Union Strike To Shut Down East Coast Ports, Hertz Unloads More EVs, Thieves Avoid EVs

Paul J Daly: 0:00

I last day of the month? Well, on a Monday, I hope everybody's ready, september 30, we're talking about, yeah, back another union strike. Gonna have a guest, Todd Caputo. We're gonna call him and see what he's up to on Monday morning. I mean, we'll make it feel like it's gonna be random, not as random.

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:22

It's not as random, but it is kind of random because we just don't do it on a Monday. So you're gonna be excited when it happens. You know,

Paul J Daly: 0:28

call it random. Yes, we will. Let's get some announcements out of the way. You know, we have a webinar coming up this Friday. It's this Friday, right? Oh yeah, at 2pm new to the asot. Been around the past events, you've seen them. But Zach billings is going to be joining us, along with Billy from Tommy Auto Group, Tommy car. I mean, going to talk about aligning marketing and store processes. Big topic of conversation. These have been so much fun. We're so excited for you to get to meet our friends at wikimotive. We know you're going to love them. So go to Billings is a smart

Kyle Mountsier: 0:59

cat.

Paul J Daly: 1:00

I'm just telling you that super smart. I know that, you know, super smart, you're going to want to hang out with him. I feel like it's one of those family reunion moments where you get to bring your worlds together, yeah. Like, introduce your friends to your other friends. So you can go to asotu com, just scroll down. You can register right there, and that way you can be there on the live stream with us. We'll have fun. Or you could get, you know, get the recording when it's done as well. All right, I think we just need to get into some we got

Kyle Mountsier: 1:24

to get into this because it's good. It's a lot of good info this morning. Yes,

Paul J Daly: 1:28

definitely. All right, we're gonna call, let's, should we just call Todd now? Yeah, I

Kyle Mountsier: 1:34

mean, maybe call

Paul J Daly: 1:35

him. Okay, maybe call him. We'll call him that. Let's see if we can hear him. See if this works anywhere. I

Unknown: 1:40

love that sound here.

Paul J Daly: 1:43

Todd, what is live on the show? Right from the phone call, I feel like we're in radio business.

Unknown: 1:48

So it's just amazing. Technology is just amazing. So it's,

Paul J Daly: 1:52

are you driving right now

Unknown: 1:53

too? Yes, I am.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:55

That's even more impressive, because it sounds like you're in a studio. No, I

Todd Caputo: 1:59

I went off the Bluetooth that I'm driving very carefully.

Paul J Daly: 2:03

There you go. There. So good. So you and I were texting back and forth a little bit this morning talking about this perfect storm that could be happening. So we'll talk about the hurricane. I know a lot of people are dealing with some massive, significant aftermaths with that right now. Right now you are in North Carolina because you live in Charlotte, yeah, but you have some insight. But also, before we talk about it, because we, a lot of us, know the hurricane News, I'm going to talk about what's going on with the port workers, and then we'll get your feedback on on this storm that you see forming up. Sure. So basically, Port workers from Maine to Texas are preparing for a major strike set to begin early tomorrow, potentially halting container traffic and disrupting all types of industries with negotiations at a standstill on wage issues, the strike could cost the US economy up to $5 billion per day. Per day. International longshoremen Association represents 45,000 workers across 36 ports, and this would be the First Coast wide strike since 1977 before Kyle and I were born. Todd was around just, you know, digging on Monday night, impacting essential goods like food, automobiles and automobile parts. Union leader Harold Daggett, known for his fiery rhetoric, has been vocal about the demands, warning, quote, I'll cripple you. I feel like he's

Kyle Mountsier: 3:25

got a friend in that we know.

Paul J Daly: 3:29

Retailers like WalMart and Costco have pre imported goods to mitigate disruptions. And Steve Hughes, CEO of HCS International, who specializes in automotive sourcing and shipping, criticized the union for, quote, holding the entire country over a barrel. Wow. Some analysts like Todd Caputo worry that the strike, combined with the effects of Hurricane Helene will create a perfect storm for the retail auto industry. That's why we have Todd on the show. To give us your thoughts on this,

Todd Caputo: 4:00

I was down in Charleston over the weekend and drove by the port, and I saw a bunch of BMWs, and I was thinking to myself, what are those BMWs? Don't move. They might just be stuck there. And that's kind of what made me think of of this, you know, and I'm reading about this, but it's Mazda, Kia, Hyundai, BMW, Mercedes, you know, again, there's pretty high day supply for already, most of those dealers that have those kind of cars anyways, but that, you know, kind of how long this goes. It may not actually be the case, but I think for parts, it could potentially be more of a problem. You know, nobody truly knows. But again, right? We've seen issues before, supply and demand with covid and other things. This could be, you know, could be a big deal. You might not see the week or two, but if this thing goes on for, you know, two, three weeks a month, you know, there's a big election coming up that we all know about. And heard about us great time. Heard about we all heard about that. So, you know. So it's a perfect time for a strike if you want to get what you want. So I think that, you know, it potentially could definitely have an impact on our industry. And then combine that with, obviously, with this hurricane, and that's why I posted this morning, it potentially could be a perfect storm. Well,

Paul J Daly: 5:16

you're talking about the storm, talking about the inventory loss. I mean, we don't have an Kyle. Have you heard any numbers on inventory loss or potential? No,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:23

not at all. Yeah. I mean, that's gonna come out in a little while. It's not gonna be a I don't sense that it's a ton. I haven't seen a lot of like, chatter about it recently unless, oh,

Todd Caputo: 5:31

cars, just wait. Just, just wait. So if you look at videos from Florida and Georgia and North Carolina, where I am, especially Western into Tennessee, Ohio. It's a lot of flooding everywhere. It's going to take weeks, if not months, for it all to settle out. And what I will tell you is, you know, when things like this happen, I've seen this in the past, that the used car markets are already tight. Anyways, it's just going to get tighter because of it. Yeah, and a lot of these rural areas, like I drive to these places, and a lot of people drive very inexpensive cars, because that's all they can afford. Well, those cars are going to be they're going to be wiped out. They're going to be gone. So even very inexpensive used cars, you know,$1,000 cars, $2,000 cars, those cars potentially could be worth a lot more too, because of the fact it's going to be a demand form because those sites, they're going to need to get replaced. If people that are, you know, unfortunately, in a situation where they're in rural poverty cannot afford or get a loan on a late model used car, they're going to be forced to replace, probably something similar to what they have, you know, a 10 year old car, 15 year old car, and a lot of times those cars don't hold their value. That might not be the case so and then, you know, a lot of dealers, I've seen videos, right? A lot of dealers lost, like, literally lost their entire inventory, flooded, like it's gone. Wow, you'll start to see it probably over the next few days, and then the coming weeks that there's going to be inventory that's just gone, that's just gone. It's going to have to get replaced, you know, new new cars and used cars and just consumers are going to need to replace the cars that got either completely totaled or just so damaged they don't, they don't want to keep them so wholesale perspective, if you're buying cars at the auction, it'd be very, very cautious of flood cars, because there's a lot of, unfortunately, bad actors in our business. There's a few, right? They'll try to pass off flood cars without disclosing it at the auction. So, you know, we've seen this before. We're going to see it again, but it's to potentially, like, said, be a perfect storm. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:34

I think the big, the big challenge with this one is it is so widespread. You know, a lot of times you get, like, a centralized city, like when Houston flooded, or when New Orleans or things like that flooded, you know where those cars are coming from, but this thing's widespread. It's across four or five states where you're going to have those issues rising up. And, you know, even just, you know, transit, there's a bunch of transit that's going to struggle over the next week or so in in major lines going between these states right now, especially in that like northern Georgia and South Carolina areas that I've seen. I've got a couple of buddies that are going out there to help out. So, yeah, definitely going to be strange. You know, on the on the talks of of the strike. You know, we've seen recently three or four pending strikes kind of come to a head right before the strike or in the day one of the strike. So I think some of these, you know, union leaders and even and even the organizations are starting to get wise on like, hey, look, we might as well just get this out of the way right now, as opposed to lingering into the strike. But my man Harold seems a little bit a little bit aggressive, so we'll see what what happens now, I'll

Paul J Daly: 8:46

cripple you. Is pretty strong. I mean, I don't think it's as strong as eat the rich, but it's probably much more possible for him to cripple us. Yeah, right.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:55

There you go. Well, Todd, thank

Paul J Daly: 8:57

you so much for joining us. Safe Travel north Carolina today. And thanks, as always,

Unknown: 9:03

yeah, take care. Bye bye, bye bye.

Paul J Daly: 9:06

I don't know why I love the call in feature. It's

Kyle Mountsier: 9:09

great. We gotta,

Paul J Daly: 9:09

we gotta do the call to do it more, because it's so much easier. Like, he's in the car. You don't have to, like, have somebody in video, and that's it. Work note today, september 30, Kyle and I hereby decree that we will be calling more people

Kyle Mountsier: 9:21

Collins now.

Paul J Daly: 9:24

Oh, and hey, if you didn't know we have a daily email, you can go to a soda.com. It's kind of like the anchor point for all of the content that we make. And we've been doing a daily digest of all the automotive news for you that you can really absorb in just a few minutes every morning. So you know, you know, you should check that out. Hear a couple of stories like we cover stuff like this, and you know, they go back and forth in the show, usually the show we build independently. But today, we wanted to share a few things from that digest. Number one, hurt just cutting back on its EV fleet, just 13 months after announcing a big acquisition of GM EVs, specifically the Chevy Silverado EV. 90s due to high depreciation and repair costs, hertz car sales has now 35 Silverado, Ev, three, WT models listed around 63 five, wow, that's 11,000 off what the fleet pricing is for those same exact vehicles. So high price caught fluctuating or high repair costs and maintenance costs. Fluctuating demand is helping them recalibrate their fleets. So if you want an EV truck, these are, like the work truck models. These are the ones they have higher towing capacity in pretty good range. Should get one

Kyle Mountsier: 10:34

look if I'm looking for an EV right now, first thing I'm doing is searching for a hertz enterprise, anyone that has, like, a retail solution on the back end of their rental fleet, because they've all been just offloading them of the past two, past 12 months. So, hey, you need a truck, jump on that thing. I don't know. Maybe, maybe there's a couple dealer retailers that could, that could take advantage of, like, your hurts. I

Paul J Daly: 11:00

mean, yeah, like, if you're a Ford dealer, if you're a Ford dealer, a Chevy deal, I mean, if your deal sell anything but Chevys, I mean, anything but these trucks, you need to get these trucks. Yeah, right. If you're in the fleet business and you're not a Chevy dealer, like, go buy them all. Go buy them all that you have a built in fleet. Uh, speaking of, I don't know, speaking of EVs, I tried. You can't get them, all right. On Monday,

Kyle Mountsier: 11:24

here's the shocking news, thieves are not getting electric vehicles as their primary mechanism of thievery. No, they're not stealing them. The National Insurance Crime Bureau, they

Paul J Daly: 11:37

charge them.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:38

I'm just kidding that that's exactly it. EVs are less likely to be stolen compared to gas fired cars. Only one out of every 100,000 insured Tesla Model threes was stolen last year. In contrast, gas cars like the Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat are targets over 2500 thefts per 100,000 insured vehicles, high it's a lot. I mean, that's a Hellcat like i Okay, yeah, yeah.

Paul J Daly: 12:03

It's going in a crate. It's going overseas. It's gonna be a fast and furious Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:07

experts speculate that EV's high tech security systems like Tesla century mode, and the fact that they're often parked for charging at home, make them less appealing to thieves. Here's Chris Reed's thought on both of the stories, he said, I think that the renting, the renting a car and stealing a car crowd are equally uninterested in hanging around at a charger for any amount of time. That's which is exactly it here, here's, here's what this is. It's not just about like the hanging out in the time. I think, think about this if you need to charge this thing, and it's not at a home without Wi Fi connected to the device, you are immediately connected, and that car is going to get found like you go pump gas, nobody knows about it. I wonder. I mean,

Paul J Daly: 12:55

does every charge point know which car plugs into it? Oh, absolutely, because data has to go back and forth, and Appar, probably serial number, or whatever it is, the VIN, oh, man, uh huh.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:05

Got him. I

Paul J Daly: 13:06

see you. I see you people. That's, that's amazing, really, super inconvenient, if there's a chase involved, right? And I think, I think a lot of people also, you think, like, the EV is like controllable, like someone even toggle this thing off. I mean, I know we can do that with a lot of vehicles.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:26

Turn the fast one off. Super

Unknown: 13:29

fast through LA, right now, we gotta turn that one down. There you go. Um, that should, that should offset some of the insurance costs, don't you think? There you go. No one's stealing that that's not going no one's stealing that sucker. Look, no one's stealing the last day of the month. It's the very beginning of it. You get to decide what you're gonna do with it. So go out there, sell some cars, care about some people, and we will see you here on October. You

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