Shell Acquires Volta EV Charging Company

The first one, I think this is really smart. Shell, the oil company is, they're going to acquire the EV charging firm Volta, which I've seen these out and about. But 169 million dollar investment into EV infrastructure for an oil company I think is really, really good. 169 million bucks. It's an all cash deal. So they're writing a big check if they'll rebrand it. Show. Yeah, maybe I'm looking to see that's.

Still, you know, Tesla has, I think the, the biggest start, but that's still a very.

Ripe thing to take over is the infrastructure for electric charging.

My apartment complex just got outfitted.

How many dealerships? Put one in and they need like 10.

Yeah. So the, so it's funny, I remember having this discussion with some of my dealers a couple of years ago. Like the requirements were always one and my best stores were like, no, I want eight. It was really smart, foresight wise. Especially when you talk about certain companies that are going all electric like Volvo or gm, making a huge commitment to it. So having a lot of chargers is not a bad thing. But I thought it was a good idea for Shell to hop into that thing. And they're obviously not cash poor if they write a check for 169 million bucks. So regardless, when anybody says the oil business is good, this is not car related, but I think that there's probably indicators in here that Chris will talk. Microsoft laying off some employees. How many do you think?

Well, 10,000.

Yeah, so 10,000 layoffs. And then the funny thing is I've got.

What about everybody else?

Yeah, so I did a little research because I thought I'd give IT context, but 10% represents 5% of Microsoft. Then I'm just going to kind of go through Amazon also. You know how many they did?

18,000.

18,000. Good job. Facebook and Meta. 11,000. Google 11,000.

So the Google one really surprises me.

I thought they were pretty lean to start with.

It's really hard to get a job at Google.

Yeah.

And so the, the one thing that Google has going for them is this kind of we're invincible against the world sort of thing. When you lay off that many people, it's going to affect your culture because people aren't going to believe in the culty kind of feel of it anymore. You're breaking that trust. Kind of like when you don't get invited to a bagpipe convention or whatever it is. Right.

Best joke of the day, by the way. That's pretty good. So I think the big thing is too is even if you're one of the survivors that doesn't get laid off, then you're always looking behind your back too. There's just. That's a really rough thing. But listen to this statistic. A recent report from outplacement firm Challenger Grand Christmas found tech layoffs were up 649% in 2022. So the reason I brought this one in is what do you think this means for us in the automotive industry?

I think it definitely is a narrative we could be selling to the younger kids coming out of school that maybe going into these tech jobs isn't as secure as is working on vehicles or those, those kind of.

Jobs that are actually easier to train for in the long run too.

Yeah.

So I think, I think we should be using it as a narrative of security.

A lot of people when they get laid off like that, they, they switch industries for sure.

So maybe that's the thing too, is that art? Could our industry adopt some of these people that were in tech?

Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driving Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.