It’s Thursday and we’re talking about GM’s big power plant open in a Tennessee town. We also talk about the pricing and specs on the upcoming launch of the Silverado EV, as well as give you the need-to-know details on Monday’s full solar eclipse.
Show Notes with links: GM kicks off EV battery production at its Ultium plant in Tennessee in a major leap forward in the automaker's electrification strategy.
This is start of production at the second of four planned joint venture battery plants in the U.S., enhancing GM's EV manufacturing capabilities.
The batteries produced will first supply the electric Cadillac Lyriq at GM's nearby Spring Hill Manufacturing plant, with plans to extend shipments for broader EV production.
At full capacity, the Tennessee facility will boast 50 gigawatt-hours, significantly bolstering GM's EV battery supply.
GM's collaboration with LG Energy Solution combines operational and technological expertise, aiming to set new industry standards for battery cell production.
"This moment has been years in the making, and I'm grateful to the thousands of contractors, community partners, and team members who have worked tirelessly to make this moment a reality," said Chris Desautels, Spring Hill plant director.
Chevy's Silverado EV RST First Edition is going to hit the market mid-2024, boasting a 440-mile range at a starting price of $96,495.
Longer range than initially estimated, up from 400 to 440 miles, with a reduced starting price from $106,895.
Features include a 17-inch infotainment screen, Super Cruise technology, and capability for 350 kW fast charging.
Power stats impress with 754 hp and acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds, plus towing up to 10,000 pounds.
"It's a significant leap forward in EV technology, providing remarkable power and range that sets a new standard," Chevy remarked.
Monday’s, solar eclipse is set to be historic, attracting millions and potentially causing some historic traffic jams and flight delays. If you are in the path of the ‘so called’ Totality…here's what you need to know:
The eclipse path will span across the U.S. from Texas through states including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and into New England, covering Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
An estimated 32 million reside in the path of totality, with millions expected to travel, prompting warnings from the Federal Highway Administrator about travel impacts.
AAA advises keeping headlights on, not using eclipse glasses while driving, and avoiding stopping on roads to watch the eclipse.
The last total solar eclipse in 2017 saw rural interstate traffic congestion lasting up to 13 hours post-event.
"Pack your patience," says AAA, urging preparedness for crowded roads and recommending a full tank of gas or electric charge.
Viewing conditions vary by location, with the northeast offering the best chance of clear skies for the eclipse.
Start with a segway. Never. I've never done that before. Hey, look, it's Thursday, which is that kind of day already we can tell in the morning. Today we're going to talk about a Tennessee power plant. Finally the Silverado Evie and a solar eclipse the people with traffic and the potential doom that is pending.
Kyle Mountsier:
You could have totally done like a tease like all T's like we're talking Tennessee taking off and totality traffic or something you know, I don't know.
Paul J Daly:
I mean, totality is a very ominous word fatality singularity, like what are all the things they put in movies where like government just refers to it as this ominous, like, catastrophic event? I don't know, man. Weird start to Thursday. I
Kyle Mountsier:
think that's true. That's fair. Oh, man.
Paul J Daly:
Oh, well here like, here's some of the it's not going to be weird. That is also kind of going to happen is it's not going to be weird at all. The ASOTU CON agenda is live on the site at ASOTU con.com. We've been updating it and adding to it the list of 60 plus speakers is live on a show.com. The hotel rooms are just about gone in our primary hotel block. So listen, if you're planning on coming, if you're not planning on coming, you should just least consider it. Take a look. Absolutely go to ASOTU con.com. Check out what's going on. Check out the agenda book, your hotel room, buy your ticket, get your flights. Southwest is a crazy sale right now, BWI Airport, which is only 10 minutes from the venue is a hub for Southwest. So if you got Southwest, you can get there really easily and probably really cheap right now. I checked from Syracuse yesterday, just because there are a few more people that have to fly there. At $7 for Red Bull for a round trip. Right now, if you book between like now and the end of the week or something like that's like
Kyle Mountsier:
hailing back to the OG southwest days when everything was like 99 bucks. And that's all their flights were ash. It's an unbelievable, like, I'm like, like, can I just fly somewhere just
Paul J Daly:
because I literally was like, what concerts are in Baltimore next week, right? It's like, can we fly to Baltimore just for like lunch? That would be great. So look, it's all it's all shaping up. We're about 4041 days out 40 days out right now. So there's plenty of time. It's right in the middle of the month. It's funny. I was talking to some dealers about it yesterday. And they're like, oh, it's in the middle of the month. I was like we put it smack dab in the middle of the month on purpose. Right. What do you got going on on a Wednesday in the middle of a month? You're going to have soda. That's That's right.
Kyle Mountsier:
That's what you're doing. That's so
Paul J Daly:
we hope you check it out. Hope you join us our presenting sponsors, Reynolds and Gugu helping us make it happen. Our friends at Well Ken are having a special event a special breakfast. Maryland auto dealer association is doing their annual event. The second morning of a soda con. There's a lot of a TAS represented there. But this is this is the place to be now we're going to we'll get there. New York Times bestsellers, keynote speaker effective is third year as the podcast age Hall. We're giving away a car. We are giving away a car. Why? Let's do that. Not too, though. Yeah, it definitely yeah, we're partnering with Vehicles for Change. And a lot of you probably saw on LinkedIn, or Facebook, NADA, partnering with some dealer some of our very closest so to dealers and investors Damon Lester Liza Borches, gave car gave a car donated car to a family who needed it. They were tears, they were hugs. There was a lot of that. So we're going to be doing that again, at ASOTU CON. By the way, the speaker list is kind of like the best practitioners in the industry. It's unbelievable. You're gonna go home with a notebook full of notes, new relationships, people you can call to ask questions.
Kyle Mountsier:
Looking at it. I'm like, you can basically start a dealership after this. Absolutely. The relationship. Oh my gosh, they're,
Paul J Daly:
oh my gosh, yeah, that's the thing, right? These events, you'll learn something in the session, you'll take some notes, maybe you'll implement something. But the real deal is, you're going to spend time with these people get phone numbers, email addresses. And now when it's like, so tell me again, how did you get to 90% service retention? How can I get from 60 to 70? Right. Let's make some progress here. Yep. Man, okay. Oh, Nathan, Nathan, our producer is true high brow notes as we're speaking and he said, Michael Lukey. And John Foley did indeed start dealerships after coming to ASOTU CON.
Kyle Mountsier:
I call it to call this shot. I don't even think
Paul J Daly:
of things that way. But it's so true if we were to connect the web. All right. All right. Let's talk about some news talking about speaking of connecting the Web site. I need to redeem that first. In this big way, General Motors kicking off evey battery production right down the road from you, Kyle at the ultium plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, just south of Franklin, just south of Nashville, a major leap toward the automakers electrification strategy. So basically, this is the start of production at the second of four planned joint venture battery plants in the US. They're going to supply first the Cadillac lyric I saw one of those couple of weeks ago for the first time in person soon. You know, in this Spring Hill production facility at full capacity is going to produce 50 gigawatt hours of energy. I don't know if that's per day. What is that a year? That a day it's on a day.
Kyle Mountsier:
I think that's day.
Paul J Daly:
What's a gigawatt? This in fact, I
Kyle Mountsier:
don't know it sounds a lot. Giga just means a whole bunch in my mind is going to be producing a heck a lot of down there in Spring Hill. Actually, I don't know if you know this, but Spring Hill has been like a place where a lot of auto manufacturing has been done. Actually, GM has been there a long time and also well this isn't maybe like the greatest thing but Pontiac was was there for a long time. So like there's a there's a legacy down here and a little bit of south of Nashville on its generation now creating some some net new stuff. Yeah, they got I'm excited. Speaking
Paul J Daly:
of stuff, segue we're just gonna do a little GM feature. First, your stories, your jam, they they go together, they go together really well. So the much awaited Chevy Silverado Evie RST first edition is actually going to hit the market mid 2024. So we are almost there. Talking about a 440 mile range that's higher than the 400 mile range. They initially said that they squeaked in more efficiency out of it. And at a measly starting price. Kyle of$96,495 I had to like read that twice. You can get a longer range one, you know, for 106,000 So it's got you know the features you'd expect them an Eevee 17 inch infotainment screen supercruise and fast charging capability. Basically 754 horsepower equivalent no joke. In 4.5 seconds tows up to 10,000 pounds. And Chevy you know obviously says it's a significant leap forward in evey technology, giving remarkable power and range.
Kyle Mountsier:
You know what's really interesting about this Silverado is it's basically an avalanche. It has over auto what I like about it like $100,000 avalanche? No,
Paul J Daly:
I like the avalanche. Here's what I like about the Silverado look, you can you'll be able to tell that it's an electric Silverado. That's the one thing I really don't like about the F 150 50 is that if you know what you're looking for, you can right like the front grille is a little the front grille
Kyle Mountsier:
of this thing is like basically nothing, right? Yeah, yeah. Right.
Paul J Daly:
It's like a little bar LED light. Yep. And that's it. I think it looks cool. It looks cool. It's got the two way power feature. I like that, right?
Kyle Mountsier:
I still, you know, 400 to 440 miles, like for a big truck seems still a little bit light to me on on what you need. Yeah, just for like really progression and you know, a 50 kilowatt fast charging, still going to be a longer charge. So there's still still a ways to go. And obviously, you know, the complexities of being a heavier vehicle being a truck are always there. But, you know, I think honestly trucks and long range vehicles and things like that have a better. Again, we've always talked about fleet and the opportunity with that, because you just look at the gas spent on these things that have like 16 miles per gallon, right? It's just insane. And so you get the same type of mileage range, you know, fast charging the the capacity of like the horsepower and the towing and not have to spend gas at 60 miles per gallon. Pretty strong, strong value prop. Yeah, I
Paul J Daly:
did see an article this morning about still Lantis saying that they think they the auto industry will be able to have the weight of evey batteries in like over like the next five to eight years. Wow, that will continue. But I think one of the things that's really kind of untested still is like, what happens to these things when you tow with them? Right, it changes the dynamic substantially. And then what happens if you're towing in cold weather? Right, so there's still a lot but I think there are a lot of I mean, like look, pickup trucks. There are also a lot of weekend warriors. Right. And if you've seen the F 150 Lightning, or if you happen to see like the Evie, hover drive run. They're driven by, you know, people with some clean fingernails, you know, saying I'll just put it, I'll just put it there, right. Oh,
Kyle Mountsier:
that's funny, right? Like, there's
Paul J Daly:
two types of people. You know,
Kyle Mountsier:
it's true. That'll change but it's true right now. I
Paul J Daly:
know but that's fine. I think it'd be good grocery getter
Kyle Mountsier:
the old Silverado grocery getter literally equipment in
Paul J Daly:
the back, we can handle this good handle this speed.
Kyle Mountsier:
Yeah our culture really, really can't handle this that that well. If you haven't read on Monday, a large swath of the US is going to be eclipsed. The the, the eclipse is going to be a totality Eclipse, and there's a path through the states like Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, completely covering Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine because you know, they're a little smaller states on Monday in the afternoon times, you know, it's ranges from like 12 to three o'clock depending on what state it is. But there's a big prediction on some major traffic jams and flight delays because of the path of totality. The sub AAA is advising Hey, if you're driving during that time, keep those headlights on says don't use this one was Wait Wait don't use these don't you read have some downstairs to don't use eclipse glasses while driving and avoid stopping on roads to just to watch the Eclipse. Well, first of all, let
Paul J Daly:
me just stop you there if you haven't worn a pair of eclipse glasses. It's basically a well black helmet. Yeah, it's a well the helmet the only way you can see light through these if you take your iPhone light and you put it like right here. Yep, so just say yeah, it's just black magic people drive around with those. It's I guess you gotta say it because somebody's done it it's like insurance policy in
Kyle Mountsier:
2017 This is crazy and 2017 I remember that this eclipse the there was rural interstate traffic congestion that ended up lasting 13 hours pass the event
Paul J Daly:
what Wait, there was a rural rural
Kyle Mountsier:
interstate traffic people out there and outside just like you know, kind of looking up and then not knowing what to do and
Paul J Daly:
boy this feels like an M Night Shyamalan movie they said
Kyle Mountsier:
pack your patience is what is what AAA said get get your get your gas or electric charge all the way up to full because you might be sitting there I've got to think about I was supposed to be on the road on on on Monday during is it Yeah, I'm just going to leave at 5am especially getting a full full full dose Nashville gets it like a partial eclipse. It really it goes like just north of Louisville I think is where I knew across through Tennessee. I didn't know that it's like the edge where Memphis is and then goes up to Louisville so yeah, I still get a good show. Where do you guys get your
Paul J Daly:
full on like Niagara Falls is only a couple hours from here and there like they already declared a state of emergency. Hotel rooms are almost twice the cost right like people are going all in I met that'd be cool place like go to Niagara Falls and like see the Eclipse just you I heard the water is going to stop going over the falls when the Eclipse I'm just kidding. As as a joke. We're too far away from what you bought for April Fool's. You're like you I saw you think you're like what? Yeah, the gravity gravity and all that.
Kyle Mountsier:
Yeah. Can you imagine that? No, it's not the moon yeah. That the wall kind is the moon but that's not the way that that's like
Paul J Daly:
yeah, the sun goes behind the moon supercharges it pulls all the water off. It's like when Captain America shield like kids Iron Man charges
Kyle Mountsier:
go crazy man. People go nuts.
Paul J Daly:
A lot of people actually I will say there is a there's a zoo that is only I don't know five blocks a mile from here. The Syracuse zoo is right down the street from our office and a lot of people are going to the zoo to watch how the animals they react Yeah, because I'm sure that'd be wild. Yeah, that also a tragic movie waiting to be made right?
Kyle Mountsier:
You could also just go to the zoo to watch how the humans respond which will also be animals that's why the animals are going yeah. Like I can't wait for other humans to show up they're gonna be
Paul J Daly:
you're gonna love this Nathan our producer putting just putting the show notes at every room in a hotel room in Syracuse is sold out wow I had Can I Airbnb my house. Absolutely make make $1,000 today
Kyle Mountsier:
just use some tents set up out front you know like you know I'm sure there's people that love to stay in a ticket
Paul J Daly:
you know, definitely do
Kyle Mountsier:
that. Or sideways on it.
Paul J Daly:
Like it's got to be our dealership right? I'm making it an eclipse event happen.
Kyle Mountsier:
I'm totally doing event I
Paul J Daly:
missed missed an opportunity to bring back the Eclipse. Everybody missed that. We'll see you tomorrow.