The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

Trump’s Win Rattles EVs, Musk’s Influence, and IKEA’s Meatball Move

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Donald Trump’s return to the White House could disrupt the auto industry’s EV ambitions. Plus, Elon Musk’s advisory role with the new administration and his plans for autonomous tech. And, IKEA opens its first stand-alone restaurant in London.


Show Notes with links:

  • Former President Donald Trump has won the 2024 election, and his return could lead to major shifts for the auto industry, especially around electric vehicle (EV) policies, trade, and incentives. Here’s what might be in limbo for automakers:
    • EV Regulations: Trump may roll back aggressive EV mandates set under Biden, reducing pressure on automakers to hit strict electrification targets.
    • Tax Credits: Biden-era EV tax credits could be at risk, impacting demand and profitability for manufacturers deeply invested in electric tech.
    • California’s Emission Standards: Trump might revoke California’s right to set its own emissions standards, affecting states that follow its lead.
    • Trade Policies: Trump may tighten restrictions on Chinese vehicle parts, intending to boost domestic production but likely increasing vehicle costs.
  • The Elon factor: Here’s how Musk’s involvement could shape auto policies and beyond:
    • Trump has proposed forming a government efficiency committee led by Musk, aiming to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Musk has already expressed his interest in reducing government spending by 30%.
    • Musk advocates for a unified federal approval process for autonomous vehicles, reducing state-by-state regulatory inconsistencies. He commented, “If there is a department of government efficiency, I’ll try to make that happen.”
    • While Trump is generally less favorable toward EV mandates, analysts speculate that Musk’s influence may push for selective pro-EV policies that align with Tesla’s interests.
    • Musk, a long-time proponent of U.S.-based manufacturing, may support Trump’s trade stance on limiting Chinese parts imports, which could impact supply chains and costs for EV makers.
    • Tesla stocks spiked 15% following the election, underscoring investor optimism over Musk’s potential influence in the new administration.


  • General Motors has claimed the number two spot in EV sales in the U.S. for Q3 2024, with 32,000 EVs sold across multiple brands. Ford, however, disputes GM's approach to these numbers.
    • GM’s EV lineup includes the Chevy Silverado, Blazer, Equinox EVs, GMC Hummer EV, and Cadillac Lyriq, all on the Ultium platform.
    • GM has sold 370,000 EVs in North America since 2016, with 300,000 of those in the U.S. Tesla remains far ahead, with over 5 million units sold globally since 2008.
    • Ford argues it’s still the “No. 2 best-selling EV brand,” claiming GM’s figures count all brands together, altering the comparison.
  • From Reddit polls to repeat diners, IKEA’s food offerings are beloved, with many customers visiting the store just for the food which is why IKEA’s first stand-alone restaurant next to its Hammersmith store in London marks a fresh chapter for the brand, leveraging its famous Swedish

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Unknown:

Music.

Paul J Daly:

Good morning. It is Wednesday, November 6. It was kind of a big day yesterday with some interesting results. Today, we're going to talk about the pros the cons of Trump's win and IKEA meatballs. That is it really one night who I is a show, I don't know why anyone would tune into this one.

Kyle Mountsier:

Why wouldn't you turn in to hear about IKEA meatballs? Nobody cares about the election. Yeah, although the ratings would probably suggest different, I think you know, our ratings suggest nobody cares about our viewpoint on Trump. That

Paul J Daly:

that is true. That is true. We're on the move. You're about to be on your way to Austin. That's right. We're halfway there. Nathan and I are in this little cubicle in this I can't hear, come on, Nathan.

Kyle Mountsier:

It's so perfect. Just

Paul J Daly:

show that people, there's Nathan, we're in like, a glass cage. So they're like, people watching this happen. Like, what do

Kyle Mountsier:

they actually put you in there? Like,

Paul J Daly:

it's a it's a whole like it pretended that we were VIPs, but really it was a containment strategy. Yeah, full on social. We're going to be me, you. Michael Cirillo Al, our Director of Product, talent and events, Nathan, our head of production, Am J, our director of sales. We are going to be together today in Austin. All the communications directors for all the state associations are in one place, and we're going to be with them talking about building brand and automotive and just we have a fun little illustration to start off our keynote. But we're excited to be on the road. We're excited to be in a place with the people who have to tell the story day in and day out in every state, speaking of every state.

Unknown:

Whoa segway, I think we need to get into it. Just got right into it.

Paul J Daly:

Just former President Donald Trump has won the 2024 election, and his return could lead to major shifts for the auto industry, especially around EVs trade and incentives. And we thought we would be good to give you a little break down this from an automotive news article today about the potential shakeups and also some nuances of now, Elon Musk's involvement, likely involvement, pretty definitive involvement, in the cabinet government. He did, kind of contribute $100 million worth of effort to helping Trump win. So I think there's going to be a little more influence than there was last time. So basically, some areas that the auto industry is paying attention specifically around EV regulations he Trump could administration could roll back aggressive EV mandates set under the Biden administration, reducing pressure on automakers to hit strict electrification targets. Also the EV tax credits could be at risk, impacting demand and profitability. This is as manufacturers are still figuring out what what is going to happen and their footing in general, California's emission standards, Trump administration could potentially revoke their right to set their own emission standards affecting states that follow its lead. That's a major one, and moving it to like a federal regulation standard could potentially. We've heard a lot about this, tight restrictions on Chinese vehicles, vehicle parts. The word tariffs has been thrown around,

Kyle Mountsier:

you know? And here's 100% has been thrown around. And

Paul J Daly:

remember those six chargers that we got for our 2 billion or 3 billion, whatever we put in there? It is. I mean, projects like that, I don't know if they could get worse. They can only get better. So, but basically, here's a statement from John Miller of TD Cohen's Washington research group. He says, quote, a Trump victory leads to a lot of immediate volatility in the transportation policy space. So, yeah. So, I mean, that's kind of like the wake of the election this morning. This is the top of the mind,

Kyle Mountsier:

like, just before we get to, kind of the the Elon position in this because it's definitely an important position, you know, I think maybe for the you know that four to eight year ago timeline, when, when thinking about auto, you know, the Trump administration previously was, you know, not a heavy EV, you know, supporter and mover and all of that. And now that Elon is kind of on board, and there's a bit of a narrative change, you know, it's, it's kind of an interesting move that that, you know, obviously we'll still see what happens over the next six to nine months in that first year of presidency, but there's, there's going to be a lot of questions from Legacy automakers, dealers on, like, exactly what policy and what are the next four years going to look like, from production and incentives and and how the requirements are going to be around, around vehicles? I think that would have happened with either presidency, but definitely a hotter topic than we maybe would have expected even a month ago.

Paul J Daly:

Yeah, you know, that's an interesting point about what the Trump administration policy was at the first Trump presidency. It's weird to even say that, but I think that the narrative and the temperature around EVs in general. Shifted quite a bit since then. So I don't think this is a like. This is going to be any type of like, full about face because of Elon Musk. I think it's literally, there's been just a much broader adoption of EV technology, and I think we've seen some very, very tangible benefits of EVs and consumers falling in love with them. So I think that'll play a role. Speaker Mike Johnson, I saw him on an interview this morning, Speaker of the House, and he said, this isn't going to be like the first Trump administration, where it took us 100 days just to get our bearings. As many people know, Donald Trump has funded his he has been funding basically the pre office push to get organize a team, get a plan together, obviously. Now federal funding will kick in to do that, but I think they're gonna hit the ground running, which means these policies could be very sweeping and very quick to be implemented. And there's one person that is now inside the room in a cabinet position, Elon Musk, right? The Elon factor, I said to Nathan as we were walking the airport, I was like, you know, I haven't really considered it until this morning, that now we have Elon Musk in Trump's ear, like, in a real, meaningful way. I wonder what that's going to mean, and what a complicated life.

Kyle Mountsier:

I mean, it's still an auto guy, right? Like, well, it's

Paul J Daly:

still a proponent of building vehicles exactly consumer. I mean, obviously now that Tesla is playing nice with everybody on the charging network, exactly somebody that knows something about putting some charging infrastructure. Charging infrastructure might be able to do something with that billion, those billions. So basically, Trump has proposed forming a government efficiency committee. We'll call it the Department of government efficiency because it spells Doge, led by Elon Musk, aiming to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. 2 trillion has already expressed interest in reducing government spending by up to 30% My goodness, he advocates for a unified federal approval process for autonomous vehicles. And I think this autonomy conversation coming into the top he said, if there's a def, if there is a department of government efficiency, I will try to make that happen. And that's that's a a federal autonomous rules, eliminating state by state rules, you know, and while, while Trump is generally less favorable toward EV mandates, analysts speculate that Musk's influence may push for selective pro EV policies that align with touch Tesla's interests. You know, long time proponent. We said it, long time proponent of US based manufacturing, which is great news. I think could definitely support the Chinese tariffs and all that. However, he also has a little bit of a business interest in just a wee bit of a complicated web.

Unknown:

What a web. What a look again. We're just going to be here. You know what? I mean, we're just telling you what's happening. That's popcorn,

Paul J Daly:

little popcorn, I know. So, I mean, we're all sitting Wait. You know, Tesla investors are obviously pretty excited. They're the Tesla spot stock has spiked 15% since the election results. So there you go. Speaking of EVs, stop

Kyle Mountsier:

segway, you bold claims,

Paul J Daly:

oh yes, GM has claimed the number two spot in EV sales in the US for q3 with 32,000 EV sold from multiple from its multiple brands. Ford, however, is disputing GMs approach these numbers. You couldn't

Unknown:

think that's the story line of like no recount on the right day, you couldn't do it better. You couldn't do it better. Keep going the gmcv

Paul J Daly:

lineup, right? We have the Chevy Silverado, the blazer, Equinox, EVs, GMC, Hummer. EV the Cadillac lyric, all on the same ultium platform. GM sold 370,000 Since 2016 with 300,000 of those in the US. Tesla is far ahead, obviously. Before it argues. Here's the argument. It's still the number two best selling EV brand saying GMs figures count all the brands together, which there's the comparison. I don't know. I think we should let Ford count all those. Lincoln. EV, Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, I get it if I'm for it, I'm probably saying the same thing. I'm probably saying the same thing. It's,

Kyle Mountsier:

it's like fighting. It's like fighting for the number number two, spot on the AP, top 25 you know, everybody wants it. Nobody can have it. Alabama, still number one. You know, my goodness, one of those things, it sounds

Paul J Daly:

like college football, things I don't understand, but I bet we just riled up a bunch of people with

Kyle Mountsier:

that. We did rile up a bunch of people. I just, I just think that it's wild that GM, I feel like GM has been sneaky with this, right, the growth and whether they weren't, right,

Paul J Daly:

they weren't first to market. They took their time, but then they kind of came out, and they're, they're pumping them out, even not really on the DL, but it kind of feels like it,

Kyle Mountsier:

yeah, it just feels kind of sneaky. And maybe it's because the way that they've, you know, the way that the PR game has been, or something like that. But, you know, I think obviously the blazer, the equinox, the winners in. Like the volume side of this thing. But I also the thing that I love about GM is they've really looked at this as like a platform that things sit on top of. It's almost like the rivian initial play of like the skateboard that just can live underneath of anything. And I think that that's probably going to produce dividends in like replicating the process across multiple models over the without

Paul J Daly:

a doubt, I think it's a winning strategy. And you knew now that what a great day to call for a recount, because we haven't heard that anywhere else, thank goodness. It's just, no matter which way it went, the recount game was going to be terrible.

Kyle Mountsier:

It's gonna be there, we'll see things that aren't terrible. Getting hungry, if you don't know about it, Reddit polls repeat diners the whole nine yards from a brand play. If you thought Costco hot dogs were a big deal, you never knew about IKEA's food offerings, they are definitely beloved, and many customers visit the stores just for the food. And now IKEA has its first standalone restaurant next to its Hammersmith store in London, so you got to take a trip there to see it, but it marks a fresh chapter for the brand, leveraging its famous Swedish menu to engage new and returning customers. It's a 75 seat restaurants, so not that huge, and it has a bunch of proven favorites from the restaurant alongside self service terminals for easy ordering. Sounds very IKEA, very IKEA. Matthew Gould, IKEA London cities market manager said, we know how much our customers love the IKEA restaurant, and we're excited to celebrate the opening of our very first High Street restaurant. The the role is going to enhance the shop, the role the restaurant is to kind of enhance the shopping journey and and, you know, obviously draw people into another vertical with an annual $2.5 billion in food sales. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That was the number. IKEA has a long recognized that offering affordable meals encourages customers to stay in the store longer, potentially increasing furniture purchases and elevating the overall experience. This one resonates,

Paul J Daly:

oh my gosh. I mean, I can't help but think of the sweetest chef from Muppets, just when you're reading it, he's like, I

Unknown:

feel you got a visual now. Yeah, we

Paul J Daly:

got a visual now. But, um, if you've been to an Ikea, you understand that it's, it's a little bit of an experience when you go to the store, them having good food and easy way to purchase it, building the fan favorite, and now the putting it outside the store. I think it's mostly just a brand build. They're not going to try to make a lot of money off of this. The fact that it's next to the store. I think it's just a great move to build brand, because, you know, imagine if a cost Costco put up a hot dog stand right like, next to it. Costco, they're not making any money on this. I think the same things with IKEA, but I love them, understanding what people love, giving them some surprising to like, giving them something to look forward to in the middle of the shopping experience. And I think every single dealer can just pay attention to this and implement a little something. Some dealers write like, we're going to be at bozart Ford pretty soon. They have a Ford restaurant inside the complex. Everybody doesn't have room for that, but I guarantee you, you do have the opportunity to create some of this reason for people to come to your story, even in the little ways. IKEA did it in a big way. We're big fans. I think we need to go to London and

Kyle Mountsier:

check it out. Yeah, I would. Well, one that last statement, let's go to London and check it out. If anybody's if anybody knows anybody that needs us to cover this thing, we're on it. Two, is this idea, and we've been talking about it so much over the last few years, of creating a space that people want to come to whether or not they would buy a car is so important, because then, when they actually are looking to buy or service, that extra detail of like, oh, I can go there and get that type of experience right is extremely important in setting like the difference maker, especially when it comes to service, you're just kind of sitting there waiting for 15 minutes to an hour hour and a half, like, how do you enhance and that experience and engage that person while they're there? Could be a myriad of things, but it's probably not the old bun coffee maker and a 32 inch flat screen TV. It's definitely not, I

Paul J Daly:

would say, probably not Wink, wink, definitely not Kyle roll the music. We got flights to catch. We gotta get some scrambled eggs before we get out of here. Nathan, listen, no matter who wins the election, no matter where Elon Musk is, you have a job you can do today, and that's care about the people more than the cars. Let's sell some cars too. You.

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Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly

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