The Strike Is On, EV’s and Cool Kids, Swaggy Warehouse

Paul Daly: 0:27Friday, Kyle, it's Friday. I have like all this adrenaline going. I'm not quite sure why but we're talking about the strike is on EVs and cool kids and a swaggy warehouse. Go to people really want to know why they stopped with that movie. That music went up on me what you

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:47

know, tip my hair is a certain amount of adrenaline. I don't know why I feel this way. I told my wife this last night I was like, for some reason I know we have 10 days to go till a soda con. But you could convince me that it's Monday you

Paul Daly: 1:00

Right? Like we're like in mode will be next week. A soda con coming in? October, October, September 26 27th. A salon.com. We sell some tickets, please come be with us. Especially if you're close to the area drive in, drive out or fly in, fly out. It'll be an awesome time. Great place to be go look at the speakers. Look at the sessions. It's just, I mean, I awesomes the wrong word. It's not it's just such not even that's just like I had to say a word just came out that way. But the auto collabs podcast we've been releasing leading up to it. Our have been fantastic. I can't remember when we've had like such a slew of podcast after podcast that left us a little speechless. Me you Michael Cirilo. You can get that at auto collabs.com We're heading to Atlanta to you and me. We are and our wives, actually, and our wives and my kids and your kids. By the way, you can't get auto collabs.com But now can just auto collapse on Google and it's the first eight things so Oh, Vic. Nailed it. Nailed. Nailed it. If you're in Atlanta area, come visit us at the beaver Toyota premiere of more than cars episode two live premiere, beaver Toyota incoming GA Saturday 8pm. Look, if you're hearing this in the podcast, you can just show up right you show up. Say Paul and Kyle say I know those guys in the flat bills over there. You'll be with your people. I promise you will be with your people do we don't have nearly enough time to talk today. But we're heading over to the All Things use cars. clubhouse room, David Long's clubhouse room right after this live stream nine o'clock every Friday morning, nine o'clock Eastern. We are there with some of the just most fun and brilliant practitioners in automotive especially used cars, sharing their insights and having having a lot of fun. It's always I guess we got to talk about a strike. I guess we got to talk about it. We got I was at a savannah bananas game last night. I don't want to talk about a strike. I know. That's all I wanted him outside of our show up and asked you about it. I know because we got work to do. But let's get into it. All right, let's get into the most important part of today's show. You aw update. All right. Here we go. It's actually happening. Nearly 13,000 hourly workers began a strike against Ford Motor Company GM and the Lantis. This is the first simultaneous strike against all big three at once. In the 88 year history of the United Auto Workers Union when UAW Shan President Sean fain arrived to announce the strike outside of Michigan plant, just west of Detroit. His demeanor was described as kind of heightened sense of emotion, jubilant, smiling, leading chants and actively participating in the gathering as the idea swarmed his vehicle, this guy is living for this stuff, right? Like this is what I always wanted. You really think he didn't want this to happen? No, nobody believes that.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:04

There was never going to be a resolution like that moment had to happen in Sean fain his life and a whole bunch of other will get to some quotes here in just a second. But the thing that strikes me is it's still less than 10% of the total unionized workers are about 150,000. So they they, as we heard, and as we expected, they are being strategic about the place where they're putting these and if you notice, it is it is the hourly employees that are striking, which are the ones as we'll see from a couple quotes on on people that are there people that are striking, that are that probably have the most to gain from some of these wage changes. Yes,

Paul Daly: 4:47

true. So obviously, they're striking the profitable centers Ford Bronco, Jeep Wrangler Chevy Colorado, we're all going to be affected by this. GM expressed disappointment in the leadership. You know, despite GM was with it saying is an unprecedented economic package we put in front of the Union. Gerald Johnson GMs executive VP said unfortunately we did not reach an agreement by the September 14 deadline our goal remains the same. And we expect a fair contract with re which rewards team members and also protects our company's future. Ford commented, they said the union's counterproposal that the union okay did come back with a counter proposal. They said it showed very little movement from their initial demands. So Lantus expressed disappointment, and said they're taking protective measures to provide you know, they said they're going to institute I think that countermeasures, you know, on. I don't know what that means. It's a very boardroom to very still mantasy Answer. Michael Huddleston, a 35 year worker, Adam, at one of the Michigan assembly plants emphasize the importance of being there at midnight, he earns 1767 An hour and struggles with his own Chevy truck payments, he says I look at this action as longevity, he said, I make 1767 an hour, you can't really live off that. He did say that, you know, McDonald's is workers are doing better than we are in some places. You know, so and the union has a fund and they start paying out straight workers $500 a week, right? So for a worker at that wage, right, he's going to be pretty close to even, you know, and you fact start to factor in he was at a GM plant. So they already offered a 20% wage increase, which would, you know, get that that worker, particularly up over $20 an hour, but you know, they're going all in on this. So I don't know, man, I feel there's the update its fame is in his in his heyday. And I would just

Kyle Mountsier: 6:37

say to dealers, like don't freak out too much, I still think that there's going to be a fairly quick resolution, I don't think this is going to be a long drawn out thing. Again, these manufacturers, these three big the big three still have some of the highest ground sock in the in the US. And so we're not going to see a massive, we're not going to see like next week impact on us cars or anything, but pay attention to it. But really, you know, it's gonna take three, four weeks to start to understand whether or not there's going to be a massive impact on the industry, especially when they're only striking less than 10% of the workers and being super targeted. However, the place where it will change and will change probably quickly is high demand low supply vehicles. If you see high demand, low supply vehicles, rising in prices, watch out because those will go quickly for sure.

Paul Daly: 7:24

Yeah, people are gonna make other choices. Speaking of people making having other choices and stuff, a segue. I think it's a solid segment. I was I was I worked amid increasing competition in the Eevee market Tesla's once dominant position is being challenged as major major automakers unveil diversity of electric models, industry experts, were discussing the shifting landscape. Tesla's sales approach and the broader issue of EB affordable Evie affordability at the 2023 Automotive News Congress in Detroit, have a couple people just want to share a couple quotes on this. And this is really about the changing approach to Tesla being the only option on the market. Diane Mayer, President and CEO of Michigan based Fox motors, we talked about her earlier in the week. She says Now there are other cool kids. So Tesla is not the only game in town. And America loves the choice. Great Damon Lester, our boy, he said owner of the Maryland bass Lester Auto Group and close close friend of asoto said Tesla has done a good job capitalizing its market share, but people see other EVs on the road and say that's a cool car. And it's not a Tesla. Hey, David Lester,

Kyle Mountsier: 8:31

I can hit it, I can hear it. Without a doubt. This is this is really like a good insightful thing, especially from dealers that are going hey, look, we actually feel like we have something to offer, you know that our our manufacturers are giving something to offer. There's some manufacturers that are pressing in more than others. But look, the cool factor that in factor of a lot of these cars, just even the design or the technology available in them is starting to approach that cool factor of Tesla and you started out cross shopping a lot more instead of single scope shopping with one manufacturer. So just something to look out for and understand like, hey, customers have options now. And and even they have options across the legacy manufacturers so don't get bought into some noise that says since they're shopping you that they're not shopping anyone else they are

Paul Daly: 9:23

definitely if they're shopping EVs, they're definitely shopping other people. There's some anecdotal evidence to the truth of this statement. My wife isn't really in the cars, you know what I mean? And she has commented several times when we're driving like, Oh, what's that? That's a cool car. Right? Right. She said that about like a new thing. They ionic five. She said about the VW ID for right. So like these things, and I'm like, oh, that's an Eevee she's like really? Right. And so even when you start getting into the fact that a lot of these made by lacy automakers have like great features like physical buttons. Yep. Right. Like the novelty wears off quick. So I like I like This little conversation like Damon's comment, and just kind of as a little bit of a punch line, like we're going to stop, just to bring it back around to wrap up the strike stories. The Lantus in Ohio is the only one of all three plants that has any EVs affected by any of the strike plans, which is the Wrangler for X, ie plug in hybrid sheet, which there's already been like, blank as some people want it. Some people don't. Yeah, like, Well, none of the other plants have anything near an Eevee that's affected. I guess that's not surprising, because they're pretty smart. They're like, we're gonna let them keep losing money on those. And we're going to choke off the ice vehicles that are actually making the profit. So I think EVs are safe. But this really could.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:41

It could accelerate Evie adoption for US based manufacturers. Absolutely.

Paul Daly: 10:45

Because it's an option. All right, speaking about options, and fashion. And this is really my favorites. This is my favorite story of the day. It's

Kyle Mountsier: 10:54

a great story. So Costco is private label, if you're not aware of it, it's called Kirkland Signature. And originally, they introduced it in 1995. And it went from just like your regular old Costco household item to things that people are all about and an unexpected fashion sensation. The original private label strategy was spread across 30 different labels. But now they've consolidated data into one into the Kirkland Signature move. And so now they lowered they've lowered costs offer competitive prices. So here's a little breakdown with $58 billion in sales in 2021, racking up over a quarter of the company's total revenue, making it real, America's largest consumer packaged goods brand, I'd say that again. Kirkland Signature is the early signature is America's largest consumer packaged goods brand in terms of sales revenue, which is nuts, and now they've gone and like went full on Nike brand, hop culture, swag drop, and they're doing swag drops that sell out in minutes. Companies like this, they've seen all the company get affected by this citing that things like even just membership renewals, they believe are are up to 92.6% because of brands like Kirkland.

Paul Daly: 12:18

That's right. They're tying loyalty to brands. So they have 65 million households that are renewing it a 92% renewal rate, which is where all their profit comes, by the way. They recently released this black on black, right? There's a picture of it on the screen I'd read it was going nuts about it. It's just the Kirkland Signature logo, which you know, pop culture is gripping onto it. And I think this is just a reminder for all of us, that you penetrate culture, right? Not your product, but culture understand what people want. play into it, give the people what they want, and you do that some reason that happens they also sell toilet paper and mechanic supplies and glasses. And you know, mouthwash it all is together. I know I'm

Kyle Mountsier: 13:01

still I'm still waiting for the first dealership to just go full bore

Paul Daly: 13:05

on we're getting swag. We're getting close. We're really getting close. I know we are. Well I think that's all we have for today. We actually just released some new swag. Go to shop dot A so two.com shop dot A sony.com And up there. Drop a goat see with a little bit of magic cooking there. We'll see you tomorrow.

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