EM Chat: State of Electric Vehicle Industry (Tesla, Nikola & Workhorse)

Alec: [00:02:49] This is our afternoon beer discussions. We have a chat. It's a little bit more casual than the podcast, and we do it over one beer. That's the role of a beer. It's done. If the conversation if the conversation is bad, either of us can scholar beer at any time and walk away, which [00:03:06][17.1]

Bryce: [00:03:07] thankfully hasn't happened to to this point, I don't know, maybe the first episode is finished awfully quickly. Well, I was talking, [00:03:12][5.6]

Alec: [00:03:15] but we always start this with a question. And so I'm going to I'm going to kick it off with a question today. OK, so Amazon's got Prime Day. Alibaba has Singles Day. Yeah. What the what the hell is Tesla's battery die. [00:03:32][17.0]

Bryce: [00:03:33] Do you want me to like do they actually have that much? Yeah, yeah, [00:03:36][2.6]

Alec: [00:03:37] it was yesterday. [00:03:37][0.3]

Bryce: [00:03:38] Oh, they have a battery day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Battery day for Tesla is where they they I guess discount they discount the batteries that they have on sale. [00:03:49][11.2]

Alec: [00:03:50] They don't discount the cars at [00:03:52][1.3]

Bryce: [00:03:52] discount the cars. I'm thinking the batteries that charge the cars maybe. Yeah. [00:03:56][4.4]

Alec: [00:03:57] Well I feel like every company just wants a day these days. And so yeah Tesla had I don't know if it was its first battery day, but it had a battery day yesterday. And that got me thinking about what the hell is going on in the electric car industry. So that's going to be the topic for today because there was a lot actually overnight. All three of the major US like electric car stocks got absolutely punished. Tesla down 10 percent, Niccola down twenty five percent, workless down seventeen percent. So I'm keen to get into why, you know, there's a lot going on there. A CEO resigning, a whole bunch of stuff. [00:04:38][41.5]

Bryce: [00:04:39] Now, that's interesting on [00:04:40][1.0]

Alec: [00:04:40] today, I guess, and an electric car investor. And we know a lot of the community are Tesla has been such a hot stock this year. [00:04:47][7.3]

Bryce: [00:04:49] So Tesla. [00:04:49][0.6]

Alec: [00:04:50] No, I'm not. I'm not. I want to be in one in terms of my I hope my next car purchase is a Tesla, but I'm not in the stock. [00:04:58][7.6]

Bryce: [00:04:59] Yes. Yeah. [00:04:59][0.6]

Alec: [00:05:00] But before we do all of that, this is after no discussions and we always crack a beer. And I've been out there looking for a beer sponsor during covid. We kept saying that on the video. And we're pleased to announce that this afternoon beer discussions is brought to you by the boys behind the Battuta Bida. Now you can get this Finbarr a number of bottle shops and soon to be at Dan Murphy's. So that's that's a code for the bear in [00:05:31][31.5]

Bryce: [00:05:31] Dan Murphy's, I'm pretty sure. [00:05:32][1.0]

Alec: [00:05:34] Well, there you go. So pick up some bitter, bitter and we're going to enjoy one. [00:05:39][5.3]

Bryce: [00:05:39] Now we are Ren cheers to afternoon beer discussions, resurgence and everyone listening on the podcast crack BYU. Listen, listening to this and you can join a gang or a wine or a whatever you whatever your flavour is. So so yeah. Ren so electric vehicles. [00:05:57][18.2]

Alec: [00:05:59] So yeah. Electric vehicles [00:06:00][1.1]

Bryce: [00:06:01] themselves. [00:06:01][0.0]

Alec: [00:06:02] I've done very well as a stock over the years. Um, well over this year in particular. So let me set the scene by giving you the journey of the three big electric car companies and how they've done this year. So Tesla has been the main one. Everyone knows Tesla. It's a three hundred and fifty five billion dollar company headed up by Elon Musk, and they have had a pretty incredible run from the start of the year, up four hundred and eighty percent, their share price up to the 31st of August. But then things have softened recently and are down about twenty four. Twenty five percent really for the month of September. So things softening after an incredible run, [00:06:46][43.8]

Bryce: [00:06:46] although the robot trade is getting absolutely burned. [00:06:48][2.0]

Alec: [00:06:49] Yeah, that's it. That's it. But but that's the Tesla right around four hundred and eighty percent up is great. That pales in comparison to two smaller electric car companies both traded in the US that have had bigger rises and bigger falls in the year. So Nikola is probably the next best known electric and hydrogen car company focussed on. Well, what do you think the next biggest one is, you're [00:07:18][29.2]

Bryce: [00:07:19] even more well-known than wammo. [00:07:20][1.3]

Alec: [00:07:22] Oh, I'm talking us only there's a bunch in China that's that's fair. [00:07:25][3.6]

Bryce: [00:07:26] OK, ok, OK. Why Google when [00:07:29][3.3]

Alec: [00:07:29] Google, Google and its self-driving? It's not true, I'm sure. Yeah. [00:07:33][3.8]

Bryce: [00:07:34] Yeah, true. I just think that's okay. [00:07:37][3.3]

Alec: [00:07:38] So the other rule for people who are unfamiliar with afternoon to be a discussion is we don't edit. [00:07:43][4.6]

Bryce: [00:07:43] Oh yes. [00:07:43][0.2]

Alec: [00:07:44] That is beyond our skill set. So this is one one take. Everything gets in one take wonder. So next biggest in the US is Niccola. For those unfamiliar hydrogen and electric trucks is really their focus. Their share price was up six hundred and seventy three percent to the 9th of June. So kildea like if you're investing in Nicollet you were very happy. But then, then the share price is down 74 percent since then and it was down twenty five percent overnight in the US in one day. And we'll get into the reasons why. But again, just setting the scene an incredible run up and then for them, they've lost three quarters of their value in three months. So a pretty incredible story there that will get stuck into it. But that's not even the best performing electric car company of this year. The best performing one, at least in the US, is a company that a lot of people probably aren't familiar with, a two point five billion dollar company called Workhorse Group. [00:08:51][66.4]

Bryce: [00:08:51] Yeah, I've never heard of these guys know. They sound like they sound like they're a clothing company for trading or something. [00:08:57][6.3]

Alec: [00:08:59] Well, they're not, but maybe that's a product extension that they can get into. They're focussed on like an electric pickup truck. Is there the name of the game? They're also trying to do like electric helicopter type thing. But I don't really know what the goal is there and I don't know if that's more marketing hype than anything else. So electric pickup trucks are really the main thing you did up to the 18th of September, they were up just shy of nine hundred percent. So, you know, you think Tesla's four hundred and eighty percent is a good workhorse, up almost nine hundred percent. But since the 18th of September, they've also softened down twenty seven percent, including down seventeen percent overnight. [00:09:50][51.0]

Bryce: [00:09:52] What's it called? Workhorse. This is just a classic situation and you're seeing it here in Australia with the buy now pay later sector. It's just a situation where you have one big brand that is just absolutely running and it runs first. It runs strong. It gets a lot of attention. It gets a lot of media. A lot of people start saying that they're making a lot of money and inevitably. People start looking at the actual price of the stock, you know, Tesla was hitting, you know, over the thousand dollar market at one point in time, then they did the split. And there's probably this workhorse I don't know what it's priced at at the moment. [00:10:27][35.7]

Alec: [00:10:29] And two and a half, two and a half billion dollar company. Twenty to twenty two bucks a share. [00:10:33][4.0]

Bryce: [00:10:34] Yeah, exactly. So it seems a lot more accessible for someone who's just kind of entering into the market or whatever. And there's this. What happens is you get this like rise of the industry or the sector as investors say, hey, Tesla's done well. Well, I guess these other ones are going to do well, you know what I mean? Like, it's a weird psychological effect. [00:10:54][20.5]

Alec: [00:10:55] But what I'm wondering then is if Joe Rogan's getting hundreds of millions of dollars for his podcast, why isn't that, you know, that rising tide lifting output as well? [00:11:04][8.7]

Bryce: [00:11:05] Yeah, I mean, we're we're getting, um. [00:11:10][4.7]

Alec: [00:11:11] But yeah, no, I definitely know what you're saying. It's you know, people say in Afterpay in, they're like, you know, this is revolutionising payments, it's disrupting the credit card industry. And then you. Yes, your you're splitting everything else. You're Flexibles or ride those coattails of the sort of groundbreaking first mover. Yeah. [00:11:33][22.0]

Bryce: [00:11:33] And I just find it a fascinating sort of, I don't know, psychological angka that, you know, when you talk to people like, you know, even colleagues or friends or whatever, you know, they jump into the cesspools and the and the what was that zip? Purely because Afterpay sitting at 22 and they're down in the one and two Dollars and they're like, oh, well, you know, it's got to hit twenty to twenty three bucks. And it's just a fascinating sort of mindset. Yeah. I don't often fall for that trap but anyway, sorry Ren up derailed that. [00:12:02][28.4]

Alec: [00:12:02] Nah that's all good. That's what afternoon beer discussions is all about. It's a lot looser. You know, we can go off on tangents. You go all the time. But anyway. That's right. Right. So the look actually on that point, though, around the smaller companies following the big one in early September, there was a classic example of that in the electric car industry. One of Tesla's major shareholders trimmed their position and Tesla's shares fell a little bit as a result. And for no other reason than that, both Nikola and workhorse had a down day. I think it was like second or third of September. And the reason given was, well, Tesla shares fell. So those two fell as well. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just like an industry leader can move that whole industry, you know, for something that is quite specific to that, to Tesla's stock there. [00:12:56][53.5]

Alec: [00:14:51] so bad day all round yesterday. To recap, we're recording this on Thursday, the 24th of September overnight. So Wednesday, the twenty third of September in the US, Nicola was down twenty five percent, workhorse was down seventeen percent, and Tesla was down 10 percent. So all double digit. Polls across the board [00:15:14][23.0]

Bryce: [00:15:15] now, the market itself was down two and a half percent. There's actually been a bit of a sell off going on since sort of mid August, slowly sort of since mid August, and has accelerated over the last few days, which is another interesting point that we might want to discuss on another afternoon discussions. But we can talk about that later. Um, yeah. Yeah. And it's these sorts of stocks generally, you know, you see it time and time again. These hot stocks that run and run and run are the ones when there's a little bit of a market correction, they're also the ones that absolutely get slammed. But I assume that there are will. I know that there are some actual stories behind some of these electric cars. There are. There are. [00:15:54][39.7]

Alec: [00:15:55] So so for me, the electric car and hydrogen car industry is interesting. And even that dynamic electric or hydrogen is an interesting one. But for me, the story is such a positive macro forces and like such a strong tailwind and then some quite company specific, interesting elements. So like, if we start with the macro, like even yesterday, the day where these three companies also double digit falls again, there was such positive macro stories for them. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, announced that California would eliminate internal combustion engines by twenty thirty five. So any cars sold in California after that day would be net zero emissions, which you would think, you know, California, what is the sixth biggest economy in the world? It's like, what if that if a state of that size and with that many people and without much economic power, I guess, is saying we're going one hundred percent, you know, zero emissions, you think that would be great news for those stocks that the government, with the stroke of a pen, has eliminated most of their competition and yet they all have double digit falls. And so, you know, we're hearing more and more of those stories across Europe, across China, like the move to electric cars, is going to be government mandated and it's going to come a lot faster than we expect. And we all know the reasons why. And look it, you know, personal opinion. It's a good thing that the government stepping in here because a car you sell today probably has 20 years of life on the road. So if we're serious about facing internal combustion engines out, we need to start acting now so that the share price movement is just divorced from what's going on in the ground. [00:17:45][109.7]

Bryce: [00:17:45] And. Yeah, well, I mean, that's happening across the market anyway. Well, that is, broadly speaking, the question. So we're in 2020. You're saying by 2030, five combustion engines will be a thing of the past for any new vehicles in California of the electric vehicle manufacturers that we're talking about now, Nikola Tesla, workhorse wammo with their self-driving. Well, slightly different. Yeah. Yeah. Let's stick to those three. [00:18:13][28.1]

Alec: [00:18:14] There's a there's a bunch in China as well that if people are interested in not investing in a story, China's probably next place to look. [00:18:22][7.7]

Bryce: [00:18:22] Do you think we have seen the company that will be leading the sales of electric vehicles in twenty, thirty five? [00:18:29][7.1]

Alec: [00:18:31] Yeah, and I think it's an established company. [00:18:33][1.9]

Bryce: [00:18:33] Yeah, oh, [00:18:34][0.3]

Alec: [00:18:35] yeah, GM's making a big push. GM bought 11 percent of Nicolau a few months ago there. I mean, look, every company is making a move yet. But, you know, if I had to guess, probably like a European car company is probably going to be number one. Yeah, Tesla maybe. Like Tesla classic. Right. Like, I just love the Tesla car. Aside from everything, what it how it runs and all of that, it's just a really nice looking car. [00:19:09][33.5]

Bryce: [00:19:09] It is. Yeah. One day. One day. [00:19:12][2.5]

Alec: [00:19:12] One day. When we get that Joe Rogan podcast. Um, but I reckon the most interesting story is the Niccola story. [00:19:23][10.7]

Bryce: [00:19:23] So what's. [00:19:24][0.6]

Alec: [00:19:26] So obviously they were flying. Their share price was up six riving. What did you say [00:19:34][8.1]

Bryce: [00:19:34] driving, you said flying. That's not my best Sarino anyway, [00:19:41][6.9]

Alec: [00:19:43] so the share price was flying and then things really fell off the rails. A short seller released a report of the short seller was Hindenburg Research. If people want to check out the report [00:19:54][10.8]

Bryce: [00:19:56] just to those who are brand new to this, what is a short seller report? [00:19:59][2.7]

Alec: [00:20:00] So what was saying? So when you short a stock, you're basically betting that the stock will go down and you make money if the share price falls. And so what we're saying with a lot of short sellers these days is that they will take a short position. So I put that put that bet or put that trade on that, you know, they'll make money if the share price falls and then they'll release a report to the market that explains why they're sure that position. And so it's been a pretty effective technique for investors of light that a number of, you know, big companies have seen their share price fall on the back of those short selling reports on the most probably the most notable one in Australia of light was on was a blue sky blue sky investments that went to zero like it on its no longer traded nose at US short seller. That took a short position in the stock release. This report that just savaged it and the share price fell as a result. Yeah. So anyway, this company, this research house and short seller Hindenburg Research, good name for a short seller and invoke Hindenburg to release a report, made a bunch of claims, including that they had there was this video in like twenty eighteen of Niccola truck driving on the road. They claim that video was fake. Niccola have claimed that they make a lot of their own parts in-house. The short sellers were criticising, not saying that wasn't true. So it was a bunch of claims made. Nikola's response was incredibly lukewarm, including admitting that this video was fake. Apparently they got their prototype truck and rather than driving it down the road, they found a road that had like a low gradient and they rolled it. Yeah. And so that was that. They acknowledged that some of the parts that were supposedly made in-house were off the shelf. And like there was a bunch of things that the company basically admitted. [00:22:14][133.7]

Bryce: [00:22:14] So it just fascinates me that, you know, and it reminds me of the bad blood book and podcast. You know, the what's the code for Elizabeth? Theranos don't knows how these people genuinely think that they can deceive the market and other very, very intelligent and people out there and in some instances, people who are specifically set up to uncover like fraudulent, deceptive behaviour like this. Like, look, [00:22:48][33.4]

Alec: [00:22:49] I mean, I get what you say more broadly. I think the allegations made against Nicola and what happened at Theranos, different leagues like. [00:22:57][8.7]

Bryce: [00:22:58] Sure, sure. I mean, the fact they like [00:23:01][3.2]

Alec: [00:23:02] the fact that they faked a video, does that actually say anything about whether their trucks work and whether they'll disrupt trucking? [00:23:09][6.6]

Bryce: [00:23:10] Um, it's which is the flow on effects that it has, though, like, you know, people pour money into it perhaps based on. A cardboard truck rolling down a hill. Look, GM bought 11 percent of the company. [00:23:23][12.7]

Alec: [00:23:24] It wasn't a popular drug, but yeah, it [00:23:26][2.1]

Bryce: [00:23:27] was like, yeah, yeah, I'm just trying [00:23:28][1.3]

Alec: [00:23:28] to protect us here from you saying something outrageous that gets us in trouble. [00:23:33][4.5]

Bryce: [00:23:35] Sorry. Continue. [00:23:35][0.5]

Alec: [00:23:39] So on the back of that lukewarm response from the company, the SSA, the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US and the Department of Justice have both opened an investigation into the company the same. Well, so Trevor Milton was the founder and then CEO and Chairman Hayes resigned. And the other thing was, so Niccola is making a big bet on hydrogen and hydrogen needs refuelling stations, basically, I think. Yeah, classic petrol station, but hydrogen rather than petrol, they were in negotiations with a bunch of those companies. It's like the papers and stuff of the world. And those negotiations have also broken down on the back of this short seller report, the investigations, all of that stuff. And so that's that's all happened in the last week or so. The report might be a little bit longer, but, you know, Trevor Milton resigning and these negotiations breaking down. And so that's that's the big reason why Nicola was down twenty five percent overnight. It's just this short selling report has really thrown a cat amongst the pigeons. [00:24:50][71.7]

Bryce: [00:24:51] Yeah. Which generally is the case when these reports come out. And one reason why a lot of people hate short sellers. But it's obviously enough in the report that is worthy and scary enough for the senator to resign, otherwise you would think he'd be coming out there and refuting allegations pretty vigorously. The board would be behind him like, [00:25:13][22.0]

Alec: [00:25:13] yeah, yeah. [00:25:14][0.5]

Bryce: [00:25:14] I mean, it seems all a bit not fishy, but if he's resigned and run for the hills, then you'd think, well, maybe this short selling report has something to it. [00:25:23][8.7]

Alec: [00:25:25] I thought, here's here's my here's my cynical take as well. Imagine if you had founded a company and you are I think he owns like 20 percent of the stock or he owns a fair bit of the stock. So you can't you founded this company. At least it's now worth eight billion dollars. Obviously, it was worth a lot more, but still eight billion dollars is nothing to, you know, nothing to complain about. He owns 20 percent of it. Potentially, he's just resigning to protect his investment. He's a billionaire now out of this and it's like. You know, someone else can fight the good fight, he wants to just be a billionaire. Fickle. I mean, I'm not saying that's what he's doing, but I [00:26:08][43.2]

Bryce: [00:26:08] mean I mean, it's a pretty weak way to go out on it. Is it is. It is. You've done all this work and then you've let one report kind of. Yeah. Who knows, maybe that's what he was after this whole time. [00:26:21][12.1]

Alec: [00:26:21] Yeah. I mean, the other thing is, if he owns 20 percent of the stock, other investors and shareholders own 80 percent of the stock and potentially that was a board movement, you know, kind of like what happened with Obama, with Travis Kalanick. Why wasn't he he didn't want to leave, but he got forced out, you know? So. Yeah, anyway, so that's Nicolau and Jaam who bought 11 percent standing behind them. But that will be a really interesting one to watch because, you know, trucking like obviously trucking is big business like that. That's obvious. It's, um, but it needs to be disrupted if we're going to make this change. And Nicholas seemed like a company that was going to really benefit from this transition to a net zero economy and, you know, this fight on fight against climate change. And now it's all a bit I mean, you know, their products probably still good, but it's it's all a bit up in the air now. [00:27:17][55.4]

Bryce: [00:27:17] Well, do they even have a product? [00:27:18][0.8]

Alec: [00:27:20] They have a prototype. And look, my information might be out of date, but I'm pretty sure they have a prototype and then they've got contracts for trucks. I think they've got a big contract for a bunch of waste trucks recently. But it's not like they're at the Tesla stage where they're pumping truckstops an assembly line, which to be fair, like Tesla was at this stage one one time and everyone was it was a bunch of short sellers then and, you know, big time they got through it. Yeah. [00:27:47][27.0]

Bryce: [00:27:48] The thing with the GM. Pardon me. No, the thing with the GM is if they've come in to buy 11 percent of, what, an eight billion dollar company, so they've spent, what, about eight hundred million close close to. [00:28:02][14.5]

Alec: [00:28:02] Well, yeah. And it was when they bought it, it would have been more than eight billion because it's eight billion as of time of recording after the share price has fallen. Seventy four percent from June. Yeah. So, yeah, for argument's sake, they might have bought into double that. [00:28:16][13.7]

Bryce: [00:28:17] So surely they would have done their due diligence on the whole thing as well. You know, it's surprising that I'm fascinated with how short sellers actually come up with this information and get it ahead of market, or is it that people aren't looking for it and they're they're always saying the positive in these companies, like you've got a you know what I mean? It's just a fascinating thing. [00:28:37][20.2]

Alec: [00:28:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:28:38][0.6]

Bryce: [00:28:38] And no, I'm not saying it's about becoming a short seller. [00:28:41][2.4]

Alec: [00:28:43] I mean, it's just, you know, like we've both worked at big companies and [00:28:47][4.2]

Bryce: [00:28:49] I [00:28:49][0.0]

Alec: [00:28:49] like how information flows through a company. And, you know, I like the different incentive structures that different people have. It's you know, it's it's a it's a difficult one to give. I obviously, I'm not going to be out to give you a reason why GM invested, but it's. Yeah, you can understand how companies make those mistakes and look, for all we know, Jame's due diligence was good and this company's trucks are going to revolutionise the world. And three years from now, they will have made a bunch of money. Niccola will have accelerated GM's transition and this video will feel extremely outdated. We don't [00:29:26][37.1]

Bryce: [00:29:26] know. So the question for me, Ren then, is, you know, you mentioned it before that the macro's behind this a great. Do you have any more stories that you want to tell, are you? [00:29:40][14.2]

Alec: [00:29:41] I've got a few a few facts and figures about the other ones, [00:29:43][1.8]

Bryce: [00:29:44] but you do that and you do that and then close out with my question. [00:29:47][3.1]

Alec: [00:29:48] OK, I work workhorse the company that no one's ever heard of. [00:29:53][5.2]

Bryce: [00:29:55] A billion dollar company. [00:29:56][1.0]

Alec: [00:29:56] Yeah, a little something out of it. But I'm going to hazard a guess that a lot of people listening to this podcast and video haven't heard of it. Price to sales ratio, eleven thousand two hundred. No one might [00:30:09][12.1]

Bryce: [00:30:09] know [00:30:09][0.0]

Alec: [00:30:09] sales. Oh, they do. I think it's like it's less than a million. I think it's in the hundreds of thousands a year [00:30:14][5.2]

Bryce: [00:30:15] and it's valued at two and a half billion. [00:30:17][1.9]

Alec: [00:30:18] Yeah, yeah. It's just it's it feels like the ultimate hype stock. Well, obviously not making any money, in fact, losing a lot of money every year. Its debt. I mean, it's funny, I was looking at its stock price and then the increase in debt over the last couple of years and you can like chart it and it sort of would follow a similar trajectory. Wow. Yeah. But I mean, look, again, it's sort of like if you're going to invest in the industries of the future, they're going to have a runway to get started. And you just have to believe that they can get through it. But it's you know, it was up almost nine hundred percent for the year. So it was a lot of belief built into that. [00:30:58][40.2]

Bryce: [00:30:58] Still phenomenal. [00:30:59][0.3]

Alec: [00:30:59] Yeah, yeah. And then last one just around Tesla. So battery died. I did. Because, you know, that's how I that's how I started this, asking you what it was, because I had no idea. I was like, are they selling cars cheaper, like, you know, Prime Day for Amazon and singles? Dief Alibaba is a whole bunch of bargains and they try and just sell as much as possible. But, um, not that's day, I think is just when everyone gives a speech about apparently, um, apparently the way that they gave the speech in this whole Covid times was, um, all the shareholders in attendance sat in Teslas and alone gave a speech. And rather than applauding, they beat the. [00:31:44][45.1]

Bryce: [00:31:46] Where was this Gigafactory? Somewhere I would like to buy. [00:31:50][3.8]

Alec: [00:31:51] Yeah, well, it was just whoever was in attendance sat in the car and then the whole night. Yeah. Tesla. I don't know. I don't know. But he um. Yeah, he gave a speech. There was a bunch of stuff on. The one that caught my eye was he is now saying that he wants to get a Tesla out that costs twenty five thousand us. Um, so again, wow. I mean if I can do it and you think about the mass market appeal of a twenty five thousand dollar Tesla, um, that's a pretty compelling price point for a pretty good car. [00:32:29][38.0]

Bryce: [00:32:30] So if anyone is interested, if anyone's interested in checking out the Tesla batteries, I just had a quick squeeze on YouTube and there's a bunch of stuff that you can actually go and say this happened. So I'd recommend going and checking. So Ren, the question for me is that, you know, you mentioned, as I said before, that this is a space that has great macro behind that. You know, the world is certainly heading in this direction. You mentioned California. A number of other countries are also sort of making similar pledges. Why is it then that you're not invested in any of these companies, do you think? [00:33:10][40.2]

Alec: [00:33:12] I mean, the main one for me is valuation, I would love to be exposed to this industry, but I just whichever way I look at it, I just can't justify it. And, um. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's a long shot of it. Are you are you invested in it? [00:33:29][17.1]

Bryce: [00:33:30] Obviously indirectly through a number of ETFs, but not not directly through. [00:33:35][4.5]

Alec: [00:33:35] Yeah, I you know, like so they're not in the not in the S&P. Five hundred. The other two wouldn't be are they. They might be the Nasdaq. One hundred. [00:33:43][8.1]

Bryce: [00:33:45] Let us check that. But anyway we could be wrong there. But to your point. Yeah, maybe you're right, maybe not at all. I mean if you're in the MCI World Index you're probably scooping up potentially. Yeah. Um, but yeah, for me the volatility [00:33:59][14.8]

Alec: [00:34:00] would that would probably be in the Nasdaq. One hundred. But yeah that's that's a way. Don't know that off the top of our heads. [00:34:05][5.5]

Bryce: [00:34:06] Yeah. Yeah. Do I do your own research for me. The volatility in this space, something that I kind of want to steer clear of at the moment. And you know, you just mentioned workhorse. I mean, it just seems like there's a lot of money coming in and out and not a whole bunch of fundamentals that actually support the price movements in these companies. It's it's too hard for me to understand who's going to be a winner. Two twenty thirty five. It might well be the existing car manufacturers that just have their stuff. So yeah, I think yeah. [00:34:41][35.4]

Alec: [00:34:42] I think that's a really interesting one to watch. Um, I forget the name of the company that owns Mercedes and a bunch of other car companies, but, you know, they're announcing a whole bunch of, you know, net zero emissions cars and stuff like that. Um, it's just [00:34:58][16.2]

Bryce: [00:34:59] the facilities [00:34:59][0.4]

Alec: [00:35:00] of the industry will shake [00:35:01][0.7]

Bryce: [00:35:01] out. Yeah. They they know how it works. I can certainly see that sort of a scenario happening where the Tesla of the world still exist. But you really sort of cheap, accessible electric cars are coming from pre existing sort of manufactures that have been able to pivot. They've already got the scale. They've got the suppliers, they've got the know how. It's just a matter of putting it into practise. [00:35:25][24.0]

Alec: [00:35:25] So, yeah. And I mean, who knows even what technology would win. Like there is a there is a battle going on between hydrogen and electric in. In terms of which one will come out on top, so, yeah, it's there's a lot there's a lot to be shaken out. So I don't say I would love to invest in the industry. I don't see a clear way to do it. Maybe if hydrogen wins and hydrogen refuelling station and the ultra cheap hydrogen refuelling station stops ultra cheap before they run or whatever it is, that might be an opportunity. The. Yeah, I it. I just don't say it at the moment. [00:36:03][37.6]

Bryce: [00:36:03] Hmm, nice Ren. Well, unless you've got any other stories, I have finished my battuta. [00:36:08][4.4]

Alec: [00:36:09] I just on just one last thing that people can write on their own. Tesler is now suing the US government over over the China tariffs that Trump's put on. So that one that will be one to watch over the coming probably months. [00:36:26][17.0]

Bryce: [00:36:26] Wow. Well, yeah, absolutely. Watch this space. So look for those that are on the podcast. I hope you have enjoyed often in discussions. Please head across to our YouTube channel to join us for a beer or wine. Often I have a red Conaway's get access to the BS rents always on the BS being the boy that he is. But look, thanks to obviously Battuta bid for the sponsorship of the episode and Great Grapey will continue with this one until Ren gets out there and sells some more advertising spots. But as always, Ren great to chat stocks. One topic we both finished up is and looking forward to catching up often in discussions next week. [00:37:10][43.4]

Alec: [00:37:11] Yeah, sounds good. I'm looking forward to doing this consistently from here on in. [00:37:14][3.6]

Bryce: [00:37:15] Yeah, I get it. Get off my back. [00:37:15][0.0]

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