Lots of Cars On the Lot, Holman Invests in FM Capital, American Made Polestars, Waymo Lofi

Paul J Daly: 0:06

The Thursday already August 15. We are dead center in the month of August right now. I swear August just started today. We're talking about dealers having cars on the lot home and investing in FM capital, American made pole stars and a YouTube channel that you are not going to want to miss

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:23

you. You have to be a part of this YouTube channel at least once today, at the end, you don't want that in your life. Yeah, you it's our YouTube channel too.

Paul J Daly: 0:32

You should check out, like the red YouTube channel if you're a live stream, yes. And of course, the great YouTube channels. Know about the other great YouTube channels. I mean, come on, there you go. Oh man, we are so excited to be about to be hitting the road on Monday. Kyle, you're heading out first. You're gonna be the advanced team to the rentals and rentals amplify event they're having there just outside, right next to Dallas airport. And you'll be there Monday. I'm showing up Tuesday morning. We are judges for the automotive amplifiers contest, where some people are sharing best practices across fixed ops, people, sales, and we get to be judges. So you can be Simon Cowell, and I'm going to try. I don't know who I'm, Howie Mandel, like, I don't know you're Howie

Kyle Mountsier: 1:14

well

Paul J Daly: 1:16

man our third judge, I don't know which one is weird, or Simon,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:21

Simon, or yeah, you're gonna have to fist bump everybody.

Unknown: 1:24

I'm gonna come in there

Kyle Mountsier: 1:25

just spit. I'll

Paul J Daly: 1:26

go Blake Shelton. Nasty. I'll go Blake Shelton.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:28

You know, that's

Paul J Daly: 1:29

probably one of the most normal judges.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:31

I don't know. I think you're a little bit more Adam Levine than you are Blake Shelton. Let's just be

Paul J Daly: 1:37

maybe, maybe that's the case. Yeah, my jeans are a little tighter than Blake's we need to have, we

Kyle Mountsier: 1:41

need to have, like, uh, yeah, the Eugene's a little tighter than Blake shots, for sure, for sure. Go ahead. This is like a, this is like a, you know, a contest at an event waiting to happen. Like, what? Yes, across. Who is Steve Greenfield, Right? Steve Greenfield, you know, Greenfield might be, Howie Mandel, that might be, right? He's got the cats.

Paul J Daly: 2:04

How he made up. Yeah, he's not a germaphobe, though.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:07

No, doesn't

Paul J Daly: 2:07

travel nearly as much. Uh, right from there, we're hitting a plane on Tuesday night from DC to Miami, and we're going to the NAD annual meeting. It is our third, fourth, which one we're going to be there in full effect, uh, true car plus is helping us sponsor all of our coverage there. So we're gonna be coming to you live from the name ad event. If you haven't been there or been able to be there, we're gonna bring some of the show back to you. Gonna be recording a new podcast starting that out. I just found out gonna be our friends at woken they have their event, and I just found out So Liza borches is gonna be at the wok event, so we get to hang out with

Kyle Mountsier: 2:38

her a little bit too. You know, all the friends together, good

Paul J Daly: 2:42

week shaping up? Um, yeah, I know. I think I just talked through all of the time. We had to talk through things. But, you know, we have all the time, all the time. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 2:51

I know we're running. No, we have to mention the wheelhouse. We do pull this right off. If you've never caught the wheelhouse. It's a podcast that is hosted by Daniel Gover, produced by our team, Jordan Nathan. You may know them, and they like when I when it, when they say wheelhouse, they really mean real house, like they went all the way around the wheelhouse to find the conversations with the people that understand what's happening on the ground today. And it was a full hour of captivating content, like it really had different topics. It was amazing. People. Eight

Paul J Daly: 3:28

guests, right? Have folks from Lithia, from auto vendors, from roar, men from Cox, auto motive, like Jack Pearson was on there. 40 under 40. Yeah, it's, it's, that's a sleeper. That show we need more people to know about that. All right, let's talk about some news. The US auto market in july 2024 that's this year, saw a decline in average transaction prices for new vehicles down to 48,150 grand. Doing great. Hey. Inventory levels are increasing 52% higher year over year that is substantial. Average incentives reached 7% of ATP. It's 3300 is the average, instead of the highest it's been in over three years. Two top, best selling vehicles in July, with a Ford F series and the Chevy Silverado. Back to the truck, baby, we got inventory. We're selling trucks compact and sub compact SUVs represented a full 25% of all of July sales. Here's a fun fact. Cox automotive shouted out Mohawk Chevrolet in their report, saying the Chevrolet Rado will possibly replace the Silverado in model year 2026, amazing little baby. That's, that's, that's

Kyle Mountsier: 4:39

very like, I'll, I'm gonna, we're gonna own that as a sodu for giving the writers of automotive the freedom

Paul J Daly: 4:47

permission. And I feel like some permission. I don't know if we can claim it, but I think we really can claim it. Like when asotu came on the scene, we're like, listen, we take this business really seriously, but you can't take your self. Life too seriously, EVS experience a lot of price adjustments with a unique twist, particularly for Tesla overall, EV prices decreased by 1.5% year over year. It feels like so much more than that, but Toyota had an 11% ATP. What does ATP stand for? I should know average transaction price in there. I was like, wait, I know this. Average transaction price is up 59,005 93 driven by the cyber trucks. High price so incentives for EVs obviously threw the roof up 12% 74% above the industry average. Aaron Keating, executive analyst at Cox's auto mode, said, We hear this from large dealers all the time. No matter the budget, chances are we can make something work. This is particularly true. Inventory is high and incentives are right there as well. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:52

I mean, this is, this is the weird place where, like, we still have extremely high prices in a lot of brands. But I'm seeing yesterday, I was looking at inventory on a dealer's website, seeing $13,000 price drops on things like Jeeps. So, right, so prices are still high in inflation and interest rates are still high, but, but there's, there's a bunch of incentives, there's a bunch of drive to move inventory, because you're seeing this higher inventory, longer day supply, especially at things like still an Steelers. So it's still, it's still, I think a buyer's market. I think maybe people have been tricked into thinking it's not, but I think, I think there's plenty of buyers out there that can, you know, be right.

Paul J Daly: 6:36

You're right. No segue for this one. This is a fun one.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:38

Speaking of buyers,

Paul J Daly: 6:40

oh, we'll do that. Segue a lot of money, that's for sure. Holman auto, you know, global leader in auto services, and they have a great group in New Jersey. They've acquired a minority interest in FM capital. Who is you might have heard that around the asotu halls, and at asotu con, a venture capital firm focuses on early to mid stage tech companies in the automotive and transportation industries. This is the first time an integrated auto services organization acquired a general partner interest in an automotive VC. FM capital does specialize, like we said, transportation, especially dealer operations, autonomy, electrification. Holman venture capital arm, what's it called? Holman?

Kyle Mountsier: 7:22

Capital, yeah, home and capital, yeah.

Paul J Daly: 7:26

They invest in early stage businesses to try to stay ahead of industry trends that, in and of itself, is becoming a trend. Chase Frazier FM capitals, Managing Partner, praise Holman, combination of dealership, fleet dealerships, fleet management, corporate venture capital. And he said it's truly unique. Bill Karis, our buddy, CEO of home and growth ventures, that's what it's called, emphasize the partnership's potential to accelerate the funding and scaling of promising auto technologies. So I think this is good for the industry. It's good to see well,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:54

first of all, I'm just proud to say I got to stay sit on a stage at a soda con with both these dudes twice this last year, and chase and Bill have become good friends over the last couple years. What I love about this is in is historically, both of these companies would be you would see them as semi competitors, right? Because they both play in the venture capital space, especially in early stage or seed round capital raise for SaaS businesses. But you get the benefit of this partnership in kind of different perspectives, right? FM capital really looking at it purely from a VC perspective, but Holman having the perspective of having an entire fleet management business and dealership ownership business, and the leaders of these firms that are coming together with Bill Karis and chase Frazier are like dynamic personalities that understand the industry, they understand technology. So I think, like the two perspectives here, being aligned and being able to be a part of investment in technology that's going to serve dealers and the automotive industry is dialed in. I was pumped. Chase sent me this. I was like, kudos, brother,

Paul J Daly: 9:04

it's on Yes, yes, yes, yes, speaking of it's on segway, exciting to see, especially because of my friend Matt hakin, maybe the premier Polestar dealer in the US met, but Polestar is gearing up for a significant growth spurt in the US, expanding its retail network to support a broader lineup that they say will triple in size this year. The brand plans to add 20 stores to its current 27 store network. By the end of 2025 they're releasing new models, the Pole Star Three, the Pole Star four and two more name plates planned in the next two years. US, sales of the pole star two dropped 41% this year. First half saying, like leading them to say, we need to readjust our strategy. And they are adjusting their retail model, increasing dealer inventory, instead of just being a made to order type of thing, and making the brand more proactive. Their new, newly appointed head of North America, Anders Gustafson, emphasized dealer profit. Ability and plans a road show to build trust with retailers saying, quote, if we don't have profitable partners, we're not going to attract good partners. Sounds like some business sense to me, but I think they're going to be making vehicles. I think it's South Carolina and now, like the batteries and all the things, it all, it all works,

Kyle Mountsier: 10:17

yeah, and post, our is going to get take advantage of a lot of tax incentives here, where the thing that I think is going to be the trigger for them is when they get scale and in the small to mid size SUV or crossover utility vehicle, just because in the US, that's the most aggressive model, you know, or or size of vehicle. So it's, it's hard to come to market honestly, with a sedan right now, right you see the Accord, you see the Maza six. You see the camera actually lacking in sales. So for poster to go, oh, look, sedans rolling back, go to the SUV or the crossover. Great strategy.

Paul J Daly: 10:54

This story literally just reminded me the fact I recorded like an entire vlog in a pole star two, when my wife and I went on a little

Unknown: 11:01

My goodness, and it's sitting on my phone. I've

Paul J Daly: 11:04

never even taken any of the footage. I enjoyed my time in that poll server, for sure, way too small for anything other than just my wife and I. All right. Finally, this is the one you've all been waiting for. Kyle. Let him have it. What YouTube channel?

Kyle Mountsier: 11:19

J man resonance here at Waymo Robo taxi depot in San Francisco, and we call it, we call it a depot, because that's the only thing that anybody can think of. Are being woken up by cars honking at each other, fam honking at each other during the night, even though no one is inside them. Basically what happens is the self driving cars get in each other's way when this within the parking lot, triggering their honking systems to avoid low speed collisions. So the neighbors who want to welcome the idea of a little bit choir street with you know, not you know, vehicles that aren't, you know, run by humans, are now frustrated by the noise that happens at all hours of the night. The beautiful part about this is Sophia tongue has turned this situation into a 24/7 live stream on YouTube, and we've got just a little bitty clip of exactly what's going on. So

Paul J Daly: 12:15

it's just, it's a man. There's probably 50, at least, of these way more vehicles just meandering. But here's the gym,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:24

it's unbelievable. And they're all doing like five three point terms,

Paul J Daly: 12:29

low five music of just random Vehicles making their way around the lot. But if you look at the top of the screen, you can see that there are a steady slew of vehicles making their way out of the lot, rolling out customers.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:41

They make it, you know, but it's linked in the show notes.

Paul J Daly: 12:44

You have to let just keep this music playing. If you have to check out this YouTube channel, it's great to have on in the background, and it's just a fun thing to watch. These way mobile vehicles trying to make their way around a parking lot. It looks like chaos, but I think they're actually doing something. We have some Lo Fi beats to keep us interested. I think we've done enough for today. Thank you so much for being here with us. If you tune in, thank you so much. If you like the show, share it with someone you think would like to show. The more the merrier. Get out there today. Love some people more than you love cars, but love the cars too, and

Unknown: 13:22

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