Nissan’s Big US Bet, More Chargers Than Gas Pumps, AI In the Drive Thru

Episode #1001: Nissan reveals a bold new roadmap, slashing vehicle development times and expanding its EV lineup. Meanwhile, California now boasts more EV chargers than gas nozzles and AI is taking orders at drive-thrus—will customers embrace the speed or miss the human touch?

Show Notes with links:

• Nissan is trying to shake off doubts about its future with a major product showcase in Japan, highlighting a wave of new vehicles and a focus on the U.S. market. 
  • Nissan will release over ten new and updated vehicles in the U.S. and Canada by early 2027.
  • The company plans to cut vehicle development time from 55 months to 37 months for the first model in a family, with later models reduced to just 30 months.
  • The Leaf transitions into a crossover, boasting a new CMF-EV platform, a sleek design, and a more efficient, lower-cost battery.
  • Nissan also teased a rugged EV crossover, designed to stand out in a crowded market. The model will be built in Nissan’s Mississippi plant as part of a $500 million investment.
  • The Sentra and Rogue will both get major updates, with the Rogue gaining a plug-in hybrid option.
  •  “The U.S. is of critical importance for us — we want it to grow,” said Guillaume Cartier, Nissan’s chief performance officer.

• California is accelerating its EV infrastructure, now boasting 48% more EV chargers than gas nozzles, according to a recent announcement from Governor Gavin Newsom’s office. As EV adoption surges, public charging options have nearly doubled in the past year, supporting the state’s ambitious green energy goals.
  • There are over 178K public EV chargers statewide vs. 120,000 gas nozzles, and of that, nearly 17K are Level 3 fast chargers
  • On top of that, the California Energy Commission estimates that there are more than 700,000 Level 2 chargers installed in single-family homes.
  • 26% of vehicles on CA roads in 2023 were plug-in hybrids or full EVs and a $1.4 billion investment in EV infrastructure was recently approved.
  • “The California EV driver experience is getting better by the day,” said CEC Chair David Hochschild, emphasizing continued investments in underserved areas.

• Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut are about to get a high-tech upgrade. Yum! Brands is teaming up with NVIDIA to bring AI voice assistants to 500 drive-thrus. The goal? Faster service, more accurate orders, and better upselling.
  • Studies show AI-assisted orders are 29 seconds faster than the industry average and more than half of Yum! Brands’ 2024 sales came from digital transactions.
  • Other chains are joining in with McDonald’s and Wendy’s rolling out AI ordering.
  • Joe Park, chief digital and technology officer of Yum! Brands said AI could improve the customer experience because “the voice AI is always positive, has the right tone of voice, has the right word selection, [and] can upsell consistently.”
  • Todd Kelly, COO of a major Taco Bell franchise group, puts it this way: "The voice AI doesn’t have a bad day… They don

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Transcript

Paul J Daly: 0:01

It is Tuesday. I messed up. It's Wednesday, March 26 This is the automotive State of the Union. I'm Paul J Daly with Kyle Mountsier Today we're talking about Nissan's big bet, more charges than gas pumps and AI in the drive through big changes to the show new intro I got the day wrong, which is something's never some things always stay the same.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:23

The date wrong. I'll give it to you. It was like on a document. It was wrong in the notes, we just we, you know, sometimes you gotta update the notes, Copy, Paste. Here's the rub.

Paul J Daly: 0:33

Here's the rub. The rub. I'm the one that started

Unknown: 0:37

the show notes. Oh no, I'll

Paul J Daly: 0:38

own that one. I'll own that one. But we this. This feels like Episode One and episode 1001 at the exact same time. Yep. Yesterday, big announcement.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:48

Yeah. I mean, it was super fun. This show yesterday. We had a bunch of guests. We had Michael Cirillo. I was in studio. If you missed it, go to our LinkedIn. Go to our user right. Check out. It just is a good look back. I had a ton of fun listening to our three minute first episode, episode 00. You can still find that on any podcast platform, a lot of times it'll come up as just the, you know, the trailer or whatever, yeah, but man, to kind of like, rebrand this and say this is the automotive state Union. This is what's going on. This is the, like, hot topics, and we always bring in retail, and that's what I love about it, because it's, you know, automotive, looking outside of our vertical is a big deal. So you'll get the automotive say you need it every day, but you'll also get some insight from what's going on in the rest of the world that you can bring

Paul J Daly: 1:35

in retail, little culture, how the and, most importantly, how they all come together. That's right people side of the business, etc, etc. It was a right, you really should go watch it. I mean, we had confetti cannons that were surprised. And there was a cake Cirillo. We were all in the studio together. We had balloon things on the wall behind us. We had multi It was fun. I'm gonna go back and watch it, because I just got to experience it like it was so good while was in it. And you never really watch it when you experience the experience. Was fun. Yeah. We also had a lot of fun in the studio, filming, filming screen. I don't even know, antics for ASOTU CON coming up really quickly. I mean, we are under 50 days now. If you haven't checked it out yet, go to ASOTU CON com. If you haven't got your tickets, get your tickets. They're as cheap as they're gonna be, and book your hotel room, because those rooms are like a hair away from being gone in the event space, there's other hotels. Lot of big partnerships are actually still falling in the place we're about to announce soon. But let's just give you a little hint. The people who are pushing the boundaries in this industry are at ASOTU CON, even the industry partners. They're going to be there, exhibiting, learning from dealers, contributing their new technology. You're going to get the inside scoop on what their plans are at ASOTU, so I don't know. And you know, Kyle, I may not have, you know, place kicked a microphone into a stadium, and we may or may not have, I just ran, just a random thought. I don't all right, I think it's time to get into news, huh? All right, this has been a roller coaster. Nissan is trying to shake off doubts about its future by having a major product showcase in Japan, highlighting a wave of new vehicles and a focus on the US market. They're going to release over 10 new and updated vehicles in the US and Canada by early 2027 that's like real soon. The company plans to cut vehicle development time from 55 months to 37 months for the first model in a family, with later models reduced to just 30 months. The leaf is transitioning into a crossover smart move, boasting the new CMF dash, EV platform, a sleek design, more efficient, low cost battery. They also teased a rugged EV crossover designed to stand out in a crowded market. The model will be built in Nissan's Mississippi plant as part of a $500 million investment the Sentra and the Rogues, you know, the good old faithfuls, will both get major updates, with the rogue gaining plug in hybrid option. Here's a quote from How do you say this name? Another Cartier. I'm Cartier, who's Nissan's Chief Performance Officer. I've been makes sense. He's the chief performance officer. The US quote, the US is of critical importance to us, and we want it to grow. So this news coming amidst a whole bunch of mixed emotions around Nissan and stores and well they're doing, to

Kyle Mountsier: 4:24

do this news is welcome news. And they've obviously the last couple months, everything has been about, can we shake up, you know, this organization, to make it profitable, to make it a, you know, bring it back in to the limelight in the US market. You know that many new vehicles. I do think every single vehicle manufacturer should be looking at, how do they reduce the the cycle from, from, you know, in development time? Yeah, five years, five years, five months. Too long. Texture moves too quickly, right? It's so 37 months. That's like, that's maximum, in my opinion. So good. On there, you know, moving things into the crossover state where, which is what is purchased the most in the US, telling us they want. That's what everybody's telling them they want. And, and I would also say, like, you know, the fact that Nissan already has a good amount of manufacturing in the US gives them an upper hand in, you know, vehicle production over the next few years, when US manufacturing is going to be prioritized so there could be a rebound here. We'll see.

Paul J Daly: 5:29

I mean, I mean, we all know like product is a big way, like great product is a great way to start a rebound. Yep, totally. All right, let's talk. Let's keep talking about making things in infrastructure, etc. California accelerating its EV infrastructure now, boasting This is wild stat, 48% more EV chargers than gas pump, gas nozzle. What? What? According to a recent announcement from Governor Gavin Newsom's office as Ed, EV adoption is surging. Their public charging options have nearly doubled in the past year, supporting the state's ambitious goals. There are over 178,000 public EV chargers statewide, versus 120,000 gas nozzles, and of that, nearly 17,000 of those are level three fast chargers. That's still not a ton on top. On top of that, California Energy Commission estimates, estimates that there are more than 700,000 level two chargers installed in single family homes. 26% of vehicles in California roads in 2023 were plug in hybrids or full EVs. And$1.4 billion of investment in EV infrastructure has recently been approved. Here is the CEC chair, David hoffschild saying, quote, The California EV driver experience is getting better by the day. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:49

I mean, obviously the the like little trick nugget in this one is that only 17,000 of these guys are level three, which is what it kind of takes to replace a gas nozzle. Right? You cannot

Paul J Daly: 7:00

put those together, right? Yes, nozzle and level two charger is like, only a totally different thing, only if it's dripping, like the gas nozzles, like dripping and out, you're like,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:09

and three hours later, I filled up my gas tank, right? So that's it's totally different. But obviously the EVA infrastructure there is totally different. The, you know, the in home charger, you know, 700,000 What's that as a percentage of the total number of cars on the road? But clearly, when you're looking at 26% of the vehicle sales being some sort of battery powered vehicle that has plug in or fully v you have to have that infrastructure at a center. But yeah, the the level three charger thing is, that's where it's like, that's when, that's when you get the ability to, like, really, really, take the market. By

Paul J Daly: 7:48

the way, level two charger, Kyle does not fill your tank in three hours. No, no, I think it's eight. It's gonna be like, eight, nine. Yeah, it depends on what you are. You got to ride my EV yesterday I did.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:59

That was okay. Let me just say and 50 lightning, by the way, all the way back to when I first rode in the leaf that we had in 2011 to now, and being in an f1 50 that feels like a sports car when you hit the accelerator, not the gas pedal, the accelerator. It's just fun to drive. It does like that is, it's just a universal truth. I don't think you could actually argue, like, that's not a fun car to drive. I want to know if there's, if there's someone out there that's like, no, EVs, they're not fun to get off the line. You know, let's No,

Paul J Daly: 8:35

it's actually so fun. Like, I'm just going to start every time I put, like, have somebody in the car. I'm just gonna have the camera rolling, because it's surprising, like, it's surprising, especially when you're in a full size truck, that it's moving that fast. And I also think the fact that the f1 50 still looks and feels like an f1 50, right? It's got some little, some extra little, you know, bells and whistles in there, but it feels like you're in a good old f1 50, right? Most popular car in America, but you get a nothing, and it moves fast, and it's smooth, and it's comfortable and it's fun, I don't know, and you never got to drive it. You'll drive it next

Kyle Mountsier: 9:08

time. No, I'll drive it. It'll be great. Speaking of driving to drive segway, the weirdest combined Restaurant Group in the planet Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, all under yum. Brands are getting a high tech upgrade. They're partnering with Nvidia to bring AI voice assistance to over 500 drive throughs. The goal little bit faster service, more accurate orders and better upsell up. Studies show yes that AI assisted orders are 29 seconds faster. Got to get that time in there, then the industry average and more than half of yum brands 2024 sales came from digital transactions. Other chains are joining in with McDonald's and Wendy's rolling out some level of AI ordering. Joe Park, chief digital and technology officer of yum brands, said, AI could improve the customer experience because, quote The Voice, AI is always positive. Has the right tone of voice, has the right word selection, and can upsell consistently. Todd Kelly, CEO of major taco browse, of a major Taco Bell Franchise Group, puts it this way. The voice AI here it is, doesn't have a bad day, they don't get hungry and they don't need a cigarette break. All

Paul J Daly: 10:20

right, that that's amazing. I can imagine that the AI tech is going to sell like, a ton of 99 cent items. Oh, for sure, right? Like, why wouldn't you? And that have, that have high margin, super high margin. And so I think that's true. Think there's, uh, two things that come immediately to mind. Number one, the disparity. When you hear the friendly voice of the AI that sounds human now, right? It's gonna, it's gonna sound really good. And then you're gonna get up to the window, you're gonna be like, Here you go. And they'd be like, Whatever, whatever. No, I think it's an opportunity, obviously, for sales making staff more efficient. I do think that, like, it's draining for people in the drive through to, like, constantly conse,

Unknown: 11:02

this is one of those repetitive tasks, right? What if the space can be, you know? What? What would be best is if these restaurants also paired this with better cleaning training, better cooking training, better interaction at the window. When you are in that face to face interaction, you can have the moment of hospitality that you maybe wouldn't have right when, when you're kind of, like, through this speaker, that's where, that's where I think, like, if the if young brands are smart, they would in, you know, they would like, remove the, the requirement to have that low level of interaction and increase the high interaction, high point stuff, absolutely, absolutely, you know. And that's where actually we were talking to Steve Greenfield yesterday about how the BDC, that was literally the next thing, you know, my thing of the past, and because of AI interact. Well, he doesn't think it can be, he's he's saying, like it's going to be obsolete in in when three years from now was yes, we said, what will episode 2000 what are we talking about? He says the BDC will be obsolete. I'm not sure I fully agree with him on that. Yeah, I don't know if it's fully but I think the way that it operates today, and when, when it requires a high level of emotional intelligence, or just like intelligence overall, absolutely that would, that would flip to flip to a human and we're gonna be able to focus on in store training, on the phone interactivity, outbound sales efforts, things that you know, like the human element, will really capture the audience. I'm gonna

Paul J Daly: 12:33

answer one question here in the comments from our last story. Caleb C Caleb, our friend. One day, my friend, we are gonna meet at ASOTU CON. Question, how fast are level three chargers compared to gas pumps, a level three charger is likely. Let's see a level two average charges at about we'll say 10 kilowatts an hour. Level three charger charges anywhere from 150 to 450 kilowatts per hour. So many, many times faster. You can charge from 10% to 90% in most vehicles in about 30 minutes, versus a level two charger, which would take you about eight or nine hours. So yep, a lot faster,

Kyle Mountsier: 13:09

but still a lot slower than a four minute gas pump, way slower.

Paul J Daly: 13:13

Good point. Well, there you go. That's the first episode of now the renamed automotive State of the Union podcast. This is 1001 we're gonna go to at least another 1000, just for the fun of it. We'll see you here tomorrow morning.

Unknown: 13:41

You.