CES Prepares To Launch, Honda Dropping $14B, Millennials Become Their Parents

Paul J Daly: 0:16

Let's go. second week of January, I thought he was gonna say no. I'm not gonna get out of that today we're doing a CES preview $14 billion Honda plant, and millennials becoming their parents. People always have. It always happened.

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:34

I feel so defeated about that

Paul J Daly: 0:36

line. Have you known this for a while, though? Because I think there's probably a contingent of millennials that trails your, you know, your acceptance curve into adulthood? Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:51

without a doubt. Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 0:52

I mean, look, when you have when you have kids, when you have like career, I mean career, they have career like you've got married out of college, pretty quickly, family growing up, right? It just comes faster. And it happens every time to every generation every all start out saying so after you see a couple of cycles is like, oh, yeah, it's coming. Here comes again, the nice part about it is now is that we have all of the statements recorded and documented on social media of like, Oh, they're so dumb because of this. They

Kyle Mountsier: 1:23

did this. I always said all those things. And I wouldn't Evers you know,

Paul J Daly: 1:28

I said, all those things. They just don't exist anymore, because they're in social media, but it's over. Now. Gen Z is toast.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:36

They are toast, they're never gonna be able to say a thing that was

Paul J Daly: 1:39

toast. So say there's so much good thing, so many good things going on. In this season of the industry. First quarter, right, NADA is coming up, we're heading out to the Washington area public policy show. In just under two weeks here, we're going to actually spend some times with some members of members of the government and some OEMs. And there's gonna be some product releases. We're really excited to bring that coverage to you live from Washington, DC. And obviously, and NADA is coming up the energy is just now it's the full ramp up right? Less than 30 days. Ready to go. Just go and good morning, everybody on the livestream Tony Lucas, good morning. I know we have Instagram rocket as well

Kyle Mountsier: 2:16

that we're going to be hanging out at at one of the workshops on Friday. Have we I don't even know where it is. Well, it's

Paul J Daly: 2:24

called a NADA, Twilight exchange, as they call it. Yep. No, I don't think we have I'd be really been I think this is the week we start talking about all the things that are going to be happening in NADA. But tell the people about the Twilight extract,

Kyle Mountsier: 2:37

we're doing a twilight exchange, it's dealers only, I think it's like 20 or 30 dealers in a room working on real things that are happening right now. Yours truly are gonna be hanging out moderating that thing. And customer experience we're talking about, we're talking about customer experience. And the the most fun part of it, because it's the Twilight exchange. And it's not like the daytime workshops, is there's an open barder in the room nicey in

Paul J Daly: 3:02

the room, and it's a cool format. So NADA reached out, usually dealers moderate this, but they asked to see if we would moderate it. Basically people get to submit topics that they want to talk about. And you and I are going to in real time, go through these questions. So hopefully we can get them answered, right, because dealers want to hear from one another. So our job is to extract all possible knowledge from the dealers in the room to share with one another. We're excited about that. We also found out it's not like full time is locked and loaded. But you have done it community more than cars. The show that highlights dealers and the great stories coming out of dealerships from across the country is actually going to be featured at the NADA live stage. So stay tuned, because we're going to let you know what the time slot is, and the day and the time slot. And we hope that our community can show up to that live stage in force. It's just a super cool stage that NADA has always done that broadcast that out. It's something that a lot of people who can't go to the show, watch and participate in trade by registration. So there'll be more information about that soon. So there you go. We know grass growing under our feet and 2024

Kyle Mountsier: 4:06

A go it's getting we're getting NAFTA. Alright, let's

Paul J Daly: 4:09

speak speaking of getting after it. All

Kyle Mountsier: 4:11

right, segue.

Paul J Daly: 4:13

This this has to be a good segue. So as the Consumer Electronics Show or ces ready to open their doors tomorrow in Las Vegas, there are several things the auto industry are keeping their eyes on. First, there's a glaring difference between auto industry participation this year, and what it has been last year. Of the big three have opted out a lot of the other OEMs now last year was all about electrification and charging and all the hype of a lot of people backed out. Hyundai, however is leaning in specifically talking about their verta port and their Evie tall vehicle. So they're kind of like going way over the horizon, which is cool. Honda is going to be showing their latest concept in their collab with Sony called Phila and vinfast, who we've been talking about all week last week because of They're launching into their dealer network, they're going to be revealing two vehicles, which may be coming to the US one is a$20,000. It did say that $20,000 VF three microcar, as well as a pickup truck that they've alluded to as a concept they're saying is going to make it to production. Also at the show auto suppliers are in full force, right? A lot of consumer adoption of tech into the industry. So ramping up there, a lot of focus on like aI integration with cameras and sensors for safety. And by the way, I had to put this in. If you're going to CES, you can actually pick up your badge

Kyle Mountsier: 5:36

at the airport. That is just like I would that is unbelievable. It'd be all over that. 100,000 people invade like they don't they don't need lines at the convention center. You know what I mean? Like, why don't you just handle every bill? Everybody wants NADA? Show count? 30 40,000 Yeah, like 25 30,000? Gosh,

Paul J Daly: 5:54

this is like two three times the size. It's a massive Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:57

we Okay. new hires are a lot of fun. Okay, is next year we're going?

Paul J Daly: 6:03

Yeah, yes, that's a great, we should just plan it. Every year. Every year. We're sad at this time. We look I mean, look at vinfast coming out swinging, right announcing the dealer network. And obviously they made the CES decision prior to that. Exactly.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:16

But like, bam, bam, bam, like they're coming into it hot. And look, when you bring a pickup into the US like that's, that'll get everybody excited. And a $20,000 car now it's a little tiny thing. I don't know if you've seen the VF three. But they're expanding. They're there. It's

Paul J Daly: 6:33

way cooler. Looking at the swatch car, though. It is.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:37

It's without a doubt. Yeah, I'm paying attention to vinfast because they're bringing new models that have been leveraging the dealer network.

Paul J Daly: 6:47

It's going to and they're building the hype, they're playing the brand train right now obviously a lot of questions about quality, and range and all those things, but I think we're gonna get to find out like the chicken or the egg conversation, right? What do you need to do first? Is it get a car that's okay enough to get to market to build the right distribution and the right brand and then give you time to work on the product or release a great product first, and maybe not make it to market. So it's, well we're gonna find out we're gonna find out a lot of conversation about EVs for both positive and negative, but without a doubt, they're definitely moving forward. Speaking of EVs moving forward. segway to red read this number wrong. At first. It's, it's I feel like it's the most I've heard starting off with a relatively measured approach. In the Eevee race Honda is coming to life as they're considering a massive $14 billion investment.$14 billion investment in an Eevee and battery plant in Canada. I've read it twice. I think Canada of all places is that 14 billion Canadian. I'm just kidding. It's like 1 billion. Yes, it really though. Yeah. Alistair, it's just gonna be mere, it's Alison Ontario factory was already making cars aiming to bolster other North American presents. The proposed plant expected to start production in 2028 would be Honda second Evie facility in North America. Now Canada isn't the first Evie plant. They've been offering a lot of incentives, tax breaks, renewable resource, proximity. And all of this recently, Volkswagen and its battery company Power Co, are working on building a giga factory in very close to it actually. And by 2027. So you know, Honda is converting its US plants, right to produce batteries for its e architecture platform, but without a doubt $14 billion, like investment. They've been kind of sleeping on EVs not really well.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:48

They just haven't been very vocal. It measured,

Paul J Daly: 8:51

like working in the background, like we're not ready to talk yet.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:53

And, you know, it seems it seems like there's a few manufacturers that are kind of following the same kind of thing. I don't know if you've seen the residual values in their impact in there. And, and the type of customer loyalty that they have. I'm just throwing it out there. But it seems like they're doing that but $14 billion dollars investing in Canada, which is really interesting. Not coming to the US, but it is North America. So credits apply, right? That's apply. Exactly. And yeah, you get to save the money on the Canadian exchange rate. So why not do it?

Paul J Daly: 9:27

i It's 14 billion. I has any other plant beneath anywhere near that.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:33

No, I think what is the billion 7 billion for the Ford plant in Kentucky is like what, five or 6 billion, something like that

Paul J Daly: 9:42

14 billion. I just like, I had to check that three times. Like is it really is a 4 billion, 14 billion? I don't know maybe maybe one

Kyle Mountsier: 9:50

8 billion is is their blue oval city. So I mean, I think which everything's cheaper in Kentucky because you know, it's just north of its ducky. is just north of Tennessee and south of Ohio and that's everything's cheaper

Paul J Daly: 10:04

Kentucky There you go. Speaking of things being cheaper, the further out you go,

Kyle Mountsier: 10:08

Oh, yes. That segue makes me so happy because according to new data, which, you know, if you're in the world of being a millennial, it's maybe not new. What's the driving force behind urban revitalization? The millennials are being priced out of cities and relocating to the burbs reshaping both urban and suburban landscapes in a search for affordable living. So they're moving to suburbs due to high costs in urban areas despite preference for city amenities like coffee shops and yoga studios and wine bars and cat. You know, tea lounges or whatever. A firm in New York City called suburban jungle group said that residents who moved to the suburbs report surges in calls there. They've got a surge in calls from millennials, and they are getting alarmed by soaring rents where rent renewals are up like 30%. My favorite part about the article is that it leads with a journalist or writer from Nashville saying like, Yo, we just figured we just start driving until we figured out we could afford it. And I'll tell you what, in Nashville alone, I'm glad that they started with the national story. You see all these people moving out of the city and they're not like going to the next closest suburb? No, it's like 30 to 40 miles outside of the city as Spring Hill, right? Yeah, they're going to Spring Hill south, they're going to Lebanon, East, they're going to Dixon West like it is way out of the city. As typical, it seems like cities are getting younger, faster, where Gen Z is replacing millennials in those cities. Due to rising house costs, though, the study cited that 1/3 of Gen Z's are still at home with parents so

Paul J Daly: 11:57

yeah, so yeah, the cities are getting younger but a lot of Gen Z are still are not kind of like launching one shopper put it in the article drive until you qualify. Just keep going keep it nope can't afford that one can't afford that one. I think this there's there's obviously this big COVID thing that happened right it pushed people out of cities they weren't far remote work happened now people are starting to call back to office right so now we've we've covered articles in the past about people doing like a super commute, like twice a week at writing might be like two and a half hours but they only have to do it two times a week so it balances out the reality is that as the families are growing and as all the things that happen when you start having children and progressing in your career, you start to want a little bit more space the the two bedroom apartment doesn't quite work anymore for sanity reasons. For

Kyle Mountsier: 12:49

kidding me. There's no two bedroom apartments in downtown Nashville. They don't exist anymore. They just like made them all one bedrooms.

Paul J Daly: 12:55

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's that's case in point. But what how this all ties to the ground for what we pay attention to in the auto industry. Every day, you get more people in the suburbs, more people have to drive places, more people need cars. And a lot of these might be first time car buyers or people who have ditched the car to live in the city. And now they're coming back. So for all the dealers that are in either I mean it doesn't matter where you are, you could be a city dealer and market to these folks. Hey, are you heading out? Let's make sure your setup or when you land in a new place, new home registrations making close with realtors and all the things for these millennials. I

Kyle Mountsier: 13:28

mean, even two and a half years ago when I left the stores. I remember that summer like that was really the first summer that everybody was really spreading their wings out of the COVID era. And I remember like 30 to 35 year olds in that time coming in saying I've never owned a car. I lived in California, I lived in New York, I lived in Chicago. And now I need a car because I decided to move to Nashville to the suburbs where it was more affordable. And I need a car. It's like first ownership in their 30s It's why

Paul J Daly: 13:58

it is wild. It is wild, but without without a doubt it it presents an opportunity. So that's why we pay attention to stay go. Alright, so now you can be paying attention to this stuff. The more we pay attention to stuff in culture and in people's lives. Strangely, the more we can serve them so we hope you're set up to have an amazing week to serve some people. We have a lot more come in this week. Stay tuned and take care of one another. We'll see you tomorrow.