Insulting Offers, Off Lease Loses, 20K Hotel Chargers

Paul Daly: 0:27Yo, it's Friday already, this week flew by, oh, there was a holiday on Monday for some people. Either way, you know, we're gonna give you the union negotiation update talking about off lease closing and 20,000 chargers.

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:41

The people really want to know how to charge. You get a charger and you get a go for a promotion.

Paul Daly: 0:49

How many are there in the US? I should have looked at chargers? Yeah, so like 100,000

Kyle Mountsier: 0:57

like create a tracker? You know, that'd be fun.

Paul Daly: 1:00

The Sony charger tracker. I think we're smart enough to do that. Pull that out. There's anybody in the comments. Good morning, everybody in the live stream Mark Cody welcomes Good to have you here. Somebody's got to know how many chargers there are in the US. If you figure that out. And you can search it and put it in the comments. We would love to have your help with this show today. Because apparently we need

Kyle Mountsier: 1:21

according to CNET on March 17. There were over 130,000 public charging stations across the country. Okay, the White House Oh,

Paul Daly: 1:32

well so they get everything White House I think they get everything right. Well, welcome to Friday everybody. We got a lot of stuff going on. We're about to head in. to the All Things us cars room with David Long his awesome room that happens every week. A lot of people show up, we're heading over to there in clubhouse. So if you're on the live stream, you can follow us right there and like 15 minutes from now. We're gonna head over and jam there for now with a bunch of a lot of really smart people in the industry. That's that's how it goes down. Speaking of real smart, smart people, yes. Fridays on point. Go, I think, I think that maybe the first time we've ever like literally legit kind of hype. Hey, a soda con. A soda con is like coming in real, real hot, just over two weeks to go. Just under three weeks, over two weeks, whatever however you want to put it. You know what's happening by now if you don't know what's happening, go to a soda con.com And look at the speaker list, click on the agenda link and then scroll just start scrolling. Click through the days and all the studio rooms. Your minds going to be blown with the level of speakers, dealers, practitioners in the rooms across all types of topics. We're talking operations we're talking lots of marketing and data we're talking lots of recruiting and retention, use cars, leadership, all no like slouches on leadership either, right? This isn't like

Kyle Mountsier: 2:57

when asked today, like what kind of topics are you looking to cover? And we were just for like, autumn, Autumn autumn talk.

Paul Daly: 3:05

All them all them topics? No, and we don't have any slouches like you know, sometimes on the leadership you can have like, you know, Gary do good who's like, oh, just you know, hanging in there with a little cat poster? No, we're talking about like Mike Cavanaugh like VP at Lithia. He knows how to lead a couple of things. former Marine Teresa's total badass. Also, Ed Roberts, think you can learn a thing about leadership from Ed Roberts? Yes. So we're going to have the people in the room, go to a soda con.com Get your tickets if you know dealers that should be there GMs that should be their marketing managers that should be their fixed ops managers that should be there. We think that bringing everybody together to learn a little bit about all the areas is the way we win as an industry because that collaboration, um, you know, front of the house back of house, you see that always rockin the new shirt. Collaboration is critical. Let's go through trying to bring all the areas together, especially if you know dealers or people that are within like 50 miles of the Baltimore area, because the venue is just south of Baltimore. So that means DC Baltimore, Delaware, Philly, fino dealership, people in that area, shoot them a message today. Like yo, go to a soda calm with me coming into the amazing week. So go there, we got all the things and of course, lots of focus from our end on the hospitality of it as well because if your mind is free, and your spirits are lifted, you can you can pay attention and learn something. And the swag and the swag two swag and the Taco Tuesday and the tech and the band from Nashville and Jesse Gaul founder and that is the hits. Oh, hold on. Hold on. Check this out. Oh no, it's just showed up yesterday. These are the asoto con. There was no silicone bracelets for us. These are flex bracelets. SOTA con 22 says collaboration is critical like does on your shirt got reversible. We got the white. We got the blue. We got a bunch of other stuff. We got scarves and T shirts and hats and other things so, yeah, I think that's enough about it so it's never really enough. There really enough speaking of never really gonna be de insulting is the word UAW president Shawn fain used to describe the offer. The GM slid across the table yesterday in an effort to avoid a potential strike. So GM has proposed a 16% pay increase over four years for hourly workers, a$5,500 ratification bonus $5,000 in inflation protection bonuses and the addition of Juneteenth as an official paid holiday for all the workers. They also said they aim to reduce the time for new hires to reach top wages from eight years to six years. Seems like a lot of UAW, Shawn pret President John fain criticized that he said that's insulting. He said, adequate, and he said GM has refused to look at cost of living increases retiree pay hikes and other demands. The Union actually originally saw a 46% pay increase over four years and they're threatening a strike on September 14, you know, GM kind of went up for it who offered 15%.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:13

Right? Give 1% Extra as my favorite quote, you got to read the quote, yeah, read the quote,

Paul Daly: 6:20

just a couple tells in this quote. author includes well deserved wage improvements that far exceed 2019 agreement and reward you for your hard work. GM said in a letter to workers, we still have work to do, but we wanted to make this offer to show our good faith efforts to keep the process moving forward.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:39

This is so this one is like that. No, this is so like car guy, you know, like this is like 1983 negotiation tactic. Or offer your way just to keep it going. Yeah,

Paul Daly: 6:54

yeah, just just just so you can see that we over here, respect your autonomy and your power. But I mean, it's basically like here's an offer don't try to sue us again and say we're not acting in good faith by the way, we're gonna give you more but we just want to give Shawn fain another opportunity to install say insulting

Kyle Mountsier: 7:13

on this is fun for us. You know, it's hey, look, there's your update. I don't want to talk about it. Yeah,

Paul Daly: 7:20

now we keep going. Let's keep that update.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:21

I think we could not talk about it for years. Most people would be just pumped about that. So we'll see what was true.

Paul Daly: 7:27

I would love that pay raise personally. Let's go let's take that. All right. Speaking of going away segway. So falling victim to the ongoing turbulence in the used car market regional used car dealership group off lease only Florida group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, shocked a lot of people yesterday, the Florida and Texas based company terminated all its employees and announced a wind down of its operations amid challenges they mentioned like inventory scarcity, vehicle price inflation. I think the internal memo was originally shared by our friend car dealership guy. And it's a memo they sent out to all their people. And we're going to read a little segment from it. I think it's revealing, and it's probably a very cogent warning. And so here's the here's the one of the sections of the memo. It says as most of you know, unprecedented changes to the automotive retail landscape over the last few years, resulted in unanticipated challenges competitive pressures for independent used car dealers, we've been significantly impacted by scarcity of inventory, inflated prices, elevated pricing rising industry, right, they just talked about the deterioration of the conditions. affordability, and availability say our leadership team has been working tirelessly to reduce costs and expand access to inventory so we can compete. However, despite our efforts and achievements, were unable to overcome these challenges. So again, the company closed all their locations and fortunately laid off all 545 of their team.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:55

This is it's really sad like I've known office only for for quite some data, man. Yeah, it's a staple in that Florida market. There were they were a large used car operator. And this is this is something that on the franchise side, we don't talk about a lot, right, because we see affordability as the gap between people that would potentially be purchasing purchasing new or used vehicles. And typically, new car franchise dealerships, no matter their location, see a higher level of credit and access to funds than typically independent dealers do so when you see these rising costs of used cars. When an independent dealership or dealer group like off lease only that smaller that doesn't have the size of Carvana would typically see a cost of of used car sold in the mid teens. And now being in that high 20s Most likely just because of the market complexities that challenges their target customer profile, and then also their access to to lending completely changes as well because typically, even though this is a larger, independent dealer group and they had five locations, they don't have the same access to lending resources like captive lenders that franchise dealerships do. So this is probably like not just the first time that we're going to see this. So naturally, if the first story holds true, and we start to see a lack of new car inventory continue in the market, and then all of a sudden, we see even higher used car prices yet again, we're gonna start to see independence and to get better, man tough times back in market it's it's a lot. It's really interesting where we're continually seeing these changes in the in the market impact some and not others in similar ways. But sad to see off lease only go for sure.

Paul Daly: 10:43

I mean, I think there's probably a lot of great people now that are coming into the industry that would make that find a really great home in a franchise youth car, especially a franchised car dealership, especially one that kind of mimics the policies and the procedures of OS awfully suddenly Right? Very upfront, transparent kind of thing very, very fast moving like they did, they did a really good job of delivering a very good and seamless experience. So man, it just goes to show you like experience, I can tell you everything. I can tell you this

Kyle Mountsier: 11:13

right now that on on their site, they have 223 employees on LinkedIn. If I was if I was anybody in the Georgia market, I would go be searching them. For some good people.

Paul Daly: 11:29

That's a great strategy. We should actually search some of them too and be like, who needs what, who needs what we got here? So two placements, so placements rocking are we should start that. Speaking of placements. That's three segue. Wow, good.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:44

Actually, that's that's fine. Yeah, four because the intro, Tesla and Hilton have announced a partnership to introduce 20,000 electric vehicle charging stations across 2000 Hilton properties do the math. That's a solid number of Evie chargers. That's an average of 10 Evie chargers per location in North America giving a huge boost to the Evie charging infrastructure goals while reflecting a significant shift in traveler priorities. These are the interesting quotes directly from Hilton's Chief Brand Officer, Matt Schuler, we're seeing a rapid and steep increase of the number of requests for evey charging we're trying to meet our guests needs with this new agreement with Tesla. He continued, the number one search app attribute for our hotels is shuttle access for airports makes a lot of sense. Yep. Number two

Paul Daly: 12:34

is Evie charging that blows my mind,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:38

which they said obviously, is a dramatic change that wasn't even on the radar just a few years ago that people are going like, Alright, here's the first filter option. Here's the second filter. Can I charge my car? Man? Wild? I know it. But I think about like people with like the funds to buy a Tesla probably are traveling more often. And staying in places that are Hilton own properties. Yeah,

Paul Daly: 13:03

the brand partnership makes a lot. I mean, 20,000 chargers is substantial, right? If we only have 130 in the US, that's up like 15%. And like we're crushing, we get 20,000. And you think hotels, hospitality already has electrical infrastructure in place. They have parking lots in place. They're usually located in pretty convenient areas. And I mean, a lot of Hilton Hotels have a nice little lobby somewhere to go somewhere to sit. I mean, I'm just even thinking not for the travelers. But just as a way to like, predetermine, like, these are in good places, because hotels usually out of the mix. We were

Kyle Mountsier: 13:38

traveling this week, and we're at a Hyatt location 30 minutes away from an airport in a smaller city in New York of Sydney. And both days that we were there both Chargers were hooked up the cars. Yep. So like, it's clear that there is demand for it in travel.

Paul Daly: 13:57

Yeah, especially especially when you're staying overnight. Right. And you don't actually I mean, the Tesla chargers are fast, but you don't even need super fast ones at hotels, but they're gonna put them in so they also said Hilton said they're going to collaborate with property owners to pinpoint sites near major roads and essential urban areas that are best suited so they're going to obviously prioritize these but I like at least say they're going to have the most expensive charging network in hospitality because pairing hospitality with wait time is like the winner everybody a Hilton has got a great opportunity to like brand themselves as progressive. I think it's an awesome brand play as well. Right? There is definitely an allure to EVs and especially the Tesla brand depending on who you ask, but I don't know what will be next maybe Tesla go the other way. And Tesla just opened a hotel went down private and then they get the driving thing.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:49

I mean, why would they just going to open any retail establishment or hospital

Paul Daly: 14:53

anything anything they can we had a great run better. Got a great comment here from John Foley, who will be at a so Yukon rockin it. Founder of rich rich recharged, right? Yep recharged in Virginia. He says too many hotels are treating chargers, like McDonald's ice cream machines meeting just letting them stay broke is what he means at all. Thanks for spending time with us today. We hope you have an amazing weekend. Selling servicing with your family right now we're heading over to all things use cars. Follow us over there to clubhouse