Tesla Sales Jump in Q2 & The 'Despicable Me 4' Marketing Blitz

0:00Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozma St John host the highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands. This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best I do win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere Tuesday on NBC. Good morning, Brewer Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, can$30 popcorn buckets save movie theaters?

0:38Then Tesla sales numbers for the quarter came in, and you know what? I'm not going to spoil it for you. Just keep on listening. It's Wednesday, July 3rd. Let's ride.

0:52If you're listening to this on Wednesday, you're actually hearing our voices from Tuesday afternoon. That's because the brew offices are closed tomorrow ahead of July 4th. But worry not, the MBD crew stayed late to bring you a cup of hot business news. Might as well preview what we've got going on the rest of the week, too. There are two very cool interviews coming out Thursday and Friday. The first is with the guy who hosts the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest every July 4th about what the heck happened with Joey Chestnut and the future of competitive eating. It was fascinating. He had the entire control room locked on his every word.

1:26And then we followed that up with another banger, an interview with WNBA Commissioner Kathy Engelbert. She was great. Also, she was the former CEO of Deloitte, so the Caitlin Clark era probably feels like a walk in the park compared to managing 400 ,000 consultants. A splendid week of shows on deck, but first, a word from our sponsor, Meta AI. There's a saying you may have heard in sports, the best ability is availability. How are you going to tie this to AI? Well, I like Meta AI because it is so available. It's on all the apps you use every day, from Instagram to WhatsApp to Messenger, always there when you need it.

2:00Truly the Cal Ripken of AI. All right, we got to cool it with the sports metaphors. Well, people know the consecutive games played leader in the MLB, right? Well, they do now. As long as people know that Meta AI is always there for them, then we did our job. Might as well hammer the point home. Expand your world with Meta AI now on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger. The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving.

2:39Visit Strayer.edu slash Jack Welch MBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Shevin as many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street North in Arlington, Virginia. Tesla reported its second consecutive drop in quarterly deliveries this week, but like the amusement park ride you revisit as an adult, the drop wasn't as bad as you might have expected. For a second quarter in a row, deliveries were down nearly 5 % compared to last year, but analysts were bracing for a 6 % decline, so a win is a win. Still, it's a sign that the industry-wide EV slowdown that everyone has been forecasting is here, and it's affecting Elon and Tesla.

3:15Some of it is Tesla's own doing. Its first new model in years, the Cybertruck, has faced production issues and recalls, while demand as a whole has been lukewarm. Overall, though, it's hard to get a car market trained on new tricks, get excited for old dogs, and Tesla is struggling to grow off its older lineup of vehicles. Neil, how would you judge these latest delivery numbers from Tesla? Yeah, I mean, the bar was set extremely low, and I guess they cleared it, which is why its stock is up right now, but there's only so many quarters that Tesla can just keep rolling out the same lineup like the Warriors and expect people to buy in.

3:49They need fresh meat. They need new cars. And it doesn't appear to be coming anytime soon. The one thing that Tesla has to look forward to and that they've been hyping everyone about is this August 8th event where they're supposed to announce a robo-taxi. But as we know, it takes forever to get the self-driving stuff off the ground and approved by regulators. So the thing that really Tesla needs is a low-priced EV, which may come next year. but we just have zero details on it. So Tesla's been riding the Model 3 and the Model Y, which account for the vast majority of their sales. The Model Y is about to be five years old, and it seems like consumers are changing, are looking at different EVs.

4:29You know, every automaker now has a pretty robust EV lineup, and Tesla just seems to be loosening its luster a little bit. Just to put those delivery numbers into perspective, though, Tesla still laps the competition. It delivered over 440 ,000 vehicles this past quarter. It's lapping other brands. If you look at Ford, Ford sold 72 ,000 electric vehicles in all of 2023. GM delivered 75 ,000. Tesla's sitting at that big 444 ,000 number. That being said, a lot of brands are growing much faster than Tesla. I mean, Hyundai and Kia were up 56 % in the first quarter of the year. BMW up 57%, Rivian 60%, Mercedes 67%, Toyota 85%.

5:16So you're seeing these very, very robust double-digit growth from other brands not named Tesla, even though they are much smaller in terms of total delivery numbers. Yeah, it might be a case of just two EV markets. There's Tesla and there's everyone else. Tesla is plateauing at the moment. They say they're in between two growth cycles. And everyone else is growing so fast. So you heard so many calls at the beginning of this year and the end of last year that a warning about a major EV slowdown. But when you actually go and dig through the numbers, it seems like Tesla is, you know, a straight line and everyone else is going straight up.

5:49Just look at Ford's F-150 Lightning. They sold 91 percent more Lightnings this quarter than over last year. So there is growth in the market. They're expecting EV sales to grow 23 percent over the course of 2024. that's not the insane growth that we saw in the 40s last in the 40 percentile last year but it still is not nothing and it's probably a little bit better than what people were expecting when you just look at tesla as the bellwether of course the big bad boogeyman in the ev market is byd and they reported sales of 426 000 evs in the second quarter which was a 21 increase over the same period last year so it is coming for tesla's title it briefly overtook its throne as the biggest ev maker in the world depending on how you actually classified evs but that sales growth obviously 21 is much bigger than a five percent loss it um so byd is is breathing down tesla's neck meanwhile elon's just like well i just got this pay package approved for 56 billion dollars so chilling i'm chilling tomorrow while you are bumping lee greenwood and eating highly processed beef people in Britain will be heading to the polls to vote in a pivotal general election.

6:59After 14 years in power, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party is expected to be replaced by the opposition Labour Party in a landslide. But in the weeks leading up to the vote, the election has been thrown into chaos by a betting scandal involving politicians. Yes, here in the US, we have scandals over basketball players betting on their own games. In the UK, they have scandals over politicians betting on their own elections, which is legal. Around 15 conservative party officials are being investigated, though, by the gambling regulator for placing a flutter, British for a small bet, on the date of the election.

7:34Back in May, Sunak surprised everyone by calling for an election on July 4th, but it turns out that some officials had bet that an election would happen in July before then, so maybe some people weren't that surprised, and that's exactly what this investigation hopes to find out. The entire saga has raised questions over the ethics of allowing politicians to place bets on elections in a country where placing bets is a national pastime. It is a part of British culture through and through. I mean, a bookmaker in London said that a lot of people have come up to him asking, could he give odds on whether the police would press criminal charges over the political betting scandal?

8:10The Brits just truly love betting. It is interesting, too, because professional soccer players in Britain, they're not allowed to bet on soccer. Jockeys, they can't bet on horses, but politicians are allowed to bet. on politics as long as they don't cheat by using insider information. So of course, you're going to have these politicians wrapped up in these scandals, even if they're placed in flutter bets or much larger bets. And speaking of larger bets, probably the most brazen example of this is there was this conservative candidate, Philip Davies. He placed an 8 ,000 pound bet that he would lose his district in the coming vote.

8:45So he placed that emotional hedge right there and said hey well if i win then my bet loses but i still i still win if i lose say well i still made a couple thousand bucks so good for me but that is he apologized for that and they actually booted him from the party but this is just the most probably the most stark example of how the just bizarro world in britain where politicians can bet on their own races he told the son too that he had placed a bet he would lose his district during election in 2005 so this is not his first time doing it. There's so many weird wrinkles to betting life in the United Kingdom.

9:18One, for instance, compared to U.S. gambling, British gambling's winnings are tax-free, so that's a big part of the culture. I also always will remember this story, too. Rory McIlroy's parents bet on him to win a major championship while he was just 10 years old. By the time he was 25, they got paid out because, again, anyone who's willing to set the market for something you're willing to bet on, the bookies are there for it and then there was also when Liz Trust took over prime minister in 2022 there was this British cowboy that put up a webcam of a head of lettuce and asked literally went to bookies and said will you put odds on what will what will last longer Liz Trust as prime minister or the head of lettuce and the head of lettuce actually won so so many funny gambling stories out of the UK if you're in the US and you're listening to this thinking hey can I bet on the presidential election or can I bet on a head of lettuce to outlast you know any of our candidates?

10:12Well, the answer is yes. There do exist prediction markets, some in the U.S., some offshore. One of the most famous examples is called Predict It. And these prediction markets have come under fire by regulators, the CFTC. The CFTC is trying to get them banned currently. Now the whole process is being held up in court, so the legality of them is in question. But a lot of economists love prediction markets because it's a really very, you know, it's a great window into public opinion, the way the public is thinking. Economists have called it some of the most useful gambling that you could ever see compared to sports.

10:48So this whole saga in the United States is being held up. The answer is, yes, there is a cloud of uncertainty. But I remember right after the debate happened last week, we were like, so what are the prediction markets saying? Because it's a very useful indicator of what people are thinking. We saw Trump go up and Biden go down. Right. It's a more real-time indicator compared to polling data, which is the methodology sometimes time is a little confusing and also is a lagging indicator. So yeah, prediction markets are a big deal. What are the prediction or what is the gambling market saying about the UK election?

11:19Who is forecasted to win? Well, so if you bet on the election, if you put five pounds on the Labour Party, your payout will be 5.15 pounds. So they are the heavy favorite. But if you want to go for the Tories, the Conservatives, you will get, if you wager five pounds, you will get 255 pounds so that's like kind of putting an exact score on a basketball game or something with very very very low odds so we should see labor trounce based on these odds it's an olympic summer a hot rat boy summer and a brat summer but don't you dare sleep on the fact that it's also a minion summer yes the gibberish speaking yellow disciples of grew are once again getting their time on the big stream as despicable me 4 hits theaters on wednesday they may be shaped like fire hydrants but the Minions are a cultural force these days wielded by Illumination owner Comcast to turn out money.

12:11There is a popcorn bucket that will accompany the movie release shaped like Gru's baby character that will run you 30 bucks. There's also the Minions' inescapable presence in the commercials NBCUniversal has been running to market the Olympics. And there's the fact that both Despicable Me 3 and standalone Minions movie grossed over$1 billion at the box office. Neil, they may love Banana, but minions know how to bring home the bacon. They do. Let's focus on something you may want to put bacon on, which is popcorn. I've never done it, but this popcorn bucket has become an absolute sensation. Movies have been handing out popcorn buckets with their branded merch for decades now, but it seemed like over the past year, these things became the hottest collectible item ever, and it started with Dune 2 popcorn bucket, which some said was sexually suggestive.

13:06But then after that happened, literally every movie that came out unleashed a particular specialized popcorn bucket, including Despicable Me 4, which now has one that is hands-free so you don't have to carry it and you can just eat with it. So this went viral on TikTok. Everyone said they want it. It's probably sold out. You can't get your hands on it. But just every movie from Barbie to Quantumania to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour for the new Ghostbusters, has come out with a specialized popcorn bucket, and the biggest launch yet may be Deadpool and Wolverine. Yeah, Deadpool and Wolverine really leaned into the sexually suggestive nature of the Dune 2 bucket and just put Wolverine out there with his mouth open.

13:46So it is definitely a marketing stunt where they are trying to go viral, and it's big for theater chains too because Cinemark is exclusively selling actually a custom drink for the Minions movie with a drink topper. So if you really want the merch, you really want to participate in like a TikTok trend or something like that. You have to go to the specific chain. And it's been big revenue drivers too for chains like Cinemark and AMC. Yeah, I mean, just look at this stat. So AMC's admissions revenue was down 20 % in 2023. So they're selling 20 % fewer tickets for actual movies. So where's the growth coming from?

14:21Well, food and bev and miscellaneous revenue, which is this merchandise, held flat since 2019. So this is the only area of, it's not even growth, but only area that's held steady is this merchandise. It's the food and concessions. Then they're making much less money on the actual movies. So people are going, the fewer people are going to the movie, but they are seeming to spend a lot of money once they go. And these popcorn buckets go for$30. So if they can sell, you know, one in 10 people who go to the movies a popcorn bucket, then that is like the only area of growth that they have. I'll put you on the spot here.

14:55Do we think Despicable Me 4 brings in over or under$1 billion? At the box office? No, I don't think. I mean, we just had Inside Out 2, which scored$1 billion. And I'm not sure how many, you know, that's a condensed. I mean, Inside Out 2 just came out two to three weeks ago. So I don't think you can go back-to-back billion-dollar movies that are animated family-friendly ones. I don't think the popcorn bucket can take the Minions to that level. Keep on doubting the Minions. They will prove you wrong. Up next, we get into some burger-making trends ahead of the best holiday for grilling stuff. I'm Christian McCaffrey, pro running back, and Abercrombie is an official fashion partner of the NFL.

15:35I'm not kidding when I say NFL by Abercrombie broke the internet last year, and I think this season's lineup is even cooler. And so does my wife, who keeps stealing all my hoodies. Stay fit for the season and Abercrombie's newest arrivals. Shop NFL by Abercrombie in the app, online, and in store.

16:19or milestone, all protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. It's Wednesday, but since we aren't doing a live taping tomorrow, let's pretend it's Thursday, which only means one thing. Toby? Neal's Numbers! Yes, here's a special Wednesday edition of Neal's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will cause you to declare your independence from ignorance. My first number is more of a record and an ominous one at that. Hurricane Beryl, which is currently leaving a trail of destruction across the Caribbean, is the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever to form this early in the season.

17:01It grew from a tropical depression on Friday to a monster Category 5 yesterday with wind gusts of over 200 miles per hour. It made landfall in the Caribbean's Windward Islands on Monday, and now it's heading east, west, sorry, and is expected to lash Jamaica on Wednesday. The storm is leaving meteorologist jaws on the floor. Some of their quotes. Beryl is rewriting the history books in the wrong ways. It's hard to communicate how unbelievable it is. And Toby, Beryl's strength is a really bad sign given how early we are in the Atlantic hurricane season. Yeah, the speed, the strength, the earliness.

17:36These are all factors that are causing climatologists to say this is something we've never seen before. There's also a couple of factors that forecasters are predicting will lead to a very hyperactive hurricane season that also contributed to barrel strength is that one, there's weak winds at high altitudes, which just makes it easier for storms to form. But there's also a budding La Nina weather pattern for it. But the biggest factor is these really, really hot surface sea temperatures. Right now, they're running two to four degrees above average. And that is just it's like bathwater for a hurricane.

18:08It makes it much, much stronger, which is why we're seeing we're forecast to see more storms. And we're already seeing one of the biggest and most intense storms ever at this date. Yeah. The temperatures down where the hurricanes are forming are at September levels and it's it's July now. So my second number is a change to the work week that just went into effect in Greece. And you're probably guessing the number is for the ever popular Holy Grail four day work week. But no, it's six. Greece is making the work week longer. The country introduced a six-day working week for some businesses in an attempt to reverse declining productivity and employment.

18:44It applies to private businesses that provide round-the-clock services and provides workers the option of clocking in for an additional two hours per day or an extra eight-hour shift. As you can imagine, unions and opponents of the pro-business government blasted the move, calling it a major step back for workforce that already spends more time in the office than anywhere else in Europe. In fact, people in Greece work more hours than people in the US and Japan, according to the OECD. But the government says they've got a ticking demographic time bomb on their hands, and they need to do something.

19:18About 500 ,000 young educated Greeks have left the country since the debt crisis sprung up in 2009. This was an insane headline to read. It is cognitive dissonance because you read it and say, is that supposed to say six day work week? That's definitely supposed to say four. But no, Greece is very, has a very pro business, very prime minister that wants to kind of combat these twin perils, as he called it, of shrinking population shortage of skilled workers. And it is a real crisis there because if you lose 500 ,000 young skilled workers since the financial crisis, there's not that many workers there.

19:52So either you have to drop in productivity or you've got to increase the amount of hours you're working. And apparently they think that increasing the hours is the way to go. I can't think of a more unpopular policy. I mean, he said that he would do it to sort of bring workers out of the shadows that weren't getting paid overtime and bring it above board. Sure, but I don't know. Whenever you have media outlets saying six-day work, Greece moves to a six-day work week, I just don't see how that is particularly tenable. So we'll see what happens there. My final number is$200 ,000, which is how much revenue New York City's congestion pricing would have generated from a single hour on Monday morning.

20:29The first weekday commute, it would have been in effect. And I say would because though it seemed cleared for takeoff July 1st, it was scrapped by the governor last month in a move that drew a lot of outrage and some applause. With a plan on ice, the New York Times reporters fanned out across the city to count the number of cars that entered the congestion zone from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Monday morning and would have had to pay a$15 toll to enter Manhattan. They counted 22 ,252 cars, trucks, motorcycles and buses and calculated the 200 ,000 figure based on certain exemptions. Some types of vehicles would have been awarded.

21:05So 200K, that is a lot of money for one hour and would have contributed to the$1 billion the city was hoping to raise through congestion pricing to invest in transit projects. It's not just that they are missing out on$200 ,000 a day. It's also about the money that they already plowed into the project as well. I mean, the tolling infrastructure alone that they installed for the program costs roughly half a billion dollars. They hired this whole 100-person office to help with customer support and everything. That costs a lot of money. as well. The overall project had a price like of around$700 million.

21:38So you see this$200 ,000 number. It sounds like a lot, but also we're not getting that at all anymore. So it is just puts it into perspective how big of a 180 this was and how much money went into it and how much money they're losing out every day. Yeah, legislators still think they may be able to convince Kathy Hochul, the governor, to reverse her reversal and maybe institute a toll that's not $15 but is a little less and that's more politically palatable. So we'll see what has to happen there. I mean, And Hochul, I don't know if she can – she doesn't have a lot of good options either way. No, she doesn't have a lot of goodwill left either.

22:13I do just want to give a shout out to the New York Times for doing this reporting though. Because it was – they literally – you said they fanned out around the city. They sent 27 people out to these major arteries to count trucks and buses and everyone entering. They also said this is a rough census scale. We definitely undercounted as well because they only looked at those main arteries. So it is interesting to see just how sometimes you got to get on the, literally stand by a street corner with your little counter out to do some reporting. Well, it's the day before 4th of July, which means it's time to dig into the really important news for this time of year, burger trends.

22:46So go ahead and start fantasizing about bringing your Blackstone up to temperature because the first trend to keep an eye on this year is the smushification of burgers. Gone are the thick, beefy patties you're used to seeing at expensive steakhouses. in their place are thinner, crispier, easier to bite smash burgers. Now, some fast food joints have been on this for years now, Shake Shack and Smash Burger being the two that come to mind, but higher-end restaurants have been jumping on the smash patty trend as well as demand from consumers rise. Searches for smash burger on Yelp more than doubled in 2023 from 2019, and I was certainly one of them, Neil.

23:22Smash burgers are the superior way to consume a burger, and I think a lot of people listening would agree. Yeah, this might have to do with inflation, I mean, a fancy burger with, you know, a quarter pound of meat is over$20, ranging on$30 at some places. Here in New York City, a smash burger is typically a lot less. But, I mean, I know we both prefer them. I love the potato bun. I love the caramelized onions. I don't need the lettuce and tomato. I like the crunch, the texture. That seems to be a big part of why people like smash burgers. To me, it's a superior product. I know one may, you know, these burger snobs out there listening might think that a, you know, a traditional classic thicker burger has a higher ceiling than a smash burger.

24:04And I will probably grant you that smash burger doesn't have a high, a particularly high ceiling. It's good. It's not like ever going to overwhelm you, but it has a very high floor as well. They're almost never bad because they're just not bad. You can load them up with mayo and ketchup and then they taste pretty good. I agree. The consistency here is what you really marvel at because you're cooking it to well done. You're smashing it down. It's not going to be medium rare. So I do think that you're right. You're never going to get the most magical bite you've ever had because there's just not as much meat there.

24:34But that is what I think elevates it is the texture, first of all. I just think the texture, the biggest part. I love those little crispy edges. You top it with some crispy cheese as well. Maximum crisp there. I'm all in on the smash burger trend. The next burger trend is more of a flop, actually, and that is fast food chain's failed attempts to introduce plant-based burgers to their menus. McDonald's pulled the plug on its McPlant burger recently, discontinuing a years-long pilot program in both San Francisco and the Dallas-Fort Worth area after customers McPanned it. Joe Erlinger, who heads U.S.