Foxconn’s New EV Partners, Affordability At 2021 Levels, People More Than Burgers

Paul J Daly  0:01  
Good morning, bright and early. Is it happy St Patrick's Day? Is that what day it is? Oh, my goodness. You know how I knew, because there's an Irish pub and I drove into work and there's literally people waiting in line outside, which I will never understand. What the heck is wearing green?

Speaker 1  0:19  
What is that? A coupon, a dick's cash. It's a coupon to Dick sporting goods.

Paul J Daly  0:27  
Oh, man, you know the set this.

Kyle Mountsier  0:29  
You have your ego to turn You're right. No, I

Paul J Daly  0:32  
actually don't, because Danny zyslovsky has one and Brandis has the other one. I do have a white one. And I should, I don't know. I didn't think of it. I should have wore the green. Other green. Love people. More big, big opportunity. Miss, I total miss. I drove in, and our studio is in the middle of this beautiful little neighborhood, which was originally founded by Irish so there's a lot of Irish pubs and and, like, last weekend, the last like, they start celebrating St Patrick's Day, like, four weeks in advance. So every weekend there's, like, a shamrock run, and it's just packed around here. And people live in this neighborhood. It's awesome. And this morning, I'm

Kyle Mountsier  1:12  
driving in, you know, Paul, you know we're we're homeschooled, right? We all are homeschooled. And, like, I feel like our kids learn the weirdest things in homeschool, because it's just like, why? What is st Patty's day, right? So, like, here's your little facts. Here's what it really is. Go ahead if you didn't know. I found this out this weekend, because, you know, homeschool moms. So apparently, the whole thing St Patrick, he's English. I

ish, not a joke. He's like an English exile, ex prisoner, goes to Ireland, goes back to England, comes back to Ireland, and the whole thing, the whole thing is around feeding hungry children. So well, we can no drinking. And he taught

Paul J Daly  2:03  
the gospel

Kyle Mountsier  2:04  
the Trinity with a shamrock, three, three deals. Yeah, here, yep,

Paul J Daly  2:09  
the Irish. Like, you know,

Kyle Mountsier  2:12  
how about it? Was actually American Irish in New York City that just started drinking. And then they, like, merged the holidays about 50 years

Paul J Daly  2:19  
and here we are. They're a line of people that look way too cold standing outside of the big Irish pub at the top of the hill here. And I drove and I was like, Do people? I mean, it feels way colder this morning too, because it was so beautiful over the weekend, and it's in the 30s again, so it feels like, oh yeah. Feels like teens now, after you get used to it, but there you go. So whatever you're doing the St Patrick's Day, whatever you celebrate Irish, English, whatever. We're here with you. We showed up for it. Yeah, no Greek, no green beer, though night. Couldn't even get the green shirts together. That's a fail. That is a it's okay. My grandfather and my father, size 100% Irish. But you know, what are we gonna do? I forget we are eight episodes away from episode 1000 of this morning show. We've done this almost 1000 times. We're gonna celebrate something special. Kyle's coming to Syracuse. Maybe I'll take you. I'll take you in one of those Irish pubs for lunch.

Kyle Mountsier  3:08  
Oh boy, lunch food, I'm sure. Yeah. So we're

Paul J Daly  3:12  
gonna do a little something special. Thank you for being here with us for almost 1000 episodes. We hope you stay with us, share the show and show up the morning. What morning is it? Nathan, is it Tuesday? Next Next Tuesday? Next Tuesday is the day show up for Episode 1000 and I guarantee we probably won't be wearing any green. No, none of that. What else we got? Black and white only? Oh, we had a great That's

Kyle Mountsier  3:35  
it. Come to ASOTU CON, yup, watch the webinar from Friday. You can go to asotu.com you can find all those things, the ASOTU CON, the webinar, you just like, check in there once a week, you know, because there's good stuff happening@asotu.com you can go to more than cars.com land you at the same place if you can't spell ASOTU, you know, that's the way it is.

Paul J Daly  3:53  
It's in your browser somewhere right now, as you're watching or in your podcast app. Hey, we do want to start off by talking about the almost 80 tornadoes that were reported as a result of this last week's storm, a big time trail destruction across central and eastern US. A lot of communities affected, a lot of communities starting that long, hard, arduous process of rebuilding. And these are the situations where we kind of dealers do what they do best, which is step up, lend a hand, take care of their community. So we're here to help that however we can. In the past, as people have special efforts going on, if you let us know, we will make sure that we get the word out across our network. A lot of times, we can get some funding and some help and some supplies and equipment from other dealers all across the country, but they need to know about the need, so shoot an email to crew@asotu.com c, r, e, w@asotu.com with what what you're doing to help, what going what's going on, and any needs you may have, and we'll do our best to amplify that and get it out so the industry can ban. Together. I had my no crisis. Can win shirt on yesterday, by the way. Oh man,

Kyle Mountsier  5:03  
that's it. I feel like there's we don't mess around when it comes to our when it comes to our people. No, you know, we

Paul J Daly  5:11  
definitely don't. All right, let's talk about some news today. Taiwanese tech giant Fox con. If you don't know who they are, pick up your iPhone, and they probably made everything in it better known as Apple's iPhone manufacturer, they're reportedly closing in on EV partnerships with two Japanese companies. The news follows speculation about a possible alliance with Nissan or Honda. No surprise there, especially after the Honda Nisa merger talks failed, so Han high precision, Inc, which is Foxconn official name, is expected to finalize deals within two months, according to Chairman, Yao li Lu did not confirm the companies, but emphasized contract design and manufacturing services as part of the agreements. The March 11 appointment of Ivan Espinoza, Nissan CEO could pave the way for new negotiations. Foxconn is making global EV plays, having already signed deals with the ZF group, stellantis and infinity Infineon, and aiming to start North America. Get this, aiming to start North American production, making it in the US of its Model C crossover in late 2025 to counter rising us tariffs. They did state they're not looking to acquire Nissan, looking to work with them. But I hadn't, I didn't even know they made cars. Actually, they make, oh man,

Kyle Mountsier  6:33  
well, yeah, they are. This is, like, this is the same thing as BYD, making all the iPads. Right? Like, yeah, these, these, these Asian like, manufacturers of of hardware and software goods are just integrated into so many things. And it doesn't matter with whether it's Japan, China, Taiwan, they're just making the world's tech right now. Who's it gonna be? I don't know. It kind of, you know, I feel like, I feel like maybe they're going a bit European, like going to Lantus US manufacturing, take over a failing brand, make it tech forward. Have you ever seen Jeeps? You know, system, it's real bad. Maybe Foxconn revives that, something like that. I don't know. I mean, there's, they're

Paul J Daly  7:21  
definitely saying that there is one, at least one of the companies you're talking about is Japanese company. I'd be really surprised if it was not Honda and not Nissan.

Kyle Mountsier  7:29  
I know. I mean, that was, like, already a thing last month. I thought, I thought that, like, when this didn't happen, it was very clearly stated that Fox con had an interest in Nissan, or maybe that was just speculation, but I'm, I'm pretty sure I remember covering that I'm putting

Paul J Daly  7:45  
if I'm at a race, I'm and I'm dressed up with David Kane in Kentucky, betting on a horse. I'm betting on Nissan.

Kyle Mountsier  7:52  
Oh, you know it's so sad. Well, it's not sad, it's good, but that's not going to happen anymore. Oh, because Kane's, Kane's family and friends is now NCM, family and friends. NCM is in St Louis, and so it's going to be there from now on. Oh, the horse race was an amazing memory. Or Kansas City. Maybe it's Kansas City, thank you, David. It's for the horse race memory. The horse race. I made one bet

Paul J Daly  8:13  
and I won. Oh,

Kyle Mountsier  8:16  
look at that. Well done. I'm out. I actually

Paul J Daly  8:18  
bet who, what horse would come in second. I don't know why, but I just decided that's the horse that's gonna come inside.

Kyle Mountsier  8:24  
That's a lot of fun. Why not? I know that's good. I won

Paul J Daly  8:27  
like $28 but based on the, based on the video, someone filming me, I think it Dave spaniki At the moment, yeah, you would want a million. Like, all my debt was just paid off. You raped in it. I was like $28 I believe was the was the total payout. And then Then Fred and Lou drove me to the airport. What a day, what a day, uh, speaking of a day in a debt, oh, man, speaking of debt, new Oh, I should have slow on

the thing. Slow on the fingers. Okay, it's Monday.

On this Monday, new vehicle afforded. Affordability improved in February, reaching get this its best level in over three years. According to the Cox automotive Moody's Analytics vehicle affordability index Say that five times fast, the average price of new vehicles fell by 1.3% for the month, improving affordability, despite high interest rates, auto loan rates rose slightly to 10.16% the highest in four months. But income growth, which is up three and a half percent year over year, helped to offset it. Typical monthly car payments declined to $748 down a percent by no so hard to be happy about that. They're down 1.3% year over year. It now takes 37.2 weeks of median income to buy a new vehicle and improvement from 39 weeks a year ago. Cox automotives. Jonathan smoke, I don't even know if he's around anymore. He's just a figurehead now. We never see him. You don't call, you don't write. He says portability is relative higher income into. Individuals are faring better, while lower income individuals still face challenges. No surprise there. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier  10:05  
I think that that that affordable, affordability is relative, is so key right now, like, you know, payments declining to 748 doesn't mean that we're, we're reaching you you know, like parity when it comes to affordability, it still just feels like totally out of reach. I mean, that's more than my first rent, like, apartment rate. Was it? Think I was like, 525, or something? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, still, like, this is a conversation that you continually have to be having with your sales people, with your frontline team on how to walk through the road to the purchase Well, without, like overwhelming the consumer, putting them in the wrong car, understanding the budgetary restrictions, because interest rates are still high, they're not going anywhere for another at least four to six months, and and you still have, you know, high priced vehicles, even with the declining price. And we may still see used cars stay high price through this year, especially with some of the talks about the tariffs over the next week or two, tariffs impacting new car production. Now it's really going to only going to impact new car production on some model lines that already have high day supply. So we may not see that much of a difference, but we at least won't see probably a decline for another four to six months. So it's just conversation that you

Paul J Daly  11:19  
got to be aware of. Yep, but I guess it's going in the right direction. Let's look at the brights. It's going in the right direction. I mean, it's not waiting in line to drink green beer down the street from me, but you know it's going in the right direction,

Kyle Mountsier  11:31  
speaking of going in the right direction,

on the heels of being named the best, eighth best company to work for in and out. Burger CEO Lindsey Snyder credits her servant leadership approach as the driving force behind the company success. The heiress views her employees as family leadership philosophy that prioritizes our employees over executive demands, or as we around here would say she's loving people more than you love hamburgers. You know, you know, servant leadership, obviously, is a, is a is kind of a leadership mentality that focuses on employee growth and well being, a value that Snyder says she inherited from her family. Her grandfather built the foundation with hard work passion. Our Father emphasized humility and quality. So, you know, kind of all those characteristics coming into the current status. Snyder said, I love all of the employees very much. And I'd love to think that I have pieces of all of them, uh, kind of interesting. Like, hey, all of these people kind of roll up into our executive mentality. Yeah,

Paul J Daly  12:35  
you know, prioritizing employee needs over executive wants is an important component of this. And one of the things I love about this story is that it's a family business that has scaled and gotten very big and very influential in culture. Sounds very familiar to an industry we love. And when you look at a lot of these legacy auto auto groups that have been passed down from one to another, you see this increase. I mean, I'm trying to think of an I'm trying to think of a scenario I know of where I haven't seen an increase in empathy and care as the generations progress, right? Yeah, I think, I think if you backed up, I wonder if you back up, like, 20 years, 30 years, you saw some of the opposite. But I think a lot of those, you know, like we're Junior, inherits the group, and, you know, they run it into the ground, right? Because they grow up. But the ones that are still standing are ones, and that

Kyle Mountsier  13:31  
we've met some second and third generations. I mean, the roar mens Liza Borches, the lowenfields that, like, you start to see these second and third generation, Joel the Bozar family, like you see, these second and third generations really emphasizing a level of care that, like, you can't have unless you've unless you felt the familial nature of the business over a long time.

Paul J Daly  13:56  
And the best part is that the business results really speak for themselves. You know, a lot of times you get into, you know, quote, unquote, the soft skills, which doesn't make any sense, because they're soft skills. Like, you can get fired for lack of soft skills. So it doesn't, it doesn't see right? But the soft skills and the people side of the business can often be chalked up to, like, Well, show me the numbers and show me the performance. But when you look at all the groups we just named, you look at in an Out Burger, it's very obvious that when you pay attention to those things and you teach your you're into the next generation, and you equip them to do it, and they actually do it, which they are like, the business is like, solid, like, not just solid, it's thriving, resiliving, thriving. All thriving. That's the word, right? That's the word thriving, people, thriving industry. I know. I know. Well, look, I'm about that. I love some if you can do that with burgers, you can certainly do it with cars. And the opportunities we have day in and day out to serve people this st Patty's day, whatever you do, or you're hoping, you're paying attention to the people, whether you're from England or Ireland or you know what?

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