Memorial Day Deals, Musk's Trade Flip, and California's Speed Beep

Paul J Daly: 0:13

Is it big weekend coming up Friday, May 24, the sun's gonna be shining, inventories are piled up dealers are ready to go. And we're gonna talk about that and a few other things. Right now.

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:25

I was like,

Paul J Daly: 0:26

Oh, can I fit the last two things into that three seconds? And I was like, no.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:31

Let me just say, the fact that you said the sun is shining means you must know something about Syracuse weather that you don't know about. National Weather, because it's gonna be just rainy for oh, no, it's just bad. It's just unfortunately. The pools opening this. Yeah, like rain.

Paul J Daly: 0:55

I was more giving a report on what it's doing right now. But if I look at well, let me see. I think we are gonna have a good weekend. Yeah, pretty much 83 and sunny. 79 and sunny. It's like that's a perfect Memorial. They will I forgot the last day. Monday. Chances showers. 80 degrees. Oh, we'll take it.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:16

Yeah, we get 78% chance. 40% chance 30% Chance? Well, that's not too bad. You know, it's not like my dad's time of year. We should be fine. You know, without a doubt we get some we get some Florida, Florida rain. Hey, I don't know if you knew this. But yesterday, we dropped the entirety of our mainstage sessions from ASOTU CON on our YouTube, you can go to so tube asotu.ve. And if you missed it, or if you were there, and you were like, I just couldn't even grab all the content. It's ready for you.

Paul J Daly: 1:51

I watched the one that I did watch. I rewatched the Vehicles for Change car giveaway? That's the one I rewatched.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:01

Yeah, that was that was such a moment. Like it. There's so much stuff so much of what we believe in, right. And it

Paul J Daly: 2:10

really, really did. We gave away a car to a family who needed at a single mother at her two kids on the Florida soda con, she was amazing. The kids were amazing. trunk full of toys and stuff. It was like the moment I'm like, we need to do five of these next year.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:27

Ah, that you there's a photo of you with the kids getting some stuff in the back that we that the community was able to put in the back of the trunk. So thanks for like everybody just showing up and being able to do that. And like the kids eyes are like this. And yeah, there and he got, like, all the joy. And it's like, that's why. That's why because we just we get excited, because all that is is us getting the opportunity to participate in the thing that the dealers and the industry partners and the OEMs are doing in communities every single day

Paul J Daly: 3:01

all the time. Absolutely. Ah, sometimes it just feels good to know that you're you're doing meaningful work. Thinking about that I've been thinking about meaningful work and how to tie that the drudgery things that you have to do the repetitive things to meaning. And, like most of the time, it's mindset, right? Because the moments where you actually get to see the meaningful thing are few and far between even if it comes to like, cultivating people, right people take time to develop. Right? I'm thinking about that a lot, right? Because like my son Myles is 17. Like, that takes a long time. It took 17 years. So many good things. I

Kyle Mountsier: 3:37

was talking to someone yesterday, and just the you know, I think in auto we see this a bit differently. And you and I see this a bit differently. But the the fact that so many people like work to be off. Right? And I think that so many people in auto, sometimes maybe to a fault, right work to work because it's a passion, but so many people it's like it's actually a passion and it's actually a joy and an excitement to work and to show up to work to be in that environment. This

Paul J Daly: 4:09

is what I like to do, actually. Right. Like I'm doing what I like to do. Doing it. Yeah. Oh, man. It is so great. So great. Well, if you miss last year, this last time we're gonna show this graphic Nathan, do we have it? It's the ASOTU CON 2025 graphic there. He's gonna find it there it is coming up on the screen right now it's come in circle the week on your counter, maybe we will give away five or 10 of those cards next year. Maybe we can make 12 week after Mother's Day. We have 12 through 16 up it's not going to be that long. But like just circle the whole week because you're going to need you're going to need it. So we hope you join us. We're going to be releasing more details on that soon as it develops. Speaking of things that have been developing segue, Three Little Words. New Car inventory. Oh, Edmunds reported the 2023 year model year vehicles on the US lots rose by 6.8 percent in May, with higher inventories and many 2023 cars and trucks. Memorial Day weekend is going to be an ideal time to buy a car for some shoppers. But it really does still depend on the brand or May saw an increase in the share of 2023 models. Average new vehicle incentives expected to be 26. That that's $2,640 in May up 48% From what they were last year, and we're talking about in sales on 2023 models. Yep. Well, 48% increase over last year, dodge had the highest concentration of 23 models 2023 models offering discounts averaging get this $6,753 On

Kyle Mountsier: 5:40

average 10 grand off trucks is back yard.

Paul J Daly: 5:43

Oh sure. It's been unbelievable. Here's a quote from Joey Wang, president of Great Lakes Auto Group, they actually have a store here in Syracuse says if you look at Honda, Toyota, and Subaru our day supplier all under 30. Still, we're still begging for inventory and selling more than we can get the average new vehicle loan interest rate projected at 7.1%. With special financing like Tesla has a point nine 9% on the model Y standing out there. Most dealerships though, do anticipate high traffic over this holiday weekend due to these promotions and some warmer weather. So we're selling maybe

Kyle Mountsier: 6:22

I know a bunch of marketers and the trend this week is that like and I would love to I know we have some partners out there in the community that look even more broadly across the industry. But the trend this week even is an increase almost daily in site traffic that I'm seeing on on dealership ramp seeing this like slight tick up through the week, which means you're going to see an in most areas, right this is not everywhere, but in most areas. Probably a good weekend because of like, you see the site traffic hitting before the weekend lands. You know, and and not just that, but I mean, I don't know if you like I don't watch a ton of TV. But what I have noticed is that over the last couple of weeks when I do watch TV, I pretty much every time see a commercial with an incentive. And guard right which is something that for a couple years we never saw but it's like every commercial with an incentive and card. So you know the OEMs are playing ball with how do we make Memorial Day big as well. Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 7:24

I like it when you're watching TV, you're watching sports pretty much.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:27

That's pretty much it. And So You Think You Can Dance

Paul J Daly: 7:32

but I knew I was literally gonna say sports or something related to dancing. Speaking of dancing, oh,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:40

Musk

Paul J Daly: 7:41

has got his tap dance shoes on a little bit

Kyle Mountsier: 7:43

tapped in shoes.

Paul J Daly: 7:45

So Elon Musk and Tesla founder reversed his stance on us tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles now opposing the measures he wants supported. He previously was in favor of tariff tariffs calling, but now he's saying he's not saying he doesn't oppose any kind of market distortion, calling them not good. The Biden administration obviously quadrupled Evie tariffs to over 100% affecting upwards of $18 billion in Chinese goods. So here's what Musk said, at the Viva Technology Summit here in Paris. He said neither Tesla nor I asked for these tariffs. I'm in favor of no tariffs. He went on to state that Tesla competes well in China without tariffs or special support. Obviously come back to that funny. Yeah, we will back in January Musk Warren. So this is the first half of this right now. He's like, I oppose tariffs back in January. He said if there are no trade barriers established, they will pretty much speaking of Chinese EV makers demolish most other car companies in the world.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:48

All right. So I'm back. I got a sneaking suspicion. Paul, I don't know about you. But, you know, if there's a bunch of tariffs in the US on Chinese vehicles, flip the script. If there's a bunch of Chinese, you know, politicians that get upset about that, and they're like, Yeah, I'll probably do without Tesla's around here. You know, just like,

Paul J Daly: 9:13

follow the train of thought, yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:15

What one did what a difficult, I can't imagine to be

Paul J Daly: 9:20

like, and imagine I don't know how he does it, frankly. I mean, people don't know how he does a lot of things. But But realistically, what a complex issue, and you know, even his first comment, saying like market distortions, I mean, like, look, Chinese current currency manipulation, or Chinese, you know, government intervention in Chinese companies, right. There's obviously a lot of distortion going on before the tariffs even hit. And, you know, Musk warning, if there are no trade barriers, they'll pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world. Maybe he wasn't weighing in on terrorists. Maybe he was just stating the truth. Right, right. Maybe he wasn't saying like we need to establish trade barriers, but he was just saying like, hey, if they it all then we're done. It's just gonna happen.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:03

Yeah. And and I mean, he's feeling that pressure probably in China, right? I cannot imagine he knows he knows what their capabilities are for sure. Yeah. So

Paul J Daly: 10:13

I mean, big, big top. This is obviously going to be a hotly contested topic for the foreseeable future, at least next year, we're going through an election cycle, at least

Kyle Mountsier: 10:22

the next six months during the election cycle for sure. For sure, but I

Paul J Daly: 10:27

mean, even after that, it is, this is definitely an unprecedented thing in the auto industry that ever another like a foreign automaker would be able to compete at this level. And then you layer in like even if it was combustion engines. Forget EVs for a second imagine all of a sudden, China just made some higher quality combustion engines, and one of the flood the market with$10,000 cars, right, and it's gonna make a difference. Speaking of making a difference to your sanity.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:00

The California has passed a bill to combat speeding by requiring new cars to alert drivers when they exceed the speed limit. The bill is called SB 961. And it mandates the passive speed limiters in new cars starting with 50% of the new cars by 2029 and 100% by 2030, to notify the driver by visual and auditory warnings, whenever the speed limit is exceeded by more than 10 miles an hour, you know, I guess it's like the five you find 90 minus 10. You're getting beeped at for a whole bunch of time. I don't know, it's like new goods like under those new grinds. It applies to passenger vehicles, including trucks and buses, but will not it does not require an actual physical limit to speeding. The Supporters include the National Transportation Safety Board and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, so you can better believe by the time we get to, you know, just a little bit down the road that this thing has come into the rest.

Paul J Daly: 12:06

I'm not really sure that insurance premiums, I'm sure insurance problems will go down as a result. No, it'll save them maybe some money. I have some experience with this technology. Back when my first business we had a fleet of vehicles, and we had there weren't limiters but literally they would beat when there was a unit installed in there that we you know, GPS for the vehicle before was like built in. You had to like install a separate thing and it would beep when it got to 10 miles over and it was like Beep beep beep you know what happened? Radios got louder. But but after a while people did start to tune them out. Maybe it's a little bit of a deterrent. A couple of things. Number one, this isn't going to make cars any cheaper in in a full time we're talking about affordability more requirements and things like that. Secondly, I don't know don't make it a beep if you really want people to stop maybe make it like a baby crying. Yeah, right. But then you might see an uptick, you might see an uptick in road rage.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:06

You know, if you're going 10 over like you're moving anyway, like let's just be honest. 10 If it was like three over was the requirement that would be nuts. Right? Like depends on where you are. Depends on where you are. But But still, but I can tell you the the bigger piece of this one will be when I hit 10 over and my kids are like, Dad, dad, dad, you're doing like that's just gonna be parking in my backyard. Right? That'll be way more annoying than the beep i can tell you that right.

Paul J Daly: 13:36

There you go 90 miles an hour. I'm sure this. Let's see what happens in California. We'll see. We'll see what happens with California. A

Kyle Mountsier: 13:44

lot in a lot of the thing that's happening. It is it is

Paul J Daly: 13:49

a look. We hope you have an amazing Memorial Day weekend. Sell some cars this weekend. We know that's what we love to do serve some people burgers, cooks burgers, eat some hotdogs. We'll see you next week.

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