Carvana’s “Grift For The Ages”, Tesla’s Drop In Deliveries, Cursive Coming Back

Paul J Daly  0:00  
Oh, I still get used to the new record button, but it's Friday, January 3. This is the end of the like five days that will start on the normal 2025 because no one seems to know what day it is yesterday. I can't tell you. Someone told

Kyle Mountsier  0:16  
me yesterday. They were like, have we had seven Mondays in the last two weeks. Like, what happened yesterday? All

Paul J Daly  0:21  
day? I was referring to Tuesday as Friday. I was like, Well, we talked about this on Friday, because even

Kyle Mountsier  0:29  
though, when it wasn't Tuesday, it was Thursday and it was not Friday, yeah, see,

Paul J Daly  0:33  
we didn't have this problem when we worked retail, right? Because you know exactly what day it is because you're working, it's New Year's Day because you're working just, you know, we don't have that anymore. We're on the other

Kyle Mountsier  0:47  
spin all. We're ready for next Monday reset. Be on time. You know what I mean, right? Exactly. Hey,

Paul J Daly  0:53  
a bunch of stuff going on. Make sure you go to nada parties.com. And check out our party. But also check out our sponsors. Check out all the other parties that are listed. We're over between 20 and 30 right now. There's gonna be more. This is gonna be the authoritative guide to what you're doing after the show every day at nada. Make sure, if you have a party going on, you submit it on the site so we can post it. Doesn't cost anything to post your party up there. We'll make sure we get the info and links and get some people coming your way. Maybe we'll stop by and visit too. Yeah, that's

Kyle Mountsier  1:26  
it's really selfish, because we're like, how do we once we're done with ours? How do we how do we plan the rest? I know it's kind of for you, but it's also for us. You know what I mean? Is the way that we want

Paul J Daly  1:38  
to thank our friends at clairvoy for helping us make nada parties.com possible. Yep, it takes a little bit of a village to make sure everyone knows where they're going. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier  1:47  
it's okay, Paul, did you know that next week, next week we are planning, I haven't told you the day. I don't think we even know the day that we're going to be fully dropping the ASOTU CON website, the tickets, the app, it's all coming in hot. So there were some people that got early tickets. If you want to be the first person to know that there are tickets available, still go to ASOTU CON com, and you can sign up be on the email list. There's a few 100 people right now that are waiting on like waiting on their knees, just hoping that they'll be the first one to get in. So you can, you can get that information. We'll have some basic schedule, all that type of stuff up. And

Paul J Daly  2:27  
also, if you were at ASOTU CON last year and you have the app on your phone still, like I do, yep, yep, you will notice the icon is now updated, so it's got the new ASOTU CON app adoption. By the way, our app usage last year was through the It was nuts. It's good app, yeah. And so if you are like, always want to go to a conference with a good app, you're about to go to one, you're gonna do it. Yeah. And then Hey. So we, every day, we put out this email. It's the daily, even call it the daily, daily push back, I was the troublemaker, the pushback, that's the things. But it's a daily email. It gives you a quick digest of what's going on. Has a lot of fun stuff, and I thought I'd share a few things from it this morning, because it's so much fun, some good stuff. Just bringing me coffee. I'm so excited on the live stream.

Kyle Mountsier  3:13  
Oh my goodness, bringing you coffee on the live stream. Can you imagine? Can you believe that that's unbelievable.

Paul J Daly  3:21  
So in eight we always include some fun facts in the bottom of the email, like this day in history in 1899 this day in history, the first use of the word automobile happened in the New York Times. That's

Kyle Mountsier  3:34  
crazy. 1899 that kind of is shocking to me. I always think of like the 1900s as the car. But, you know, the 1890s things were starting to, like, warm up and and people, I

Paul J Daly  3:46  
wonder if they like, probably that article. I wonder if we can find it. They probably was the first, like tossing across the net. Like, maybe we shouldn't say Motor Carriage,

Kyle Mountsier  3:56  
right? You know what I mean. Maybe we should say that's, that's such a wild like January. It was a

Paul J Daly  4:01  
little bit of media, a little bit on, you know what I mean, what we're in, yeah, remember, remember the brand Pontiac? Oh, that sad brand, 1926 we're doing. So I think they were just ahead of their time. They were so cool. And then they got so mid, you know, toward the end of the years. But 1926 the first Pontiac came out, I would drive an old Pontiac. Yeah, maybe that's you and me. Like, maybe like, you know, like, down the line a little bit we're gonna, we're gonna get some old muscle cars. Like, you know, what

Kyle Mountsier  4:32  
we need to do is we need an old Pontiac to go around, like, like that we ship to the next more than cars, and that's what we drive around the city when we're doing more

Paul J Daly  4:40  
than car. That's amazing that you want to let us use for our more than cars, intros, outros on our you just shipped out. We will do it. Just putting that out there, we will do it. All right, let's talk about some news. Get into it. This has been kind of the talk. Yesterday. I didn't see too much about it, but Hindenburg research known for exposing automotive startups like Nicola and. Georgetown Motors has published a scathing report on used car retailer Carvana, alleging questionable accounting practices and underwriting concerns. Basically, they're saying Carvana sold $800 million in loans to a suspected related party and used accounting manipulation to inflate profits. They allegedly sold the vehicles to drive time, as we know, a company founded and owned by Ernie Garcia, the second father of Ernie Garcia, who we all know, who runs Carvana. And they inflate the saying they inflated the prices to avoid recording Mark downs, you know, keeping profits high. A former director reported, reportedly, they did all these employee interviews. I read about the process, right? It's really in depth, they go Freedom of Information Act. They interview former employees. They claim Carvana approved 100% of every loan applicant. That's un suggesting they took on all this risk to show higher sales, Carvana shares did drop 1.9% following the report closing it under 200 now the company called the report however, you know, Carvana, Ernie, PR department said this is intentionally misleading and inaccurate, asserting a focus, that their focus is on Learn, long term growth, and everything they're doing being part of their strategy. You can read the full x thread on our LinkedIn page, but I mean, like, you know, here's,

Kyle Mountsier  6:16  
here's what? Okay, couple things on this one I I think people, at least in the industry, and I think why this isn't, like, as big a news, like 30 people not posting on LinkedIn about it yesterday, is some of the stuff I feel has been kind of known that they've leveraged drive Time their finance companies to, like, accelerate retail. So you know whether or not the spin on this is how they, quote, unquote, inflated prices or took on riskier loans like that's kind of the business strategy to take on riskier loans to grow the customer, grab more market share. Absolutely, that's which is why I think it like after the report, you would think a report like this as as quote, unquote scathing as it would be, would see a five, 10% drop in shares, and you're not seeing that. So I think there's some wisdom out there on so I wouldn't go running it like, you know, yeah, exactly, yeah.

Paul J Daly  7:20  
I mean, and time is, time will tell, right? It's, we're in a media environment where one thing comes out, and the reflex to like, pile on the person being accused has kind of been the norm, but that temperature seems to be changing pretty quickly. And I hope this is, you know, I hope that there's nothing shady going on. I hope that, you know, every time I've I've met or talked to or interviewed Ernie Garcia, CEO of Carvana, he's been really great, really nice, shared his insights with the industry, and we'll see. But that's the news, folks. Yeah, that is the news. Oh,

Kyle Mountsier  7:52  
to say, like, what a recovery. And also, the things that Carvana has brought an impetus for our industry to change our

Paul J Daly  8:04  
1000 times over for the had Carvana not not been there, speaking of another company that forced us to do things we weren't going to do, that's right segue.

Kyle Mountsier  8:10  
It is a long segue, but it's a good one. It's a long segue, but it's a good one. I mean, it's Friday.

Paul J Daly  8:16  
Fridays are for long segues. Tesla's q4 production and delivery numbers are in making a challenging end to 2024 for the EV giant, with its first annual drop in deliveries ever, I think since 2011 right, like when they were just getting started, they delivered, they delivered 1.7 8 million vehicles in 2024 falling short of the 1.81 delivered In 2023 q4 deliveries hit 495,000 falling short of analyst expectations of 500,000 so they're just coming in under. Just the story is that it's under. It's the first time they've taken a step back in overall deliveries. The shares dropped 7% following report, despite a 63% rally in 2023 or 2024 declining sales in Europe, slower growth in China BYD and Hyundai gaming market share. Some experts worry that Musk's 270, $7 million support for President Trump and his advisor able advisory role may have diverted focus from Tesla's operations. Doubt it. Yeah, either Patrick, George, editor in chief of inside EV said, quote, Tesla still does many things better than any other EV maker, but the challenge remains, the nuts and bolts job of being a car company,

Kyle Mountsier  9:28  
it will continually be hard for the harder for them as new entrants make it. I would be interested, and I didn't look at the specific details, but I would be interested to see the growth in the US versus the growth in China, right? Because I'm going to look that up actually today, because I would suspect that there was still growth in the US, but that they but that they got beat in overseas markets, especially in China, because of BYD and other automakers in China. And that was a. Major market for them, always. So, you know, I still like, was there a distraction? No, because there's a legit amount of people that are doing the work day in and day out, and we've had the fortunate opportunity to meet some of those that have been inside of it. And yeah, so I like they're doing fine, fam. I don't think cyber truck. I will say the cyber truck. I've seen more cyber trucks on used car lots than I ever would have thought in the first year of them being delivered. So true, people are obviously trying to flip those. We'll see

Paul J Daly  10:33  
what happens when they do the price drop. Nathan, our producer, puts in a note, they're also struggling in Europe, right by BYD cars in Europe yet, right? Is that true? No, by these in Europe. Okay, anywhere BYD, is right? Anywhere by ideas test was struggling probably, I will say, though, I don't think it has anything to do with him being on the campaign trail for President Trump. No, yeah, because that's not. I mean, the I see from, like, the conventional wisdom, right? I mean, it probably has more to do with him being the number one video game player in whatever that game is than the Trump.

Speaker 1  11:10  
I don't think he sleeps. That's the whole thing. Actually, I don't think he actually sleeps. Yeah, I think Yeah. I mean, we're this. One of the companies, SpaceX, is literally catching rockets with chopsticks. Like, come on, guys, they're doing fine, nothing

Paul J Daly  11:23  
to do with it either. Like, how you gonna Yeah? Speaking of having nothing to do with it, yeah, or

Kyle Mountsier  11:29  
maybe everything to do with it. Actually, maybe everything. We're about to change the entire ASOTU brand and bring back skip, because Lord and Taylor has done it. They've turned back the clock, reviving its cursive logo as it prepares to relaunch an online discount luxury retailer under new ownership regal brands global the classic script logo, first introduced in 1945 replaces the modern san serif Ford mark, which the new leadership called the biggest betrayal of the brand Founded in 1826 Lord and Taylor is embracing its legacy. Branding itself is the signature of American style for its digital comeback. Obviously, we've seen over the last 10 years, a lot of brands move away from cursive and into San ser style logos, the the brands, Regal brands, global strategies, Chief Officer senior yellow said, I understand going after young customers, but this is not a start. All

Paul J Daly  12:28  
right, I have thoughts on this number one. When they first changed it, there was, like, a major disc we like, we don't think millennials can read cursive. That's literally, was one of the issues there is so I think there's so many Right Reasons to make this change go back. I think we're in the middle of this. Like the pendulum always swings on fonts, on branding, and I think the pendulum is starting to shift back away from the clean, plain font, right? Like we're kind of at the end of that cycle. They're still really popular, Lord and Taylor people, if you do a good job with the brand, people will know what it means. People will know what it says. And I think the the cursive one, it just has so much more

Kyle Mountsier  13:10  
character that one, especially them, because they went with, like, an extremely rigid, basic sans serif font. Yeah, it's almost like, it's like a monster at look alike. So a very kind of, like, standard type thing. And you go and look at the the original thing that they're bringing back the it is dynamic. You can see it on the screen, if you're watching. It's dynamic. It's cool. It stands out. Nobody else is sharing it. Yeah, you throw that on a shirt. It's like, Oh, I know what. I know what that. I'm not quite

Paul J Daly  13:40  
sure, but I think that is the actual handwriting of, like, an influential person back then in the brand, like that was their handwriting script. So it's got a story to it. Awesome job. They closed the Lord and Taylor in Syracuse. I used to really love that story. I'm not a big department store person, but for some reason, the Lord and Taylor store was like this nice in between, between, like, Macy's and Nordstrom. We don't have Nordstrom we don't Nord Stream either. It's Syracuse Nordstrom Rack. We don't have Nord Stream. Nordstrom Rack

Kyle Mountsier  14:08  
well, and I think like to speak to, you know, some of even, like the legacy automakers that are trying to rewrite their brands. You know, this is going to be something where, I think we see more people go back to origin stories in their brands and recognize that, that that was a powerful thing. I will say origin stories of car logo brands that have the little like shadow car. That's not what we're talking about here. You can still get rid of that thing, okay,

Paul J Daly  14:38  
you can go on Fiverr and see your logo in the first three go to five or f, i, v, e, r, r.com, type in automotive logo. And if your logo looks anything like what comes up in the first page of search results, call your boys. It's time to teach your logo. We can make a little bit of it. Reopen. You end the week strong. Look going into the first weekend of the year for all of our dealer friends, it's going to be a good one this year. 2025, tons of momentum. Go out there and get it. We'll see you tomorrow.

Unknown Speaker  15:10  
How's it?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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