Used Cars Driving Inflation Down, VinFast Dealer Advisors, Rivian’s Future Plans

Unknown: 0:00

Oh It is Tuesday, July

‍Paul J Daly: 0:14

23. Is this Are we officially in the dog days of summer right now? I kind of feel like this is the dog days of summer. Today we're talking about inflation and vinfast. Having a dealer Advisory Council, check on our friend RJ to see what reviens plans are, overall speaking drove up from the bottom of the barrel. Everything seems I don't know, everything seems so anticlimactic. And these days, it's like, maybe the last ransom attack. Now we have a president the president candidate gets shot. Now we have a president dropping out of the race. Now we have a CrowdStrike outage where everyone's got a blue screen of death. And we're like, did you know vinfast As a dealer Advisory Council?

Kyle Mountsier: 0:57

You know why? This is why one the OEMs are like no talking to dealers like the live 15 or August 31. Nobody

Unknown: 1:08

can just let them keep doing what they're doing. Okay. And all dealers like go wherever so cars Absolutely.

Paul J Daly: 1:14

Showing cars yellow pent up demand. That's a really good point. I don't know the dog days of summer, maybe we're there maybe we're not it's definitely not tomorrow. It'll

Kyle Mountsier: 1:21

be nuts. There'll be like, you know, I know. Well, you know, you got the q2 earnings happening this week. So yeah, get excited. Yeah. q2

Paul J Daly: 1:31

earnings. Like I feel like the quarterly earnings happened like every month doesn't

Kyle Mountsier: 1:34

feel like that they I think they do somehow somehow everybody's having a baby

Paul J Daly: 1:38

there's early earnings late early maybe you're only like ever eight weeks away from someone's next earnings. Well, you

Kyle Mountsier: 1:43

got you got like quarterly earnings and you got Cox automotive reports and then right you know, it really drags

Paul J Daly: 1:48

out the news cycle, isn't it? That's it. Oh, the media business for we can't we got something going here.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:54

There's there seems to be always something to talk about. How's

Paul J Daly: 1:57

that work? Paul? That feels good. Guess what it was? Yesterday, we released our latest episode of the Auto Collabs podcast. It's about merchandising super relevant if you're trying to sell cars, especially in the summer, especially in a competitive environment as day supply is going up and prices are going down. While we were there friend Daniel Abel of car cutter talking about fixing the house before inviting people over. We had such a fun conversation. Check it out, search Auto Collabs or just search asoto and it'll pop up. There's one of our 27 podcasts actually, we only have like four.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:28

Yeah, it's not six.

Paul J Daly: 2:30

I know. I know. We also have one of our Quick Shot webinars coming up in just a couple of weeks here are a soda wet edge webinars calm and I host them keep them lively, keep the fun and they're over before you know it talking about what's up with the cars roll. Remember that still around still exists. Gonna get the jam with the always fun and engaging and brilliant radio voice. James Ganter with mosaic and you can go to ASOTU.com just right there at the top you can register to be part of this webinar. And look, we really truly hope that you show up and heckle him in the

Kyle Mountsier: 3:02

comments. Absolutely. Please and thank you. Yeah, make the comments are the greatest thing why why why do more people not hit the comments?

Paul J Daly: 3:11

Friends that's the only reason you know, that's the only reason social media exists. That's well certain social media mile miles my son and he works here to soda. He was like he recently got on Instagram. He was like people on Instagram are way meaner than people on YouTube.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:26

They rage on Instagram. It's you should see acts. I don't even want to I don't want to go there scares me. It's

Paul J Daly: 3:32

bad. We almost put the the fashion show that Elon Musk created with all the world leaders. That's

Kyle Mountsier: 3:37

a real scary world.

Paul J Daly: 3:38

Check it out. Look at it. You won't be sorry you did. Maybe we'll make a little fashion show of our own.

Unknown: 3:44

Oh, all right. Let's

Paul J Daly: 3:46

talk about cars prices have plummeted over the past year reaching their lowest level since 2021. and are now the lead the leading category reducing inflation we're doing our part is the industry according to copilots analysis of CPI data, consumer price index data Cox automotive reports that average list price for used vehicle is now 25,000 to 51 That really is coming down down 7% from last year and the lowest since the summer of 2021. The June CPI report shows a 10.1% drop in US vehicle prices year over year with 1.5% decline in the last month alone. That means trying to sell your car sell it quick trying to buy a car you might want to wait a minute. The previous surge and used car prices was driven by supply chain crunch and new vehicles those are coming back. Copilot CEO Pat Ryan explains the supply of new vehicles has increased by about 50% Since last year, easy to use. And he says quote consumers have finally found themselves with more options to buy a new car

Kyle Mountsier: 4:47

rather than used. It's I think it's a great market. I think we're in that balance point still right now. Um, you know, the question the question of the market is is what happens in late q3 early q4, but there's I think there's a great balance point where consumers have enough options, they have enough options on the new and used car side, you know, inflation, the used car prices are starting to come down, new car availability is coming up, there's still enough demand for the dealer on the OEM side to drive results. And so you get I think we're like in that nice little sweet spot. If I had to say like, we're the consumer and the dealer, everybody's winning on a value. You know, the hope is that doesn't flip on its side, right? We'll

Paul J Daly: 5:30

see what happens with interest rates. But even if interest rates start to drop, they're not gonna like drop like a rock. You know what I mean? Like, no, we're not going to see a six point reduction in Oh, it's gonna be quarter point here a half point there and maybe in six months from now, we'll be like, you know, a point last

Kyle Mountsier: 5:46

question is still lucky what what are these lease returns have a simple act on them or the lack of right and the new car market and on residual of that. So here's the fun part.

Paul J Daly: 5:55

I am actually in the market for a used car. So let's go get I'm holding out I'm glad I did

Kyle Mountsier: 6:00

because you're about to get so many comments. Bring it on.

Paul J Daly: 6:03

I have a trade. I have a nice gray condition trade, and I'm looking for a really nice I'm gonna

Unknown: 6:08

sell this man a car. Sell your car. All right.

Paul J Daly: 6:12

Speaking of selling some cars, yep. Oh, where's my button? Here's a little bit from our friend rj scaringe CEO rivian as they are strength I'm sorry, long story. I can't skip to the third story. Second, don't skip the story. Got a lot of friends out here. All right, our other friends, Evie, benefactor? vinfast although they don't return our calls, they should never do it strengthening. Yeah, actually, if you're on the dealer council that we're about to talk about. Tell vinfast They should get on the network. We have some questions. So if you manufacture vinfast is strengthen their presence in the US by get this acting like traditional OEMs forming a dealer advisory board to navigate the American market. They're looking to expand their dealership network. And now they have a strategic advisory board members including David Coyle of Leith vinfast, North Carolina Damien mills of infest triad in North Carolina, David sensing, le Hana Bill auffenberg. So kind of the first in the pool on the vinfast part now get to be part of the advisory board that makes so much sense. They've received 70 applications from dealers to open dealerships and plan to establish 125/3 party sales points by the end of this year, they better get moving, because we're in q3. David Coyle, dealer principal of Leith vinfast commented, the board represents a great opportunity for open communication and collaboration ensuring vinfast remains at the forefront of the Evie market. Are they at the forefront of the market? Yeah, I

Kyle Mountsier: 7:42

don't know if there's a remains there. But you know, kudos to them for the PRMS got a fighting chance. Gotta go for it. Right. Here's the thing. We are cheering for vinfast Why we are choosing the deer network. They're setting up dealer Council, they're doing things the way that we know that scale can happen in the EB market. They're not real estate at all, all of that type of stuff. So you know, my good friends back at Sandy Sansing. I'm glad to see on that board good friends, David, good friend, Damian mills. You know, obviously, on that board, these are, these are people that I trust, to make this a really, really great dealer OEM experience. And this is my encouragement. Again, if you're listening, if you're from vinfast, if you're on this dealer Advisory Board, like, do the things that you haven't, this is like a net new startup opportunity of dealer advisory board like challenge the status quo of how the OEM and the dealer interacts with each other. Oh, yeah. And like change the game for everybody. That's by showing a better way. Right? Do something that no one else can do? Because there's so legacy Yep. That they couldn't back into it. You get a chance to do from the beginning. That's great advice, Kyle. That one's for free. things for free.

Paul J Daly: 8:55

I do want to mention, I'm wearing Did you notice I'm wearing like the OG ASOTU CON scarf is a

Kyle Mountsier: 9:02

great one. I like that one. This

Paul J Daly: 9:04

is the Philly one and colorway of the Philly one is just so nice. It felt so good to the reason I announced it is because we just re released. We just released the design aesthetic. And the splash page for a soda con 2025 Oh, go to a soda conduct calm. We really went all out on the design for this one. The scarf is going to be amazing. You should be on the first to know list. If you go to soda conduct calm, put your email in there and you'll be you'll know about what's happening for everybody else. No. So just saying how to put that in there. All right. Speaking

Kyle Mountsier: 9:34

of knowing what knowing about what's going to happen, okay. The Verge wanted to know so they sat down with Rivia and CEO rj scaringe To cover the evening makers future and plans. Why everyone actually looks like a Tesla. Their joint venture with a VW I love that they kind of like flew that question in Rivia and has announced five new models this year, the R to the R three the r 3x. And updated versions with r1 T and r1. S. They already have 100,000 pre orders on the R two, which is set to launch in 2026. So

Paul J Daly: 10:13

you have a colorway that looks like R two from Star Wars.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:17

Oh my goodness, that would be genius. scaringe believes that the slowdown in Eb growth is not an Eevee growth is not due to a lack of demand, but rather a lack of variety and available models. Interesting. He said that because of the model Y success, you have a lot of incumbents that have built products that look and feel and are shaped a lot like a model why the reviens the rivian the$5 billion joint venture with VW focuses on CO developing rivian streamline electronic architecture, which reduces the number of ECUs the electronical control units in vehicles simplifying software updates and cost efficiency. They're going to leverage the technology VW is across Porsche Audi and Bentley. scaringe did held firm listen to this on reviens plans to exclude CarPlay. And instead add CarPlay like features to the system on an ala carte basis. Things like Apple Music and YouTube are already available. So it's basically going to be like an app store, secondary App Store on top of the rivian architecture and that allows from apple instead of like actually having CarPlay embedded and you know,

Paul J Daly: 11:33

you know I would so thinking of that when it comes to GM cutting CarPlay out of their EVs, no historical record of great user interfaces. So I'm like that's the two thumbs down. It's not going to work, and maybe it will, but you haven't done anything to prove to me that it's gonna work right. rivian like the Tesla have CarPlay? No, that allow it. Yeah. But Tesla has a history of making really great user interfaces. Zack, no one's complaining about anything with rivian. If you've ever been in one, that's what I was gonna say. I've never been in a rivian. But if they follow suit, no one's gonna miss it because they're going to do it right when I rented the Pole Star to a couple of months ago. I didn't miss it at all. Because the interface worked. Like I expected it to work right out of the gate. And I synced up my music and I was good to go like

Kyle Mountsier: 12:21

hired a UI designer to you know, a couple UX designers funny they did submit and the end user testing on the on the touchscreen

Paul J Daly: 12:30

and Mary Barra and the GM team. Were really an OnStar. Team. We're rooting for you. We really are Come on, but we need to see proof case. Just say, I don't know. I really look forward to driving a rivian I haven't yet. I

Kyle Mountsier: 12:43

have a couple of buddies that have let me sit in one but I've never driven one. I need to just do it. I need to be like yo I need to drive your rivian right now. Or next place we go we can you

Paul J Daly: 12:53

can we probably unlike Turo, Taro, we should do it. All right, we'll do it and we'll done and we'll have a win. Yeah, we will. Well, that's how Tuesday show went. We hope you have an amazing Tuesday. We hope you get in the dog days of summer. Go out there sell some cars tow your OEM reps like we'll talk to you next month. Get out there and take advantage of that pricing. See you tomorrow.

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