the president calls for the end of tax break. we'll sit down with the ceo of charge point and dr. mahal leads the way with driverless cars with her radar technology and thin tech, what it thinks about the future. our report amy hall. this week on "press: here." >> good morning, i am scott mcgrew, in 2008, congress strong support for both parties passed a law that gave $7,500 to

federal tax break for people who bought electric cars. thos threat in two places, one is donald trump. the other problem, some car companies are victims of their own successes. those subsidies have limits the first 200,000 cars sold and tesla has already crossed that limit. scott ramona, the service that lets you charge up electric cars, sort of the modern day gas station. he's calling changes to the federal tax credits. and amy hall, thank you for being with us. talk to meboreak but there needs to be changes and what we are doing with these cars. >> yes, subsidies if they are properly night. nothing in nature works that

way. in an appropriate ramp down is h cut zero in an industry that clearly has consumer report that's not a great idea. >> what would affect your business as well? you kind of depend on electric cars being out there. >> yes. the growth rate last year this year is around 40%. >> what do you mean by 40%? >> 40% volume growth in terms of cars sold. >> really? >> yes, it is staggering. >> that's better practice. >> the subsidies are not going to go from 7500 to zero. i saw today on tesla's website that those subsidies are going to go down from i don't kno know -- 7500 to half way and half way again over a period of about a year. it is not flat like everything and nothing. >> exactly. >> what i was referring to is right.eriod of time is just a

>> we have 135 years old gasoline car industry that's very mature and we need a little bit of support t t volume so these automanufactures can have economy of scale. >> the subsidies start to ratchet down. there is more incentive for me to buy a bmw with full subsidies than a tesla, how does that make sense? >> it does not. when it was designed for fairness reason but i think it is competition. >> you and the e.v. coalition which includes car companies that have a skin in this game as well. how successful do you think you will be in convincing washington in adjusting these tax credits

wh when the president of the united states does not want to have it at all? >> it is hard to call. >> everything in washington is. >> i will say that even there is not a u.s. manufacture right now for gm obviously, tesla, that's not in supportive of this. >> we got the auto stemsees ain america that's supportive of this. >> we are not seeing a lot of distribution in the middle of the country. how do you think we are going to be able to bring adoption into the middle of the country and people are driving longer distancesndnd they'll go through their range really fast in the city, ten miles here and ten miles there. >> there are two answers to that question. first of all, there is success problems with the state, it has

been a challenge right now. >> euro emissions vehicle, it is actually under challenge by the federal government, california, and coalition of states have put together standards that are different for emissions that are higher. unfortunately, it allows automakers to kind of concentrate where they sell the vehicles and those credits were then used to offset their sales of lower gas mileage vehicles. >> we have seen them and i have a plug-in hybrid. is it full electric? >> ug-i car. >> i see them at the mall and you swipe a c charging me a that actual pump thing must ttmoney? a for an hour and you are charging me 100 bucks. >> it is not us. our business model is not the sell you electricity. we sell services to that mall

operator or employer to put in ev charging in that parking lo.s much like air bnb does not own the hotel room you are renting. we wrap it all into one. >> are you also selling homes version like chargers? >> the fleet segment, that's a different business, too, there is no consumers. consumers are the only customers in the business world and businesses are the customers and the drivers are our customer's customer. in the fleet section, there is no driver. >> which of business? e ask you if you can sayte left. one thing to washington about these tax cuts that'll convince people in states that don't use

ev or to people who don't want the government to be involved in subsidizing business. what would you say to them? >> if you look at promoting electric in general aside from the obvious environmental benefits. it is in the long-term of the best way, one of the best ways to lower the cost of living. if you can drop the cost of transportation, you drop the cost of energy and transportation which is also happening at the same time, you really have a pretty magical effect over 20 years period or so. we are really hoping every one have a lower cost of living. your car next to your house is your biggest expenditure. >> mr. romano, we speesappreciau being with us. >> thank you. >> we'll take a look at new technology of cars when "press:here" comes back.

that man running away in the fog is an engineer in california. he'stomated car. will we be a to see him hundreds of miles away? welcome back to "press:here," it will be seen with an improved version of radar. it is revolutionizing radar which after all it is more of an

80 years old technology making it cheaper and smaller. >> physicist dr. mahal is here with us. thank you for being with us this morning. cars have radar which is laser, right? what makes radar so important? it seems like that's the >> that's correct. radar is the only sensor that can reach long ranges? why do we need to reach long rang ranges. >> especially in the fog. >> cars can't drive 20 miles per hour. >> 75 or 85. >> yes. thank you. >> y are level five or level four, you can't drive a car at full speed if you can't

see far away. you would be able to see pedestrians like you saw edmond in the fog video. we were showing that at ces this week and be able to detect cars and trucks beyond 400 meters. the radar is the only sensor. >> why is it that google and waymo and other up starts that's doing automotive research, none of them using radar. what makes yoururrent high-techy of radar. >> people are focused on digital. that's what most back because high frequency, digitalis not enough. you have to offset it with 5-g radio using analog being formed. >> we have seen stories in the last few weeks of people attacking waymo cars. i am very curious of somebody who's in the industry, how do you view this and what do you

this i is going on and why do people behave this way? >> that's one of the challenges to get acceptance. it is happening. my doctor refuses to own a car. she love uber or lyft. independence for us is moving point a read in the newspaper article, people who got angry with car themselves. if cars have radar and some day every car has your radar on it. i may pass a thousand cars on my way to work coming from the other direction. if all of them are beaming radar at me, is that something i need to worry about? >> interference is always a problem. >> absolutely. part of our radar, we do artificial intelligence. we classify objects so we would

know that you have cars coming and also pedestrians. >> what i mean is radar beam going into my body. is that a problem? >> it is not a problem because it signals decay very quickly. if you are behind your windshie nd asking, that's if every car has a radar adio frequency, how is that they are not interfering with each other. >> they will. >> the answer is they won't. >> today is not a problem because not all cars have the long range of powerful radar. that's why being able to foc focus -- i believe down the road government will impose such a performance to make sure they don't cause interference and especially in high intersection places. also, being able to steer the

beam. if i am moving to the right or left or also changing the frequency s there ao there are t you can over come. dewe'll put the radar ce out of business? >> you are talking about -- >> yeah, my radar detector going ding, ding, ding. >> level four and five they would be compliant. i have a tesla and it complies with what it does. >> i mean for level five, that would be compliance. it will be safer than a human driver. >> is the exciting technology. we talk about automated cars and self driving cars. my car which i am driving myself still does amazing stiing tings. it warns me if i am going to hit something. i think that's where we are

really going to get the exciting things or is it the automated cost. is it the assist or the automation. >> the assist is helping because it basically hiver drivers like us already have sensors. new drivers trying to get into that space helps them in terms of parking or changing lanes. but, the most excitement is when you have a full level of is goik don't have a driver behind the steering wheel and riders as well as people on the street trust us. >> you are saying when i walk out and routinely seeing cars driving down my street that has nobody behind the wheel ten years? >> yes. >> you are my physicist so i am going to take your word for it. >> thank you.

big bang got into real trouble ten years ago. what can new tech learn from that when "press:here" continues.

welcome back to "press:here," 2018 was a teible year stock market. we are more than ten years into a growing economy in a cycle that usually lasts between 5 or

10 years. one thing that's different now compares to 2009 is it is not just big banks lending money. small start up using technology and new ideas to lend money. this is blue vine, making loans to other start ups and businesses. the founder and ceo of blue vine. more than a billion in funding. a billion in funning not to run your business but rather to lend out, have i got that correct? >> we finance over a billion and a half to small businesses today. >> you are getting that through places like citibank? >> you have a warehouse of cash? >> for facilities that we have which we use to lend out money,

we have credit swiss which we announced. >> why does cret lendg money. they could lend it to somebody else. >> well, you correctly noted that we have several banks invested in the company. what we do different than a bank is how we help small businesses. it is very in efficient for banks to under ride small businesses. they do it manually. for us to under ride a small business is almost zero. >> it is herbally done on iphones, right? >> yes, well, we use a lot of technology to do it. >> the cost of lending becomes very low. >> are small businesses traditionally, don't they get their funding from venture capitalist, why do they need to go to you? do you make it easier for them or getting approval from you? and as you guys posting a bunch of investors or vcs, i am antom.

>> vc financed more technology. we focus on small business and the restaurant and barber shop and the construction guys. these are not 2008, banks have significantly pulled out from industries. when you look at today, gaining financing from the bank, only one of the four can get approved. that's very difficult and that's where we come in and our only purpose is to find small businesses. >> you obviously are talking to a lot of small businesses everyday. there is a lot of disquiet of the u.s. economy and global economy. what are you hearing back from your clients or customers where ever you call it. >> our customers are consumers, they are aware of what's going on in themashlrket. people are looking to see what's going on whether interest rates are going up or the markets are

volatile. no one has a crystal ball. things are going well. the businesses as we finance. they're hiring employees and investing in their business. yes, everybody is aware but nothing is really happening yet right now. so we encouraged them to manage a . >> you provide tools for that? >> we provide a lot of contents and we talk about these types of they thinks and prepared. ultimately, vr, smart entrepreneurs and they are smart enough to manage their business and think ahead of what they need to do. >> a few years old that did not exist in 2009, thin tech, are there lessons that you can learn from 2009 that the banks did not

learn the last time we went through something that we may not go through anyime on but maybe will. >> the data does not lie. that's kind of lesson number one. looking retrospective, some of the signs are there. >> if you know where to look? >> that's true. >> what makes us unique is we acquire and gain a lot of data sources. we have more than 20 data sources and we collect hundreds of variables and we analyze them through models and humans that look at a lot of aggregated information and this is the way we sort of assess the risk and we try to look at signals that ahead of time sort of alarming us to change the the alignment. >> canouive example or two?

what kind of signals? >> an indicator that things are changing is leverage. how much debt businesses are carrying relative to their income. that's something we monitor very closely. >> what are you seeing? >> we are not seeing significant changes right now. it is not that business do not carry debt, they do. we are not seeing alarming for leverage ratios. right now things are healthy. businesses are growing. we are not seeing declines. for us, the external signs, the market and everything is there. we are not seeing it yet of the businesses we are financing. >> i want to know why did you decide to start with blue line. what was our reason for doing that? hardware store for 40 owner ae years so for me it is kind of thate, i have seen my father struggled with cashng w.

many small businesses they're thriving and can have structural cash flow issues because their customers take a long time to pay or they need to make payroll every two weeks while their customer is paying a different cycle or suppliers requiring payments ahead. there is a lot of reasons why small businesses may be doing well but they still need financing. i saw it firsthand when i was growing. for me, there is this personal mission of helping businesses thrive. >> appreciate you being here with us as well. >> "press:here" will be back in a minute. >> thank you.

♪ my truck needs to air down. when you air down, the charge goes out and there is a bunch o. i took the time to air up than to get a flat tire. it took some time so we now got to go. >> she's racing in the moroccan

desert, welcome back. >> that's a very good defense. >> perfect. >> you are a race car driver and automotive journalist, tell me about what we just saw? you are racing across the desert. >> well, it is a rally, it is not a race. gazelle rally is point by point and with no gps. you have to plot these points on a map and drive as straight as possible because its got the shortest distance but not fastest time. you have to hope you are on the rightno that's in morocco, i have done it three times. my biggest finish is fifth place in the land rover defender. there is one in america that's

similar that yourepoint. you have three different levels of check points. greens are super easy to find and both of those are marked. you have black check points but you are not marked at all. you have to drive to what you think it is. who won that? >> i did. >> we won. because it is a navigation that will rally. . >> let me show folks picture. >> that's actual will i my old c old -- that's actually my old car. >> what uh-you don't see is anor car rolling over on the other good, too. >> yes, that vehicle is about 90 horsepower but it feels really fast when you are in it. i like those momentum cars where you have to drive a slow car

fast. >> and new thank you so much, t fun. >> that's our show for this week, my thanks to my guests and thank you for making us part of your sunday morning. >> announce

bank nbc sports report. >> hi again, everyone. jimmy roberts in our nbc sportsd sports awards. first, sports news. we start with golf, the world golf championship, mexico championship. some highlights from third round, mexico city, tiger made a move.