Hurricane Tips For Dealers and EV Owners, Unexpected Kia Kindness, Uninsurable Cybertrucks

Unknown: 0:00

Uh, Tuesday October 8.

‍Paul J Daly: 0:05

Lots going on, lots spinning, big hurricane coming in, oh, cyber trucks getting canceled, all kinds of stuff. I don't know. It just feels like a Tuesday in October. Actually does not feel like a Tuesday in October. No, that's

Kyle Mountsier: 0:18

the whole thing. It doesn't feel like Tuesday October. I

Unknown: 0:21

don't know. Why is that? I don't know

Paul J Daly: 0:26

what else I mean,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:27

I thought, I thought a Tuesday in October was just supposed to be one of the hostile days on the whole planet. You know what I mean over Tuesdays feels

Paul J Daly: 0:34

like the new easy listening album by Al coutry in the troublemakers. That's right, October, Tuesdays, that could be an

Kyle Mountsier: 0:41

album, it could be a band, it could be a lot of things, actually. Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 0:46

I know it does feel like easy listening, though. Damn, live, I feel, I feel it coming in

Kyle Mountsier: 0:50

someone make the Spotify playlist. You know what I mean? Like over Tuesdays, I could get down with that. Oh,

Paul J Daly: 0:56

hey, look. Um, speaking of things that are happening on a Tuesday, well, kind of starting on a Tuesday ish, a soda con 2025 put the graphic up. Let's show the people. Show the people. The pre sign up. The first to know list has been growing steadily for the last 60 days. Every day we have a little integration, and every day in Slack, more email addresses. Do this person, this person, this person, this person. Look go to a so do a sotucon.com put your email in there. So as soon as we release the first details, you will be the first to know it's going to be in May. So you can get your calendar out or open your calendar app, and just block off the week after Mother's Day. We tried to make it simple. It's not going to be the full week, but what is it? 13 through 15? Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:37

something like that, May, 13 through 1516,

Paul J Daly: 1:41

and a Saturday, I don't know, but we're putting together an amazing show. We had our first pre production meeting. I'm like, Okay, what are we gonna do? And we've already thrown out a bunch of ideas that are, like, you have to level it up. Yeah, give the people what they want. Oh, we are. So if you want to attend, just circle it on your calendar. You'll be the first to know if you're on the list. The list, you'll get the biggest discount on tickets and all that. If you're an industry partner and you want to sponsor, participate, collaborate, all of the things, send us an email, crew, C, R, E, W, at asotu com, just say interested in partnering for a soda con and Amber, on our team, will give you a full prospectus. It's beautiful. It's got all the offerings, whether you want key cards or main stage sponsorship or presenting sponsorship, whatever it is. We got all the things and some new stuff this year. Yeah, because we gotta bring the community together.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:31

Gotta bring everybody together. I

Paul J Daly: 2:33

only want a soda confo. All

Kyle Mountsier: 2:34

I want is, is more community. People just hanging out, vibing, understanding, like, what it takes the next year to keep growing. Yeah, and you know, we're throwing

Paul J Daly: 2:43

around some more. A lot of the auto trade associations, state associations, several participated last year, and now more want to be a part of it this year. So we're trying to put together, maybe, like, an elevated experience for the state associations to do a little bolt on event. And we've been thrown around this idea of getting some coach busses going from the venue down to Washington DC love people more than you love car shirts photo on the Capitol steps. Meet some legislators and show them like what the real retail auto industry is like. Not those, that's it, not those phony posers who are like doing stupid stuff to customers,

Kyle Mountsier: 3:19

like people up in here. None of them people up in here. They

Paul J Daly: 3:23

would be grumpy. The greeting the greeters would either try to, like, convert them or kick them out.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:28

It wouldn't work well for you guys.

Paul J Daly: 3:30

Oh no, it wouldn't. Let's news time. Let's

Kyle Mountsier: 3:32

get into it. All right. Look, there's

Paul J Daly: 3:34

a lot going on, but the biggest news obviously, has been the weather over the last few years. I mean, that lasts true, few weeks. Geez, it feels like it's been like months, but it's only been a few weeks. Obviously, Hurricane Helane crushed the Florida Gulf Coast, certain areas of it, and then went up through South Carolina, areas of it, North Carolina, a lot of people still very struggling. And now here comes Milton, barreling down. Kind of appeared out of nowhere. And now it's a category four. I think as of this morning, probably going to be a three when it hits. But basically the Florida dealerships across Tampa Bay and the Gulf Coast preparing for massive impact, massive evacuations in Florida, you know, people are just getting out dealers like the Morgan Auto Group and Potemkin automotive Potemkin, you know, are closing stores early, initiating staff safety protocols in big time store preparation. CEO Teddy Morris of Ed Morse Automotive Group is preparing for significant damage. She's saying expecting it to be severe. Quote, this isn't a scenario where you say, Wow, I hope everything's okay. It's not going to be okay. So very clean and direct. You know, no questioning in this language. He emphasized ensuring every eligible vehicle is floor plan, because if they're not on the floor plan, what's the punchline to that?

Kyle Mountsier: 4:50

And not assured Well, and that's actually a really like, it's a sneaky little thing, but especially like recent auction purchases, if for some reason you. You know, have paid through them through an auction that isn't direct connected to your floor plan. Like, that's rare these days because of online auctions, but just something to be watch out.

Paul J Daly: 5:09

Yeah, let's get, let's get the, let's get the people who are detail oriented on the floor plan, like today, like, right now,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:15

you know, it's one of the, one of the things that you just don't think about in in a lot of these scenarios, is the edge cases of, like, areas that don't have as much, like, resources or access to people that can help out, and things like that. And like, yeah, you've got big cities in this area, Tampa, Fort, lauderdales, you know, Orlando, things like that. But there are a lot of fringe cities with dealerships absolutely are going to be probably impacted more just because of their access to local resources and people help Higher Ground people

Paul J Daly: 5:53

to mall cars. Yep,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:55

exactly. So,

Paul J Daly: 5:56

like, there's these. These are a couple stories that kind of like, tell them, we gotta we got a hurricane theme today. So hurricane Helene destroyed 672 of Ken Ganley kia's inventory, like, wipe that sucker out. Uh Raul gamilla, gm of Kia city in Orlando. He said, step up. Said, I got you fam. And basically, he sold 100 new and 25 pre owned kiaz so he could send that inventory there, and that they could, you know, have some inventory to sell. So basically, Camilla got through Hurricane Andrew back in 92 and he's like, look, I understand the devastation, and I just felt compelled to help. And again, Lee said, this kind of kindness just doesn't happen. It doesn't exist. I mean, I'm blown away. We got to get him one of these shirts. Come

Kyle Mountsier: 6:38

on. It does you just haven't seen enough, my boy, Raul, he's he's already living this. He just didn't even know we can hold him.

Paul J Daly: 6:45

Let's make a note. Let's get him a shirt. It's the right thing to do when the store is in need. And so that just happened. And, man, what's going to happen to those cars? Like, did they just make it to the Gulf Coast? Right about the way this works, like, oh, the new key is, are here? Oh, let's get him out of here as fast as possible. So it'll be interesting to see what happens. But, like, this has to, I don't know what has to happen. I just moved by the the Act of, like, selflessness.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:11

Yeah, it's really, really like, and this is what I think you just don't hear about that often. And kudos to auto auto news for finding the story, seeking it out, because these are the stories that us as an industry need to be sharing more often, that it's not just consumers, but it's inside the industry that we we have a massive amount of people that uniquely care for communities, right? Because those 125 cars isn't just the ability to sell. It's also the ability for local consumers, who maybe have flood vehicles or issues because of all of the storms, to buy them, right? There's like, a two fold case here that they are impacting much further down the line than just like, oh, a salesperson can sell a car, which is also important to feed their family. Like you think about the trickle down of all of the people impacted by just goes getting another 125 car like,

Paul J Daly: 8:06

come on now without a doubt, we have some we have some show notes coming in now from our producer Nathan. He says Ganley is delaying the shipments until Milton passes through. So good news. The cars aren't on site on the Gulf Coast. They're waiting in Orlando. They're going to move to the coast Once this storm has passed. So that's a good thing. I just want to set here. Let's just make a marker in the show right now. We just need to do something right now to our friends at Automotive News, Jamie butters, Dan Schein, who work every day to get these stories out. We and the soda community want to thank you for your good work, because if you didn't do it, we wouldn't have anything to put a bullhorn behind and try to tell more people about it. So I think, look, if you haven't show automotive news, some love, right? Get a subscription. Follow them on LinkedIn, send them an email, send them funny pictures, like whatever you want to do. They have great they love money. Yeah, we just, just wanted to thank you guys.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:00

I get to hang out with Thursday night, and I'll make sure and let them on behalf of the industry, the men and women

Paul J Daly: 9:05

over there are just crushing it. And like, listen, it's easy to take it for granted. It's a lot of hard work to put this out every single day. And like, you just wake up and it's there. Guess what? It doesn't magically happen just like this show, Okay, so moving on with the hurricane theme. EV owners, right? We got EVs and hurricanes. How do those two things coincide? We're learning more rights the first couple cycles with a lot of EVs on the road. So basically, there's a unique set of circumstances that that you should be aware of if you have an EV during a hurricane, especially near a coastal area, whether you stay or evacuate. Obviously, this is kind of general knowledge. Don't park your EV in an area prone to flooding. However, the thing you really do need to worry about is that saltwater and batteries really, really, really don't do get along right? So if your EV is submerged up to the battery pan or beyond in saltwater, do not drive it. Do not get in it. Call your OEM, or look in your manual or search it, call your insurance company, because that thing could definitely the corrosion could happen fast, connect wires, and that thing will be fireball. However, if that doesn't happen, now, you can use your EV to power your home appliances. It's a safe source of power, basically. So make sure EV's charged if you evacuate, make sure your charge is common knowledge. And people are like, Well, what about the gas? Well, guess what? If you're stuck in traffic and you're not moving anywhere, you're not shooting any power, nothing, yep. So it's actually,

Kyle Mountsier: 10:33

actually an interesting difference, yeah, with that high traffic evacuation stuff, yep. And of course,

Paul J Daly: 10:38

don't forget to bring your one, 110, volt adapter, right? So you can plug it into aunt Susie's house, if you're staying, like, right into the right to the little like one next to the bird feeder out on that charger. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 10:50

yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, obviously, nobody wants their car in a flood situation, but you definitely run that risk with the salt water a bit more. We saw, you know, rivian being able to go through fresh water pretty well. But there's, there's still plenty of cases, especially from the last set of hurricanes a couple years ago, years ago, just around like what saltwater is doing to some of these battery packs. So just be careful. Make sure your customers are aware. Like, this is a great little education piece. Drop it out on social today. If you're in the Florida area, there's no reason why you can't just be educating and caring for consumers in that way. Why not?

Paul J Daly: 11:26

And speaking of EVs and insurance,

Unknown: 11:28

oh, big way. This is

Paul J Daly: 11:31

interesting, because you had an

Kyle Mountsier: 11:33

insight on this. Yes, all right, so it actually is real news. But cyber truck owners have faced multiple challenges in 2024 including cleaning their new trucks, rusting issues and five recalls now, insurance complications are adding to their woes, as some drivers report policy cancelations. So check this out. Geico did confirm that some cyber truck owners received non renewal notices to the vehicle not meeting underwriting guidelines. They side cited cyber trucks heavyweight and challenges with the repair Part Availability as reasons for some policy cancelations. Most of the issues were in New York and Kansas, though others other regions were reporting better experiences. GEICO is seemingly still unwilling to ensure the vehicles under commercial plans, saying Some customers may have received notices stating that private passenger automobile insurance would not be renewed for this vehicle. However, policies for this vehicle have always been available through our commercial insurance division, so yeah, but this, this is definitely like, like, just as a note, insert insider knowledge confirmed from an underwriter in Geico, like they're not renewing any

Paul J Daly: 12:43

you said that to me yesterday. You're like, Hey, I've heard this thing that maybe they're not, yeah, then this morning, we wake up to this, and it's a real thing. I guess it makes sense that it's, you know, covered under commercial policies. They're used to covering heavy vehicles. You know, it's just basic physics, right? A heavier vehicle is going to do more damage, not even to the vehicle itself, but the biggest concern is to all the things around, things the vehicle. And so I guess it's just another level of complexity. I'm sure someone will fill the gap, or Tesla will figure out how to fill the gap

Kyle Mountsier: 13:12

as well. Test is all about unsuring their own vehicles. I

Paul J Daly: 13:14

can tell you that right now they are. I mean, it's a good idea, so especially if you can't get it through GEICO anymore, I know. But you know what I mean, if you have a cyber truck, you're kind of one of the people that are willing to pay play anyway. Just kind of do, I

Kyle Mountsier: 13:27

think so I don't

Paul J Daly: 13:28

know. Hey, we're willing to pay to play. That's why we're here. That's why you're here. Listen, you're out there. Help some people that are in need. Take care of some people that just need their car fixed, and by all means, take care of the people you.

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