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Speaker 1 0:00
All right, this is it, the very, very, very, very, very last show of 2024, the plane is off the ground. We're talking about memorable moments today, about a year for hybrids and a fee, at least for precisely $0.00, when they see me,
Kyle Mountsier 0:18
none, zero. So
Paul J Daly 0:19
get there. So we have a document, and every morning, a variety, a smattering of us, the on the ASOTU, get together to put together the show. Every day, it's Nathan, it's myself, it's Kyle. Primarily, we're the three that do it with Nathan, running point on this. Now we have this document, and the document is gets, you know, gross throughout the year. It is currently 357 pages of just show notes outline. It's, you know, 136,000 words on the show notes doc. So I can't even imagine how many words we've said in the morning show that kind of creeps me out a little bit. Like, really think about the number of words that you say in a given year. And we're like, we try and accomplish that in a morning. Is our goal? Actually? Yeah, I think, like, what did, was it Mr. B stick? Did he kind of count it to a million? Right? 12345678, you know what's crazy? You can't actually count to a billion in your lifetime, right? You can count to a million, but you can't do that 1000 times, right? It's crazy. That is crazy. Because, I mean, I guess from us speaking, we can speak words a lot faster than we can count, right, right? Because there's like, 1,536,400
Kyle Mountsier 1:30
that's a lot of words to say that takes at least three seconds. You calculate that over a lifetime. Hey, look, we've done a lot this year. It has been pretty crazy. We're gonna walk through some of the memorable moments, because it has been quite a wild year for us as the ASOTU, more than cars team, but also, more broadly for the industry, I'm excited for 2025 early in 2025 we got nada show coming up, and memories kicking it off early. So many memories. I think we've we've got, like over 25 parties listed on nada parties.com right now. So if you're trying to plan out now, just
Paul J Daly 2:04
bookmark it right now, because you're gonna be like, what was that site? Nada parties.com
Kyle Mountsier 2:08
that's how you're gonna figure out. And clairvoy And my buddy Jeff running, who is like the master of of finding all the parties. We were finding all the parties on nada parties. So you can go there, plan out your whole schedule with the team, figure out where you're gonna go on the after hours and have some fun down there. And Nolans,
Paul J Daly 2:29
yes, makes the very good, very good Nolans. We're gonna have make sure that you sign up for the ASOTU Party on nada parties.com. Now, granted, we're almost out of space, but there is a wait list. We are confirming attendance. So if you're already signed up, know that you will be get be getting an attendance confirmation, either a phone call or an email. And if you don't confirm, you're going to be taken off the list, and we're going to give it to the next person on the wait list. So make sure you get on the wait list. We're going to do some lottery tickets at the end too. What's the worst that can happen? Like you go to a different party, but the best that can happen is you get to hang out with us and all the people that are going to be there. We have some special edition swag that we're giving out to the people who are just at the party. But you know, if you're at nada, we're gonna have other stuff for you as well. Yeah, boy, that's only three weeks away. Wait, it's Wednesday, so it's literally three weeks away from today, where wheels up. Is that how that works? It is Tuesday,
Kyle Mountsier 3:23
but, you know, it's
Paul J Daly 3:27
tomorrow, doesn't count. It's January, 1 three weeks in the day. Yeah, we're wheels up three weeks from tomorrow. Wow, too soon.
Kyle Mountsier 3:35
That's too soon.
Paul J Daly 3:37
Are we really ready for 2025? The last week's put me in this, like, contemplative chill mode, right? And now it's going to be like, Oh no, no. You're going to like, you know, when you walk out the door and, like, it's raining and the wind's blowing, like, back to it, yeah, in all the best ways. All right, let's talk about some news. Let's get into a couple last stories of the year. Uh, hybrid electric gas cars had a better year in 2024 achieving record sales. We're going to talk about the top 10 best selling cars this year. I mean, most popular cars. So obviously, hybrids, big talk of the year. So we're going to talk about here. Let's just give you the list, and we'll talk through them. Number one, oh, we're going to count it down. Actually, Nathan has these in top 10. That's what we should do, right? Perfect, David Letterman style if we had a drum roll and all that stuff. So here we go, number 10, Chevy Equinox, number nine, Honda Civic, followed by the Nissan Rogue, Toyota Camry at number seven, Corolla at number six, Tesla Model y, which is the only true EV on the list. Wow. Came in at number five. And then we get to the not surprising ones. Number four, Chevy Silverado, 1500 number three, honda cr V being beat out by Toyota rav4 at number two and the number one, best selling vehicle for 47 years straight. Unbelievable
Kyle Mountsier 4:57
with
Paul J Daly 4:58
we'll say 20. Percent of the buyers opting for the hybrid version is the Ford, f1, 50. So again, top five from the top down. F1, 50. Rav4, CRV, Silverado, 1500 and the Tesla Model. Y, well,
Kyle Mountsier 5:13
here's America to me. We love our trucks and our crossovers here in America, grocery getters, right? And our grocery with that Tesla Model y coming in Toyota taking three spots as normal. The surprising one for me is the Chevy Equinox jumping in there at 10, like that. One kind of blew my mind. I got specific. It's a pretty
Paul J Daly 5:35
nice vehicle, and it's an affordable price point like it is, which is why it's there, yep, yeah. So, yeah.
Kyle Mountsier 5:41
I mean, obviously, you know, hybrids, electric vehicles, kind of climbing up there and and more people opting for hybrid versions of some of the top ones. Obviously, Toyota basically getting hybrids in the majority of their their vehicle lineup at this point, you know, I think that we're going to continue to see more and more of that over the next year. I think you're going to see some new entrance into this top 10 list because of hybrid capacity, or maybe Tesla, or maybe a new EV coming in. Man,
Paul J Daly 6:16
I can't see, I can't see a new EV crack in the top 10. I don't know. But you never know somebody you know you got this old Toyota Nisa
Kyle Mountsier 6:23
trying to do a thing.
Paul J Daly 6:27
I was looking at lease deals because electric, they always have, like, top and I'm just dancing around the idea of getting an EV, like, just, I'm gonna 2025. Is my year. I'm gonna call the show. You think you're gonna do it? It's so hard to get rid of the Land Cruiser, though,
Speaker 2 6:41
yeah, it plays a cool truck. It's the opposite
Paul J Daly 6:45
of an eV. It gets, like, 12 miles to the gallon, right? Thank God I only drive it. It's the opposite of an eV, which is why it's amazing. You could drive over a curb in that thing and you don't even notice. It's like, yeah, and I don't drive over curbs a lot, but I know that I can if I wanted to, but I can if you wanted. But the Hyundai's like, when you look at the lease deals, there's a lot of 159, 189 a month for the five and the six, for sure. Even the Kia EV nine is like 329, a month with 339 down,
Kyle Mountsier 7:10
right? So silly. It's residual on those things are so high, maybe Kia makes
Paul J Daly 7:15
it her Hyundai make it on the list. But speaking of good EV lease deals, whoa, we lived in Colorado, we'd be running down. This would have incentivized me, who says driving an EV has to break the bank a Fiat dealership in Colorado pulled off the seemingly impossible, a lease deal on a 2024, Fiat, 500 e that truly costs zero down and $0 per month. It's a 27 month lease, 10,000 miles a year, and you have to pay state taxes, the only thing you have to pay. So if you got 1300 bucks to pay fancy you, you can drive that car 10,000 miles a year the next 27 months for free. Larry H Miller, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep. Bram Fiat in Denver moved 60 cars in three days. No surprise, using over $15,000 in federal and state incentives plus factory discounts, they put it all together. David Gluckman, of Car and Driver, he's the one that kind of like talked about the story. He leased one of the cars and commented on the challenges with such unique agreement. He said, quote, I was warned apologetically that there's a chance I might have to re sign some of the paperwork because the dealer's computer system doesn't know how to handle a lease with zero payment, right? Funny, no, it doesn't. Yeah, they still had it. They still had to run a credit check for him to have the ability to not pay.
Kyle Mountsier 8:36
It's wild, yeah. I mean, this is, it's similar to, like, some of the systems not handling one pay leases very well. Yeah. So I know this is probably an issue we talked about just a few weeks ago, these Colorado incentives and how deep they are on on the EVS. I'm just still shocked that a deal like someone had to go in and start really, really hammering this thing, because nobody looks up the 27 month lease residuals and money factors,
Paul J Daly 9:05
right? Found it pretty,
Kyle Mountsier 9:06
pretty legit.
Paul J Daly 9:07
So federal incentive 7500 I think the Colorado incentive is like 5300 right? There's probably a little cash from the from the factory, right? So 15 grand and incentive is like 27 month lease, tiny, little, itty bitty car that you could flip over with two of your friends. I mean, it's actually
Kyle Mountsier 9:27
fun. I like, I want leave it to dealers to figure out how to get a zero down, $0 a month. Like, you know, I can tell you there's no digital retailing program that's like, let me see. Yeah, I guess if we can figure this, I
Paul J Daly 9:41
can tell you, there's no Fiat dealer that isn't super ecstatic to move 50 Fiats,
Kyle Mountsier 9:45
50 of those jokers out of here. Fiat's like, look at these guys.
Paul J Daly 9:50
I always joke that Fiat is, is the Fiat showroom is where dealers use the space to they store their their tax boxes, like in that audit period in between. January and March, because that's what the Fiat dealership in Syracuse, whenever you walk through the showroom, I always see like, you know, like 50 of those boxes sitting in there. Yeah, the whole group's accounting boxes are just sitting there's nobody in there. There's some, like, leather finish swatches that you can look at. Ain't nobody in that Fiat that's amazing. All right, well, look last story of
Kyle Mountsier 10:18
the year. So, yeah, there's not really, it's not really a story. What it is is us talking about all the stories. There's been a lot of stuff that happened inside and outside of auto this year. I don't know. We got a list together. There's a few that are my favorites. Maybe you can pick out your favorites. My one of my favorites this year was the Eclipse. I got to actually watch the Eclipse with my family while I was at a David Cain conference, so at the same time. So it was like this mix of like, auto and culture all happening. Yeah, there were literally the vendor 20 group was standing outside, and I was in between, like Peter Fong was out there, and David Kane and the car guys and all of those people. That was a really fun one. And then I still, I go back, and we haven't talked about this a lot, but the craziness around Fisker at the beginning of the year, when everybody was like, Oh, they're going to nada, they're bringing on dealers pre nada, they're talking to dealers at a DA and then just Gonzo within just a couple months, right there, pretty wild there. And then I'm gonna steal. I'm gonna steal this that more than cars getting on Prime Video. And to be like, we've been talking about this actually, you and I talked about, before I even left, left the dealership about almost four years ago. Now, I think we had a phone call about, what would it look like to get a show on a network talking about car dealers? And we were both like, Man, I don't know if that could ever happen. And here it
Paul J Daly 11:54
is, and it's only getting better. You know, it's only getting better. We filmed three episodes for season two already, which is one of my high points of the year, the fact that we already filmed three, and it feels like we got a little rhythm, and they're getting better by the episode, right? We're getting better at making them the stories are getting better and deeper. Um, so yeah, that is an amazing one. I loved having will Gadara speak at ASOTU CON, and the moment we surprised him on stage, that was one of my most Ah, that was so good at 24 when we hid his best friend in a box on the stage, and he popped out and surprised him and iced him, gave his spirit off ice, and he had to drink it on stage. And he said, Don't film this. And then he got down on one knee like he was about to propose to it, and he just on that thing in about six seconds. A lot of other things happen. And like you mentioned, the Eclipse, and it's easy to forget that, you know, obviously we had some serious stuff happen. The CDK hack was a major deal that we watched the auto industry just band together and figure out a way to get it done. And even, like with all the with all the the heat that CDK took, that took from that, there were some people that were really leaning on them and throwing down, I was really encouraged to see how the overall tone of the industry, though, wasn't like, let's slam them, right? It was like, hey, like, you know, there are things we need to fix. There are things that this is highlighting. So that I thought that was a good time for the industry to actually come together. We obviously had remember the election. It was an election year, and it was a crazy election year, but certainly not the craziest election year we've seen no, right, definitely, right. It was like, actually, I was, it was a kind of a relief. It was fairly docile. I was kind of surprised. Yeah, you know, nothing burned. Let's put it that way. Remember the Baltimore bridge accident? Oh, that boat, yeah, right. It was right before con. We're like, is this gonna like, yeah, right
Kyle Mountsier 13:38
before soda con. You're right. That was, it was, uh, like, kind of shocking, unexpected, um, part of, part of the year. But, you know, looking back, you just kind of forget about these things that had a massive impact on, like, supply chain and the way they remember
Paul J Daly 13:52
all the talk about, like, it was, like, was it even a blip, right? Like, from a consumer standpoint, yeah, I think one thing we can learn this year and from the last three years going into next year, is the fact that news, by nature, is incentivized to be sensational, yep. And the more we can step out of that, and I think this is the perfect industry for it, and our community is the perfect group of people for it, the more we can step out of that and understand, like the people to your right and your left, when you're kind of like making eye contact. You're like, we're going to be fine through this. Like, we got we got each other's back. I think this is just another year the auto industry has done that. It's been a source of stability in our country's economy. It's been a source of stability in communities. It's been a source of stability. Like, I feel like the ASOTU community, not Kyle and I and Nate and the crew, not us, but all of the people that kind of call more than cars home are a source of stability within this industry. That's a source of stability. I'm going to claim that for for the people, I
Kyle Mountsier 14:49
agree, I think other other dealers, and if you're a part of this community, if you're listening to the show every single day, you're a part of a community that a lot of other dealers, a lot of industry partners. Tech partners, even people outside of the industry are starting to take notice of what we're doing. So keep up the good work. Be that cornerstone of community, both for your people, the people that are customers, and community outside. And I think the auto industry has a big thing in store for it over the next few
Paul J Daly 15:19
years. I do too. I think we would be remiss if we did not just, I'm gonna actually play this music. I think we'd be remiss if we did not just thank first and foremost all of the people, all of our team on the ASOTU, who work behind the scenes every single day, who build the shows and write the emails and coordinate with our with our partners and work on the events and book the venues and plan the things like this team. This team is amazing. Don't understand you don't even heard this scrappy, entrepreneurial team works to make sure you have a little hook to hang something on every day. So want to thank the team. Also, we need to thank our collaborators, our sponsors. We are a media company, so this, none of this happens without the companies and the industry partners who say we believe in this mission. We're going to step up next you. We're going to support it. We want to be a part of the action. We want to be a part of of the good things happening in the industry. Kyle, who else are we thanking? I just took most of it.
Kyle Mountsier 16:21
I mean, we're thinking all of the dealers and industry partners that have that have shared and given wisdom this year to us and to others in the industry, like this selflessness by which this community approaches, giving back both to each other and to their communities, that's a big deal for me, because it's not something that I think our industry has been known for historically, but it's just become an open
Paul J Daly 16:44
book. That's right. And I think we need to think thank I know we're going to forget somebody. I shouldn't done this without notes, but I want to thank Mike Stan from nada and all the dealer Association presidents and CEOs and executive leaders who have partnered with us this year have allowed us to be a part of their world have become a part of our world. And I think fully understanding that this is a way that we can band together in a more meaningful way this year and next year, we're gonna be in Washington, DC, in January. Yeah.
Kyle Mountsier 17:13
I mean, we gotta thank Damon, Lester, Perry Watson, the entire name ad community, the woken community, for shouldering up with us at ASOTU CON and then at NAD inviting us in, allowing you us to share your story and creating incredible stories. And
Paul J Daly 17:29
last but not least, thank you to all the people out there on the front lines every day, day in and day out. You are the reason that ASOTU boiler cars exist. You're the reason that the difference is being made. So get out there. Have a great new year. We'll see you next year. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai