Hurricane and Strike Updates, EV Market Share Shift, Uber Halloween Costume Delivery

Paul J Daly: 0:05

Well, that's it. Kiss, September goodbye. It's October, brand new month. We're rocking into the very last part of this year. We're talking about Halloween and strikes and dock workers and EV adoption and all the things little Halloween story at the end, all relevant to

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:23

consumer experience. It is relevant. It is absolutely relevant, for sure. Look q4

Unknown: 0:31

coming at you. Election season ramping hard they got we got politics and Docs and oh, I mean,

Paul J Daly: 0:42

I quarter. Well, you know what it's like where you live, but miles and I were driving to work today, and I just starkly noticed the absence of presidential lawn signs. I was like, everyone's kind of staying out of it this year.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:58

Really, nothing. Yeah, you got to come to the south to see that, I guess.

Paul J Daly: 1:02

I guess so. I mean, unless New Yorkers just gave up, they're like, yeah.

Unknown: 1:06

I mean, they just full send that thing. I will

Paul J Daly: 1:09

say the people up here that do them go all in like they're lit,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:13

yeah, they're like a big board depot. And made it their

Paul J Daly: 1:17

structures that they erected in order to make, make their make their voice heard. Unbelievable. Man, the elect and all the election commercials during the Super Bowl. I mean, the Super Bowl, no, during week four of the regular season NFL, we were like, Oh my gosh, can we just go I can

Kyle Mountsier: 1:32

tell you what it's like around here. I was in Hobby Lobby on the weekend, and Hobby Lobby, lobby just got decided to skip fall. They were just like, forget that we're going to Christmas. Oh, dude, that's Lowe's. I mean, every time this year

Paul J Daly: 1:46

I've just, I've I've given up. I made a post yesterday about this abominable little snowman in Lowe's. It's like, from Rudolph, the suckers, like, eight or nine feet tall, and they're like, we're going to Christmas. If we have a decoration, let's just put it out. That's what it is. And I kind of think that that's this is indicative of the retail market right now, where, like, retail stores know they need to capture dollars sooner, before Amazon gets their claws on everybody, right? And so I think it's a race to, like, get the dollars first, especially in the time of uncertainty. But who knows? Who knows? We know we know. What we do know is we have an upcoming webinar, another quick shot webinar, this Friday, October 4, with our friends at wikimotive and Billy galette of Tommy Carr Auto Group, talking about keeping the ship on course by aligning marketing with store processing, like that is the key to success. If you were one on my heart right there. Can't just say stuff. It's got to deliver when you get in the store, and the store processes and what people are saying should inform your marketing. Gonna help you understand how to do that better this Friday. Just go to us so to do calm right there at the top of the fold, you can sign up to join the webinar. Come in live. Kyle and I will be there hosting. We're gonna have a great time, like we always do heckless. Ask questions, and if you can't be there, sign up so you get the recording. All right. News, let's do a news all right this week, because there's a couple major events going on. We're going to give a little update on both of those at the beginning of each show. One of those the developing story about the hurricane and its impacts across dealerships. The second part is the dock worker strike, where the dock workers went on strike at midnight last night, so we're gonna move that through this week to just keep everybody, kind of like apprised of what's going on. So dealerships across the southeast so are still assessing damage after the category four hurricane Helene, many dealerships are still closed, particularly hard hit areas like Asheville and Boone, North Carolina, we had Todd Kapital on talking about that yesterday, dealership employees, right? Like you just think of the people involved reporting significant personal losses, including homes and vehicle vehicles haven't heard of any deaths yet amongst dealership employees. So that's a positive. Carmax is giving $1,500 in tax free financial aid to employees through its Disaster Relief Fund. That's great to see. Dustin Walters, VP of friendship family of dealerships, said, quote, it's really kind of gathering information right now while the stores are closed, just trying to find out what the needs are. Some you can't even you can't even get to them because everything's down. John Policastro, president of North Carolina auto Dealers Association, says, it's pretty devastating out west, and we've got some small towns, they've been kind of just wiped away in the floodwaters. Still trying to figure it out.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:29

Man, I you know, I've, I've never actually lived through a hurricane like that, but in Nashville, going through a few massive tornadoes in the last 13 years since we've lived here, like it's devastating for the whole entire city, and floodwaters, like they don't, you know, it's a great equalizer. So definitely, like, you know, if you know people that are out there that could use help, like, we'll continue to try and provide resources for this. But this, again, is going. Have impacts for that area, in the automotive retail sector, but also potentially in the broader automotive retail sector. So just something to stay abreast of great stuff from Carmax, though,

Paul J Daly: 5:12

if you know of a need or somebody doing something amazing, please just shoot us an email true catasota.com so we can put a little bit of a bullhorn behind it. Speaking of bullhorns, a better than I thought. We reported yesterday, Port workers were looking to go on strike or threatening strike, and now, as of midnight, they've gone on strike across the US, East and Gulf coasts, threatening significant disruptions to the auto supply chain. Key terminals like New York and Houston are shut down like shut down. Shut down in the last 24 hours, US maritime Alliance offered nearly a 50% wage increase to the Union and the longshoremans Association. They rejected it as unacceptable they're actually looking for I think I saw a 77% wage increase. Both parties exchanged new proposals, but negotiations remain at an impasse. It could cost the US economy $5 billion per day, completely stalling. Car and Truck imports to the East Coast, billions of dollars of goods, from food to vehicles rely on access to the ports, says Jay Timmons, CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers. I did see another stat I'm going to add in here that this accounts for 39 to 39 to 49% of all US goods come through these ports. Wow, that's unbelievable.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:38

How do you reconcile that with, like, all of the industries that would be in that are gonna all of them back to this by every like, how do those industries, like, is there like, a pony up, right? I don't know. I mean, what I read is, I think it was 2011 that these workers last received, like, salary bumps, and so was it that long ago? Yeah, it's like, it's like, I'm like, that's why you see the 77% of our four years, because basically they're saying, hey, look, make up for lost time. Yeah, make up for it in half. So I need to fact check that. We'll fact check that for tomorrow. But you know this, this is, without a doubt, something to be watching over the next couple of weeks, if this thing continues on, because a couple weeks of shutdown here could be way, way more devastating than anything that we've seen as far as shutdowns in the last year and a half on all these union strikes, I

Paul J Daly: 7:31

know going to the holidays too

Kyle Mountsier: 7:34

products about to get expensive. Wanna

Paul J Daly: 7:36

say good morning to Michelle Langford on the live stream. Thanks for saying hi to everybody who shows up on the live stream every morning, whether it's LinkedIn or YouTube or Facebook. We love having you with us while we're doing the show. It's cool. But even if not, no you can listen to the audio version of the show too on Spotify Apple Music, just go download the show. So if you miss it, it's great. You know, we'll try to keep you entertained while you're, like, walking your dog or something like that. Speaking of I had a good segue, and it's gone changing changing beers a little bit. That's kind of ironic, because EVs don't have the electric vehicle. Landscape is exhibiting a notable shift away from non or away from luxury EVs. And the non luxury EV segment is growing the market share to 26.6% in q2 up from 22.7% in 2023 overall. This is according to Experian data, luxury EVs still obviously dominate, but more affordable models are now gaining traction. Ford is leading the non luxury segment at 21.9% behind them is Hyundai 19.3 Volkswagen at 11% Kia at 12 and Chevy at 13. Basically, 77 plus percent of EV owners who replaced their vehicles in 2024 chose another EV. Pretty strong. That's super strong. EVs are often along, used alongside another gas powered vehicle in the household, with 81% of households owning both an EV and a gasoline vehicles, but they've become a compelling choice because consumers are relying on the gas powered vehicles to do the other stuff. That's according to experience Kirsten von Bush,

Kyle Mountsier: 9:11

ah, Kirsten, she's awesome, but, but also, this is, I mean, this is continuing the counter narrative to what we saw so much in the first after year that EVs were dying like they're still growing market share. There's still a growth in in their acceptance rate. You see, you know, 77% like continuing to buy in this market, especially when it's typically a second or third vehicle. Is a great thing for the market when it comes to all of the R and D and all of the product planning that's gone into EVs, like, we don't want to see that go to waste. There's still a lot to be had, but some really cool stats. So kudos to the everybody board for kind of leading the way there.

Paul J Daly: 9:58

I know Hey. Want to say hi to Kelly. Comments literally on my morning walk. That is awesome to know, like Kelly's on her morning walk, and we get to be idiots in her ear. It's amazing. All right, oh, man, oh, somebody actually come I don't know who it is that the it's on YouTube. Tamborino says may have some donation opportunities in western North Carolina, have some pilot friends looking to fly in awesome plies. Actually, whoever that is, send, send us an email at crew at asotu com, because I have a friend who is trying to help, actually, Mr. Beast coordinate flying supplies in so and they were looking for someone who has so send an email please to crew at a soda.com and I will connect you directly with them, and maybe you fly someplace in for Mr. Beast and friends. So

Kyle Mountsier: 10:48

he's gonna fly in supplies. Let's go segway. I got some feelings about this one, but Uber Eats is partnering with spirit Halloween to offer costumes and decor for on demand delivery just in time for the spooky season. Spirit Halloweens 15 125 stores kind of shocking to me, honestly, just to see that number are now accessible via Uber Eats, Postmates and the Uber app, you can get the same prices that they are in store for deliveries in the US and Canada, and obviously follows Uber Eats, recent deal with olive garden and expands its retail delivery focus barrel Sanders, Ubers retail partnerships director shared households across the country are looking to on demand delivery to get what's needed now. And I guess you need your spirit Halloween.

Paul J Daly: 11:37

I know. I mean, this is just another indicator of this, you know, convenience, economy, miles, my son and I, you know, Amazon truck showed up at the end of our very long driveway at 4am this morning, and we were just, we were just marveling over the ability to order something like last night, like before bed, and it's in our country residence in a box, and it's like a random thing, You know, like a cable or whatever. And the Spirit Halloween, right? People don't want to go anywhere in spirit is really smart to pair with Uber and have people know what they want. When the Halloween costume thing that, especially the people that go there all the time, they're like, oh, yeah, that's the one I need. Or I need some fake blood for my Dracula teeth or whatever. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:16

this, this is an end to tie this back is the convenience matrix of retail is so high that consumers are being more and more conditioned toward convenience. And so as retailers in the automotive industry, I don't care if it's parts service or sales, our ability to provide convenience as an option needs to be there right now. It doesn't need to be everything. We don't have to go like, Oh, everybody wants to buy online, buy in store, but we have to provide convenience where convenient, convenience is possible. So even if that's shopping, or it's parts delivery, or it's service pickup and delivery when it's necessary and when that consumer has been conditioned toward it, we should be able to provide those options. So when you see this further conditioning, just recognize, like these consumers don't segment verticals. They just expect convenience. That's true, and

Paul J Daly: 13:15

we know one of our favorite automotive commercial makers, creators, Brian Ortega, comments or zombie teeth. Hey, I feel like he and his his efforts may benefit best from the Spirit Halloween partnership for their next video. So delivering stuff right to set. Look. Thank you so much for being in the comments. Today. We're gonna try to make some real difference and change through our work in this industry, which happens to be the best industry in the world, and it happens to be q4 so go out there. Care about some people and get some you.

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