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--:-- Georgia Howe: The NFL is back, and FanDuel's got everything you need to play your game. From same-game parlays to live betting. Right now, new customers bet $5 and get $300 in bonus bets if you win. 21-plus in president select states. 18-plus in Kentucky and Wyoming. Must be first online real money waging. $5 deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at FanDuel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Ford Motor Company lost billions of dollars in its electric vehicles division, while sales of trucks and SUVs kept the business profitable. We're in heavy investment mode, you know, building plants, battery plants. And so you invest a lot up front. What is the outlook for the auto giant and can it compete with Tesla? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's August 5th, and this is a Saturday edition of Morning Wire. How would you like to pay your bills with the wave of your hand? Amazon One has made paying by palm a reality in several stores and venues across the country. Ditch your wallet and just hover your palm over an Amazon One device to enter, identify, and pay. And are you ready for college football? I am. Shake-ups in the major conferences are dramatically changing the financial landscape of the sport. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Ford Motor Company lost billions of dollars on its electric vehicles this year, and it expects to lose over a billion more. Ford and other automakers are scrambling to make the switch to electric cars ahead of potential regulations from the Biden administration. Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraid Elordi is here with the details.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Hi, Georgia. Ford took a huge hit on this one. Ford Motor Company said last week that it expects to lose a whopping $4.5 billion from its electric vehicles this year. That's from Ford's second quarter earnings report, which was released on Thursday. Ford said its all-electric vehicle division called Ford Model E has already lost more than $2.8 billion in the first two quarters of this year, including $1.8 billion in the second quarter alone. That's about $32,000 lost for every EV Ford has sold.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Ford said this huge loss in part reflects the pricing environment. The car company struggled to compete with Tesla after Tesla lowered prices for its electric cars earlier this year.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: That's right. Here's CEO Jim Farley speaking in May about the company's losses in the electric vehicle division. I think what we've learned is we have to design the second generation of vehicles totally different than the first generation. We put way too much cost in it, way too much labor content.
--:-- Georgia Howe: These disappointing numbers come after Ford made a big push for electric vehicles last year. So what changed? Is the business environment just different from last year?
--:-- Maraid Elordi: It's really as simple as people didn't buy as many Ford electric cars as the company originally thought. Ford is still moving forward with its plans for electric cars, but it may take quite a while for the electric models to start turning a profit. Ford sold only 34,000 electric vehicles and hybrids combined in the second quarter of this year, and only 61,000 electric vehicles in the U.S. in all of last year.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Some experts say it will take about 100 cars sold to even start turning a profit on a new model. One big thing that changed is that Ford pushed back a deadline for electric car production. The carmaker originally said it would ramp up its electric vehicle production to 600,000 cars a year by the end of this year. Now, Ford says it will hit that goal next year instead.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: However, there are a few bright spots. Ford still turns a massive profit overall thanks to other product lines, including both gasoline and hybrid vehicles. Ford raked in $45 billion in the second quarter with a net income of $1.9 billion. Ford's CEO emphasized back in May that Ford is still investing in regular engine cars as well.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Look, we make a lot of big SUVs and pickup trucks. Those customers will go electric a lot later. We think the internal combustion engine actually is going to grow at Ford for the next couple of years. We have a much more balanced approach because the customers we sell to are different than other companies.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Farley said Ford has been surprised, frankly, at the popularity of the hybrid model for the F-150 pickup truck. More than 10% of Ford buyers who purchased the pickup truck bought the hybrid model, he said. Also, more than half, 56% of Ford customers who bought Ford's Maverick pickup truck bought the hybrid version.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Interesting. So consumers are preferring the hybrids over the full EV. Yes, exactly. Ford executives say the company is working on several new hybrid models. Farley said they're seeing a lot of customers who like to use Ford's car batteries in the hybrid models for other things besides driving the car, so they're just listening to the market.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: For example, some of Ford's hybrids allow users to plug power tools into the car's battery or plug in a refrigerator for a tailgate party.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So all of this, though, is in response to some potential new regulations. What are these new regulations that car companies are working to accommodate?
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Well, the Biden administration wants two-thirds of cars on the road to be electric by 2032. In April, the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency proposed a requirement that would cut emissions by 56%. The Department of Energy has also proposed regulations that would push carmakers towards electric vehicles.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was despite concerns that the auto industry would be crippled by hundreds of billions of dollars in penalties by 2031. So overall, the industry is attempting to prep for this government crackdown, even at the expense of their bottom line.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Well, as we've reported on this show before, the grid would need a major overhaul before it could even accommodate all of those EVs. So it's not an easy goal.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Mairead, thanks for reporting. Thanks, Georgia.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Amazon has developed a new payment system that allows customers to pay by scanning their palms. Known as Amazon One, it's already rolling out to a number of popular stores and other locations. Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now to tell us more about this payment system and why some experts have privacy concerns about it.
--:-- Megan Basham: So, I was just at Whole Foods in Nashville and this new payment system just rolled out this past week. How exactly does it work?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Essentially, as John said, it allows you to pay with your hand. So this was part of a promotional video that Amazon put out. Meet Amazon One, the fast, convenient, contactless identity service that allows you to enter, identify and pay using only your palm.
--:-- Megan Basham: Essentially, you just register your palm print and from then on, you can scan it at locations that have the system. And obviously you wouldn't need your credit card or debit cards or your phone to pay anymore.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It actually started rolling out a couple of years ago though probably few people were aware of it. And you can already find it now at over 200 Whole Foods stores and a number of stadiums like Coors Field in Colorado. They also have it. Some Paneras are getting it and also some Hudson newsstands at the airport.
--:-- Megan Basham: So obviously it sounds convenient, but I know I personally was a bit creeped out about giving my bio data over to Amazon.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, I think a lot of people are feeling that way. And that's why you're hearing from a lot of people who are raising questions about privacy.
--:-- Megan Basham: So when Amazon first introduced this technology in 2021, a bipartisan group of senators, including Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who is, of course, a Republican, sent a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And they pointed out that unlike a credit card or Apple Pay or smartwatch apps, this data isn't stored in the device. It's actually stored in the Amazon cloud. And Amazon has had data leaks in the past. And if this data were to leak, it would be even more serious.
--:-- Megan Basham: So they wanted to know how Amazon is protecting user privacy. And they were also concerned that Amazon could sell this information for advertising purposes. They could also use it to track users, which is obviously pretty concerning.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But Amazon has said that they're confident that Palm data is secure in their cloud, and they have made legal guarantees not to share it with third parties.
--:-- Megan Basham: But it is worth noting that similar applications of biorecognition were considered at Apple, and they decided it was too risky.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, I assume they mean legally risky. Are there legal issues with this?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, that is another issue that skeptics have brought up. They mention how Amazon will handle possible demands from law enforcement to use this data. Will it violate Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure?
--:-- Georgia Howe: After the January 6th riot, we saw courts wrestling with how to handle that fingerprint and facial recognition data that would allow them to access the phones of suspects. Different courts have ruled in different ways, and so far, the Supreme Court hasn't weighed in.
--:-- Megan Basham: But, you know, all of that said, this is a fast-developing field, and it's probably not going away as an issue. For example, some airports now offer eye-scanning technology for faster boarding and security check-ins. A few banks are using that iScan technology as well.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So Amazon may be heading into somewhat uncharted territory, but I think if it proves successful, companies like Apple are probably going to lose that hesitancy pretty quick.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, I'm always feeling that boiling frog feeling, I gotta say. Yes.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: College football season is around the corner and significant shifts continue to take place with major financial implications for programs, conferences, and networks. Here to tell us more is David Cohn, co-host of Daily Wire's Crane & Company.
--:-- David Cohn: Hey, David. Hey, John. So I, like I'm sure you are, am gearing up for the college football season, pretty excited about it. But there's lots of changes happening, particularly with the conferences. What's the latest on that, these conference realignment changes?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yep, a lot of changes and a lot of excitement. To briefly recap a few points that we've known for a while, Texas and Oklahoma will join the Southeastern Conference next year, which means this upcoming season is the last for both those teams in the Big 12.
--:-- David Cohn: Now, to make up for those losses, the Big 12 added Houston, BYU, Cincinnati, and the University of Central Florida. So some really big markets there. And all four of those teams will begin conference play this season. Alright, so one season with all six of those teams before Texas and Oklahoma move on. Exactly. And it be a unique year in that sense.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, out West, we know USC and UCLA are set to join the Big Ten next year, making this their final season in the Pac-12 conference. And most of this realignment we're seeing involves these two conferences, the Pac-12 and the Big 12. And that brings us to the latest major announcement. The University of Colorado plans to exit the Pac-12 next year and return to the Big 12, the conference they called home from 1996 to 2011.
--:-- David Cohn: And that's the second big headline for Colorado this year after hiring FSU's own Deion Sanders' head coach. Your boy, yes.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So Colorado's move has sparked a lot of rumors about some major changes coming from bigger schools soon. Why are we seeing so much movement in college football these past few years?
--:-- David Cohn: Money, more specifically money from TV deals. The Big Ten and the SEC lead the way in regards to revenue driven from television. Each school in those two conferences receives between $60 million and $80 million annually, and those numbers are climbing. That is significantly more than the $31 million Colorado will collect with its new deal from the Big 12, but that $31 million is still better than the uncertainty they faced as a member of the Pac-12, because that conference does not even have a distribution answer beyond this season.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, news broke this week that the Pac-12 is proposing a subscription-based streaming deal with Apple, but most believe that the numbers will not be strong enough to survive the shifting landscape.
--:-- David Cohn: Yeah, it'd take a lot of subs to match the money in the SEC and Big Ten. So what will that mean for the Pac-12 conference moving forward? Things are not looking good right now for the Pac-12 conference.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We also have news that Washington and Oregon have begun the process of joining the Big Ten, and there's strong speculation that Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State are likely to move to the Big 12, which makes sense there geographically. But that begs the question, what happens to schools such as Oregon State or Washington State or Stanford.
--:-- David Cohn: Yeah. Now, there have been reports that big name ACC schools like Florida State Seminoles and Clemson could leave the conference. What are the chances of that actually happening?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Several of those ACC schools, like you mentioned, particularly Florida State and Clemson, they are unhappy with the current deal, but we've yet to see any movement because the ACC has an ironclad grant of rights agreement that binds these schools together all the way through 2036.
--:-- David Cohn: This grant of rights makes it difficult and expensive for programs to leave the conference, and it ensures the departing school's broadcast rights remain with the ACC even after the departure.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Alright, so a tough road ahead in terms of getting out of that conference for teams like Florida State. Yep. So fun watching all this take shape, but a lot of stress on these programs that are in limbo.
--:-- David Cohn: Dave, thanks for joining us. Thank you.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Crane & Company co-host David Cohn. Thanks for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and you stand with our mission, please consider subscribing, leaving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend.
--:-- David Cohn: All right, that's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with an extra edition of Morning Wire.
