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(bright upbeat music) - Welcome to "Business Forward".

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, John Davis.

I'm so fired up right now.

I not only got John here on the set, but I also have one of the coolest backdrops you'll ever see.

Creator, host, senior executive producer of "MotorWeek" and Emmy award-winning producer.

I love that piece of it right there.

Welcome.

- So do I.

Thanks, Matt.

Thanks very much for having me on.

- Well, welcome.

Let's get right down to it.

When we're talking about the passion for cars, have you had that your whole life?

- Yes, I think I have.

I mean, I can remember back when I was probably 12, 13, 14 years old, my grandfather had an old three on the column Studebaker, and I would drive it up and down his driveway, never out in the street, but basically I was just getting the feel for it.

And I couldn't wait to get my driver's license at 16, but I went a little different direction.

I went into university as an aerospace engineer.

I got a degree in that.

I really loved airplanes too.

So, long about the way, I got back into cars.

But yeah, I think you could say I've had a little bit of gasoline in my veins all my life.

- Which is really cool.

But you also not only have the car piece, but you had another unbelievable run at a show- - [John] Yes.

- "Wall Street Week" and that show is of interest to me too.

And so, why it's really a pleasure to have you on is someday I want to be in your shoes.

(both laughing) - I've been very lucky.

And Truax Darlington who created "Wall Street Week" with Louis Rukeyser at about the second year that the show was on, they were getting ready to go year round.

And I was actually working on "Wall Street" at that time.

And I didn't really like it.

And I saw an ad in the New York times that a friend of mine would get every Sunday morning.

And it was looking for a producer that had a business and TV background.

And I had that along with engineering, and never dreamed that I'd get the job.

And I was the senior producer of the show to its end.

And then while we were doing that though, I got a chance to develop "MotorWeek".

And so, I had already moved a lot of my skills over there.

So that was 30 years, and "MotorWeek's" been 41.

And hopefully, it'll be 42.

- I mean, with the aerospace background, and then you take the "Wall Street" background, I mean, do you look at yourself almost as an analyst, so to speak, like- - Oh, definitely.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Short story is at the end of the Vietnam War, they weren't hiring a lot of aerospace engineers.

So I got an MBA because I knew I was gonna need it anyway.

And that sent me down the analyst path.

So I worked in "Wall Street" for a firm named Kidder Peabody and for a director of research who believed in hiring engineers with business backgrounds.

His name is Johann Gauss, and Maryanne Keller, the foremost automotive analyst was right down the hall from me.

So anyway, yes, I do believe I'm an analyst.

And that set me up perfectly to basically not only produce "Wall Street Week", but also to analyze cars.

So yeah, I do believe I'm an analyst.

- It's interesting because when I talk to CEOs, I like that analyst point of view when you kind of take the deep dive into the financials or into, and so when you look at it from your standpoint, when you're talking about cars, you can do a lot of homework on a lot of different companies.

- Because of the engineering background, I like to look beyond what I'm looking at.

When we get in a new vehicle at work, or I hear something's being announced, I wanna know, and in this case today with so many new electric cars, what's at the heart of it, what's the technology and the batteries that maybe makes this car different than the other.

So I am very still interested in the engineering.

And because of that, sometimes people have criticized "MotorWeek" for being a little bit too analytical, a little too much into the numbers, but I think that's what makes us different.

We really do test cars.

We don't just look at a car and say, this is the new features, and isn't it pretty.

We go out and try and figure out what makes it above the rest.

And I think that comes, a large part, from my analytical background and some of the folks that work for me.

- Yeah, and I like that point of it.

And then when you look at automotive experts or insiders, whatever you want to call 'em, and they tap you for information 24/7, what are some of the topics that have maybe even changed, but over the past 15, 20 years that you've become just that guy, that expert in that field?

- Oh, I don't know if I'd say that, but I do think that my longevity has given me a certain perspective as to where we are today and how we got here.

And there are a lot of things that we see that come around a second time.

I mean, this is not the first time that we've played around with electric cars.

It looks like it's serious this time, but I can show you in our archives footage of cars that ran on coal, ran on all sorts of weird things.

So alternative fuels, and it's something I'm quite passionate about, has been around for a long time.

It's only now that because maybe the high price of fuel and also the fact that batteries have become practical, that we're really getting into it big time.

- That's some good stuff.

So I talk about on this show a lot about my kids.

I have five kids, and they range in ages, but three of them have their licenses now and can drive and then the other two don't.

- You don't sweat this 24 hours?

- I do.

That's why I'm asking for, I need you to kind of calm me down, but I think about safety all the time.

And so, from a safety standpoint, is that the number one thing that you and others in the industry look at on a car first, non collectors?

As you're trying to sell.

- I think when you look at what a car means to people, really means to people, safety is number one.

I don't think, unless you're buying the vehicle for a large family transportation or for a sibling, I don't necessarily think it's the first thing that comes to mind, but it's really at the heart of it.

While we talk about electric vehicles and all this revolution and power trains right now, we've actually are ahead for the last 30 years or so, our revolution and safety, because as electronics have become better, we've been able to put in systems that make the vehicles just flat out safer.

And if you're a parent or even if you're just carting your family around, it has to be important.

And I'm talking yes, antilock breaks and skid control at the beginning.

But now it's things like cameras everywhere.

So you really do have eyes in the back of your head.

Lane-keep assist, it makes sure that when you're daydreaming, you're not going over to the next lane.

Backup assist.

So if somebody's behind you in your blind spot, it puts on the brake, automatic braking, which doesn't stop you necessarily, but it slows you way down.

Now all of those things were actually developed because we thought we were going to start seeing a lot of autonomous vehicles, and you need those systems to make autonomous vehicles, self-driving vehicles work.

But the offshoot is it makes every car that much safer.

And there's just no question about it.

The car you get in today, it's just worlds better than anything you can imagine even 20 years ago.

- Are we ever going to feel comfortable with cars or trucks that drive themselves and sitting in the back seat?

Let's say, I mean, I can't picture- - I don't think I will.

- [Matt] I can't either.

- There's been a lot of hype about autonomous vehicles, but as long as you are thinking about mixing autonomous self-driving vehicles with human-driven vehicles, I think they're incompatible because I just don't think on the same road, an autonomous vehicle can outthink a driver who may not even know what they're gonna do a second from now.

I can see autonomous vehicles in a downtown setting, on a campus, we have them now.

I just don't see them intermingled with regular vehicles if they're fully autonomous.

Now with the exception of the systems that actually, instead of using sensors to read traffic, they're just programmed to follow the road.

And GM Super Cruise was the first system that did that.

Those systems seem to exist pretty well, but they're limited.

You can't do everything with them.

I don't think in my lifetime we're gonna see the fully autonomous car become commonplace.

- Well, I was talking to someone that's part of a big trucking company and they're in the logistics piece.

And they're talking about, there's a need for truck drivers and there's a need for efficiency because truck drivers have to rest.

And so, there's that safety piece.

And then what if you take one of these cars or trucks, so to speak, semis, and say, okay, we're starting in Chicago and we're going to send you to Wichita.

And you look up as you're driving and I see, there's no one there.

And it's a big semi.

That doesn't feel good to me when I was having this conversation.

- I have again, a hard time seeing that happen.

However, I will say, they're doing just that in Europe, across Australia, they've been doing these trains of tractor trailers with one driver and for a long time.

So there is experimentation going on there, but what happens if a car, as we see so many times passes the tractor trailer and then zips right in front of them.

And the tractor trailer may take a quarter of a mile to really come to a halt.

I think it's that kind of thing that you're still gonna have to prove to me and probably to the authorities that those vehicles can react that way.

I can see the reasons they wanna do it.

They're talking about doing that with aircraft.

- [Matt] Which is even scarier.

- I think so too.

- Well, you've tested thousands of cars.

You've seen just about everything.

What are some of the things that you've seen over the years that have just stood the test of time that at first you looked at it and you went, "There's no way that's gonna stay or that's gonna work or anything like that."

Has there been anything that sticks out in your mind?

- I think anti-lock breaks, because when they first came on, they were pretty crude.

They pulsated so much that when they actually started to bring the car to a halt, you were so frightened from the pulsation, you took your foot off, which was counterproductive.

The industry didn't do a good job of telling people how to use them, that you just put your foot down and keep it down.

So I think that was a very disturbing thing to a lot of people and even to those of us that tested the vehicles, just the differences in the systems from one to the other.

Now, of course, everybody's long since had them standard.

They work very, very well.

They've saved thousands and thousands of lives, especially in bad weather.

And we went through the same thing with skid control.

So those systems, I think, started off this whole big move toward driver safety in an active sense, we already had the airbags, they were passive, but just to give the driver something that helps them when they're actually physically driving to avoid an accident, not protect you if you've already hit something.

I think that was a huge watershed.

The other one, I think that I've lived through is what's going on right now, the electrification of the automobile after seeing it played with since the '20s.

I mean, electric cars are hardly new, but to finally get batteries that are reliable and to start seeing people buy them for everyday transportation, even though I don't particularly believe they're perfect for a long distance or if your only vehicle, but for around town, I think we're there.

- And you've gotta think with technology and with the Elon Musks of the world, that 250 mile range or 300 mile range becomes four.

And then five- - [John] Of course.

- And then over time.

And so, I think that's gonna be interesting too.

- I mean, it's funny, as we've tested these electric vehicles, first, we said, 100 miles is not enough.

It needs to be 150.

Then it's gotta be 250.

The Chevrolet Bolt comes along and breaks that 200 mile barrier.

And now, like you said, Musk was up to close to 400.

Now we've got a 400 mile Silverado pickup truck and we've got a 500 mile Lucid coming outta California.

So where is it going to be enough?

And the answer is when you can stop and fuel up at whatever kind of charger there is in the same amount of time that it takes you to fill up your gas tank- - [Matt] Yes.

That's when we're there.

- All right, you took my next question.

'Cause I was gonna say that the one drawback, for me is I'm sitting here, not just the range, but the time.

- It is.

I mean, the companies like Electrify America, which are private companies and they're doing their own thing, they are getting the refueling time down to the 15 and 20-minute area, given perfect conditions, the right car, the right charger, all of that.

So it's probably not that far away, but my personal opinion is that what's called a solid state battery, the next evolution in batteries, which Toyota and actually the US government has spent a lot of money, of our money developing.

Those will essentially be able to be charged up almost instantaneously.

And I think that's where we're headed.

And when that comes, they'll be no reason for them not to be in every garage.

- So this is gonna be kind of a funny question because you come across and I think you are just the expert, so when people that are car people, and they look and they go, John, he knows this and he knows.

So when you make a recommendation, there's value to it.

(John laughs) Give me a couple of examples of something that you've seen and you go, "Well, this is gonna be pretty cool."

And then next thing you know, it just kind of went off the off the track.

- Oh, there've been so many cars.

When you look back at our older episodes and you look at some of the vehicles that we thought were just fabulous vehicles and they were big duds.

And there's quite a few of 'em along the way.

We can look back at when AMC was bought by Chrysler and they came out with the Eagle line and there was leftover stuff from Reno and it was car of the year.

The Eagle premier, everybody in the business thought this was the passenger car of the future.

Well, it turned out not to be.

And I'm afraid that my legacy is littered with recommendations like that.

- I just think stuff like that's always funny.

- It's always fun.

- It is fun.

- I mean, you look at cars, when we test cars, we test them by today's standards.

- [Matt] Right.

- And when something really stands out, it's greater than sliced bread.

Well, five years from now, maybe not so much.

- Yeah.

And so, 20 years ago, we didn't have social media and we didn't have cell phones and this and that.

And one of the things that's taken over in America, maybe across the world is this distracted driving.

I mean, there was always distracted driving by eating and things like that- - Which Americans basically showed the world how to drink and eat while you're driving.

- Right, right.

And I guess my question to you is how bad has it gotten?

Because that's the piece with my kids that scares me the most, is texting or getting a text and they think they have to respond right there or whatever it may be.

You've gotta hear some stories that are just sickening in a sense.

- Well, the last time I looked at the statistics, I believe about 10% of the fatalities that we're having, and right now we're having more fatalities on the roads today than we had 15 years ago.

And that's very alarming.

But when you look at the major cause, the thing that keeps popping up is distracted driving.

I will tell you a little story very quickly.

The first time I had my first cell phone, I was somewhere on some car event and I had to drive myself to the airport.

It was a couple hours away.

And I was fascinated with this new device.

I was probably calling the office and maybe my wife, who knows.

I look up after about 40 minutes and I had spent 40 minutes driving in the wrong direction.

I was on the right road, don't get me wrong.

I was going with traffic, but I was driving away from the airport instead of towards the airport.

And so I had to turn around and go back.

Nobody got hurt.

It was out in the middle of nowhere.

But that day, and that's been quite a while ago, I realized how dangerous this was.

And it's problematic for all of us.

You're driving and you've got this great idea and you wanna text or something, and yes, you've got voice activated systems on your car.

But this theory that the human brain can concentrate on more than one thing at a time, they haven't ever proved that to me.

And I think I'm living proof that it doesn't work.

- Before the show we had a conversation about alternative fuels and we didn't really get deep into it, but you did make a good point.

'Cause I look at alternative fuels from we're in the middle of farm country.

- [John] Correct.

- I mean, we have the best soil in middle Illinois and the whole country.

So it's an interesting topic here, but you had said something that is very interesting.

People in New York don't really care about it, people in California or- - [John] That's right.

- Care as much about it.

- What happens is when you mix a lot of alcohol with gasoline and you get whatever level of gasohol, 10, 20%, whatever it's going to be, you are putting less BTUs into that gallon.

So while out here, it makes terrific sense as a source to displace some of the oil and import less or to pump less of it out of the ground.

When you take it to other parts of the country, they look at it as I'm getting less energy and paying almost as much for it.

So why I'm getting fewer miles per gallon.

So I don't like that.

And then you hear all the scutlebutt about if you've got an older engine, how it can take the varnish off on the inside and clog things up.

Some of it's probably true, some of it's not.

So it's like everything else we discussed today in this country, there seems to be a hard one side and a hard the other, once you get outside of where it truly makes sense.

When I come to the Midwest and I see I'm driving around town and I see the advertisements for various levels of gasohol, if I'm right driving the right car, I say, "That makes sense.

It's saving me some money.

Yeah, I'm giving up a few miles per gallon," but the psyche is totally different when you move outside the area.

And it's too bad because there is a place for those biofuels.

I do not believe that there is one alternative fuel that fits every culture.

"MotorWeek's" been involved with the US Department of Energy and their clean cities program for 20 years.

And we know that some places biodiesel makes sense, some places it's auto gas, some places it's natural gas, whatever.

Different commercial and everyday uses demand different fuels.

Electricity is what everyone's concentrating on now, but electricity doesn't work everywhere.

- Right.

And you said clean fuels, clean air, clean.

Why in some states like Arizona, you can go and you have to go get your car and go through the, it looks like the oil change place.

And you go through and get the emissions test- - [John] Even Maryland.

- And you don't have to here.

Why is it that just a common thing across the United States?

- It has to do with, and I believe I've got this right, the environmental protection agency looks at different metropolitan areas and says this area has an air quality problem- - [Matt] You're right.

- And you need to do something about it.

- [Matt] Okay.

- Now, in Maryland, we have to do that in most places around Baltimore and around Washington, you have to get your car inspected every couple of years.

And they do an admissions test and there are ways to get around it if you're older or don't drive your car very much.

But generally speaking, once your car's two years old, you go in for a smog check.

And I do believe that it's helped because it keeps people from tampering with the exhaust system, taking the catalytic converter out and putting straight pipes on just because they think it sounds better, but it has to do with federal regulations and pressure on the state, because they say, if you don't do this, we'll withhold highway funds or something, but that's why in some areas you have it, in some you don't.

- When COVID hit, there was a lot of different disruptions in sectors of business.

And automobile industry was a big piece of that.

- [John] Big piece.

- And so, what do you see is the biggest disruption in that industry right now?

- Well, we talk a lot about chip shortages and we've been talking about this now for almost two years, and nobody really knows when it's going to end.

And that's exacerbated by all this trend towards new electric vehicles, 'cause they take like 10 times the number of chips that an internal combustion engine car might take.

And all the new safety features and the home and the entertainment systems, it's all very chip heavy.

So that's a big part of it.

The other part is just attracting qualified employees so they can work at the plants.

And another part is that we still bring in, besides chips, a huge amount of componentry from other countries.

A lot of it from Asia, they're having renewed problems with COVID.

So it's all of this sort of, it really is COVID-related, but it's not just as simple as a chip shortage.

If you've got a stereo system or entertainment system on your vehicle, chances are that entire system was sourced from somewhere in Asia.

- And I was gonna ask the question, then what's the biggest disruption for dealerships, but that you just answered it because it's a trickle down.

- Absolutely.

- And so, that really has to do with the inventory because I think of lot- - It does.

- [Matt] Of inventory.

- Well, you can pass any new car dealer.

And where it used to be, the lots were so crowded.

You couldn't find a place for a customer to park.

Now they've got lots of room because they don't have very much new inventory.

Honda just said they have a two-day inventory on new dealer lots where the traditionally, it will be anywhere from 30 to 60 days.

The other thing that's happening, even used cars are being sold at inflated prices and new car dealers, which traditionally will only sell a car is three, four, five years old.

They're selling 10-year-old vehicles with 120,000 miles just to have a variety of vehicles for customers to choose from.

On the other hand, they're selling cars for least or above MSRP.

And they're getting great prices for used cars.

So the dealers and the sales people, they're doing okay, but it's the consumer who may be having a hard time finding a car that they really wanna have right now.

- And that's what you focus on a lot- - [John] Yes.

- And with your shows is because you care about the dollar in the pocket of the people buying- - We do.

- [Matt] The cars - I mean, we test a lot of expensive cars, but we do look for value when we give our annual drivers choice awards.

One of the overriding things is within that class, whether it's Sedan, or SUV, or pickup truck, what offers the best value because in the end, I think that's our service to the audience.

- What's the favorite car?

What's your favorite car that you've owned?

- Oh, well, this goes back a long way.

Back in the '70s, I bought a hybrid vehicle and I don't mean hybrid powertrain.

It was part Italian and part American.

And it was the De Tomaso Pantera.

So it was an Italian bodied sports car, but it had a Ford motor company, had a Mustang V8 engine in it.

And this was a collaboration between Llorando De Tomaso who owned the company in Italy, and Lee Lacocca when he was at Ford.

And I bought it because I wanted something really wild, but I wanted to be able to fix it.

And I said, I got a Ford V8 back there.

I know I can fix that.

And it was a good thing 'cause everything else in the car gave me trouble.

(both laughing) So I think even though the car went away, a lot of folks in my position, you wanna buy a house, you're getting ready to get married, so there's the down payment, but I loved the car.

And I loved the concept of something exotic that you looked at and drove and felt special.

But behind your head was something extremely reliable that you knew you could tinker on when you had to.

- I asked this to every guest that comes on this show, we talk about community a lot and the value of what community means to one.

What does community mean to you?

- I don't think anyone's ever asked me that question before.

I would say community means to me local.

And in my case, I lived in an area that's pretty rural.

And when anyone in our area, our neighborhoods is in need of something, whether you know them or not, you instinctively wanna help.

And that seemed, I think if I had to put a simple definition to it, that's what it would mean to me.

- That's a great answer because one of my mottos, my personal motto is I feel like it's everybody's job to take care of their community- - I agree, yeah.

- That they live in.

- And watching your shows and watching what you've done, and you seem to be that person.

- Well, I think it's what I aspire to.

Let's put it that way.

- I think we all do, right?

So a lot of cool cars back behind here.

Have you driven just about every car that you could drive?

- Oh, no.

Not every, but close to it.

- [Matt] Close to it.

- I mean, there are some cars that are extremely hard to get your hands on, but if I have an opportunity to go somewhere or we have an opportunity to send some of our staff somewhere to drive something, if we can do it, we will.

- [Matt] Wow.

- We wanna be able to say, "Yeah, we've driven that, we've got an opinion on it just in case you might be in the market for it."

- [Matt] Well, it's great having you on the show.

- Thank you, Matt.

- It's John Davis- - Absolute delight.

- This was awesome for me.

I appreciate it.

My name's Matt George, what an awesome show.

And this is another episode of "Business Forward".

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