Strike Vote, Common Sense Hybrids, Supercharger Screens, Streetwear

Unknown: 0:00What's up‍

Paul Daly: 0:26

we're doing a burnout, full of burnout into the last week of August. Just kind of the end of summer we're talking about a strike vote common sense hybrid supercharges screens and street wear. A very unexpected brand.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:41

Totally unexpected but completely amazing at the same time I

Paul Daly: 0:47

think we have something to learn about.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:49

We do I think that the most learning come you know, the first few stories are educational today and I'm happy we lean in a little educational but the end that's that's a whole bunch of fun. Speaking of educational mixed with fun, Paul,

Paul Daly: 1:03

three, go. Quick one. Just got a quick hey,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:06

we've got a soda con coming up. Oh my goodness, it's less than 30 days away. If you don't have your tickets.

Paul Daly: 1:12

Actually, one month from today is the welcome reception. Is that what it is one month from today?

Kyle Mountsier: 1:18

Unbelievable. Wow, it's gonna be absolutely nuts. We've got a little highlight video for the people little little hump reel that you're gonna want to check out. So if you're watching live, you can see it all on all of its beauty. If you're if you're listening, imagine just all of the fields in video from the audio that you're about to hear. Roll the tape.

Paul Daly: 1:39

Okay, we're on the stage here in Baltimore at the stain of a soda con 2023 collaboration, critical.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:47

It is going to be September the night of the 25th we kick off the welcome reception. And then a full two days we're going

Paul Daly: 1:53

to have all the energy, all the experts, all the swag and all the fields that you expect from the soda verse as we rewrite the narrative around the retail auto industry together. The fifth through 27 That was like the chill vibes. Listen, the go to soda con.com. Just click on all speakers and look at the speaker list. This is not an event where we're going to become and relax and just have fun. We have real practitioners who are in the Dirt Every Day coming to share their best practices share what's going on on the ground, help answer your questions and your team's questions to help get you going in the right direction get you unstuck you know what it is like the most? I don't know, elaborate 20 Group ever. We're not sharing financial statements, but you never know. No.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:43

I mean, I was talking to Gary Ledoux and Melissa Carter ganja. So Gary Ledoux modern on Automotive Group and Melissa of auto nation. And they're going to be talking with Kevin Gervais of auto genius about getting real data out of a CDP. You've heard this term CDP for really the last 18 months and everybody's talking about it. Brian Pash is talking about it. Everybody has come out with their own quote unquote CDP. But it's not just something to have it it's actually to be actionable so that I guarantee that room is going to be packed because it's like yeah, okay, I have this thing. What do I do with it now and these are real practitioners that are actually doing stuff with the data. Yeah,

Paul Daly: 3:22

so go to soda con.com Get your tickets now especially if you're a dealer, you still get $100 off until September 1. Baltimore BWI is really easy to get to as well and the venue is like, it's like closer like on the way to Annapolis. It's 10 minutes south of the airport. Really easy to get to. And we hope you can join us there. If you have any questions, please just reach out hit us at crew@asoto.com You know how to get to us. So get to us. We hope to see you there and hang out with you there. Speaking of hanging out a Segway got a bonus story. What when the strike, the strike talks started to ramp up we decided like okay, we're gonna keep everybody updated on the strike, but we're not going to get into the strike every day. Right? It's like that's like As the World Turns. But here's a little thing in case you missed it. United Auto Workers at the Detroit three have authorized a strike. So that means they voted and if contract talks break down by September 14 being the deadline 97% of UAW workers voted in favor of a strike. So now it is authorized that the President Sean fain can execute and call a strike he clarified though I love this part of the story, he clarified, the goal is to achieve a good contract, not necessarily to strike. So it feels like that feels like actually like the first positive rhetoric

Kyle Mountsier: 4:43

I'm all about. In his verb verbiage, though four day work weeks and 40% increase in pay are good contracts. So well. Exactly.

Paul Daly: 4:51

I guess if I was if I was into I think that was a good contract as well. And if you're on the OEM side, they're like, Well, we think a fifth The dollar 50 hour workweek and a 40% pay cut would be a good let's meet in the middle. That's That's what common sense dollars dollars of a Paul tell them the dollars of speaking the dollars of oh the big dollars. Okay, so the potential economic impact of a 10 day strike just 10 days, 5 billion with a B, wage losses, manufacturer losses, the suppliers, the small suppliers that we talked about last week, right, which is probably some of the most impactful stuff. So let's just keep the conversation rolling and keep common sense in the front seat. Speaking of common sense, segue, this was so refreshing to read loan, refreshing to read because we've been talking about it and saying this for a long time. And I think a lot of other people thinking in a common sense way also but what seems to be actual common sense for Toyota and still ANSYS or, you know, increasing their talk about saying we're planning on building and selling hundreds of 1000s of hybrids in the US over the next five years as an alternative for customers seeking more sustainable transportation but those that aren't ready to make the full jump into all the things that come with switching the Evie. So this comes as dealers are actually facing a lack of demand from less affluent customers on their EVs. Right? We know Evie stock is increasing on lots. The early adoption curve is really flattened out. And so like now, what do we do? So Scott Kunis, it's Kunis because we had a conversation with them a couple of weeks ago, Scott So Scott pretty, pretty nice guy, the Chief Operating Officer of Kunisada group and our V group. They sell off all the Detroit brands as well as Nissan and Mitsubishi in the Midwest, kind of like the southern half of Wisconsin I guess. They recently told insider we have turned away Evie inventory because we need to ensure that we have a good turn on it. So that's dealer saying directly we're turning away evey if there's any dealer I

Kyle Mountsier: 6:50

think there are over 40 stores now

Paul Daly: 6:52

on a plan, and now I'm playing. Yeah. So s&p Global Mobility estimates the hybrids will account for 24% of new vehicle sales in 220 28 That's pretty soon. Pure electrics 30% weight pure electrics 37% I'm missing something here.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:12

Yeah, about this. We'll check the math hang

Paul Daly: 7:16

tight. The point of it is 24%. Hybrids by 20. Yeah, just a couple years now Ford saying they expect to quadruple their hybrid sales over the next five years, which is something we really haven't heard from Ford about raw

Kyle Mountsier: 7:29

not really haven't even talking been talking about hybrid, Evie only.

Paul Daly: 7:33

So that's real promising common sense General Motors committed still to an all electric future Solanas is going to offer different power trains, including hybrids, we've seen them leaning into that with the jeeps and you know, in the states where they have these tighter emissions rules, so manufacturer would be marketing over 60 hybrids this year, and I won't say this, but well, are one of close to a Soto investor. This is a side topic Andrew DeFeo of Hyundai of St. Augustine said a recent automotive news article he said hybrids are a great bridge to whatever the future holds. I've got zero in stock and I've got customers wanting all of them every one I can get. So I

Kyle Mountsier: 8:12

said also to dealers as well for

Paul Daly: 8:15

well but isn't this kind of just all Toyota has been saying for the last 36 months?

Kyle Mountsier: 8:21

Well it was and then they changed their tune because of because of pressure earlier this year. And now Toyota and other manufacturers coming back and going oh wait hold on slow it down just a little bit market demands. Hybrids right and I think that I love this because it's it's the OEMs actually going okay market demands what we what are driving decisions they're starting to drive decision that's going to be a very good thing for dealers and this type of move and and like a broad scope across OEM saying we're gonna stay with hybrids for a little bit of time as a bridge like I love the way Andrew said it's a bridge to evey demand is absolutely the way to go because it's an especially like plug in hybrids as being that next bridge right literally does great with a ton of hybrid vehicles that don't require plugin and then you go to plug in hybrid people figure out what it looks like to have the charger at their home and then going fully V that's going to be what it takes to show I'm pinion rational and it's here to go full full Evie.

Unknown: 9:29

It's ridiculously rational to step into it that way. Yeah, it's it's beyond rational. That's what happens when the market drives demand rational things happen. Speaking irrational things.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:41

Yes. Are you gonna say all of it though? I had

Paul Daly: 9:46

a Amazon we have massive synergy on the show today. So a new video reveals Tesla's supercharger version four with a very first tap and go payment for the first time ever. Although Tesla's not officially like an Build a charger in the specs. The video was posted by James cord CEO of a company called Evie a Englander Eva I guess. They're like an online community that really supports Evie drivers and tries to resource them to further Evie adoption. So the version four was in spotted in action at the Tesla Theater, which is in kind of like a retail area, I guess they had naming rights, maybe it's got a significantly longer cable. So obviously, that's important for accommodating non Tesla's right because of the port is in different spot Tesla's always in the same spot. Also, it's got a little screen on it. So you can tap and go in the little videos cool. He just shows and he's like, Well,

Kyle Mountsier: 10:37

a lot of people might go, Well, what's so hard about like contactless payments and tap and go payments? Here's the point to this. The point is, historically, the Tesla Chargers were only paid by app. Right? So you pulled up, you knew which one you went you paid by app because they were locked down to the Tesla network. What this shows is that Tesla is committed to expanding and other networks. So with the charger, and the pay by tap allows other EVs to to charge it that open to everybody. So it's a massive move and like shots fired, because then putting them giving access to other Evie drivers to their chargers. I cannot wait for a bunch of f150 lightnings happening

Paul Daly: 11:19

to the to the cool now, Jim Farley and Elon are cool. I don't know if the drivers are cool with each other.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:24

Cool. They've been on X together on on X spaces or Twitter spaces, whatever those

Paul Daly: 11:30

are called something, whatever you want. There's a couple points of this that I forgot about until I was like thinking through this article. In the beginning, you didn't have to pay to charge your Tesla, right, a Tesla supercharger, right. And then the payments were obviously through the app. But something in the story triggered my mind is all this people have been talking about? Well, Tesla is going to have to plug in every car, what data are they going to get from the vehicle. And if you have to pay for it, you have to pay through the Tesla app. Like and we all know that when you put an app and you accept the terms and conditions. Well,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:02

terms and conditions are linked with payment like merchant services terms, all my cards retain

Paul Daly: 12:08

good stuff. So So obviously, this is no surprise that they're moving in this direction with everybody dotting the format. But I mean, this is really a first thing where you see like up just like that sucker up.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:20

Tesla isn't a company. They're a data company.

Paul Daly: 12:23

Oh my gosh, that proven wrong wisdom. Or the sides of people sit on the bench changed my mind. Oh, man speaking to change your mind about a brand.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:33

Wow, segue. This is right. All right, we're gonna save you save you all of our rigamarole because the story from retail riot wire is just so sublime. If you don't know who Lockheed Martin is. We'll give you a little TLDR in just a second. But here's the story. Lockheed Martin, the American aerospace and Arms Company has surprised many as it appears to have its logo featured on a streetwear collection being sold online in South Korea. The collection including shirts, hoodies and jackets and sold by South Korean company. Do Jin Yong Yong hyung. CO the move has sparked a mix of shock disbelief in humor on social media platforms like x and Tik Tok with users mocking the unusual crossover between defense company and fashion given Lockheed Martin associated association with military products. So basically what it is the company like if you go to the website, you can see up up top that they acquired the official Lockheed Martin licensed brands through an agency. And it's not the first time that South Korea has been seen putting like mass brands on on streetwear apparel, other brands like CNN, Yale, Billboard, and Kodak, have had these apparel collections in in South Korea, so but I will say, I will say the Lockheed Martin logo just as like a standalone logo is fine. It's on it's on point, you know, the

Paul Daly: 14:03

thought go to thought and it really you think about some of the brands and I guess I'm trying to think of a US company that does this like h&m Yeah, they do it you got h&m, right? And like, we've seen this big resurgence of like the NASA logo over the last two or three years. Right? And there's there's just this element of writing with culture that is willing to like, do this stuff with brands that wouldn't typically be something that you would sport like Kirkland Signature is another one. That's right one what's new at Bass Pro Shop hats right now, right? Like they're just this this trend where like a not cool logo to have or not cool brand to be like yo, this is actually fashion is now becoming fashion. And like, I'll be straight up. There are some dealers who have some really sweet old school logos that are are are so nuts. They're

Kyle Mountsier: 14:54

not even thinking like the logos that are confer sticker back and brand new and all that type of stuff.

Paul Daly: 15:00

Oh no. Other way.

Kyle Mountsier: 15:01

I'm like, like these like these like goofy, you know, like, Logos you're like, No, we've never put that on on anything. I'm looking at some of the business cards I have right here on my desk even on like, these would actually work. This would be on brands,

Paul Daly: 15:17

car ads, and yeah, like, so. Look, I mean, if it was me, and I was a dealer, and especially in a metro, I would be there are lots of small streetwear companies that have these little shops and little stores and retail or in the city that love custom local stuff. And get yourself a designer to pitch it, and then just go in and be like, Hey, we will give you these shoes, give them the T shirts, let them sell the t shirt was 40 bucks. But I can't think of a better spend of like a couple grand than giving the local cool streetwear shops, some of your like vintage where someone just like, like has these people walking around and like walking around in your logo. The couple of company that's coming to mind because we've done work with them with congruent was frankly to Auto Group in St. Louis, Missouri. Oh, because that logo is real. Yeah, because it's old school too. But but like the phrases can't beat a leader. Right. Right. Right. And there's just that's definitely something it would be so I think we could take a little cue from Lockheed Martin. I mean, if you have like, kind of this I don't know.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:24

Like old meets new word that's coming to

Paul Daly: 16:26

mind isn't a word I'm gonna say but like a company that supplies defense contracting, and kind of is in their best interest for people to be at war. Especially in South Korea, right? Like there's, there's this element like hey, if they can do it, you can you can do it. Oh, well, we hope you got enough out of the show to get you going into the last week of summer please go to a so to con.com Check out the speakers get a ticket or send it to someone you know lives close because they should be there with us then

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