The conversation highlights the potential impact of new battery technology on the EV market, the future entrance of Chinese car manufacturers, and the generational shift in EV adoption. Ford’s (NYSE: F) recent success with its EV sales, particularly the F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E, is discussed as a surprising turn of events. Ford’s strategic use of financing incentives is noted as a key factor in their EV market strategy. The discussion also speculates on how other automakers like GM (NYSE: GM) might respond to Ford’s approach.

Transcript:

Traction. Now, the guy who comes up with the next big battery that’s huge, that will be the next NVIDIA.

Well, that’s going to be a big deal.

And the Chinese car manufacturers are not in the United States right now.

They probably won’t be in the United States, I would say, best case, a couple of years.

The day that happens, though, even if Rivian and Lucid are still, you know, breathing slightly, you’re going to suddenly have an EV market in the United States that looks completely different than it does today.

Yeah. And I would also suspect that as the population ages and, you know, the boomers start to die and, you know, the Gen X start to age and, you know, maybe the millennials and the Gen Zs, maybe they’re the ones that will supply the ultimate, right? you know, push for the EVs.

But I mean, my son’s 39. So he’s, what, a millennial. He has no intention of ever buying an electric car because he doesn’t trust it.

To me, one of the odd short-term winners here, we’ll have to see if it’s long-term, is Ford.

People counted Ford out completely six months ago.

They put $30 billion into, or they said they were gonna put in $30 billion.

They suddenly retreated. They shut down parts of the assembly line for their F-150 Lightning, which was supposed to be their EV flagship.

Then in May, they suddenly came out with, you know, these really, really good EV numbers.

So it looks like Ford could emerge as doing OK.

Yeah, and it’s surprising how they picked up so quickly, especially when they had been, you know, when the C-suite guys were so negative on how things were going.

So, you know, perhaps they’ve turned a corner. And again, they’re using two of their iconic vehicles, you know.

The biggest selling truck for the last 30 years and the Mustang.

And maybe that was the smart thing to do. Just focus on that.

Don’t try to have a wide range of 20 models or 10 models and go that route.

And maybe that’s what helped turn into the corner.

There’s another interesting thing that happened with Ford.

Ford, having been in the U.S. car business for many, many decades, understands incentives.

They know what to do when sales have slowed down.

So if you look at the Mach-E, you can get a 23 model, not a 24 model, but you can get 0% financing APR for 72 months.

That is in the market where a car loan is… If you have the best credit score in the universe, you can get 5% or 6% on a new car loan.

So that, again, it seems to me to be the way that this market is going to shift is the people who want market share in the EV business, who have access to financing arms, Ford obviously does, are going to start to use their financing arms as a – they’re going to weaponize them.

Yeah, and I’m surprised that – You know, even though GMAC is now a bank, you know, almost all of their business is still car financing.

And you would think Ford, you know, having a similar situation, you would think that GM would find a model that they think they could go with, like the Mach-E.

Or, you know, whatever else is there. I guess they’re going to eliminate the Camaro at one point.

So that won’t play out like that.

So, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see going forward if that trend continues for Ford.

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