VinFast Pops (again), EV To Solve Affordability, Going To The Mall Is Back In Style

Paul Daly: 0:23Hot On Wednesday, August 23. We were in dealerships all day yesterday. So we're feeling all pumped up and excited. But today we got to talk about vinfast Popping again, Evie to solve affordability and going to the mall. Most so much. When I was a kid,

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:40

you almost sound depressing. You almost sounded depressing when you said that to the mall. It's just that's just a result

Paul Daly: 0:46

of, you know, what we do when we were all heavy for a day and like getting home at like 1am and waking up and get it it's all good. It's all good. Wednesday's whenever we go and do these one day trips sometimes it's crazy right? You wake up at 4am you get home at 1am which is the next day if you carry the one that's 21 hour day we're good with this. We're good that's not I actually am a big fan of the ball. No, no the mall.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:13

I think it's great. I mean, I typically will hit the mall like once a once a year.

Paul Daly: 1:21

And when I do I realized I don't need to go here for another year. It's like the way I eat at Ponderosa that's like every eight years if Ponderosa still exists, I don't know if it's gone within the last eight years it's gone. I don't know back in 2015 was probably the last time I like they are like

Kyle Mountsier: 1:39

Golden Corral you're like this is gonna be a great idea you get to the end of me like this is a terrible idea what

Paul Daly: 1:44

was I thinking? I've never been to a Golden Corral I guess it's actually

Kyle Mountsier: 1:48

better than a Ponderosa like it's okay don't worry about all the depressed look and people

Paul Daly: 1:54

that is that is a study in anthropology so so let's let's talk about studying things today. We have our Nexus so to edge webinar coming up things every dealer should know or things everything everything dealers should do now that GA four is live and this is with Corey right and Scott Blaze though and Steve Lori's all the people are there with call review and relevant dealer. These have been so much fun. They've been very fast paced. If you haven't experienced the 20 to 30 minute webinar format. You'll love it. You'll love it.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:27

I enjoy it. I enjoy it. It's fun that you enjoy it again. Like we know you get a little education. You can go back, rewind, understand exactly what to do. I've already gotten a glimpse at the deck. It's like practical tactical, these things tat tat, tat, tat tat, exactly what to do and UGA for account to make sure everything's all connected up.

Paul Daly: 2:50

Which is what you want in a webinar. Yes. What you want the webinar Hey, want to say good morning to everybody on the livestream people just showed up Tony Lucas and family Adrian. Good morning, Ed Roberts. Olivia. What's up Brian?

Kyle Mountsier: 3:02

Sullivan pain? What? Never seen her on the pod. Let's go.

Paul Daly: 3:08

Oh, yeah. Thanks for joining us here. Yeah, it's the more the merrier. But if you want to go to the webinar, you can still register just go to a so two.com Scroll down just a little bit. Do it right now. Click Register. And check out the webinar. If you can't watch it live. You can watch it a little later. But we think you'll really like the format and like Kyle said, like we're trying to bring you quick value actionable things, which is really what everybody wants to know webinar like no droning this, right. You know, you know, the one hour webinar drone, we're like 38 minutes in, you realize like, oh, people are talking. Oh, there's a webinar going on. Right. None of that. None of that. What else we have, obviously, a show.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:44

We added hotel is the main hotel is almost booked out. So if you want to be in the main hotel, do not miss it. You get it? You can go to get your hotel first and then come back and get your ticket if you need to. But you're gonna want to be in the main hotel, if you come into a soda con. Absolutely.

Paul Daly: 4:00

Yes, a soda con.com You can still get tickets $100 off until September one, we got some new groups coming, coo coo group has been added that's like another 49 rooftops and yas their service director for the entire group is going to be with us and he is just one of the most practical people I can't wait for people like Yas and like Ed Roberts to meet at a soda con. That's what gets me so excited. You're gonna love each other a little bit. Some of the first asoto con swag came in this is a love people more than you love cars pen. We got lots of we got stuff going on. We're going to auction a custom guitar is gonna be dope for vehicles for chain and auction. We've been conceptualizing what that's going to look like it's going to be great. We got the swag is like the soccer scarf, which is so great custom shoe laces and we're going to have a lot of fun. But don't forget, we're there to work. And you're going to go home from this with a lot of practical relationships and information and steps to do when you get back to your store with data and with fixed data. ops, and with recruiting and sales and BDC like look at the speaker list, you'll realize that this is the event that you want to be at if you can only go to one. All right, we got to talk about some news at some point today.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:11

Here's the thing. Here it comes. This is while. Oh,

Paul Daly: 5:15

yes, yes, yes. All right. So just when you thought, just when you thought the valuation rollercoaster couldn't get any more wild vinfast shares stung the market yesterday, more than doubling the novel's yesterday. Since their Wall Street debut, the spike comes on the heels of an announcement that writers made about South Korea's star group, industrial and their plan to build a Vietnamese factory for these things. So like, obviously, everybody all excited, it got introduced to the market last week at $22 a share, the price actually reached 4698, which I believe pushed the value over$100 billion yesterday. And it closed at 3672, which brought it back down to 95 billion, which is still more than every major automaker on the change. Here's another here's a key element, it got featured on a stock like kind of website twitter feed called stock twits. Basically, this is where retail investors or individual investors kind of go for like the like, hey, let's make some money on these trending stocks. It's kind of where meme stocks are, are born and die. And so it hits stock twits, 20 trending list, which means a lot of retail investor money poured in, which makes individual investors Yeah, nothing to do with the actual value of the company at that point.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:34

It's unbelievable the way that that like spike hit mid day. It's just ridiculous. And what's going on? It's still lots to be determined here with vinfast.

Paul Daly: 6:44

Like, well, markets are about to open, you see what happens. We'll see what happens. But about vinfast in general. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 6:50

I mean, I mean, we had the conversation on the wheelhouse and if you haven't checked out the wheelhouse podcast, you gotta check it out. The video version is on YouTube, you can search it on a so as ot u.ve or, or grab it on a podcast, but it's called the wheelhouse, but we were talking about, like, whether or not dealers are gonna be ready to play ball and want to be want to be in the dealer network, how they're going to get distribution, they've only got 3000 in the US at this point. So it's not like they've got this massive track record. So the valuation is just purely a voting machine at this point. It's incredible.

Paul Daly: 7:22

Without a doubt, so I don't know I'm interested because you know, they're talking about are they going to add dealerships are thinking about that. I think Vin mess vinfast could be kind of the dark horse that entered the race embraces the franchise dealership, model and network, and could actually, I think, catapult past. The other one. I think I think they could I think they can do it. I don't know, I guess that would I would take a long shot on that. I'll take a long shot, especially if I will say this, if they embrace the franchise dealer network, like they've been talking about, I'm betting on them over other betting on that all day, every day because we know a little thing or two about how dealers operate, or how they get how they get into something. Speaking of surprises, I guess. Surprise me. Top story in Automotive News This Morning. A new study reveals potentially surprising hero in the affordability challenge, Evie leasing. So compared to traditional VA, or sorry, new research from energy innovation, shows drivers can save over $400 A month compared to buying or leasing a traditional vehicle thanks to government incentives and reduce fueling and maintenance costs. So this is kind of like I don't know it's part leasing conversation part Cost of Ownership conversation. For instance, leasing a Tesla Model y is around $425 cheaper per month than leasing a gasoline powered BMW X four. Similarly leasing a Kia Niro, Evie will save about 367 per month, compared to the same vehicle, the gasoline version, you know, obviously, the $7,500 IRA credit at the beginning of a lease reduces the overall cost of the vehicle reduces the taxes that you pay. So that makes a lot of sense. But even when the tax credit becomes unavailable in the future, leasing an Eevee is still projected to remain a cost effective option for overall ownership because you know, lower fuelling lower maintenance component handling expenses, currently,

Kyle Mountsier: 9:19

at least and I think we'll see this for the next few years, you're seeing a higher residual on the Moral Majority of those EVs. It's funny because historically, like back in the early 220 10s, you didn't see high residual values, but the residual value is up, because more people know what to do with EVs. They know that the resale value is there, the battery life is sufficient. And so that residual value plus the plus the incentive is really really driving that overall payment, that payment gap and I mean, it's a it's a perfect I keep saying this EVs are the most perfect argument for leasing because you think about it as a software like a software and heart hardware piece. It's like you need the updated hardware to manage the updated software just like you would with a phone. And so we're gonna see this like, probably quicker average turn of vehicles for trade ins with with EVs, the more we go and so we're going to see them operate more like phones and our payment plans. And, and so it makes complete sense that leasing is the most aggressive and smartest way to own an Eevee right now.

Paul Daly: 10:28

That's right, well, man, I don't know, thinking of ways to own thinking of

Kyle Mountsier: 10:33

the most popular way to own things. I was terrible. Terrible, tough when we're out late guys, hey, get it all also die in. Just think again, we've had a couple of stories that allude to this, but it looks like us malls are adapting not dying with many seeing actually higher occupancy and crowds than pre pandemic. Top tier malls saw a 12% increase in foot traffic in 2022 Compared to 20 2019 with an average leasing rate. So the store is in it above 95%. So none of those like gaps in in your walk through the mall. Basically, the story is ecommerce growth complements a brick and mortar retail omni channel marketing actually drives more growth, because you have this desire to be in multiple places have the opportunity to have experiences alongside potentially restaurants or anything like that. And and this focus of a mall on being like this is where community happens. This is where experience happens. Where luxury shopping environments happen. are driving the newest generation Gen Z to continue and to go back into malls. And gosh, Paul, I see this like Amanda and I were driving past last week when we were coming back from vacation. We looked over at probably the third largest mall in Nashville. We're like, and that thing is booming. On a nice Saturday afternoon. Wow, Nashville.

Paul Daly: 12:06

Wow. Yeah, I mean, I'm a I'm a huge fan of them all. I really do. I like it. I enjoy the energy, especially over the holidays. But I think one of the big takeaways for me is that if we could just rewind back a little bit, you know, right before COVID. And we were just hearing about this retail pocalypse. And it was Doom and it was gloom. And then as digital is taking over and brick and mortar is dead. What are we going to do with all this real estate? And guess what? That didn't matter? Because obviously, pricing changed real estate change things regulated, and we found out the actual truth, not the hype, that people like being together, they like community, they like touching and feeling the things they also love shopping online, and the two can coexist. And I think we have a lot to learn about from that. In automotive, as we often it's easy to get into these reactionary modes, where like, oh my gosh, it's gonna be online. Oh my gosh, it's gonna be all right. Just stop it. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 13:04

I think this Georgia shows us I'm looking for more auto retailers to do whatever drive and the foundation Auto Group are doing which is putting discovery and shopping locations, right in mall outlets, the leasing spaces small. You can't do omni channel retailing because of all the digital resources that are out there. And so why not just like make self a little home at the most tight mall and one of those 5% that they're really trying to sell out. Gotta be smart about it as a pop up shop for that a

Paul Daly: 13:34

little bit of time. That's how you have to do it because that's like $45 a square foot. Yeah. No, you can do it. Well, that's good. Hey, I feel like we've done our part this morning. We've done our part we do some good things. But we've we've we've given you our best effort today. Now we know you're gonna go out there give it your best effort, so that collectively, we can give consumers our best effort. love people, more than we love cars.

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