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Craig Trudell joins us.
Now our global autos are because Tesla, which I'm sure Tesla will be at CS inactive there and probably has been for well a decade and a half now, is expected to deliver a lackluster number of cars. But I don't know how much it matters at a one and a half trillion dollar valuation, Craig. I'm guessing they could deliver no cars and it wouldn't make much of a difference.
Yeah, it's been fascinating to watch because, I mean, just in keeping with this AI theme, you know, on one hand, Tesla has had this hugely you know, active run of late with you know, selling investors on the notion that, you know, speaking of AI, their vehicles are going to be able to drive themselves. On the other hand, you've seen Wall Street sort of get more and more comfortable with the idea that people aren't actually you know, all that inclined to go out and buy their their cars.
And you know, on one hand, you would you would think that that, you know, vehicle sales would kind of move in at least some correlation with the optimism about the self driving capability that Musk has been promising for years. And yet we've seen a sort of divergence here. Particularly, I would say, you know, in the in the second half of last year where the stock really took off.
To the company's credit, they did have a great third quarter, but everyone saw coming that there was going to be a big payback in the fourth quarter once once tax credits in the US faded away.
So, Craig, that's kind of where I wanted to go.
I'd love to get your opinion as we finished out twenty twenty five.
Where is the industry?
I'm fucking the vult wagons, the general motors, the tessels in this transition to evs.
Are we stalled? Here? Are we stalled on hybrids? Are we about to just reload and re accelerate? Where are we here?
It's it's really a messy picture because you do have a situation where Chinese manufacturers buy and large are are having much less of an issue selling electric vehicles than the rest of the world. You're seeing incumbents elsewhere in Europe, uh and and particularly in the US really struggle to to you know, make up lost ground, uh you know, to the likes of Tesla, even as Musk has come back to them a little bit. But particularly with with those Chinese companies like b y d uh lately gi
Lee as well, having quite a bit of momentum. Uh. And we've we've seen you know, policymakers sort of answer to this and sort of bow to this reality. Just in the last few weeks where you know, in Europe you saw some softening of plans for twenty thirty five
to effectively phase out combustion engine vehicle sales. And you know, in US we saw you know, a really dramatic move out of Ford for them to you know, sort of put out there that they expect to take almost twenty billion dollars worth of charges tied to unwinding all of you know, these ev projects, getting rid of the F one, fifty lightning. It's really a messy picture for the rest of the industry.
Paul loved the F one, He loved the I mean, I loved it too, but I got to say, I feel like the GMC Sierra, which they're going to keep making, is an incredibly solid project.
The Silverado as well.
Therein lies the difference between US electric vehicles and Chinese electric vehicles, Like I guess there are two, right, Craig. The Chinese subsidize this industry to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, whereas the US administration is positioned firmly against EV's And you know, you're paying six figures
for an electric vehicle. If I could buy one now, I would buy a Portia tie Can or maybe the Sierra or maybe a Cayenne, you know, And in China you're going to pay more like twenty thousand dollars for an electric vehicle.
Yeah, I think, you.
Know, to the credit of you know, these Chinese manufacturers, you have seen a company like by D try to have you know, a little a bit of a cake and eat it too situation where to your point, absolutely they sell a heck of a lot of really really cheap electric vehicles. They are also trying to go up market and sell you know, it's sort of position actually, you know, relatively new sub brands of vehicles that are
performance cars. I don't think they're you know, by any means moving those in the sorts of volumes that you know, are in any sort of comparison to what they do, you know, on the lower end. But that being said, absolutely, the level of commitment that we've seen out of China to this project, we haven't seen, you know, from one administration to the next, these wild swings in sort of approach. We absolutely have seen that.
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Ford Motor Company with probably the news of the year from an American automaker, twenty billion dollar write down. It's just absolutely massive, especially if you add it on to the billions of dollars in write downs they've already taken on the EV business. Let's bring in Aaron Kating right now,
Cox Automotive. She has been covering this industry for years and has been a guest on my podcast Oh Bloomberg hot pursuit we start it, Aaron, what do you think about the move by Ford, because they have been really spectacularly unsuccessful with evs. At the same time, General Motors has I can't even count how many. They've got the Hummer, They've got the Sierra, the Silverado, They've got the Chevy Bolt, They've got the Equinox, They've got the Chevy Blazer, They've
got all the Cadillac evs. Like the list goes on and on and on such an incredibly broad offering. Are they losing the same amount of money as Ford was on their Lightning and mock e Well, first of all.
It's always great to see you, Matt.
Thank you for having me hypop As you can tell, I'm one of the sufferers of the cold and illness that.
Came through the holidays.
But yes, I mean GM does have the breadth and depth of the EV lineup, so they've been able to diversify the costs across a pretty broad set.
Of vehicles that are available on the market. So sure.
They've also noted that they've taken some hits from having to build out their electrified portfolio, but.
Certainly not anything on the level.
Of what Ford has had to do because they've had such limited vehicles that have been available, whether it's the Machi or the Ford F one five fifty Lightning, and the Lightning honestly just didn't do as well as they expected it to do.
And so, you know, as they say, even when.
We're talking about teriffs, the more product you have to spread that cost across, you know, the better you're off you're going to be moving into the future. And GMS seem to have nailed it as far as having some models that were really attractive to people at good price points.
That's where I wanted to go erin affordability.
Some of the numbers we hear out there on the average cost of a new car just staggering for most people. What can the industry do, if anything, to address that affordability issue?
I mean, honestly, here's the deal.
We talked about this a little bit in our fourth quarter call the Cars. You know, the price of vehicles, Yes, they've gone up, and we really experienced that huge spike during the pandemic which kind of level set us at this new call it average transaction price of fifty thousand dollars per car. But we are seeing people generally buy more expensive vehicles, the bigger vehicles. So somewhat of this is consumer choice. They're preferring the larger and more expensive vehicles.
And a big story is the interest rates. I mean, this is a no brainer. We we've nearly come back to what about thirty six weeks of income at costs to purchase the car. Now, back in twenty thirteen, that was thirty three weeks of income. But what's really changed over all of these years is that the interest rate has doubled, and so that people are extending their loans.
You know, they're getting we've heard the hundred month loan now, so they're not paying less, they're paying longer, and in fact they're paying more in interest over time.
But the automotive companies, I think.
You know how Ford's talking about, how they're trying to watch their costs, make better decisions on more profitable models.
That's going to help them to at.
Least keep costs down or at least stabilize so that pricing won't continue to go on some sort.
Of stratospheric rise.
But we are going to continue to see normal inflationary pressures on cars, just like we see on any other consumer good by.
The way, reminds me I was in a I wasn't a Dodge dealer last week getting some new shoes on my Dodge Challenger scat pack wide body.
Of course, how's how's that doing?
The naturally appure he and I saw that they were offering zero percent APR and a thirty six month financing for their for their trucks.
Obviously that's going to be a high payment for the short duration.
But are you seeing aaron more companies, car makers, finance arms eat it for the consumer to give them lower interest rates.
To be fair, I think most of those finance deals are coming in for the well healed consumers.
I mean, this is the other thing that.
We talk about in the automotive market is the bifurcated market, right, So it's usually the higher inclement individuals that are actually feeding our new vehicle market in the first place, and those are the individuals that are going to have better credit ratings and are likely getting a lot more of those deals. So would I say that the financial arms are eating it. They were certainly when it came to
electric vehicles. I think that they're likely finding mostly well healed consumers that are able to take advantage of those types of deals, and we're still seeing the lower income quintile just stay out of the new vehicle market head towards the used vehicle market as they traditionally have, and I think we're seeing we're just eating into some more of those customers who may have had a chance in the past to enter that new vehicle market are just having to shop down into used vehicles.
By the way, my sense I saw there a ram with with the big hemy that's coming back, thank goodness. And Ford, you know they have this Blue Oval City or where they call it in Tennessee. They were going to build their next electric truck there. Now I'm guessing it's going to be a steel bodied Ford Classic with the big six point two liter VA. Bring that back, Bring that back? Maybe a stick shift? Do you what do you expect.
When we love a stick shift? We talk about this all the time. Matt, Your knowledge of cars always amazes me. I do think that they're going to continue to look at, yes, absolutely, what has sold in the past, what continues to be popular with the American consumer.
How do they maintain their base.
I think the big question for the future is just going to be where are we losing those entry level customers and will that be hurting us.
In a few years from now? Won't hurt us now?
Where you still have the consumers be able to get into the market and the cars that they like, or I should say vehicles, because we really have very few cars. But are some of the automakers starting to work their way out of that entry level vehicle in the future.
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Let's stick with energy, but get into nuclear because AI data centers have been driving obviously a surge in demand for power, and Centrist Energy says it's expanding its uranium enrichment manufacturing in the great State of Ohio, calling it a consequential transformation. We have the CEO of Centrist joining us now, Amir Wexler. So, Amir, first off, tell us big picture, sure you know, like Dan Ives always says, demand for AI is twelve to one compared to the
amounts of chips out there. I'm not sure exactly what he means, but what about demand for power? How how high is it compared to what we what we can supply.
Now, well, good morning everyone.
Yeah, so we we from our perspective. For those of you are not familiar with with Centrist, Centrist is uh a uranium and Richmond company. Most of the nuclear reactors in the world require uranium and Richmond. We are the only American technology, American owned company, and we're the only ones that are not majority state owned. To your question about energy, it has been really quite fascinating to watch
what has happened in the past year. The demand has been has been hugely associated with the I. But let's not forget the demand out there for nuclear fuel and what we're dealing with. You know, for US AI is just a top I mean, we have a base case assumption that really majority of it does not include AI growth. I mean, we're seeing a lot of commercial nuclear growth, and we're seeing a lot of growth in national security in the United States and a lot of demand for enrichment of uranium.
For that I Meir.
President Trump signed an executive order in May calling for the us to speed up production of enriched uranium.
Are you seeing that practically in the marketplace these days? Is that impacting your business?
Oh?
Absolutely? I think one of the best things that happened to us in the recent history is the focus that the President in fact, that's put on the uranium and Richmond side of the fuel cycle. It is the largest constraint in my view, in the entire fuel cycle and the ability to power the existing reactors and the future reactors. And so absolutely we see a lot of activity, so much so in that we have announced a few weeks ago that we are commencing the construction fabrication of uranium
centrifuges in our facility in Ohio. And by the way, we sort in in oak Ridge, Tennessee. By the way, we we're headquartered in Bethesda, and we operate uh two plants, one in Tennessee and one in Ohio where the enrichment is done. I'm here for the holidays in Toronto, so you see the beautiful skyline of Toronto right behind me. But but we are, uh, you know, based out of out of Bethesda and in the United States.
Uh, why why choose my home state of Ohio? You're located right there.
Look, if I'm driving from Columbus past Chili Coffee down to Ashland, you're right in the middle there.
In pikedon why why did you choose that location?
We we we go, we go way back in that in that facility. Uh, that facility was originally constructed for a demonstration program of some of the centrifuges that we worked on with the Department of Energy. I mean, the the ability of somebody to get into the uranium business, the uranium and Richmond business, the barriers to entry is
almost insurmountable. So I mean, that's a great question. I mean, we've been working on our technology for decades in collaboration with the Department of Energy, and that was one of the original facilities where we have installed some of our demo cascades and centrifuges. In the past two years, we have built a demo cascade that has been producing HALU, which is a high assay low enriched uranium. It's a slightly more enriched uranium that is meant to power advanced reactors.
And that's where we've been operating that cascade from. That's where we've been enriching it from. So our huge buildout is going to happen in that facility. I'm not sure I can exactly answer why Ohio was picked for that, but we love the area.
We have some real talent in that.
Area, and we're able to attract some real talent in Tennessee as well.
I mean, I was just wondering if I was just wondering if the Siota River has anything to do with it, because it runs right through piked in there.
That's a good question.
I may have to consult with some of the historians in the company.
Hey, Imir, one technology that's got my attention here as we think about powering this AI revolution is small modular reactors small nuclear reactors. Talk to us about that technology and what do you think of it?
My personal opinion is it is exciting. I think it's fantastic. There's a lot of companies here in the United States that are developing really exciting new technologies to make the reactors more efficient, more productive, safer. My personal opinion is is it really does not matter to centris centrists is obviously cheering everybody on. We want large reactors to win, we want small reactors to win, we want advanced reactors to win. But at the end of the day, the
enrichment will be required for that growth, you know. Maybe more specifically to your question, I mean, I would love to see a world where we have a real balanced
build out of large reactors. And I think you heard President Trump announced that there's going to be built out of the Westinghouse AP one thousands, and we're also hearing that there's quite a few advanced reactors, small modular reactor companies that are very close to demonstrating their capability and being able to start putting power on the grid and not too long from now. So my personal view is it's exciting where it comes from. It matters not to centrist. We're cheering everybody on.
I mean, what about transportation. I'm just curious about the logistics. I'm sure you don't put it in the back of an F one fifty and truck it off to three mile Island.
So how do you move enriched uranium around?
Yeah, so it depends on what state the enriched uranium is in. Typically, post enrichment activities, it is in the uranium hexafluoride state, which is sort of like a gaseous form, and this is so tightly regulated by the NRC and the DOT. There are licensed containers that are designed and have been tested in a series of stress tests to make sure that all transportation of uranium is done safely and the public is protected. And quite honestly, this the
transportation is very standard. It's been happening for decades and decades now, and it's been happening in Maritimes. It's been happening on the roads and highways and on rails. It's a licensed activity and there's licensed containers that have been tested and stress tested for that.
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Let's talk now about one of the biggest deals of twenty twenty five, or.
At least I guess agreed to.
Deal hasn't been closed obviously yet, and that's the battle over Warner Brothers. Paul, this is the one you've follow in closes. Have you, by the way, have you bought or sold Warner Brothers yourself.
I did with AOL paper back in two thousand, two thousand and one.
I knew you'd been involved in that. And I love this deal also because it's one that President Trump had previously killed. Remember when AT and T wanted to buy Warner Brothers, he's got an interest in and now it appears he said no, the DOJ. They sued, They sued the DOJ and they actually got it done. But then then AT and T was like, wait, this was a bad idea. So then they got rid of it and now it's up for grabs again Netflix.
That was the agreed deal to.
Buy Warner Brothers, paramount, of course, in with the with the hostel offer. So let's talk about how this works out, how it changes the media landscape, the future of streaming, bundling movies, et cetera.
Paul Larby joins us to break it down. He's the CEO of Bango.
Bango is a global tech company that enables providers to reach more paying custo sumers through global partnerships.
I guess that's corporate speak.
I looked on the website and I guess I could just Paul tell me about this. I could go to you and say I want this, that and the other streaming service, you bundle it for me and I just pay you.
Yeah, not directly through us. I mean, in fact, we enable other brands to do that. So if you're a Verizon customer, for example, and you're getting Netflix and hboor Max together as part of a package, where the technology
that provides that. So we enable anybody who as a subscription service like Netflix or even through to AI based services to basically resell it through a channel and where our product for that is called the digital vending machine, and so where that technology partner that sits in the middle. So most people will be using us, but without actually having heard of who we are, Paul, what.
What are people like yourselves in the industry, in the media industry, in the streaming business.
How are you guys.
Viewing this Warner Brothers potential deal going on out there?
Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I think there's certainly the streaming landscape. Potentially this brings together the first and the fourth largest sort of streaming services, and that can zone quite dominating. Actually if you look at the number of streaming services we have. It actually potentially solves a customer and you know, something like thirty percent of people have four more different video streaming services, and if you watch sports then you probably have five or six because
those tend to be more spread across different services. And all our Bangal data shows that customers are crying out for simplification and consolidation, and that's sort of what we've been doing. So it's always bringing these two together makes a lot of sense for a consumer perspective. I think it needs to sort of big put in perspective, Right,
we're bringing these two together. The question is sort of what follows after that, because I I think the last thing we want to do is recreate and if that what Netflix disrupted, which was that big cable TV package, So you don't want to end up with one streaming services that is so expensive. It just looks like the cable packages used to look like sort of five or ten years ago.
By the way, if you were Paul in charge of the FTC and you had to look at the streaming universe, obviously Netflix and HBO and Prime are in there, would you also include YouTube and Instagram and what's the one TikTok? Would would you include all those as well?
Yeah?
For sure, And I think the media landscape is traditionally evolving, and we've talked about things like that, you know, the death of sort of live TV for some for some time now, and life TV has really become now to a point where it's sort of news, big social events where maybe there's a voting element something like you know, the the oscars of the Golden Globe Awards or sport, and really it's sort of really live TV sort of relegated down to those and the people that have really
will survive in this media landscape are the people that embrace these sort of changes. And likewise, we've seen the evolution of sort of short form content that can sit alongside some of the more well produced longer form sort of content. So the companies are going to survive in
this really are all sort of coming together. And it's really the innovative ones that have adopt the live events that make sense, the short phone content alongside the more traditional video onto tim you know, content that are bits of the companies that will ultimately survive and be successful. And I think that's where Netflix has gone sort of great innovation in sort of bringing all these different elements together.
Do you worry Paul about movie theaters all going broke because everything gets streamed and kids just consume content on their tiny little screens in their bedrooms with the door double locks, so mom and dad don't come in.
I mean, what about the big screen? Yeah, I know, I think that's an interesting, interesting thing. And Netflix historically have gone for sort of more niche or limited cinema releases to get sort of prestige or to qualify for sort of awards. I know they've committed to extending and not taking all of the new content. He should the acquisition be successful directly to streaming and still preserving those theatrical releases. But I think actually the theatrical industry has
to sort of reinvent itself. It has to create more of an experience, not just be about seeing something on a slightly bigger screen in a slightly different seat. It needs to it needs to reinvent itself and create that experience. And I think if it does that, they'll always be a place for it. Right, it's a very it's much more of a social element, and so I think it's a case of just just in the experience.
Paul, let's talk about big, big time sports. I'm talking NFL sports, fucking English Premier League. The stuff that really moves the needle is that programming in size going to move to streamers.
Yeah.
I think what we've seen is ultimately it's become fragmented, so it's becoming more and more different places, right, And I think that's a challenge for the consumer. And there's a question of you know, if you're a if you're a massive fan, how many how many of these sporting services are you're willing to sign up for to see the complete season? And I think we we'll get to a point pretty soon where were sort of a breaking point.
And certainly our research has shown that if you're a sports fan, you probably have an extra two or three different subscription services purely to get your entire sports, whether that be NFL or whether that be soccer, so just so you can see the full elements. So I think it actually will, you know, it actually will for sure evolved to the streaming. The streaming players will be involved.
I think that then becomes a question of how many players are really sustainable, you know, how many how many people can you divide a single season between before it, you know, customers just get turned off.
Yeah, I would think I would think sports fans are just unhappy people right now because you know what, when we were kids, Paul, you could watch all of the great to sports on your free over the air broadcast television, and now.
It's just impossible.
No, So it's uh, that's why everybody's That's why if you're paramount, this is a half to do deal.
I it's Netflix. It's a nice deal, But if you're paramount, you got to own one. What does David Zaslov do here, Paul, I mean host to the Best?
This is the guy who I mean when he changed HBO's name to Max, he looked like a chump, but right now he looks like an absolute hero.
Yeah, you know, that was one of those brands that sort of came and went, wasn't it right when we were back to we're back to back to to to where we started. But I think there's I think there's you know, there's a great library of content there, and I think having a distribution part of like Netflix, you can take that content and those brands to market. I
think he's a really really powerful combination. It's sort of creates a sort of question of what's left with the kble assets that are left and what's that what's the value that's that's placed on those? But I think it's a it's a great out look for some some great brands that we all know and love.
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