Rotary Minutes Feb. 28, 2023
President Dave opened the meeting with the pledge of Allegiance. Then the 4 way Test and the Inspirational minute were read by Bob Cardinal. Ken Schaefer introduced new member Tamara Sparrow, who has purchased Landmark Jewelers. Jay Pfaender introduced our speaker Tom Leonard, from Fury Motors. Fury Motors has 3 locations and 300 employees. Tom is an industry expert on the new trends coming out of the car industry. He opened by asking us what we drove? It was 50/50 small car, vans to trucks and large SUVs. We are all driving cars with ICE or internal combustion engines. Buying a car today is much easier for the sales people. People are much more knowledgeable about what cars they want to purchase. In the past people went to 4 or 5 dealers , now they go to 2 . People have pre-shopped on line. Sales agents are much better trained today as well. In 1990 there were 24,000 dealerships in the USA. IT is down to 15,000 today and he predicts it will be much lower in 5 years, to 2,000. Big companies are buying up smaller dealerships. The only constant is change in this industry. He predicts that there will be very few leased cars options available, and no rental cars. Self driving cars are not the things anymore. All this is due to Government mandates and global warming. In 2026 the car must be able to give us 49 miles to the gallon. (ZEV or Zero emission vehicles.) But the biggest issue is that where is the electric power coming from if we all go the Electric cars? Where will they build the power plants to keep up with demand? How will the grids in each state handle this? This is a major problem for the USA. The CARB – California Air Resource Board - is an unelected board of commissioners. Within the new 2 years we will have these unrealistic standards in Minnesota. 40% of Cars sold in the USA will be Battery powered in 2030. BY 2035 we will have a charging problem in the USA. Hence the power issue. But we will have gas for another 50 years he predicts. Battery powered cars have winter snow issues, left turns issues, and logistic problems. So in Minnesota what happens to the corn growers and ethanol producers? They are out of business! But Walz will need to support the corn growers! In 2023 we should have produced 16 million new cars, but we only produced 12 million, so we have a short fall. You will need to ramp up your voltage in your garage to 220 volts for the chargers! There will be a lot of companies out there to claim recycled batteries also. That will be a big business! Again, what will we drive even next year? ! Submitted by Scribe: Laurie Murphy