Am. I am six forty. You're listening to wake Up Call on demand
on the iHeart Radio app. It's time for your morning wake up call.
Here's Jason Middleton. Good morning everybody. Right on, This is your wake
up call. I am Jason. It is Wednesday, June twenty first.
I've been teasing it all week. Happy to say it's Summer Solstice. Also
producer Anne's birthday, and I'm celebrating by going to play mini golf and she
doesn't want to play to celebrate her birthday. Summer Solstice. Happy birthday.
In Summer Solstice, it officially starts at seven fifty seven this morning, La
time. The sunlight today four hours and thirty two minutes longer than the Winter
Solstice in December. Sunrise today five two am. There's not gonna be a
quiz. I'm just letting you know. Sunrise today is at five forty two
am, Sunset is eight o seven pm, and the sun is at the
peak of its arc today at twelve fifty four pm. I don't know why.
I just I love summer sols. I don't know why. I think
it's just because it's like the year's half over, so it's like, right,
on the fence right like half done, half to come. It's got
a few headlines here and then we'll talk about what's coming up later this hour
four wake up call, the Coastguard says underwater noise has been detected in the
search for a submersible that disappeared while exploring the wreck of the Titanic. That
submersible loss contact with its support shipped on Sunday. And at the bottom of
the hour, we're going to get an update live from our ABC correspondent.
The former Air National guardsman accused of leaking classified documents online will face arraignment today
in a Massachusetts courthouse. And the National Hurricane Center says tropical Storm Brett with
one T is getting stronger as it heads towards the Caribbean. Now, we
have some other stories coming out of the KF at twenty four hour news room.
As always we do lead local La City Councilman Marquis Harris Dawson has replaced
Councilman Current Price as president. Pro ten Price stepped down as council president last
week and gave up his committee assignments when he was charged in an alleged paid
a play scheme. A former lawyer for former President Trump is facing disbardment in
LA for eleven charges claiming he engaged in an egregious attack on democracy. The
state bar claims former Chapman University professor John Eastman advised Trump to illegally usurp the
will of the people by obstructing the twenty twenty election. The bar claims Eastman
pushed bogus claims of election fraud to Trump and the protesters who stormed the capitol.
Eastman in January disputed the charges. If the election was illegal, and
it clearly was, then our constitution requires strong patriots to come to its defense.
If the state Bar court recommends disbartment after eight days of hearings, the
state Supreme Court would still have the final say in La. Corbin Carson k
i I News hundreds of sea animals in southern California have been poisoned by the
red tide coming in from the Channel Islands. The Marine Mammal Care Centers John
Warner says sea lions, dolphins, and other animals have been ingesting. Fish
that have eaten toxic algae can show up in whales, It can show up
in elephant, seals, fur seals, Harbor seals, and of course birds.
Warner says the red tide comes from warming waters caused by climate change.
He says if anyone sees a sick animal, don't touch it, call a
rescue center or tell a lifeguard. A new firefighting tool has been installed in
Rancho Pellis berdies The helo pod will help firefighting helicopters refill their water tanks faster
and without landing. Ellie County Fires John O'Brien says the helo pods portable and
connects to a fire hydrant and then when it reaches the top with that float
valve, it'll shut the water down until the copter comes in, drains a
thousand gallons off of it, it'll put another thousand gallons right back into it,
so eliminates that need for the engine company to be stationed here. It's
like a toilet tank. Correct, It's brilliant. Pilots flew in and hovered
yesterday to demo the helo pad. O'Brien says the latest helopad makes it a
total of ten in the county and with its portability, makes it a critical
tool in firefighting. How many fire hydrants are there in La County, oh
that's a good one. Thousands, hundreds of thousands in rentals Palace Verdes Steve
Gregory can of Fine News. I've been doing some math on that fire hydrants
thing in La County. I don't think it's hundreds of thousands. It can't
be. I can't find the number though, But it's more like tens of
thousands, I assume, but I don't know. It could be up to
one hundred thousand. In a couple of minutes, Aaron Katurski will join us.
He's an ABC correspondent. We're going to talk about the Hunter Biden plea
deal that went down yesterday. But first let's get back to some of the
stories coming out of the KFI twenty fire news room. Hundreds of CEA mammals
along the coast of southern California have been poisoned by toxic algae. The red
tide is concentrated along the Santa Barbara coast and creeping downward to La in Orange
County. The Marine Mammal Care Centers John Warner says sixty c animals in La
County have ingested moiic acid created by the algae, and damoic acid shows up
in our marine life sea lions, in particular dolphins, etc. As a
neurological toxin. Warner said yesterday, marine rescue centers are overwhelmed by the number
of animals getting sick, and those numbers are going up daily. In San
Pedro, Chris Adler KFI News Milk Bar is giving away free ice cream to
celebrate the summer Solstice. The Milk Bar store on Melrose is handing out free
many pints of their signature Cereal Milk ice cream today in honor of the first
official day of summer. They come with a spoon and a lid so people
can save the treat during the longest day of the year. First come,
first served, limited to one one per person, of course. The Glendale
School District Board has held its last meeting of the school year with a huge
turnout of LGBTQ plus advocates and protesters. People last night spoke out about the
district's curriculum and policies related to Pride Month. One man says the board should
be charged with pedophilia for grooming kids to be trans I've got kids in this
community that are my siblings, that are my friends. I've got everything here
and I do not want it tarnished by your dubauchery. Another speaker said it's
important for advocates to keep promoting empowerment and inclusion. We need to love unconditionally,
and I'm here to walk that walk for those who feel too scared to
be here. She thanked the district for creating a safe environment for all students.
Rescue crews are racing against time to find a small submersible that was supposed
to tour the wreckage of the Titanic. US Coastguard Rear Admiral John Mauger says
crews are searching an area of the size of Connecticut. We have a P
three aircraft from the Canadian Armed Forces that's been flying during the last twenty four
hours and dropping snabilis listening to this out. Officials say Canadian aircraft has detected
underwater noises during the search and relocated search efforts. The Coastguard has also sent
down an underwater robot to help find the sub We're going to talk more about
this at five thirty within as Daili Kata Right now, we have Aaron Katursky
on the Lago morning erin worrying Jason. Looks like it took five years of
investigating. There's a new chapter though in the Hunter Biden legal situation. Could
you get his caught up please? He's agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor
tax accounts that accused him of failing to pay taxes for the year's twenty seventeen
twenty eighteen, those or years when, by his own admission, he was
hooked on crack cocaine. There's also a felony gun charge from the US Attorney's
Office in Delaware that Hunter Biden more was thaw through a pre trial diversion program,
meaning if he abides by the terms for whatever duration, the charge will
ultimately be dropped. So after a five year investigations, it's three charges that
result, and none of them are going to result in prison time. Now
you and I both have just referred to this as a five year investigation the
Biden legal team. Legal team says the investigation's over, but is it well?
The US Attorney's Office set at a statement the investigation is ongoing, But
I think federal prosecutors kind of always say that there's no evidence that other charges
are going to be brought on any other matter, despite Republican cries and I
think the understanding from Hunter Biden's legal team is that this does resolve the investigation
and they do not expect other charges to follow. And I think it would
be unusual for criminal defense attorneys to arrange a plea bargain if they anticipated that
it was just going to be, you know, followed with additional charges.
I see has any of the GOP pushback on this plea deal, this arrangement
that has been made is a focus on the prosecuting attorney in the case at
all, No, because that's a losing argument, right. It's because he
was appointed by Trump, and this is so I think it's more effective for
the Republicans to just sort of say what they're going to say rather than actually
try to call him to a hearing and get get the actual answer. And
as it is, he's written a letter to the House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan
to say that he was given ultimate authority over the case, that suggesting this
was his decision, not influenced by Attorney generalman Or Carland. I see.
Okay. I guess my last question for you, Aaron, in your experience
covering such things, is probation typical for a misdemeanor. Please like this it
is, you know, to get prison time for tax violations, you really
have to take some doing, you know, I mean the game, right,
Your exposure is usually related to the amount of money. And here was
it. It might have been two million dollars a little less. Hunter Biden
paid it back. Um And I think it had he not been Hunter Biden,
he might not have even been prosecuted on the on the tax charges.
I mean, you usually have to go and try and hide money or or
or otherwise do for the authorities. Um. Here he didn't pay his taxes,
he admitted it, didn't pay them, paid them back, and still
got prosecuted. And we can't think of another instance in modern American history when
a president, a sitting president's son has been brought up on these kinds of
criminal charges. You know, Billy Carter was certainly investigated. And there was
some shenanigans with Neil Bush and the George Delbody Bush's daughters. Weren't they called
drinking at a bar in Houston or something so like? But like this is
the whole whole other thing. I think you and I were both in Houston
when that went down. As I recall, interest. Maybe yeah, I
think we were anyway, Aaron, thank you so much for joining us this
morning, and thanks for the context around the Hunter Biden deal. Much appreciated.
Thank you, Jason, ABC's Aaron Katurski. There, let's get back
to some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour news room.
A proposed Wildlife District Ordinance has been approved by LA's Planning and Land Use
Management Committee. It's a subcommittee of the LA City Council. The ordinance would
impose land use regulations intended to balance wildlife habitat and private property development. Council
Woman Katie Yaroslavsky says it's our responsibility to take care for wildlife by giving it
space to flourish and recognize its positive benefits. She says, if the proposed
ordinance is passed by the full Council, it would first be enacted in the
western Santa Monica Mountains and Hollywood Hills. More on this with Bill handle On
Handle on the News. And for the fourth time in the last forty years,
people in the US are giving less. Charitable giving is declined in twenty
twenty two. The Giving USA report just released shows total giving down three point
four percent, a drop of ten and a half percent when adjusted for inflation.
The decline comes at a time when many nonprofits report an increase in requests
for help. The drop came after two records setting years for charitable giving during
the pandemic. A nonprofit soup kitchen and food pantry in Brooklyn says inflation has
played a big role. It says as prices go up, people need more,
so they donate. Less four hundred ninety nine point three billion dollars was
donated in the US in twenty twenty two. Amy King KFI News. The
Garbani fire is burning in Metapee, but it's sixty five percent contained as of
this morning. The forty three acre fire forced a brief evacuation order when it
started yesterday afternoon, and accused of making a false report of an active shooter
at Ontario Mills Mall, is now behind bars. Police say the forty four
year old man from Rancho Cucamoga caused a panic May twenty ninth when he ran
through the mall yelling gun he has a gun. It's the first day of
summer, hitting the beach may not be great today, though. There's a
bacteria warning for Malibu Lagoon at surf Ryder Beach to Panga Canyon Beach in Malibu,
the Santa Monica Pier and Mother's Beach in Marina del Rang. At Fight
thirty, we're gonna check with ABC's Inez Delikata and get an update on the
rather fascinating search for the submersible that lost contact about nine hundred miles due east
from Boston in the Atlantic Ocean. But right now on the line, we
have CNBC show host, an anchor, and veteran journalist John Fort. Good
morning, John, Good morning. What a transition, right, I'm doing
great. Thank you and thank you for jumping on. I know you're slamming
this morning and getting prepped for you the day I want to start with.
Let's start with a surprise for you. Chair J. Powell is going to
be at the Senate Banking Committee. Lady later this morning, get around seven
am our time here in La What are we expecting to hear from Chairman Powell.
We are expecting to hear him say the same thing that he's been saying
over and over again. But we will read the twitches in his eyes or
the tone of his voice to try to figure out whether the market should panic,
right, I mean, what's been going on here is people really watching
what the how the Fed feels about inflation. Whether we're near the end of
this rate height cycle that seems to be the case, But in inflation has
been pretty stubborn, right, It's just been hanging in there. We have
that CPI number, you know, just a few days ago that was a
little on the hotter side. The consumers continuing to go, so you know,
people will be listening to hear what he says about that. Okay,
that makes sense, And right now I'm looking at in the futures markets are
pretty much flat because they're all waiting to hear what Jay might stay on the
hill, but you're right, he's not going to say anything like revolutionary.
I don't think. Do you think this bull market that we just tipped into
just very recently is for real or is this kind of a bubble? Well,
I mean bull markets are funny, right, because the definition of a
bull market, that kind of classic definition is your twenty percent off the lows,
right, So we hit that. It's been an amazing rally, saying
the SMP this year, but we know that last year in the market was
horrible, right, but we might forget that there was a period where we
were nineteen percent up off the lows, so it was like almost a bull
market in the middle of the year, rise from mid June into August,
and then that all went away. So I think we're in this time where
investors have to go back to the original playbook for equities and for bonds,
which we kind of forgotten because the market wasn't playing by the rules because there
was this easy money from the Fed that kind of flooded it. And really
think about fundamentally, how long do you have to a retirement, What are
your goals when you're investing, you know, how do you judge value in
stocks? What kind of waiting do you want to or to fix the income
or bond portfolio? What kind of yield are you trying to get? And
it's hard to shift mindset, but really, you know, the folks who
I talked to are on CNBC every day about portfolio construction and diversification. That's
what they're saying is, hey, you got to go back to basics.
Here we're speaking with CNBC host and anchor John Ford, and I've noticed John
that on CNBC, you guys cover the tech sector once in a while.
I want to pivot over to AI for a second. I was watching Brian
Chesney, who was Airbnb CEO. He was on Calicanus's podcast this weekend,
and Chesney's point was AI is going to create more jobs than it than it
kills because of disruption. What's your take on that. You've been covering AI
for years. Yeah, I mean Brian Chesky is very rich and he's a
very smart guy. The problem with this storyline about AI creating more jobs than
it kills is it won't necessarily create more jobs for the same people, right
that the jobs get killed for. Right. And so that's where I think
we have to look and say, well, where where am I sort of
in the space? Am I the horse and buggy driver, right? Or
am I the car manufacturing worker in this next era of AI? So I
think panicking doesn't make sense right as we look at AI's effect. But it
really is going to affect that knowledge worker, that white collar worker, more
than previous technology revolutions and advances that have affected the blue collar worker. Yeah,
it seems like the clickbait headlines are all about job destruction and stuff,
but it seems like actually the main concern is the speed at which AI is
rolling out to the the consumer level. Do you think that the tech sector
is going to continue to ask for regulation. Is that just virtue signaling or
are they really hoping to get some regulation that's a little bit of a tar
baby effect. I mean, do they really want regulation to some extent?
But I think they want to be on record having asked for it, right.
They want they want to be able to say later, hey, well
we said we wanted regulation and somehow Congress wasn't able to figure it out.
Um, you know, so don't blame us, right, And I think
they know that once again, this is a technology that's going to have some
runaway impact. It's going to have some impacts that we can't foresee, kind
of like you know, the Internet social media did, And they don't want
to be in position of saying, hey, this is going to be all
good. So I think really the way that you protect kind of your future
when it comes to AI is not to try to stop AI, because we
have a really bad trek record of stopping powerful technologies, especially when there's global
competition to develop capability there. But one are the human institutions, what are
the democratic institutions, things like voter participation and civic awareness and just basic liberal
arts education. What are the things that we can do to be better humans?
Right to counterbalance the software becoming better software? John, thank you so
much for joining us this morning. Next time you're doing a remote from southern
California, let me know. I'll bring the donuts to set. Okay,
all right, just as long as they're not jelly donuts. For some reason,
I'm not I'm not into jelly donut. I'm not either. It's anyway,
it's a mouth field thing. I get you. John, Thanks a
lot, take care of this The NBC show host anchor John Fort. John
and I shared some newsroom space in Silicon Valley for a few years before he
went back east to start some new shows. It's the NBC. Let's check
some more stories coming out of the kf I twenty four our newsroom before we
get to the bottom of the hour. Orange County is planning to open a
one hundred nineteen bed healthcare facility following an eighty nine percent spike in homeless seniors
needing treatment. These are individuals that are unhoused for the first time after the
fifty calopt them a Health Medical director Kelly Bruno Nelson says the forty nine million
dollar hospital like facility will be able to house three hundred additional seniors receiving elder
services until they find housing. With the housing crisis the way it is,
you find many older adults who are in an apartment now because they've lost the
equity in their homes, and then they break a hip or they get the
flu and they can't be in their apartment. They need someplace to recover.
A planning commission still has to approve. In Tustin, Corbin Carson ko find
News, the Los Angeles City Council is ordering a study on the possible formation
of a public bank. Yesterday, the council moved forward with a vote to
start paying consultants. Six Flags Magic Mountain is planning to use the sun to
power all of its roller coasters. The theme park in Valencia will first turn
its thirty acre parking lot into a solar farm. Construction of a solar carport
and energy storage systems will start later this summer. And in the Bay Area,
the Diocese of Oakland is trying to keep the names of accused abusers a
secret. During a hearing yesterday, attorneys argued that confidentiality will protect priests and
other staff from identity theft and harassment. ABC's tech expert and journalist Mike Dbuski
is going to join us a little bit later this hour to talk about charging
stations and who's winning the standardization war. I believe it starts with the T
is the brand. Right now, we have ABC's inz Delicatea on the line
to update us on the submersible that has been lost in the Atlantic Ocean since
Sunday. Good morning, Good morning, So can you just give us the
latest. Let's just go from the top. Yeah, So, the Baker
headline this morning is that, according to the US Coat Guard, Canadian aircrafts
have detected underwater noises its remote operated vehicle operations, where then relocate to that
area to try and figure out where those noises were coming from what those noises
could be. So far, no vessel has been detected, but the hope
is that these noises are coming from the submersible. The data has also been
shared with US Navy experts for additional analysis, and according to some reports,
surge crews have been hearing banging sounds at thirty minute intervals. So Rolling Stone
magazine was setting internal government mecos saying that banging had been detected, that additional
devices had then been deployed four hours later, and that four hours later those
noises were still being heard. It's not clear when the banging was exactly her,
for how long, whether they're still hearing it, but that is certainly
getting people hope, and in fact the Explorers Club, which was founded by
one of the billionaire passengers on board the submersible, they're saying that there is
cause for hope based on field data, since likely signs of life have been
detected at the site. We'll say that we are hearing from some officials from
the Coast Guard this morning who are making the rounds on various media outlets,
and they are causing people, I guess, getting too excited. That they
are reminding people that this is happening, of course at these types of wreckage
site, and that there are plenty of metal objects down there and so the
banging could be coming from anything. Really wow, it's my understanding. And
we've been reporting that the submersible loss contact with its support ship on Sunday,
and most of the stories that you read say the clock is taking etc.
Running down and stuff. Do do you have any updates on any kind of
time frame the Coast Guard is targeting for this search. Yeah, I mean
it really is a race against time. So they had about four days worth
of oxygen when this whole thing began. They first went down on Sunday morning.
They were reported missing on Sunday night. They are believed to have just
about thirty eight hours of breathable air left as of this morning. And and
and so that, you know, is really the main challenge here is getting
figuring out where they are and then getting help to them in time before the
oxygen runs out. They have a bunch of ships that are on the way.
I will say that if the vessel is you know, we tangled in
the Titanic wreckage, or if it is on a seabed down there, then
there are very few vessels around the world that actually have the capability to help
with anything. And the challenge is getting all those different ships to the SEC
in time before the oxygen runs out. But they're trying their best to get
help there. So, for instance, there is a Canadian vessel with a
mobile decompression chamber that is on the way. There's also a French research ship
that has an underwater robot that can descend deep below the seed. The US
Navy is also sending a system designed to recover heavy undersea objects. The US
Military is sending an unfustified adsect, but again that the challenge is getting all
that aid to the site in time before the oxygen runs out, right right,
I know all this focuses on the search and rescue, justifiably, but
a common question that comes up as regulation or oversight, is there any kind
of coastguard oversight on a vessel like this submersible, so you know, when
it comes to specifically coast guard oversight, I don't. I don't know the
specifics of that. I know this is really a joint search and rescue operation
coordinated by the US Post Guard and what helped from the US Navy and the
Canadian Coast Guards of multiple countries involved here, multiple units involved, and when
it up to oversight the company, I think it's interesting to note that the
company. There are questions that are being raised about the company's kind of track
record and safety record, with the Associated Press reporting that the company had been
repeatedly warned that there could be catastrophic safety problem posed by the way the submersible
was developed, and in fact there was a lawsuit. So according for the
LAWSROO filed in the US District Court in Seattle with a director of Marine Operations
fult the company writing in an engineering report in twenty and eighteen that the craft
needs and more testing and that passengers might be endangered when it reached extreme depths.
The company then sued this man and accused him of preaching a disclosure agreement.
He filed the counterclaims that there's things back and forth in courts here regarding
that the company's safety records right. Thank you, okay, well, thank
you for the update and for your time this morning, and as much appreciated,
thank you. Abc'son as delicatea there. Last night KFI Show host Tim
Conway Junior talked with retired NASA astronaut Colonel Terry verts Vertus, a good friend
to Hamish Harding. Harding is on the submersible, so Colonel Vertz is one
of the last people. Harding texted it before he went on the Titans submersible.
So we pulled a little sound from last night show. The submersible that
they're in. The Titan has an automatic system that should be you know,
if the communication dies, it's supposed to drop some weights and goes straight up
to the surface. And that didn't happen. And of course a Colonel Vertz
is you know, he's positive and optimistic. There is hope. And here's
the biggest reason why we haven't gotten any bad news yet. Like we haven't
seen wreckage, we haven't seen debris looating, we haven't heard the sonar.
We haven't heard you know, the crushing or explosion of a serious failure.
That's a retired NASA officer, Colonel Terry Urtz on the Tim Conway Junior Show
last night. Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of the
KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Striking writers in la are planning a large marchin
rally as they're now in the eighth week of their job action with no deal
insight. Allies and supporters are expected to join the writers this morning at Pan
Pacific Park near the Beverly Center. They planned to march to the Great Lawn
of the La Brea Tar Pits. The Coast Guard has suspended its search for
a sailor in southern California who went overboard about fourteen miles off the coast of
Santa Barbara. Crews searched by air and C for nearly fifteen hours, covering
more than two hundred square nautical miles, and when the Long Beach Command Center
got the report yesterday of that man going overboard, and we need to get
ready for FED Chair Jerome Powell. J. Powell to those of us who
cover my guests, his semi annual monetary policy testimony happens today on Congress at
Congress, at the Senate, actually in Capital. It's going to take an
additional importance this time around because as investors are sizing up what happened last week's
meeting when they paused the interest rate hike program they've been on for the last
sixteen eighteen months. There's an additional two hikes telegraphed for later this year.
Last week, pal said nearly all policymakers felt similarly about monetary tightening, and
then Pale portrayed the skip as an opportunity for the Central Bank to evaluate how
policy direction was impacting the overall economy. Basically, when he says data driven,
that's what they're talking about. They're taking a breather for the month of
June to look at the data and see if the sticky inflation is getting less
sticky. Disbarment hearings have started in LA for a lawyer for former President Trump,
who faces eleven disciplinary charges tied to the twenty twenty election. Former Chapman
University professor John Eastman disputed the allegations in January as a violation of the sixth
Amendment, the right to every citizen to competent and Zella's advocacy of a lawyer.
The bar actually imposes that as a duty, and now for exercising and
fulfilling that duty, they are accusing me of things that are simply false.
The State Bar claims Eastman gave Trump a strategy unsupported by facts or law to
obstruct the legitimate results of the election. JP Morgan Chase says financier Jeffrey Epstein
got more than three hundred million dollars in tax incentives from the US Virgin Islands.
The Bank says in a court filing that the government of the US territory
also waived sex offender monitoring requirements shielding Epstein as he gave cash and gifts to
top officials. The Coastguard says underwater noises have been detected in the search for
a submersible that disappeared while exploring the wreck of the Titanic. They lost contact
with their support ship on Sunday. Amazon Prime Day is coming up next month.
The annual sales event for Prime members is actually a two day event and
normally includes some of the best deals of the year on Amazon. So there's
a free ad for a company that doesn't need it. And the largest newspaper
publisher in the country is suing Google. The Ganet Publishing company alleges that Google
holds a monopoly over digital advertising markets. I think Wayne Resnick would call that
prima faction. I believe Ginette, which publishes USA Today and more than two
hundred other newspapers, filed the lawsuit in a New York federal court yesterday.
It is five fifty on your wake up Call, ABC's Mike Dbuski is on
the line. Today's technology topic is charging stations and electric vehicles. Good morning,
Mike, Good morning, Yeah, and a big move in the EV
infrastructure space Jason Yesterday. On Tuesday, Rivian, which is an EV startup.
They make a pickup truck and an suv and they have a contract with
Amazon to make electric delivery vans. They said that they're going to adopt the
North American Charging Standard for their future vehicles, otherwise known as NACS. This
is the Tesla plug. This is the thing that Tesla invented that supports their
supercharger stations across the country. Rivian says, starting in twenty twenty five,
their new electric trucks are going to be compatible with this system. And Jason,
it's kind of the last doomp or the latest domino to fall in Tesla's
favor here, because Ford made a similar announcement at the end of May,
and General Motors followed that up a few weeks later with the same announcement.
All of those vehicles starting in twenty twenty five, those evs are going to
be combatible with Tesla's charging network. So a pretty significant move here, absolutely.
I mean say what you will about Elon Muskin, I sure have.
But boy, building this infrastructure is a return on investment for sure. I
mean this is all be paying off for a while for Tesla. Is this
this is a recurring revenue stream? Right? Yes it is. And you
can imagine from kind of a couple different ways here, Right, all these
that we don't have specific numbers on this, but you can imagine that,
you know, the General Motors and the Fords and the Rivians of the world
have some sort of contract with Tesla in order to do this. And also
you, as an EV driver going up to a supercharger station do need to
pay some amount of money to charge your vehicle. So this is a big
deal for Tesla, and you're absolutely right that this has been a big success
for them. The supercharger network has been around for many years, I believe
more than ten years when it first rolled out. To demonstrate its sort of
broad capabilities, Elon Musk actually did a road trip in one of his cars
across the United States, proving that you can do across country road trip in
an electric vehicle using public charging stations. And they have been broadly well received
too. There's more than twelve thousand supercharging stations across the country. People really
like them, and that's significant when you compare it to non Tesla EV charging
stations. Things like electrify America and ev Go. JD Power put out a
report earlier this year that found that more than one in five EV drivers who
used public charging experience some kind of malfunction or failure, meaning that they were
not able to charge their vehicles. So you can see why a lot of
these big EV manufacturers, despite the fact that Tesla is their competitor, would
want to get into their charging network to sort of smooth this EV transition.
Yeah, because the capital investment on building infrastructure like this was pretty big,
and now he's getting a return on the investment because of the network. He's
mentioned twelve thousand stations tech companies of recurring revenue model. They sure do monthly
subscriptions and the like. So you mentioned Rivian, gm Ford right there,
of any other I'm on the waiting list for a Fisker because we have to
do adoption here in California a little bit more rapidly than the rest of the
country, at least so far. What's the next stage or domino as to
use your word, that might fall here. I think that's a really interesting
question, and we don't really know. I was talking to some experts about
this yesterday and kind of in the wake of the GM announcement as well,
and they kind of pointed me towards the German brands as potentially being the next
major domino to fall in Tesla's favor here. Volkswagen has a lot of electric
vehicles that they have in the pipeline, including a sedan called the ID seven,
And of course we can't forget about their their re ducks, their resurrection
of the microbus as an electric vehicle, of a vehicle called the ID Buzz,
which we're expecting to get here in the States pretty soon. Also,
BMW, Mercedes Benz have a pretty wide swath and growing swath of electric vehicles.
Volkswagen just to go back to them. Let's not forget they also own
Audie and they have sort of a involvement with Porsche as well, and both
of those companies have evs as well. Something that I thought was interesting is
that they kind of pushed me away from the Korean brands as being the next
people to sort of jump on this bandwagon, which was surprising to me because
both Hundai and Kia have very well received evs in the Ionic five and the
Kia EV six. They have more in the pipeline that people are really anxiously
anticipating. Let's not forget the Hyundai Ionic six sedan that is electric won the
North American Car of the Year this year and I was at the announcement as
a matter of fact, the New York International Auto Show. But those vehicles
use and this kind of gets a little technical, but they use eight hundred
volt batteries, which they told me, you know, might not play well
with the current infrastructure because they're a little like too heavy duty. So they
might need to do some sort of reworking of their systems before that domino falls.
Yeah, but you know that that's kind of the size of it.
I mean, it seems like perhaps Volkswagen, but you know, we really
just don't know yet. Well, it seems like, I mean, I
have a USBC to a adapter. You'd think you'd be able to put an
adapter on this and that that's kind of how it stands right now for people
who currently own like Rivan products or Forward evs or General Motors evs. Is
that they say, people who bought into the current vehicle with the old CCS
Combined Charging System chargers, they will give you, or at least the plan
is right now, they will give you for free an adapter that will work
with the new supercharging plugs. So you know, even if you don't buy
a new EV, if you have one already you're not going to be left
behind. So they say, that's how it stands right now. That could
look different in twenty twenty five, but that's that's kind of how it is.
I think the comparison to the cell phone market, though, is smart
because if you look at, you know, the current charging landscape with smartphones,
you buy one plug for the iPhone and you buy a different plug USBC
for pretty much everything else. But coming this year on the next generation iPhone,
it is going to transition over to USBC and we're seeing that broadly happen
in the EV space as well. It's it's funny how those two markets overlap.
So yeah, all right, well I'm gonna I'm gonna throw a curveball
at you before I have to let you go. You've been covering tech for
a long time. We were talking about Elon Musk a second ago. Have
you heard anything from the boring company in the last several years. Oh,
let me think about that. Uh yeah, not exactly right. They're they're
digging tunnels under Las Vegas the last I checked on them, and I believe
that right now. It's just Tesla's the drive back and forth through them,
which I guess is maybe a new ability solution, but like, yeah,
the hyper loop you know that was that was kind of does not seem to
be coming together, at least within the timeframe that they predicted. I have
a ball cap that says a boring company. I went to an event and
they gave it to me. I'm just filling nostalgic for it these days.
Did you buy the flamethrower? You didn't get the no, no, but
I haven't. I have been. I have watched that video of Musk making
a full of himself. Um, Mike, always a pleasure to talk to
me. Thanks a lot for your time, you two. Jason, take
care Sees Technology and news reporter Mike Dbuskie right there. A couple of quick
headlines before we get to the top of the hour and handle on the news.
Workers looking for the cause of a thirty thousand gallon sewage discharge from a
manhole in Rancho palas Verti's manhole earlier this month have discovered human remains. The
remains were found last week in some overgrown brush. No information has been given
about the conditions of the remains or how long they had been there. Attorney
General Rob Bonta says the state is working with online retailers to combat retail theft.
Organized retail theft cost the state billions of dollars each year, Bonta says.
To tackle that, the DOJ has created a portal for the public to
report any suspected retail theft activity, and online marketplaces doing business in California are
required to link to that portal, Bonta said yesterday. Retailers like CBS at
Cnebay have been pivotal in helping to identify retail theft. Online marketplaces have signed
an information sharing agreement to help with the effort. Chris Adler KFI News we
lead local live from the case if I twenty four hour News. We're MM
by Jason Middleton. This has been your wake up call. You've been listening
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