Record Auto Sales, Ford's Historic Renovation, Stamp Price Surge

Paul J Daly: 0:00

Good morning it is when Tuesday it's Tuesday June 4 con. I've been on a show together it feels like it forever, but Kyle's in Austin, Texas A dmsc. I'm back here in Syracuse, we're talking about record auto sales, Ford's amazing new building and the price of stamps. If that doesn't sound exciting, we'll do our best to make it exciting. It's like watching grass grow. Except it seems to grow faster the grass these days. It's like

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:35

kind of an interesting story. And there's some fun data points. But when you say it

Paul J Daly: 0:39

came out of my mouth, I was like Florida we have a riveting one today. A crush on a real all the grandmas across the country lean in.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:52

Unbelievable. Oh, man. Hey, see you. I felt like I haven't talked to you and like, oh, no,

Paul J Daly: 0:57

we haven't. It's actually probably been a week. Right? Yeah, it's a long time. It's Tuesday. I went on it aversary trip. And then like you were in Austin. We had we both had both had some time with Michael Cirillo. Yep. By the way, we came up with the best name for his Michael his his motorcycle shop yesterday on the show. Oh, no. Yeah, MC, motorcycle. Then I was like MC squared. I was like, and when you sell electric motorcycles, it'd be like E equals MC squared. It was a brilliant moment. So we're not gonna see him again. He's just opening he posted a picture of him on a motorcycle. What a baller. We got him going, Hey, you're in Austin, there. Lots going on there at the patch event? What's What's it feel really

Kyle Mountsier: 1:42

good? Well, one, you know, this event is very specifically tailored to what's going on in the marketing landscape. And the conversations have been really good. You know, obviously, everybody's talking about a CDP. And what, like, you know, for the last couple of years CDP talk has kind of been coming into the forefront. But there's still a lot of questions around it. Some of the larger groups are implementing CDP's. And having a lot of trouble doing so it's taking them a year 18 months to really like wrap their hands around. And this is well resourced, dedicated staff. Exactly. So it's not it's not something to be taken lightly. You know. So that's been great. And then actually a lot around like identity resolution, authenticated users logged in users. So I'm geeking out over here, because, you know, that's like my advanced, so my favorite stuff. But, you know, obviously, Brian, Glen, the PCG team always put on a stellar event. They have great food. And Austin's a really fun town. So it's been great.

Paul J Daly: 2:40

They go, you know, I don't know if this is true. But I think you may very well have been the first one to ever say the three letter CDP from a stage of dmsc just gonna say that a couple of years ago.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:50

You know, I you know, we could research it. Let's we could

Paul J Daly: 2:53

because when I remember when you saying and everybody be like, Huh.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:58

That was on the panel. That's right.

Paul J Daly: 3:00

It was it was I'm just putting it out there. Put that out. You were fresh out of the dealership back then let's see

Kyle Mountsier: 3:05

what happens. We'll see if that's

Paul J Daly: 3:07

Oh, hey, just want to let you know, I've seen a lot of people posting about these Don Hall. Probably the most recent posts of some soda content just yesterday said to us, like I love my asoto families with Don Hall, the chairman of VAP said that made my heart so warm this morning when I woke up, but all the breakout sessions all the mainstays session mainstage sessions are now live on our YouTube channel, you go to a so tube.com ASOTU dot B E, or just go to YouTube and search a soda, you'll find that and you can I was watching

Kyle Mountsier: 3:38

someone yesterday watch a session on their computer. Yeah, in a break between sessions here. So I know. People are getting value out of these sessions. They were really great conversations, you're gonna

Paul J Daly: 3:52

I'm trying to I'm trying to drop in and see him you know, you and I didn't get to see a lot of the sessions, because we were moderate another one. And so I was watching the one with you. And Bob Hollinshead, Brian Kramer and job awesome. And whatever. Unbelievable, whatever. It was unbelievable. Go check that one out if you haven't, if you haven't checked that one up. But we're gonna keep releasing these drip drip feed and like some micro content on LinkedIn. If you don't follow us on LinkedIn. That's a great place to get a lot of this content on the drip, go to LinkedIn follow. So do and there's a lot of conversation going on there. Let's talk about some news. It's been a while we have some fun stuff today though. automakers are reporting a strong US light vehicle sales gains for May with a combined 10% growth among the five reporting automakers led by Toyota, Hyundai and Kia no surprise with the SAR surpassing 16 million for the first time this year. It's encouraging sales climb 16% for Toyota to 216,000 vehicles with a significant boost from hybrid and electric models comprising get this 39% of their sales out of battery in it. Like yeah, literally Shai could tell I've never heard you speak It's like that before that secret.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:02

I mean, everybody's been targeting this 30% You know, electric or hybrid and 39 Toyota is just like, done that. Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 5:11

like when everyone's like they're behind they're behind they're like Hello. In Honda sales rose 6.4% 227,000 vehicles driven by crossovers like the CRV and the HRV. Despite their like Evie sales went down. Hyundai hit a 12% increase significant gains from eco friendly models through some top sellers like the Elantra and the Tucson actually saw declines. Kia is like this is the strong one. sales dropped by 5%. But Sportage and forte leading the gains. Oh, I thought we hadn't even numbered here for Kia. To get back to that. Subaru is up 7% With the cross check and Forrester showing strong growth. The electric soltera sales surged 255% year over a year.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:55

Wow. Okay, Subaru.

Unknown: 5:57

I don't know. Where's that?

Kyle Mountsier: 5:58

They went from three, five. It was no,

Paul J Daly: 6:01

I know, I don't know what that number is like that. Suspiciously i The seasonally. This or the SAR did hit 16 million the highest since July of 2023. Showing some positive market trends. Here's a quote from the CEO of Hyundai Motor America, Randy Parker said there's a lot of negativity in the marketplace right now regarding EVs, which I find really amazing because EVs have been with us for quite a long time, and they aren't going away EVs

Kyle Mountsier: 6:27

are the future. Yeah, you know, everybody is pointing to the downturn in pace of growth. Yep. But it doesn't mean that there's not still growth, overall growth. rapid pace has slowed down, but like you get that with every bell curve. So I think, you know, these automakers like everybody's balancing, you know, are we seeing EVs that we're not seeing EVs decline, we're just seeing them not grow at the pace that they have in the past. And we'll see that for a little while until you get like charging adoption. And I'll tell you, and others, but I'll tell you, one last.

Paul J Daly: 7:02

Again, this is the third time that I've rented an Eevee. And all three times when I don't know why whenever I go to Florida, I rent an Eevee it just feels like the right thing to do. But I was in a pole star to And dude, I'm hooked. I gotta say, like I was in that. I was like, I love driving. I love driving this card and I figured out a few new charging things. I charged it at the house and I did a public charging thing. But like charging, if you can figure that situation out, it is just to me, a superior driving experience. Unless I mean, you're real like going for a Porsche or something that's like supposed to be that if you're getting a regular driver to get a take can you know, but everyday like driving experience. I love it. Literally I got back home in my ice vehicle. I was like, Ah, this thing feels like slow and they're not slow. But the Evie experience is fantastic. You just sit in it just works. It starts right up when you like it doesn't start. You just sit down. It's like we're gonna

Kyle Mountsier: 7:54

do a thing. What's on it's just here we go. Casey starts.

Paul J Daly: 7:58

Yep, I know. So fun. But good news, man. It's good to see some good news overall SAR sales increasing. Obviously your mentor is tracking that very, very encouraging thinking speaking of encouraging things and stuff segue. This is such a cool story coming out of Detroit, Ford undertook a massive $950 million. Yes, that's almost a billion renovation of historic Michigan central station back in 2018. They wanted to create a mobility hub and attract tech savvy employees. The project faced a ton of challenges, like a pandemic. Also one of the challenges reclaiming stolen artifacts from like clocks in these big things that people had just kind of pillaged and stole from there. They actually had a pump. I think it was like 3 million gallons of water out of the basement. They basically bought this 18 storey train station for 90 million to house teams were working on autonomous and Evie technology. The six year project involved 3100 workers. They ended up reclaiming most of the stolen artifacts, including original clock piece that was kind of like delivered by two people. They just you know, it's like you guys just brought it back. Thank you for bringing it back. They also had to negotiate with someone who owned another piece and they said they bought it on their term on his terms. So I'm sure they did, they would they went all out that one of the pillars like there were some stone damage and they found the original quarry where the stone came from and had like an expert Mason put 400 hours into reforming a column to match the other column. So like literally I'm so

Kyle Mountsier: 9:34

happy about this.

Paul J Daly: 9:36

It's so good. They said you know this is going to be important to draw new tech town they have lots of plans for the building including a hotel in the higher floors. And to mark the stations reopened. This is the cherry on top. They are hosting like a star studded event featuring live music legend from Detroit. Its executive produced by Eminem is going to feature Jack White Diana Ross Big Sean it's gonna be live streamed on peacock and released as an NBC special like show on Sunday night.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:05

Let's go totally watch it. Absolutely watching that. First of all, I saw the story break and saw the pictures and stuff. So cool like, and to take something that was steeped in mobility historically, right and turn it like it kind of like a turn of century mobility thing and turn it into like this net new mobility hub. Yes. So it's actually so auto in its core, like, good. Like you think about how retail Auto is restorative in local communities, they're doing it at the OEM level, like, I cannot think of a better way to express the retail in the auto industry's impact on culture in the US. And you start like, and then you start like going down the line, we've been talking about this Ford University, I was just talking to Ford direct yesterday about some of the things that they're doing. Like there's some really cool stuff coming out of this organization over the last five to six years, for all the things that they're seeing, you're seeing in the news, for, you know, Jim Farley, really kind of like playing this larger than life character, you're still seeing a through line of like, really great innovation and care for the community. I love it.

Paul J Daly: 11:19

I was like, I bet we could get an invite to this thing. It's this week. So it's this weekend. So I don't think we can make it happen. But it's going to be exciting to watch Bill Ford, grandson or great grandson of Henry Ford, great grandson basically said, I got the lecture like why did you start this in motion. He's like, I got sick of people using this building. As an example of the decline of Detroit. It was like in the photos it was to me like people would always be like, the headline about like, something bad about Detroit, and then they would picture this building. He's like, I got sick of it. So let's do something about it. And they just do something about Don't Don't, don't get in the dealer's way. Don't do it. Don't do it. Speaking of don't do it. It's what they're doing it. I don't know. I really curious how many people are actually going to feel this one.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:08

No, no. The US Postal Service has received approval to raise first class mail stamp prices from 68 cents to 73 cents starting July 14. And what an outrage. This hike is part of a broader strategy tried to address the financial challenges of the USPS. The regulatory commission approved the 7.8% increase in mailing prices Their goal is to get an additional listen to this guy this move $44 billion in additional revenue by 2030 was a lot of people buying stamps a lot of people still buying stamps. I mean if you know you got to someone's gotta send direct mail you know, what's the

Paul J Daly: 12:48

what's the price increase is five cents I'm gonna do some math keep

Kyle Mountsier: 12:51

going? Well, but it also they have a 25% price hike for high volume shippers using its parcel select Service. However, metal volume fell 6.1% last year. So us postmaster Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Paws plan consolidation of the processing network delaying cost savings of up to $177 million just in cost savings that they're missing out of. Senator Gary Peters, however, emphasized the need for a plan that won't interfere with critical mass service saying I will keep pushing the joy in the USPS Board of Governors for a plan that won't interfere with critical mail service.

Paul J Daly: 13:32

All right, we got a couple things here I mentioned. All right, number one, you see my calculator. This is what $44 million. So you got to turn your phone sideways. Look at that. That's $44 billion. Looks like how do you do that? I mean, and it's only a five cent increase. That's a lot of it. We divide that by point oh, five. And that's how many likes dance we're looking at?

Kyle Mountsier: 13:57

It seems like there was a 25% price hike for high volume. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay.

Paul J Daly: 14:04

There's some other stuff in there. Okay. Obviously, government institutions are not the bastion of operational efficiency. I feel like I know the person that can fix this whole thing. All right, if you had to put to put one person in place to fix all this from the auto industry

Kyle Mountsier: 14:20

secret revealed? Oh, ah,

Paul J Daly: 14:24

I think he would get too frustrated. You know what, you need a real patient man. I would put Ed Roberts in the seat. He just sits there and goes no Ed Roberts in the seat, I think make him Postmaster General. We're gonna fix this whole thing. It's gonna make a great social media.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:41

Direct Mail companies are gonna hate it. It's gonna be real rough.

Paul J Daly: 14:44

I know. I know, the price of stamps. I think that but this is one of those things like you think of how things change and evolve price of stamps used to be like a benchmark indicator of so much. And now it's largely irrelevant. Well, it's a way to get

Kyle Mountsier: 14:58

think about sending a nine 1000 Customer mail drop as an auto dealer and what this does to like, because if there's a well okay, so that high volume shippers seeing a 25% increase, you're about to see a 25, maybe 30% Because they're going to look for the revenue on top of that increase on your direct mail, shipping prices, postage. Time back to the CDP.

Paul J Daly: 15:23

Right? Where's the value? It's always changing. It's always changing. Well, thanks for giving us the skinny from Austin. How long are you there for when you live in?

Kyle Mountsier: 15:31

I'm out today.

Paul J Daly: 15:32

He's out today. Say hi to our friends at dmsc in the passes. We will see you here tomorrow.

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