to go in on this. But I think like there's a couple of keys to this. I'll say three things for a dealership thinking about them. Do I go use Tesla's or not?
One is I think you're going to find, you're probably not going to want to carry a lot of inventory and you're going to want to figure out like no wind is sort of like downsize and no end to upshift and sort of get sort of like, I think like watch the watch the tea leaves of what the price changes are likely to do. Just let me stand. I think that's going to get muted as there are just more numbers out there. Like the, the, do you do that's practical? I mean, I'm a dealer. I want to sell cars. I don't want to follow the macro like cardio ship guy.
Okay. So then, then the easy way of doing is just like minimize your. risk by not holding that many in inventory. So really think about what can we do to to to to pick up and and dispose units quickly. So you're not holding the hundred cars basically at the same time. Which I think is like a generally good practice. You want to be thinking about with anything. I think that just takes her a little bit higher on, you know, on the, you know, on the used Tesla's because of that sort of like the volatility right now.
So I that's one thing, right? Like two, I'd say like make sure you know what you're getting. So that's very true from a battery perspective. You know, like I think that's like a, you want to make sure and, you know, the dealers working with recurrent.
Sorry, I know that's supposed to be plug in my, my own company, but like dealers working. What do you mean? Of course, of course. Yeah, great. Then fine. I'm unplugging my company. Plug away. Plug away. Record. Record. Record. Record. Record. Record. So dealers working with the recurrent can use our tools to to essentially understand what they're getting. Like they know, like, oh gosh, this battery is a 92 or this, this one's an 80 and that's and the 92 is like going to be better. I'm going to be able to explain it, you know, and sell it for more and sell it faster. What does that mean? Is this on a scale? Yeah. So we just have like a rating system that basically says like, you know, 92 means this car gets 92% of the range that it did when it was new. And that's like actually pretty great, you know, and that's not uncommon. That happens all the time. You know, and we just use that kind of number score sort of zero to 100.
But just knowing what you're getting as a dealer is just as important as a shop or knowing what they're getting. So I think that's what we kind of have realized and are really helping our dealers with. But besides the battery and by the way, really extra important on older, on older vehicles where you're like, you know, that are coming up on that warranty cut off and you want to make sure that you're not getting something that you're not going to be able to sell because the range is just so degraded. But the other thing is separate from batteries is like understanding how to you can't just look at a van anymore and say and know exactly what what the car is and what it's equipped with, you know, there's like you need to be able to figure out how to how to identify the software and the hardware that's on there of the software subscription.
What's transferable like do you is full self driving transferable on this car is a free super charging transferable like there's all kinds of like more complicated questions that are if you can get good at it, like it's an incredible opportunity because you're you're zicking where everybody else is zagging. So I think there's a big opportunity here from a dealer perspective.
So let's piggyback off of that for a second. You mentioned like other parts of the EV calculus, right? Like is this transferable the charging? I did some research into a car and I was looking through your offerings and you're offering something for shoppers for EV owners and for dealers. Yeah. How do you how do you balance that? Where's the you know asymmetrical opportunity here? Is it just having this kind of you know all in one bundled marketplace or service that that you know is able to tackle every part of the market? I always think about like, you know, are we horizontally integrating? Are we vertically integrating? Like where are we you know, where are we building that mode and how are we becoming a stronger company that's providing more value?
Yeah. Well, there's sort of a there's a there's a flywheel here. So I think that yeah, we do we are trying to serve three different audiences, but let me just like walk through why they're all connected. So I already talked about what we do for a shopper like you show up, how to use a car dealer or interact on their website and anyone who wants to take a look, as long as I'm in the plugging mode, you can go to Dell Grand Automotive Group and see what recurrent reports look like from a retail perspective as they as they do.
Those guys sell a lot of used TVs like to everybody in Silicon Valley and and they're using their work and with us, right? So, but it answers those questions that shoppers have. From a dealer perspective, you know, there's this it's it's mostly the same offering I will say is like, you know, we've seen that dealers that that use our reports and help in the retail side, they sell their cars faster, they set expectations with their buyer.
So like, you know, to go back to what we talked about earlier, a car an EPA a car with an EPA range of 250 miles that gets 220 today is great. It's fine. Most people drive 30 miles a day like you don't need any of that, right?
Now, however, if you were expecting 250 and what you get is 220, like you might be pretty mad, you know, and you might show up at the dealership and return the car. Now we've seen like our dealers working with us, they walk customer through this is what you're going to get like you like you'd walk a customer through a car facts report and and all of a sudden customers having their expectations set they're like, yeah, great.
I understand what I'm getting and then I'll return the car. And then and then from a dealer perspective, also like how to value and price use TVs like which are no longer the the right way of thinking about this like don't price a car with high mileage lower because, you know, what if that car just had a battery replacement like every Chevy bolt ever made like, you have a Chevy bull with 75,000 miles on it with a with a battery that's brand new higher capacity than what it had when it was new and it gets more range than it did when it was new.
So like there's just this like absolute disconnect of kind of the value of a used EV compared to its odometer number at this point. So that's the like kind of you can got to obviously I think that the shopper questions and the dealer sort of like experience pretty aligned.
And then the last thing is the owner piece of this we actually funny thing is like we started the company originally with an owner product and that's like if you're an EV owner you can come and sign up on our website for free to track your car's data basically your battery data. And that's really cool for for us from a data perspective that's really what comes now we have 15,000 cars that are actively on our platform they're feeding us data wirelessly every streaming data over the you know the over the internet every day.
It allows us to basically get this really big comparison set of cars to kind of compare to when we see a car show up at a used car dealer. You're like the you're like the ancestry dot com of EV back oh my gosh that's our new mono right there.
But yeah but the other thing is that when it turns out from an owner perspective like when we've been tracking the data all the way along when they go to sell their car like we have kind of like their car's permanent record. And so when they choose like hey I want to sell it they they can share their recurrent reports and they're selling their car for hundreds of thousands of dollars more because there's no uncertainty about the battery.
So it all kind of feeds together I think and actually what we're doing now with with with some of our dealers is we're actually doing a you know turn turn doing a connection thing where just you know from a dealer perspective it looks like a first sale by owner lead gen business where it's just like hey when we have people in our fleet who have been taking really good care of their batteries and we've got all the data and they're like yeah I'm ready to sell we're doing kind of like matchmaking and and it looks like it's just a new source for dealers to acquire great inventory.
Is there like a point where is the point with the most meaningful drop in valuation from a battery score right like is it like 65 like at that point I would just not buy a car below that like you're gonna there's a highly likely you're gonna have to replace the battery right as a dealer frankly and a consumer like I would be curious to know like where at what point should I not touch that car obviously there's a price to everything but I don't want to go and start replacing batteries I don't want to do that yeah
So I mean what I'll say is that that you know most EVs that we see and we score and like everything all the used EVs running through Odessa from an auction perspective are getting recurrent scores on them so like we're seeing a lot of stuff that's pretty varied and you know most of what we're seeing is in the 90s a little bit in the 80s like all that's fine I would say what I would you know as a dealer and as a as a shopper I would say like you know really a car this couple years old like there's not too much of a difference it's gonna happen there as you get into 3 4 5 6 year-old car like there's there's there there's just more variance right and so you could have two cars EPA of 260 and now one of them is 180 and one of them is 210 like they're both fine you're not gonna have to do a battery replacement you know on those but like you should pay more for the 210 because you're gonna get more utility out of it you know and that's I think we're what we're seeing it just and I'm not to put words in your mouth these are totally my words but it just sounds like you already came up with the ancestry.com thing so I know I was gonna say like it just feels to me like the EPA ratings are a scam it's like and and I'm not even blaming the EPA it's like it's like how can you really have any confidence in that
I mean you know I think that the that no they're not a scam they they run a standardized protocol and they you know they they are following that protocol I just don't think that that protocol is particularly it just doesn't match up with a real world rating so in the same way that like Miles Pergallon you know differs in different sort of conditions I think that's like the EPA probably didn't start out that way I actually don't really know like the highway number and the city street number you know I think that I I think that it would be helpful to to to have EPA winter versus EPA summer I think from a range perspective I think they're really interesting because I think it would it would all honestly cause more people to a more automakers to sort of like think about gosh lift the what's the winter range you know loss which we actually did a whole I mean that was like we you asked about the research that we've been doing so one of the other things we do with all the data that's streaming off of these cars is we pull together aggregate research pieces and and publish them and so like in December we did a thing essentially like modeled by model what's the range lost for all these different EVs in the in the dead of winter which you know like no one else is publishing that data but we're sitting there looking at it and we're like well yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna call a ball of all a strike a strike when when one car loses 40% in the in the winter and another car because it has resistive heat and another car only loses 10% like that's valuable information that's not just relevant to use shoppers to relevant to a new EV shopper you have this very intimate insight into the segment
it's very clear that what you're working on now is extremely necessary and the market needs it so where are the picks and shovels now within the space and from your insights you're so close to this right where are the opportunities um let me throw two ideas out here one is a one for dealers I think it's not investor question but it's an opportunity for the dealer perspective that I don't think people are thinking about yet uh and the second one I'll do is sort of like I think is another company that probably needs to exist and I don't know that we do a lot of going on right so so investors entrepreneurs like go for the second idea that I'm gonna say
From a dealer perspective, um, I'm gonna talk about tax credits for a minute and I know dealers are not so excited about this but bear with me for a second. Every single story I've ever read about the EV tax credits all about the news side right, like the where's the battery made, like what's qualifying for the full 7500 all these questions right?
As a part of last year's inflation reduction act, they put in the first time ever, the federal government is to stuck a tax credit on used cars. Right now, for basics, it's a four thousand dollar tax credit on a car up to uh sort of like a certain purchase price. There's income limits, there's no batteries so we're sourcing a requirement, this doesn't matter, the only thing is like it's only like a car can't be transferred you know more than once and get the thing again. So, but the really key piece of that from a dealer perspective, which I think actually has uh an opportunity to just transform and grow the dealerships or share of the of the used car sales is uh every car that gets one of these credits has to be sold by a dealer. It doesn't apply to private party sales, and so like that's half the market all of a sudden that like the dealership industry has a chance to pick up, like a whole bunch more cars almost, then there's a four thousand dollar sort of like a cost advantage that a dealer has basically, um.
So, I think that that's like that that if dealers can sort of like kind of get past all the price volatility and the stuff like that like this is a 10 year long program that could double the size of the used car market for them, like that's a big deal. So, you're so you're basically saying that dealers have a cost advantage when it comes to selling used EVs because they qualify for credit that a private party sale does not?
It's the so it's the buyer from the dealership can get that four thousand dollar tax credit and they and the buyer from a private party sale cannot get that, yes. So, it translates to you know and.
it right now in 2023 it's a it's a tax you know form that the buyer has to fill out starting January 2024 uh I don't know the mechanism but but it's it's a cash on the hood sort of like point of sale rebate basically that like uh income qualified buyer which actually is pretty generous like you you can make up to a hundred fifty thousand dollars married filing filing jointly and still take this tax credit like uh and and the dealer will be able to just like discount the price by four thousand dollars and then get you know get a check from the government for that four thousand dollars like and now we got to figure out how exactly that works but like that all of a sudden makes it such that that all the whole dealer economics like could work and have that have an advantage over a private party sale you know.
so so again being unbiased here right like what why only dealers right like why can't you get this credit as a private party sale so I think what the government did was they said they were like you imagine like if I'm your you know I'm like hey cousin I'll send it I'll sell you my car this year you sell it back to me next year we both get four thousand dollar tax credits like I just I think of the the government was like we need sort of a a business entity involved in this in order to make sure it's not like there's not just rampant fraud so I suspect that's why that happened it's crazy because you know I'm thinking here it sounds it sounds like there's some opportunity here as well like almost like some you know officially licensed dealer as a middle man that facilitates these transactions for consumers not in for the purpose of cheating the system rather creating a platform specifically for people that want to sell private party legitimately right you have some verifications in place but you want to still get that credit yeah and so it just sounds to me like there's some opportunity there all right so you're right so there they may be there as you know you're thinking about you you took it to the second question of where's the investment where's the where's the startup opportunity like maybe I think there is something there.
the other thing though is like the research has generally shown that that because EVs are still pretty new and a look the tech is brand new that people are still more likely to want to buy from a dealer because they sort of feel like I have more recourse than like meeting some guy in the Walmart parking lot and you know right in a cashier's check or whatever you know there's just say for for EVs specifically EVs people yeah shoppers are more inclined to buy from a dealer and they're also more inclined compared to ice cars to pick up an extended warranty on on on EVs than they are for ice cars so yeah like yeah so it's like I just I think that like there there are some dealerships that are like yeah like they're just they're working through this tech change and finding new opportunities here and there are other dealerships that I in my opinion are cut like are just like cutting off their nose despite their face kind of thing and just be like God the EVs through them and not seeing the opportunities that I think some folks are out there that are they're going for them you know so that's what I would say.
Fascinating. Here's another thing that comes to mind. And when I think about your company, I'm thinking about like a healthcare company, like an insurance company. And if I create something or a way, right? If you prove that doing xyz lowers fatalities or you know, obviously not smoking, you have less death, and or like you know less sicknesses, blah blah blah. And so the healthcare company is incentivized, you know, for you not to smoke and whatnot. It saves the money. So I'm trying to think like, is your company thinking about incentives for dealerships to innovate to sell more EVs and not just thinking that the dealers are all like an enemy because they want to sell more ice cars, like how are you thinking about that? A way for you to do some play like that, right? You're clearly providing value to dealers and others in helping them mitigate losses. And so I'll leave it at that. Let's, you know, respond.
Coming into this industry, I did not appreciate how many different players would be needed to sort of transform their businesses based on the physical change in cars. And so I thought, well, there's dealerships, there's shoppers, that's it, right? I'm not, and I didn't come from the auto sort of industry. I came from climate tech, right? And so this is like the past three years have just been a very rapid learning experience. And I've tried to surround myself with a lot of people that have been the auto industry for a long time. So, you know, learning the applicability of on the wholesale side, on the fleet side, like they're sort of like there. We've got folks who are engaged in with them both those fronts. We've now had a bunch of conversations with insurance companies that want to do what you're doing, is like kind of price discriminate on risk and the value of the asset, which I think, like right now the battery state isn't a really important piece of that. Extended warranty companies, finance, and companies, there are just so many different players, and jm and a actually as an investor are so like, yeah, look at that. Yeah, so there's like, I didn't know that there are, there's a lot of that happening right now. I don't think that there are any, there may be one nascent extended warranty offering for EVs that actually covers the battery and there's all kinds of restrictions on that, but like, there's just, it's very, very early, and no one feels like they have the data yet for that. And I think, I think, I think that is absolutely an opportunity for us moving forward.
As a dealer, how does my workflow change over the next couple of years when it comes to buying EVs? Or is something like recurrent plugged in natively to my workflow, to my systems, you know, whether it be auction or you know, buying from wherever right, does it just get plugged in just like there's a condition report on a car right? Then there's like EV report. Is that what is that what the future looks like? I think and I'm going to say, and I'm going to say one more thing. Like, is Manheim capable of creating that type of experience built in natively to the point where it really derisks the buying experience for dealers, what do you think?
So I do think that this eventually does become one of the things you look at. You look at the auto check score, you look at, you know, the car facts like record, you know, the mid-experience, you know, history adjusted, you know, like it was in accidents or whatever, black book value, whatever. And then you also, for EVs, you look at the EV battery score. I don't think it's going to be like, we're trying to not make it super complicated because it's one element of you know, electric vehicles are still vehicles, right? And so I think this is one element that is super important that's absolutely going to be, you know, something you're looking at from a dealer perspective. Right now it's not really integrated, we're not really integrated into like everywhere, but it shows up in the deser reports, it shows up in like any car than any of our dealers buys. They have a little like easy iPhone widget to like to check the battery just by looking at the dashboard basically and comparing it to all the cars we have. I think over time that does, that just like that finds its way into every sort of thing, every different channel. And yeah, like I think we're, you know, I know we're the first mover here and the first book points on the board. We've been doing this three years and have all this data to show for it. So hopefully, you know, we end up as the standard for this, but you know, I don't know. The problem is real, right? And so I think that like, we're, I think we're a great solution and we're out there with points on the board everywhere and you both will see what what the market says.
In the spirit of having a balanced conversation, I mean, I think we clearly know the bulk case of EVs and it's clear that adoption is increasing and market is growing.
为了保持平衡的对话,我觉得我们都明白电动汽车的主要情况,而且采用率正在增加,市场正在壮大。
What is the bear case about the EV world and adoption for the future? Well, what here's what.
未来的电动汽车世界及其普及面的风险是什么?这就是其中一个。
I would say is like today and this this is going to change very quickly over the next sort of like couple of years right but right now public charging public fast charging outside of the test and network kind of sucks like and so it's really I mean I so I drive a Volkswagen 94 it's a great car super cool car I was gonna ask you that question.
yeah no yeah so great yeah let's get to that right interesting like I didn't have that car when I started the company I drove a see I drive my other car super route back like you know like a good any good Seattle Seattle customer like yeah I tweeted about that before yeah yeah you fit the bill I don't my god do I ever fit the bill basically so but but you know I've charged that car I've free three three years of charging with the electrician America you know with that I got with the car a year and a half ago I've charged it publicly four times like in a year and a half and it just because like I have a level two charger in my house like I don't even really need it honestly I could probably be on a level one and I always leave the house full so like I'm almost never the only time I've ever happened.
what's the difference from a level one to level two charging sorry yeah so level one is just like you plug it into a wall outlet like that's it right level two is like the kind where where it's like it's it's on it's on a 220 volt circuit and then you either have a you know 20 30 40 50 60 amp like power going to it so like I think ours is like a 30 amp circuit or whatever so that but those are the level two and then and then that's and then level three or DC fast charging is what like the Tesla superchargers what the most the electrician America EVGO stations are not actually that's not most but it's but that's but that's that's what's getting built out from public charging perspective the kind where you can like stop at the highway rest stop or the Walmart parking lot and put you know charger car from you know 30 to 80 percent in like 15 minutes you know that's that's a DC fast charging and like right now that that infrastructure is not good you know like even as an EV fanboy like I just I've had terrible experiences even the four times I've done that right like it doesn't really work well right.
and so there's a lot that has to change with that but here's my thing is like and this gets back to the like Stephen Myz argument about adoption like the first my opinion the first 50 percent of EV adoption like could and I'm not talking just like sales I'm talking like vehicles in the car park like you know like the first 50 percent could basically happen now like one of every two cars you know with everybody with a with a house right with a garage or a driveway could be in an EV without any change to public charging right you can't get rid of your second car your ice car until then but like you know the average trip to 30 miles a day like you know you that's pretty easy to get with with with essentially the tech that's out there now and and just plugging in your wall no problem you know.
I think the biggest issue I see there it seems like unless there's some crazy disruption in the EV space and we really do get you know massive price cuts and it becomes more affordable it just seems like you know to to be able to drive an EV when there isn't just ubiquitous found fast charging everywhere you're going to need to have you know a house with a charger that's readily available and I just I just don't know if that's the majority of the market today and again everything I'm saying is I have no horse in this race for me yeah yeah I'm more so curious like what happens next.
I actually think that that the toughest part some of the toughest part about EV adoption is going to be urban environment where there's like parking is at a premium and getting new getting new power sort of like threaded to parking lots and parking garages is more challenging I think the the first wave of this happens in the suburbs where everyone has you know a two car garage and you know enough panel space to put in a charger that's like all that can happen today you know again with the infrastructure we have and the driving distances are about right.
I actually I actually kind of think that that rural environments where you where there's plenty of space and you can just plug in you know even though the distances are longer you know I think like I think that if it's if you have your you have your F-150 your you know gas car and gas truck and then you have your you know your your car does run errands in and the fact that you don't have to buy gas anymore for that car like that that that pencils to me.
I mean even yeah I hate gas I absolutely hate it it's the worst. yeah yeah and even like gas prices are down right no gas prices are down for more they were a year or so ago when it was like six dollars a gallon and it's still but it's still four to four bucks a gallon where I live so like it's not pleasant you know no like but you know it's funny and not not the not the sound not the sound pretentious but like the actually the the prices is like is I'm less sensitive to that for me it's the the inconvenience if you know it's not on any of my roots unfortunately and you know you're home there's the kids you know this one is just one's crying this one is fooders on the earth whatever you're doing and it's like oh shit like I'm low on gas I got to run out so I make the best out of it you know whatever it's a it's a trip but the time that that I'm telling you it's that that does bother me no again in a year and a half the only four times that I view that I've that I've had to charge my car on you know in public charging is when I've forgotten to do it overnight like that's it you know it's other than that it's always like I always leave my garage full and I just drive past the gas station like kind of flip it off every time you know you know what I mean so like do we have wireless charges yet what is that gonna happen like you know you know you know no like honestly like I don't I've really I've there's like some company that's doing like little robotic arms to like kind of seek and plug the thing in I'm like what the fuck's the big deal you like you just take the thing and you just plug it in like how hard is that like seriously when you need robots to do this or wireless you are but if you would have told me that it's same thing for the iPhone I would have told you that it's not gonna happen it will happen it will absolutely happen
I guess I just don't see like I feel like that's like one of those things like when you're not when you don't own an EV at you're like I don't want to remember to plug in and I don't have to like go and do that every time no first of all I don't you don't do it every day I do like plug it in every four days or five days or something like that and and just goes overnight and then I I'm done in the morning but it's just not like it's just not a thing you know like it's easy to change that habit and it's like way nicer than like you said go in the gas station so wait so you jump to the funny question which is I was gonna ask you what car you have you clearly drive at EV now now just here let me understand so when you started recurrent did you have an EV yet or not oh no no so no so I lived in Seattle at the time so yeah that coast of the lead comment hit a little close to home but so I lived in Seattle at the time no 1923 house no driveway no garage no off-street parking on my side of the street right so what's a single family home okay so that's the investor story that's the investor story yeah no so I so I had a we had we had we had just had the had the Subaru outback that we you know parked and and so I only got the I moved to Tacoma Washington a year and a half ago and I have a garage for the first time since high school so like yeah so I'm not like I can plug it in now so yeah that's one I got one
and I'm over here thinking like I'm over here thinking about like the cognitive dissonance of of you know running a company like recurrent and not driving EV at the beginning at least but probably was like a funny time period but it was a funny story you know it's like you think like oh yeah this is a used EV company like oh he must have had this experience of buying an used EV and then and had a bad experience no I didn't like it just like I just saw how people are asking different questions in the industry wasn't answering them and I'm like that's gonna hold back the used market like that can't like somebody's got to fix that I'm like uh okay sure I can hold you're you're absolutely right I think that's one of the biggest apprehensions that dealers have it's a debattery so I think you're you're on the right track man
I love I absolutely love what you're working on and you mentioned plug earlier so I mean tell us more like where for for consumers for for dealers for owners right I think anyone on this call that has any association with EVs in their life and whatsoever could benefit from the software that you guys have created so can you just tell us a little bit where we can find out more about it yeah for sure so our website is recurrent auto.com if you are an EV owner today and you're listening to this podcast you should come and sign your car up uh three uh you you we get some you get some nice battery metrics you know on a monthly basis and then when you go to sell your car you're gonna be able to sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars more like that's our value property there if you're a dealer like we can help you essentially help you both on the acquisition side you know um and on the retail side and that's working really well and we're start really starting to scale that business and then if you're shopper like like you you know sorry this is our dealers but you should be asking your dealer like hey you shouldn't buy one of these without without without without looking the repair report you're gonna get those questions a lot of leading dealers are working with us now we you can also see our stuff on Edmund so that's like the first third party market listings aggregator marketplace to uh to include that yeah so like every uh used DV um uh SRP and VDP uh on Edmunds now sort of like has recurrent range information they actually have a really cool map visualization that shows how far you can go from your home to like one way and round trip that's they've done a great job with it so like yeah my friends were on like yeah where where do I go to sort of like find uh used DV listings yeah I would send them there because they're they're doing it they're doing it really well they're the first ones
this is all off the record this is off the record or Harley you can keep this part on the record I've had a walnut stuck in my tooth this entire episode and I didn't want to stop Scott because he just had the groove going the flow going so that's what I've been dealing with this entire episode this is amazing this is like the most entertaining part of the I would actually lead with this could you do like the teaser where it's like yeah I've had this fucking walnut in my mouth we need we need to see your Scott you absolutely have to leave this in this is amazing
uh let's do it maybe uh you should do like a spot do you have sponsorships on this podcast yet so we have a we have a pretty healthy wait list uh sponsorships are likely going to start over to next couple podcasts yeah first first sponsor the podcast the Walnut Growers Association of America there we go I love it okay so the question so back to the question right so back to the question
what have you changed your mind on in the last couple of years um I think that before I this is Evie related right is is it goes back to this charging thing like I thought um that just from the outside I thought that that long distance travel was like fine uh with with Evie's I don't think it is today in less year unless you're on the Tesla super charging network um and so I I would say like not only what I say to folks in northern climates like you know don't buy an Evie that doesn't have a heat pump like do it model wide do any of those Hyundai models there's a couple others that have heat pumps in there I'd say that pretty freely right now um good awful yeah and uh and then the second thing is I would say like you know before you like it like I would absolutely everybody out there should have one of it if they've got two cars they should have one car this Evie hands down it's great the less gas the whole thing um before you go and replace your second car though where you're going to do road trips with it I think either you got to be on a long range Tesla with the supercharger or you or you got to wait a couple years like before that the the bit until the rest of the charging network gets built out uh to really make it faster li uh faster reliable you know that's and there's a lot I think there's a lot that's gonna change a lot that's gonna change over the next couple of years but that's sort of where I'm at that is absolutely a good nugget and that's another thing I didn't know so that is great
Scott thanks so much for coming on this was awesome had a ton of fun and learned a lot so appreciate it and uh I'm sure we'll do this again thank you guys really fun you're lucky that all done thanks all right hope you enjoyed that episode please give the podcast or 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